gjm

I suspect this caliper (at least) has been apart before. Anyone who has worked on cars for any period of time will know what I mean - it feels like someone has been there in the past. It happens. What follows could be due to it not having been correctly reassembled, but could as easily be down to use. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt - it's worked fine for at least 12 months and many kms. Now isn't the time to suggest a problem is due to something someone else has done. The piston was showing signs of corrosion. on the outside there is a land where the seal sits, and having removed the seal I could see orange in the land. There was also signs of corrosion on both sides of the land, but (fortunately) no similar signs in the caliper. However, the lips around where the seals go in the caliper are rough, but this doesn't appear to have affected the seals - there were no signs of brake fluid leaking, anywhere. Removing the piston was interesting. Typically a couple of pumps on the pedal should see the piston pop out of the caliper, but this time it took 7 or 8 full depressions of the accelerator. The 3rd and 4th presses saw some significant stiffening of the pedal, too. I'll be checking the master cylinder once this is done. (Incidentally, it looks as though you should use a syringe or a funnel to get brake fluid into the reservoir - pouring straight from a bottle would require some luck given you can't get the neck of the bottle close to the mouth of the reservoir.) Given the apparent unavailability of a piston in NZ - especially on a Saturday afternoon! - I've thoroughly cleaned everything, and will reassemble with my fingers crossed. If it works, then great. I'll source new pistons (one for the other side, too) and rebuild again anyway. If it doesn't work... Looks like I may have a VOR until I can get parts.

Yup. At the very least, it'd mean some of the money earned here and spent on rent (here) stays in NZ, even if only in the hands of the government. At present, NZ is a buyers market for property. Buy now, rent, make money, sell, make money, and minimal tax implications for someone domiciled offshore. Even those people working here and sending their earnings 'home' are, or should be, paying tax. And I agree about immigration. Aside from the families coming in on the back of 'my son/daughter/father/mother/etc' lives there, there is a significant influx of very capable individuals from all walks of life. (I like to count myself among this second group of people.)

I too am concerned about the overly tidy nature of this area. That a glass of red wine can sit on a work surface speaks volumes - 'round here, it'd be a bottle with the top on so nothing could fall into it.

Pokeno is already pricing up and up, in part due to the milk factory being built there, but also because farmers know it is far more profitable to grow houses than grow crops. This does lead to another huge problem. Water. The Waikato river is almost a single source for mains water, and it cannot sustain the growth of development we're seeing. House prices in Waiuku are on the up. We know - we've been looking. We don't want a mansion, or a farm - 3 bedrooms and 1000sq m of land please. A Kiwi quarter-acre. There are just 3 such properties listed in the entirety of Franklin on Realestate now for under $300k, and one of them is section on the Awhitu peninsula. Bear in mind that buying any of these requires $60k as a deposit. Essentially, if you want a family home within commuting distance (and I'm calling 1 hour commuting distance, and not accounting for the dire traffic on SH1 northbound) of Auckland central, you'd best be prepared to spend money that only a few years ago would have bought significant acreage. I could answer this in some very blunt words, but as an immigrant to NZ myself, I had best not - we're not yet citizens, just permanent residents. That said, we've been here just over two years, and will apply as soon as we meet the 'Presence in New Zealand' criteria. The requirements for this are: "... to be present in New Zealand i) for a minimum of 1,350 days in the five years preceding the citizenship application; and ii) for at least 240 days in each of those five years" This is pretty lenient - you could be out of NZ for 3 months every year (as some people I know are) and still qualify for citizenship. There are a huge number of people entering NZ each year who do not speak English as a first language (or in some cases, at all) and who have no intention of ever becoming naturalised Kiwis. It'd be tough on us (my family) but a ruling saying only those people holding citizenship are eligible to buy property here would make a huge difference to the housing market. There would be endless cries of 'I've lost money on my house', but typically only those who bought as an investment would actually lose out. Most other people would simply not make as much profit as they had hoped. Anyone finding themselves in a position where they have to move (within NZ) for work may be adversely affected, of course. I don't pretend to have all the answers. On a related note - NZ has been described as 'a lot like Britain 30 (or 40, 50) years ago. If that's the case, why is NZ seemingly hell-bent on making the same mistakes Britain did/is? Doing the same thing more than once and expecting a different result is a sure sign of madness!

Bit late - this is for yesterday. Pulled the nearside front brakes apart. Cleaned, greased, and it made no difference. Should of pulled them completely apart. Tomorrow. Today I found the Castrol red grease I wanted for the slider pins.

That'd be a fool's errand. NZ has a history (roghtly or wrongly) of high interest rates, and I anticipate that while the (frankly ludicrous) requirement for a 20% deposit will be waived, interest rates will rise. They have to - National has ~$60bn (or whatever) of debt to repay. I think Dave may have an excellent point. Immigration isn't to NZ - it is to Auckland. And that spells disaster. Admittedly much of the business centre is in Auckland, but much of the immigration we are seeing is either unrelated to that business, or is seeing a net outflow of money from NZ as a result of work performed here. (I could stereotype about some of the immigration taking place, but let's not go there.) But that's not property prices. Sort the railway. A commuter service between Auckland and Wellington would open up many areas currently accessible only by car. Business would move to those areas, and so would people, easing the housing problems in densely populated regions. Instead we have policy that will see the cramming of more and more building into smaller and smaller (and more and more expensive) areas. There's no doubt purchasing property in those areas as little as 10 years ago is now proving to be a most astute (if accidental) financial investment. Me? I'd like some land, and a little peace and quiet, please!

I'd go 1" smaller on the rim diameter, but that's just me being picky. Very nice indeed.

SUVs with big thirsty engines use lots of petrol, and cost lots to run. LPG doesn't change the thirst, but may make the cost more acceptable. Correctly installed in an engine optimised for LPG, there may be some loss of performance or economy, but these installations are newer and the purchase price (of the conversion, or a converted vehicle) is much higher. Older vehicles with older-style LPG implementations are thirstier than the petrol version they are based on, and offer less performance. Of course, if you have several hundred hp, losing 60-80hp may be less relevant than the savings in fuel costs. (I don't know what effect using LPG has on torque output.) Arbitrarily, a diesel SUV could return 10 litres per 100km. A LPG SUV will use around 16 litres per 100km. $1.10 per litre for LPG, $1.50 for diesel... Include RUCs and based on these figures, the LPG vehicle is cheaper to run: the LPG vehicle could almost use 20 litres per 100km before becoming the more expensive option.

Average income in NZ is around $1000 per week. That's average, not median. The median is lower at around $900 per week, and is a more relevant figure. The median house price in NZ is around $420000, or pretty close to 9x the median income. Since 1995, wages have increased by around 75%. House prices have increased by around 175%. House prices are running away. It happened in the UK, and buyers there had stamp duty and capital gains to contend with. There's no such disincentives here. OK - so what I've said are huge generalisations, but it paints a particularly bleak picture. Couple this with the requirement to have 20% of the purchase price of a property before the bank will give you a mortgage, and it's a wonder anyone can buy a house. Investors, of course, love it, so prices continue to rise.

Thanks Jason. Pads were new a few months ago and wear appears even. Nothing obviously wrong there. The sliders may have been sticking. May still be, of course - they were dry, but I've cleaned and lubed them. The pins were a little more tricky as I was unable to find either silicone grease of red brake grease anywhere... I smeared the teensiest bit of Moly slip on them. The bracket seemed to slide freely in and out, but I'll keep looking for the correct grease. So, it's into the deep end, so to speak. If the piston has seen better days, I'll polish it up and put it back. I now have a litre of Elf Dot4 fluid. May as well make use of it.

So today, having taken a day off work, I removed the caliper form the hub. This was, in fairness, a bit of 'half a job' - I've not (yet) disconnected the brake hose from the caliper, nor have I removed the piston. The sliders that the pads run on were dry, and it seemed possible the pads had been sticking. The pins were also not lubricated, so I rectified both problems. Lots of cleaning, lots of brake dust. Reassemble. Test. Unfortunately I was easily able to provoke the vibration behaviour, and this time checked Kelvin's suggestion. Yes - the nearside front rim was significantly warmer than the offside. Back in the drive, lift the front nearside, and the wheel was hard to turn - the brakes were binding. Leave it a few minutes and all seemed well again. It could be that the piston is sticking - the inside of the piston, the bit I could see, is quite rusty so possibly not stainless. (Thanks for the suggestion Jason - I had hopes!) But it could also be a fluid return issue (although I think this is unlikely, having flushed the fluid a few months ago). The piston is favourite culprit at present. The problem is... What do I do if I remove the piston and find it is duff? BMW don't sell them. I can clean and replace it as a temporary measure, I guess, and search for a new piston. Or carefully measure it and get two made in stainless (one for the offside, too). I'll do some RealOEM stuff later and see if the calipers are common across several vehicles. I suspect they are. I've not used my seal kits, yet, and the seals I could see seemed fine. No sign of any leaks of any sort. I suspect I'll be using them sooner rather than later, though..

Hadn't noticed any temperature differences, but hadn't checked. I should have. Got the wheel off to sort the caliper seals. Disc and hub spins freely. No binding whatsoever. Today... Sticking piston. Incidentally, BMW don't sell many caliper rebuild kits, and the kits they do sell don't include a piston. Wish me luck.

That's much more like it. Actually, 50 acres of that in convenant bush would suit better - the 5 acres left would be ample for a couple of beef, 2 or 3 sheep, chickens, veggies, and a lawn. And I could explore my land whenever I felt like it.

When we first moved here we looked at having Miss M attend Epsom Girls Grammar School (EGGS, to the locals). To secure a place at EGGS, you need to live in the catchment zone. So we went house hunting. An agent came up with something for us. A nicely modernised villa. 3 beds, 1 bathroom, open plan kitchen/dining/living. Easily managed gardens (I think they were his words) and off street parking. Actually, it was fairly nice. More of a 2.5 bedrooms, no gardens and the front had been concreted to provide the parking. Total land area may have been 400sq m. This represented a bargain, excellent value, and an amazing, rare opportunity. (Agents words. I clearly recall them 2 years later.) At $1.24m. GTFOOH! (I'm sure you can work out what the letters stand for.) I suggested the agent was having a laugh, and questioned how something so small could possibly represent 'good' value at a price so high. He seemed shocked at my comments, and appeared sincere in his belief that this was a 'good buy'. I'm sure it sold. Not to us, though. We'll stay out of the city, too.

Same experience here. Used to be great and could provide/arrange one-offs of some stuff. These days they seem to be a mailorder discount car bits kind of operation, staffed by drones rather than anyone with an interest in motoring or motorsport.

Great work. I was thinking while reading that the RB30 might be a bit tall, but you've covered that nicely too. Looking forward to more pics and progress news as and when you have time.

Happy to help.

I'm a frustrated researcher. Your X5, registered 10/11, was built 08/11. BMW call it the E70N X5 30dX SUV N57, prod code ZW42. (From RealOEM.) The N57 has a number of variants: N57D30Ox has 1800 bar pressure, while N57D30Tx has 2000 bar pressure. N57D30Ox uses single turbocharger, while N57D30Tx uses 2 turbochargers, and N57S uses 3 turbochargers of varying size. Applications: N57D30U02010-2011 BMW 5 Series F10/F11 525d[3] 2010- BMW 3 Series E90/E91/E92/E93 325d N57D30O02008- BMW 3 Series E90/E91/E92/E93 330d/330xd 2010-2011 BMW 5 Series F10/F11 530d 2009- BMW 5 Series GT F07 530d GT/530d xDrive GT 2008-2012 BMW 7 Series F01/F02 730d/730Ld 2010- BMW X5 E70 xDrive30d 2010- BMW X6 E71 xDrive30d N57D30O12011- BMW 5 Series F10/F11 530d 2011- BMW X3 F25 X3 xDrive30d 2012- BMW 3-Series F30/F31 330d 2012- BMW 7 Series F01/F02 730d/730Ld N57D30T02010-2011 BMW 5 Series F10/F11 535d 2009- BMW 5 Series GT F07 535d GT/535d xDrive GT 2009- BMW 7 Series F01 740d/740d xDrive 2010- BMW X5 E70 xDrive40d 2010- BMW X6 E71 xDrive40d N57D30T12011- BMW 5 Series F10/F11 535d 2011- BMW 6 Series F12/F13 640d 2011- BMW X3 F25 X3 xDrive35d 2013- BMW 3 Series F30/F31 335d N57S2012- BMW M550d xDrive 2012- BMW 750d xDrive 2012- BMW 750Ld xDrive 2012- BMW X5 M50d 2012- BMW X6 M50d Hopefully that helps, just a little?

It's a dealer... Like real estate agents, they exist to drive prices up. I'd not be interested in a LHD model (and can't see that being a good basis for investment in NZ), but I'll confess to very much liking the colour.

Yup. I'm not sure the seller is man enough to stand up to Mrs gjm, though... (I don't stand up to her - I get out of the way!)

Unfortunately I'm in the same position as so many others - I guess the vehicle we want is just more expensive (at present) than we can afford. It needs to be multi-functional and while suitable for loading bales of hay in the back, should be presentable enough for Mrs gjm to collect folk (and family) from the airport. The query re LPG came about from a discussion on a Australian forum: don't buy a noisy and smelly diesel - get a V8! If you want lower running costs, get a V8 converted to run on LPG. Well, that's the gist of it, anyway. Over here, with RUC charges, a less-than-economical diesel just doesn't make sense, so I thought I'd ask if anyone has any comparative experience )in terms of running costs) of diesel and LPG. It's inspired some lively debate, that's for sure. Ultimately, it may just make sense to buy something already converted if it can be bought at an appropriate price. That's the issue with these conversions (for the private individual paying for them) - they aren't cheap to do, and they don't add value at sale time. I wasn't aware of the work that had been done by Australian car companies in developing factory-fitted LPG conversions. Some half-hearted effort had been made in Europe, but typically it was a nod towards doing something for fleet users and the like, and used an 'economic', and often less than efficient, solution. Most diesel SUVs of the size we've been considering won't do much better than 30mpg, or 10(ish) km per litre. There's plenty of petrol options that will approach that and potentially present more economic ownership. The petrol engines probably won't have the same low-down torque but may be better to drive on a highway at 90-100km/h. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed. It has, for me, been very useful in highlighting benefits and options, and also some of my misconceptions.

Read the piece on bmwforums, checked my stack of service history, and spoken to Fabian at BMW in Hamilton. I'll have some rebuild stuff tomorrow. The rebuild may not be absolutely essential, but it seems a sensible servicing thing to do regardless, and could easily fix the problem.

Yup - Brent's car has 500+ under it's wheels. I know thread mentioned, but don't recall what it was called.

Ta. I wasn't being lazy, really... I just had a few minutes between getting home and going back out again and being at a loose end, though I'd post a quick update. I'll check for the clips.

This looks likely to be due to a binding left front brake. Beyond that, not sure at present... Anyone have any experience of rebuilding E46 calipers? May as well make a go of doing at least both fronts, and maybe all of them.