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I bought a 1994 325 in May. 2 months ago it would not start. A specialty BMW garage (not a dealer) said "the spark plugs were flooded" and wondered if the car had received the BMW factory replacement chip. I did not know. They replaced the plugs with "hotter running plugs and hoped that would solve the problem as the factory-paid program has expired". The problem has now reoccurred (plugs smell strongly of gas and look wet). I am no mechanic but suspect that this chip is essentially an "electronic choke" that is feeding too much gas when engine is cold. The problem only started to occur in October (I live in Illinois) when weather turned colder. Any one know of that factory program? Was it a recall or a technical service letter/program in response to some problems? If factory admits to a design flaw, then I presume I should still be covered. ANY details would be much appreciated. Overall gas mileage is fine (about 26 mpg) so I suspect the problem is just when engine is being started when cold.
Sincerely funny
humble1heart
P.S. Do cars equipped with all-season and summer tires end up in a black hole during the winter? Barkeep, it's snowing out - pour me another drink and make that a double scotch.
Motor Trends' "Road Test Results", 11/01 appears to have no qualifying language.
Road & Track's "Road Test Summary", 1/02, has the following qualifying information: "Factors that affect test numbers include air temperature, barometric pressure, condition of track surface, tune of test car... Acceleration numbers are obtained using drop-clutch starts and lift throttle shifts." R&T is then kind enough to discuss what is a "significant difference": "the amount of difference that is meaningful". For example, .3 seconds 0-60 is considered such a difference.
Think R&T's qualifying language points out the plethora of variables, many that cannot be controlled for, that can significantly influence test results.
P.S.
He must have said something interesting if you can find and paste his quotes from last Spring. I will allow him to take le Schtroumpf out during his paternity leave if it's not snowing
C&D knew they were going to catch some flack for again rating the 3 series as the best sport sedan in the world, yet they stuck to their guns and voted for the best.
Many of the other cars had several high points. Only one car rose to the top. The best line in the entire review was the closing line.
"But when the brakes cooled, there was one clear choice. Live with it."
I do not buy a car because some auto rag said it was the best, but it is reassuring to know that virtually every car mag in the world has rated the 3 series the best sport sedan in the world.
Enjoy what you have for we are indeed fortunate....
First, engines burn mixed fuel and air. The fuel is incompressible and changes very little in terms of density (mass) over the normal range of test conditions. I'd assume, for sake of argument, that the fuel mass is constant. Air, on the other hand, can be very different. The mass of air passing into the engine could vary a bit with changes in temperature and pressure. The air density is the parameter to worry about, it is the mass per unit volume. So if you have a given volume of air passing into the engine at a certain speed (wide open throttle, choked flow condition, i.e., maximum possible intake) the mass of the entering air would depend directly on the density. Density goes up with the pressure and down with the temperature. But wait, it gets more complicated.
The engine really burns oxygen and fuel, of which air is about 21% (I think). The amount of O2 can change slightly with humidity, so there may be a small correction for that.
The basic idea is that you could correct the current conditions to standard day conditions and see how much more oxygen would come into the engine. You could, in theory, then tweak the horsepower numbers, and assuming losses being equal, come up with a corrected acceleration number.
The losses in this case being mechanical (the car's moving parts) and aerodynamic. My gut feeling is that they don't correct the drag numbers or the mechanical losses, with the exception perhaps of the tire frictional losses. I assume tire friction data are available from the manufacturers. They'd want to know if their tires lose traction on a colder day, etc. However, I think even that's a bit of a stretch.
Best guess on this engineer's part is that they adjust the engine horsepower, assume similar losses and apply Newton's laws. Hope it helps! I'd be interested to learn from a real automotive engineer if I'm right (I'm just an aero engineer).
Seriously though, I'll bet that Mr. Brave will be right in there helping with the breathing, offering encouragement, telling Mrs. Brave how much he loves her and how beautiful she is... and catching some serious abuse in return. Such is life. ;-)
Best Regards,
Shipo
BTW, isn't "I'm truly sorry that you are having such difficulty grasping a relatively mundane concept" a line from Frasier? Sounds like something Niles would say on his first day of basic auto repair class
On a more serious note, the latest C&D had a lot of interesting articles. The sport sedan comparo was great - it seems that there are a lot of good competitors in this segment now but the 3-series still beats all the competition squarely. There was also a great radar detector comparo in which the V1 stood head and shoulders above the other entries. Another article I found very interesting was Csaba Csere's thoughts on where children should be sitting in a car and the surprising (to me at least) conclusion that older kids will be just as safe in the front seat as adults, just as long as they sit on a booster seat and their seat belt is properly adjusted for their height.
BTW, I drove from Boston to Albany this morning to find out that Albany had record 24-hr snowfall (~13 inches). I got lucky - they had cleared the roads very well by the time I got here and the highways only had slightly more than a dusting. Still snowing heavily right now - guess I won't have to go to a deserted parking lot to try out driving on snow tonight.
P.S. It's a boy - I'd be happy with either as long as it's a healthy baby.
http://money.cnn.com/2001/12/20/autos/wires/q_caddy_krt/
In all fairness, though, the CTS seems like a pretty good effort.
keep us posted if you have any time to spare over the next few weeks.
Genie
to others: heloc's - ummm... i personally wouldn't collateralize a depreciating asset with an appreciating one, but that's just me (not to mention, as one other poster pointed out, you'd feel kinda silly losing your house because you feel behind on the "toy" payments)... the heloc would be a better idea if you were doing that instead of paying cash, but only if you maintain that amount of cash in liquid enough funds to pay it off if you lose your job or so on...
defaulting on a car loan leaves you carless...
defaulting on a heloc leaves you homeless...
-Chris
Just saw some dried gum mixed with sand on the rear carpet. My daughter must have stepped in it some time ago in a playground. It's well baked in. Any solutions? Thanks
have you tried taking a long needled comb and kinda "combing" it out? possibly in conjunction with some type of weak solvent?
also, you can make the gum pliable by heating it with a hair drier. i'd avoid using a heat gun (it's not real easy to control your temperature that way). the drier and comb method will probably do it if you are patient.
-Chris
-Chris
ps. that reminds me of when my wife drove mine into a curb and rashed up one of the winter wheels pretty good. her comment "well, at least it wasn't the really expensive summer ones"... right...
http://cuttermotors.com/bimmerfest/bmw_pricing/
I have been trolling for a while now, but I enjoy reading this forum. Y'all are very nice to one another. My wife and I finally decided to replace our Miata after two years of only one car with a backseat and three people in the family. We have an Audi A4 also as the main kid transport. We have ordered a 325 w/ sport/xenons/power seats and sunroof. Probably should have just gotten the lux. pkg. The colors are blue steel metallic with the sand leatherette. I did not really care for this color combo until I saw it in person. I was very impressed, and I hope it is relatively easy to keep clean. We are also considering upgrading the A4 from a 1.8T to the new '02 with the 3.0. I really like both cars, though they drive very differently. Since I live in NC, we are going to do the Performance Center delivery. I am really looking forward to it. The guy would not budge off of $1k below MSRP. That is the problem with Edmunds saying the TMV for the car is MSRP.
Have a good day.
Ned
Where do you live?
And when you consider that I'd always be looking at the front-end of the beast (after all, I'm in the 330i so you know I'd only ever see one in the rearview mirror) even once or twice a week might be too much for my sensitive stomach
We are also planning on using our '01 A4 1.8T as the main kid transport. I installed the car seat base last weekend and was surprised to find out that the rear-facing child seat does not fit comfortably in the back seat of the A4. We bought a Peg Perego system which comes with a slightly oversized car seat and you can only use the car seat if it is in the middle of the A4's rear seat. It is impossible to install it behind the driver seat (with either me or my wife driving) without compromising driver comfort. Same goes for the passenger side. It fits OK in the middle, as the open space between the two front seats allows the top of the car seat to fit in between the two headrests. Are you using a forward-facing or rear-facing car seat? BTW, the 3-series' rear seat room is much better than the A4's
and the child seat fits comfortably everywhere.
Oddly, I have never seen anyone using the "tent" option. I figure it would have been pretty handy when transporting furniture in the rain this past wekend.
The sales guy I bought this seat from told me that the Audi A4's and some VW's usually have problems with the room in the back seat for the full-size seat. You may want to consider the 3er for the baby transport when you need to upgrade.
Or better yet, consider an X5??
An X5? No SUV's in our family, even if it's a BMW... A mid-size sedan like the 5-series should be enough for two kids, probably even the 3-series. If we have a dog, we'll have to get a wagon, possibly an A6 but that's in at least 4-5 years...
Later on (where I'm at now), you can put 'em on either side. I have a car seat and a booster seat currently in my 325 and there's even room for a third kid in the middle seat.
Now the car seat just stays in the wagon and I drive the 325 daily.
Dan
My wife and I will be starting a family this year, and we have two labradors, so an SUV is pretty much a must for us. Once you have the dog(s) and the kid(s) for a while, you may reconsider... but I will admire you more if you stick to your idealogical but impractical guns.
My wife and I had no trouble raising our two kids in sedans. Our kids love her 323iA and my 540iM.
I can tell you after 13k miles of trip driving the last two Summers that three rows of seats is a definite must when you have kids. A TV, VCR and lebensraum (and I mean enough room that a flying fist cannot reach its target!) is all you need to remain sane (that and a reasonably loud stereo).
No question, the performance stinks, but you can't take a sedan off road, even if it is AWD and you can't fit a couch in the back of a 3-, 5- or 7-series. You are also much safer in an SUV, at least the Expedition I have. Crash tests are done against same size vehicles; mass always wins, no one changes the laws of physics via design! As far as gas mileage goes, the SUV is much worse per vehicle, but figure it out per person and you'd need 72 mpg in a two seater or 36 mpg in a four seater to match a fully loaded 9 seat land yacht. Lastly, you get to see the road much farther forward than in a sedan and that means your reaction time is a lot better, so at least you compensate for the extra inertia. It also beats the heck out of sitting behind an SUV in traffic when you can see what's causing it.
That said, I miss driving a performance machine and am getting ready to put my order in for an ED 325i this week. Found my $1500 over in Ohio! But for sure, there is going to be an SUV parked next to it!
DL
Happy Motoring
I took some interior/exterior pics of the Mini and the 7-series (beautiful high-tech automobile). I'll post once I scan the pics. in.
-nobee
DL
However, you can't say that because someone needs/wants an SUV that they can't appreciate a fine automobile. They've both got their good points. Why not have both? It's like growing up saying you will only date a blonde and moving then to India, when you need some it ain't gonna happen! Like enjoying Moet with your date and then drinking (so long as there is a designated driver) Jack with the boys. Okay, I'm getting too philosophical now. Carpe diem.
Truck-based SUVs are normally rear-drive, rough-riding, true off-road vehicles. Car-based are primarily front-drive vehicles that offer a decent on-road ride with limited off-road capability. Frankly, they *are* nothing more than wider, taller station wagons with AWD systems that just 'look' like a truck-based SUV, but no auto manufacturer is ever going to call one a station wagon.
Another key ingredient to tell the difference is the absence of a transfer case (AWD vs. 4WD). Automatic AWD is great while on the highway, but it's not designed for the rigors of off-road duty like a transfer case-equipeed 4WD vehicle.
The best example is the Subaru Legacy/Forester. Both of those vehicles have the exact same automatic AWD drivetrain. However, the Legacy is longer, narrower, and classified as a station wagon, while the Forester is wider, taller, and called an SUV. But it's still just a rebodied Legacy station wagon.
DC made a serious marketing error with the new Liberty because of the unwavering Jeep credo of all their vehicles being 'true' SUVs. As nice and capable as the Liberty might be, it still rides rougher than any car-based SUV. Given the limited amount of time that the vast majority of SUV owners ever take their vehicles off-road, DC has certainly lost many sales because of this requirement for any Jeep-branded product.
Station wagons that look like 'sporty' SUVs is where the sales are these days. There isn't really a leader in the class, either. The BMW X5 is great for the well-off, performance-oriented group because of its rear-drive layout but it's not quite as good as a front-driver when the weather turns foul.
The vehicle that is closest to being a perfect SUV for most consumers is the Escape/Tribute from Ford. The only trouble is the abyssmal quality with which these vehicles are assembled. They're selling a lot of them, but you stand about a 50/50 chance of getting one that may qualify for 'lemon-law' status (and that includes current 2002 builds). But don't take my word for it. Just check out the NHTSA website or any Escape/Tribute board. They're filled with horror stories. Nothing fatal, but certainly some potential vehicle disabling issues. Stuff like vehicles mysteriously stalling and transmission failures of brand-new vehicles.
And for those who say this is just a small percentage of a large group of products assembled, one need only look to anything written about the Toyota Highlander. Nary a gripe on those boards...