Skip the Walnut Blast!

Many new cars have direct injection engines because of improved fuel economy, performance and emissions. The fuel is sprayed directly into the combustion chamber of the engine so you get a more thorough fuel burn. The downside of direct injection engines is that because it’s sprayed below the valves, your engine isn’t able to burn off any excess carbon buildup above the valves and up into the manifolds.

So over time, that buildup causes your engine to run rough on cold starts, feels strained when accelerating, can develop vibrations (especially at idle), and your city fuel economy starts tanking. In my case, instead of averaging 22-23mpg overall, it kept dropping down to the low 17’s. My car just felt tired.

The usual treatment is to remove the intake manifolds and with a compressor, blast walnut shells inside. Sounds crazy but it’s true. And it’s recommended to have it done every 30,000 miles or so.

So I took my car to a local independent BMW service center where they said they could do it for about $1,200 because of the labor (I think they even take off the valve cover and replace the gaskets). But, they had a new chemical treatment that they claimed achieved the same result for a lot less money (around $300). It’s called the BG Induction Service. To back up the service, the shop guaranteed results or they would apply the full amount towards a walnut blasting service.

Who could lose with a deal like that?

So does it work? In one word – YES! I could immediately feel the difference. The car revs easily and feels light on its feet, like I just lost 1,000 lbs off the weigh of the car. Accelerating up hills is now effortless. And my city mileage is back up again even though I’ve been driving it harder. I’m over 19 mpg in pure city driving.

Which is an important note – the chemical treatment takes off a lot of junk at first (the mechanic said the stuff coming out of the exhaust was nasty). But the residue continues to work so the recommendation is to drive the car hard for a week for maximum removal.

I can’t believe the difference – my car feels young again.

 

 

 

Rislone Update

In a previous post I wrote about adding Rislone to my BMW 535 N54 engine hoping to quiet the tappets that are common on BMW’s. The Rislone went to work right away and within a few minutes after draining the bottle down the oil chute, the tappets became much quieter.

After a 1,000 mile trip to NC and back, the engine runs so much quieter. In fact, if there is any ambient noise around I can hardly hear the engine. My youngest, who is 14 and completely uninterested in cars (except bright green ones) remarked this morning that the car is so much quieter now even at cold idle.

Now that it’s going to get up in the 60’s in the next couple of days, I’m going to change the oil so that all the sludge that Rislone removed will be out of the engine.

BMW’s run best when their fluids are fresh.

Braking Nirvana

BMW’s have been known for their incredible braking feel. There is something about that is just hard to describe – just buttery smooth progression. Sometimes you just go fast just so you can brake.

If you have been reading my blog then you know that I had replaced brake rotors and pads at all four wheels and then had to replace the front rotors again because they warped with only 10,000 miles (16,000 kms for my Canut friends nort’ of the border) on them. To my chagrin soon after I replaced the front rotors again they started pulsing again.

Sigh. The inevitable question arose if I should have purchased original BMW rotors instead of the zinc coated Zimmermans. I because to calculate the cost in my head and for some time weighed if I should just tough it out with the pulsing (especially noticeable from high speeds) or if I should just bite the bullet, fight the wife and get them replaced.

I don’t know how I got turned onto this but somewhere I read about changing the brake fluid (something I sheepishly admit I’ve never done on any car) and that it’s highly recommended for any car but particularly for BMW’s and other high performance vehicles. Apparently, after a period of time, the brake fluid suspends air and pollutant molecules in the fluid until it can be changed. As the fluid gets dirty over time, the boiling point lowers causing a drop in braking feel and performance.

At the counter, the service tech asked if I needed anything else (I was also getting the power steering system flushed) and I told him to check the brake rotors for warping and I walked out knowing what the result was. Or did I?

The service tech called back hours later and told me the rotors looked perfectly fine. They did find that the driver side engine mount was weak (which explains the stronger vibrations I felt at idle) but they didn’t have the part in stock but they did get the brake and power steering fluid system flushed and replaced.

I pulled out of the lot and on my first major stop my eyes grew wide with astonishment – my wonderful brake feel was back! Yessssssssss. It just felt glorious with none of the pulsing feel that I felt braking even at city speeds. I had a sneaky suspicion that it had never been changed since new so it was way overdue. I haven’t tried it from highway speeds but even a 60 mph stop couldn’t invoke the pulsing. And it’s just so darn smooth and progressive.

Preventative maintenance on a BMW may not be cheap, but it’s far cheaper than fixing broken components.

 

 

 

When BMW Tappets Tap Too Loudly

BMW makes great engines – I love them. But when you start accumulating miles on them (my E60 535 has 101,000 miles) you start to notice the engine ticking a lot. This comes from gunk (a technical term) building up in the lifters in the top of the engine.

A good explanation on why the lifters tick is found here but short story is, the lifters get out of alignment from the buildup of crud (another technical term) so they aren’t hitting their sweet spot. I read on some forums that adding a quart of Rislone Engine Treatment works wonders. Now, I am loathe to put any kind of chemical in an engine that would be so costly to fix but a lot of people swear by it.

So I bought a quart and waited until the car burned off enough oil to allow adding a quart without overfilling. Based on my last oil change, it seems that I’m using up one quart every 6000-7000 miles which is pretty good for a twin turbo without leaking any oil. It just so happened that a week after I bought the Rislone, the engine oil monitor showed one tick below maximum which means I could do this.

So I added a quart of Rislone. And then I prayed. And then I started the car. Sounded the same as before for about a minute and then it started to get quieter. And quieter. And smoother.

Now Rislone is supposed to be a long term engine cleaner but like the guys in the forum said, if you have noisy lifters from buildup, you will notice a difference almost right away. I drove the car to the gas station and was surprised how quiet it was. Tear downs of cars with frequent Rislone treatment have shown engine internals to be very clean. A good sign for longevity.

So tomorrow I’m taking it on a 7 hour trip to Greensboro, SC for a basketball tournament and returning on Sunday. Next week I’ll change the oil and filter just to get all that stuff out of the engine.

Now I’m thinking I should put some in my wife’s vehicle. She probably won’t notice but I will.

 

Pink Eye Bimmer

Old xenon unit – D1S

Because I have been so busy with traveling and work, I decided to take the “missus” out for lunch today as a way to thank her for keeping the home together while I’ve been buried. We jumped in the car, fired up the twin turbo six and just as I was about to back out, I noticed that the light on the driver side had a pink shade.

At first I thought it might have been some sort of reflection so I got out to take a look and sure enough, the driver side light had pink eye – not the infectious kind mind you. Of course, this distracted me on the drive to the restaurant but I figured it was probably the xenon light on its way to the greater lights in the sky. What worried me was that I have read that replacing a light could be costly.

At Pucketts Grocery & Restaurant in downtown Franklin, I enjoyed some great southern pulled pork BBQ and the wife enjoyed three sliders, each with a different kind of BBQ meat. While enjoying our repartee, I looked up on the forums on what this pink eye meant and my diagnosis was correct – a xenon light on the way out.

Xenon lighting is great because it’s bright, stable, lasts long (with a good unit) and is whiter than halogens. What is different is that it uses an arc between two points to create the light rather than a filament in a halogen.

After I got back to the home office, I performed a quick search to find that I could order the D1S unit (the type the E60 535 uses) online for about $69 or go to NAPA and pick one up for $100 – or take it to a dealer and pay over $400 for them to do it. Since I was about to leave on a long trip, I didn’t want to risk driving on unlit interstates with only one light. So I bought one at NAPA but that was where the fun began.

To change the light, you have to remove the entire lighting unit which is a fairly big unit. It was like playing a game of Twister to get it out. Once you do, it’s easy to replace the bulb (remember to take the circular black plastic guard around the old unit and put it on the new one before inserting into the lamp). The trick is getting the unit back into body and getting it to fit just right. That part took almost 20 minutes until I finally got it right. I had to keep checking the passenger side lamp unit for how it was fitted to the body – and it was fitted tightly and almost seamlessly.

The Germans like to be precise – ja!

The dealer charges about 2 hours for labor to replace the unit and I can understand why – they probably are able to take more pieces out to make it easier to remove and re-install.

Xenon in, turned the car on and presto! I have white light again. I’m going to order another one online because it probably won’t be long until the other one fails. I haven’t noticed yet any difference in brightness and whiteness between the two which is a good thing.

Shift Like a Rifle Bolt

After four days trekking across the US in the wife’s style cramping minivan, I was anxious to get the 535 out of the garage to clear its throat a bit. We hustled over to an open house for our church’s volunteers. 

So the missus and I once more got into a vehicle for another drive. On the way there, after the turbos had warmed up a bit I decided to accelerate quite briskly for some auto aerobic action. 

Okay, the truth is that I love the growl of the engine and the continuous thrust even through gear upshifts from the automatic. But most of all I love the sound when the transmission shifts. It’s so so smooth with just a little hint of exhaust burble that it’s like a well oiled bolt action on a rifle. Never mind the shot, just the action itself is satisfying. 

Today, the roads were quite wet so a little enthusiastic throttle pressing from a stoplight activated the traction control briefly but the car ran true and cracked off some sweet shifts again. 

Keep calm and drive on. 

Objects in Mirror Are Brighter than they Appear

On another recent trip up to Cleveland when the sun had dropped below the horizon and low beam headlights seemed extra bright on unlit highways, I remarked that it was so cool to have auto dimming rear view mirrors. 

Actually, I had only paid attention in the past to the central one in the vehicle. This past weekend on a trip up to Minnesota in my wife’s minivan you had to manually flip up the rear view mirror and the view out back was less than optimal. But what really stood out was how bright the lights were shining in the side mirrors. 

It was at that moment that I realized that the side mirrors in my 535 also auto dimmed as the side mirrors never allowed any light to really blind me. To some people that wouldn’t mean much but it does allow you to enjoy your car just that much more. 

It’s also much safer too. The images in the central rear view mirror are much better defined with better depth perception than the flip up manual mirrors. 

There is one interesting side effect of self dimming mirrors and that is that they can distort colors. I noticed this while waiting in a parking lot and someone walked from the front of the car to behind me with a bright colored sweater. In the mirrors the color shading appeared quite different which puzzled me at first until I sat down to write this blog. 

So keep calm and drive on. 

The Touch Society

Back in the days when cell phones had 12 buttons BMW introduced the revolutionary iDrive system in their vehicles. I can recall editor after editor complaining about how un-intuitive the system was and to a man, they all had difficult wrapping their heads around the concept.

Change is never easy.

Because of the myriad of complaints, BMW made some refinements to the iDrive system during the 2008 LCI mid-cycle refresh of the 5 Series. When I bought my car I recalled all those reviews that universally panned the iDrvie system. However, we are in the age of smartphones that have more power than many desktop computers so did I stumble over it like the auto testers in 2004?

In a word – NO. Sure, it took me all about five minutes to figure out the conventions used to navigate around but I actually found it fairly easy to use and helpful in the amount of information that it provides. Even my teenage kids figured it out in seconds. The only thing that was a challenge was figuring out the climate settings and a couple times I set the radio presets incorrectly. The rest of the pages in the owners’ manual regarding iDrive are still probably stuck together.

I do find myself wishing for more functionality in the iDrive rather than less. It wish it could easily provide more diagnostic information like transmission temperature, water temperature, and oil pressure for instance. I know the car’s systems have that data so it wouldn’t have been too hard to provide that in the iDrive – sort of like supplemental gauges.

I don’t really need to know all that but on long trips I would love have more information just for the sake of interacting with the vehicle instead of spinning the controller as a restless habit. In fact, in the era of touching a lifeless flat screen, having a knob and and a menu button is a welcome tactile feedback.

If you have paid attention to Apple’s early Watch ads, you will see that they emphasize the detail of the things that you interact with and touch. Touch builds intimacy and connects you to things in ways that simple sight cannot.

Bottom line, I like the iDrive system.

The Trouble With Tribbles

I think it’s great that BMW has shields underneath the car which is mainly for aerodynamics and some protection. If you pull some of the shields underneath the front doors, you will see a sea of wires and conduits to send the millions of 0’s and 1’s back and forth to manage the various systems.

What I have found though is that it seems that every time I take a shield off I invariably end up with a bunch of extra screws that I can’t seem to find a hole for. They seem to be reproducing like the virile tribbles, the cuddly, purring animals from the original Star Trek series that reproduced so fast that makes rabbits appear celibate.

Anyways, I all the under panels are tightly secured yet I have two extra screws. Hopefully they won’t reproduce overnight.

Just Drive

Last night as I was taking my kids home from youth group I decided to accelerate smartly away from a stop light. The radio was off so I could hear the growl of the engine. I could feel the thrust of the turbos just swell as the car picked up speed. And even though it was wet, the car felt planted.

This just brought a smile to my face. Glancing in the rear view mirror to see traffic way behind me from my partial throttle foray stretched my smile to a grin.

I’m ready for another trip in this car.