Young Thrash Driver

In the US they now have a number of Right to Repair legislation. I'd suggest manufacturers get things ironed out very firmly in this area or they will be faced with Right to Use legislation, never mind hackers giving access.

BMW is going to need to up their software security, or else we will all end up emailing some guy in Bruges and enabling massage seats and self driving on our poverty pack 116i

1 hour ago, M3AN said:

Yes, secondary market (used) vehicles present an interesting set of scenarios, if you sell a car with heated seats, does it actually come with heated seats, etc.

But my IT manager had an interesting take in this today when I shared it with him (other than rolling his eyes). In most cases it's different to a (for example) software subscription (which is becoming the norm). With most software subscriptions you have nothing before you subscribe, you're not carrying any load. With this ridiculous car features subscription, in most cases, you've already paid for it, it's just not activated. If I subscribe to heated seats for a month it's not that a technician comes out to install the heating elements when I subscribe, and returns to remove them when my subscription lapses.

So, if I pay for the equipment up front, and I'm paying gas to haul the equipment around, why aren't I entitled to use that equipment? And if I don't intend to pay extra to use that equipment, why did I have to pay for it up front, and why do I have to pay to carry it around? Surely, if the manufacturer feels entitled to charge me to use it, I should be entitled to have them remove the dead weight I can't use.

It's moronic in the extreme but, once they all do it it will become the norm, and incremental deception will have won again. It's anti-consumer and BMW should be ashamed for being a part of it.

It'll come to a head when something breaks (probably a line of code somewhere) and the car is recording a fault- but the fault is in an item that you can't use. Imagine failing a WOF for a TPMS fault when you killed the system to save money for more alibaba ///M badges and monitor tyre pressures yourself instead.

You'd be the man to ask, I hope... I always wondered what differences lay between Motorsport and Motorsport II suspension, do you have any insight into this?

22 minutes ago, C-130 Hercules said:

What's next!? 

 

 

Suppose it could make sense if you only wanted it for 4 months of the year, over 5 years that would run you $600 instead of whatever the upfront cost of the option is.

There is another argument around what you actually own if it is "your" car but you are still paying for functionality it already has. 

Good to see retirement becoming serious Glenn 😀

Mazda,s new stop start tech doesn't use a battery or the starter motor. It delivers a shot of petrol and a spark to the appropriate cylinder and away she goes.

The wheels on that E60 remind me of a Commodore I saw recently, pulled over and the rear wheels and tyres were completely gone. Only the 5 spokes were left and were all that touched the ground.

Rimutaka hill road has been ruined with the last 30 years of "improvenents". 

The video is fake, Americans don't even have 4 cylinder engines.

Arrow is probably best, but you'd be looking at about $1600 to have them fully refurbished.

16 hours ago, M3AN said:

So finally, after a long weekend on Waiheke, the crap weather, and recovering from covid, I finally got a chance to search for my two week old coolant leak in the 130i and fortunately it's an easy enough fix. Of course without the poor BMW design and engineering it wouldn't have failed in the first place...

 

 

I haven't looked over one of these. I thought they had moved to all clip on style connectors from about 1996 onwards.

7 hours ago, gjm said:

I have a reasonably above-average income.

We have a 20% deposit for a below-average-price house.

We cannot get a mortgage to cover the difference because my income is "insufficient to maintain the loan."

Are they pricing the next decade of repayments at 10%+ yet?

On 5/30/2022 at 12:31 PM, gjm said:

The E46 318i failed it's WoF today. 😢

Both front "anti-roll bar links". Somehow I missed this when checking; there's not been any noises or similar, and they looked OK from my 'lying on back on the driveway' perspective. 

So that'll be part number 5 on the diagram. Which (Colin - @Young Thrash Driver - will be unsurprised to hear) I have spares of...

I'm moving to a new place tomorrow, my spares supply has not reached the giddy heights of GJM Mechanicking LTD. The Mazda doesn't require spares being kept in stock... 😛

@Olaf don't you have a 2nd gen X3?

43 minutes ago, lord_jagganath said:

if greece can do it...

That's an appalling summary which ignores the cost and the vastly different scale. Political will isn't the issue here, it's physics.

Saw one of the new 3 series in white. Actually looks okay in person.

59 minutes ago, C-130 Hercules said:

 driven off the RoRo?

Now there's an interesting point. Does every car on board have a trickle charger attached? Is there any battery maintenance during the trip? Has this had to change for electric vehicles? I imagine the gazillion shaft horsepower engines in these ships would be able to produce some spare electricity.

Those damn coolant lines... Every single time. Yuck.

Where are these located, Fielding or something?

Last week I came across a couple of guys struggling to push one into a trailer in the middle of the street. I hoped they were stealing it so I stopped and gave them a hand but alas it was genuinely broken (quelle surprise).

37 minutes ago, gjm said:

Another unfinished-looking front end, this time on the 760i xDrive.

At least there is provision for a number plate front and center, to break up that ridiculous grille. The new angular treatment of the face looks odd on the 7er and X7, and the trend towards very thin headlights is quite Hyundai-esque. I actually find the big grille suits the X7 in pre-LCI form... Probably the quite attractive headlights helps.

I feel like I did when Bangle created the E60.

2 hours ago, M3AN said:

Oh, the irony.

 

What? I took the name from somebody who claimed M cars were all no good as they had been abused by "young thrash drivers", and therefore his base spec 330i was a better car and worth moonbeams. A view almost as ignorant as advocating lying to police.

The ends do not justify the M3ANs.

2 hours ago, M3AN said:

If you want the cops to turn up, quickly and in force, tell them you think you saw the passenger pointing a gun out the window.

 

Jesus Dave. Don't do this. It feeds the police narative of increasing firearms crime which directly leads to punitive measures against licenced firearms owners, and likely will end up with someone being shot. 

Grow the f**k up. 

@promo