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Read the WELCOME ALL BMWFANATICS post.
Gavsadler's 130i M-Sport (E87)
- Thread starter gavsadler
- Start date
CA_130
///Member
gavsadler said:Standard ride height, may just be if the suspension is loaded or not in the pics.
Today I registered for a skidpan gymkhana next month, so looking forward to that
Thanks Gav. Skid pad sounds like a fun idea:smilebounce:, I'll google one in CT, but with the water restrictions, who knows :dunnoanymore:
Kyle Daniel
Member
gavsadler said:Thread revival.
Shoo, I know I haven't updated in a while, but I can't believe it's been 9 months. Life seems to be overtaking me faster than a tuned M5 :rollsmile:
Anyway, let me get to some updates seeing as I have a gap.
r-hart said:
The intake was expensive, for the sake of not reopening closed wounds, I think including import duty and shipping fees it was the wrong side of R8k (but still cheaper than purchasing locally from BMW).
re: the exhaust - maybe :rollsmile:
Back to trying to catchup on the timeline for the car.....
March-2014:
I attended a skid pan Gymkhana event hosted by the BMW Car Club at Zwartkops. I enjoy these events, as it is time to have fun in a controlled environment. I'm not there for an outright competition, and choose to rather experiment and get to learn the car's behaviour in different situations.
Some pics from the event:
Up against the 1er's uncle:
Aug-2014:
I had the common issue of peeling of the covering on the steering wheel trim. Based on previous threads, I decided to try a repair using plastidip.
Before:
I cleaned off all the old trimmings, ready for the plastidip:
Painted and ready to be fitted:
Completed:
Fast forward to May-2015....
Just a couple of pics after the car had a good clean:
And another leap in time: Dec-2015.
My plastidip efforts on the steering wheel were not working out so well.
The plastidip began to peel at the "high traffic areas" around the buttons and at the 6 o'clock position. Eventually I stripped the trim piece off again, and decided to spray it properly using primer and then satin black paint (Andy also did this on one of his cars if I recall correctly).
Hey man , nice paint job . How do you remove that piece from the steering wheel?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
gavsadler
///Member
Some pics and vids from the day.
Please excuse me getting lost on a few occasions. It was quite funny actually. Between trying to remember the course, and listening to my brother-in-law who was trying to navigate and read the map. Multi-tasking fail :smilebounce:
Run 2:
[video=youtube]
Run 3:
[video=youtube]
Run 6:
[video=youtube]
Please excuse me getting lost on a few occasions. It was quite funny actually. Between trying to remember the course, and listening to my brother-in-law who was trying to navigate and read the map. Multi-tasking fail :smilebounce:
Run 2:
[video=youtube]
Run 3:
[video=youtube]
Run 6:
[video=youtube]
gavsadler
///Member
Update time:
Together with some stuff for my Ute, I brought in a set of 130i grilles from the UK. They were cheap as chips, so thought it a good idea to have a spare set, and for me to fiddle with.
During the holidays, I set about splitting them into 2 pieces each, and applying multiple coats of Rustoleum Flexidip to the grilles.
I am liking the matt look (as done on the X3, where the Flexidip has held up well), so at some point when I get time again, I will fit them to the car.
At the beginning of December, while I was at the scrapyard sourcing a mirror glass for the X3, I picked up a few bits for the 130i as well: some new gas struts for the hatch (off a much newer E87, and also a new boot light.
(Yes they are dirty, but they cleaned up nicely...)
My clip broke at some point, so the light has been dangling in a miserable state for a period of time:
New light fitted:
Then last weekend, I decided to do a quick service on the car. This entailed a new pollen filter and oil change.
Old vs new pollen filter:
Pics of the oil filter and oil, not too bad for 15000kms:
I also added some Ceratec as part of the oil change. I'm keen to see if this makes the motor smoother and helps with the noisy lifters from time to time:
The air filter wasn't too bad at this stage. I cleaned it out a bit and refitted. Will change this later in the year:
Lastly, my power steering fluid reservoir has been leaking / sweating a bit, so I purchased a new o-ring for the cap. Will see if this addresses the issue. When I refitted the cap, it did feel more positive and like it was sealing better with the new o-ring (it is also one of the most expensive O-rings I've ever purchased, haha):
That's all for now, driving the car now during the quiet time, and thoroughly enjoying it still. Next on the cards will be a proper detail (once Spiro wakes up from his 2018 hangover - hint hint) :hammerhead:
Together with some stuff for my Ute, I brought in a set of 130i grilles from the UK. They were cheap as chips, so thought it a good idea to have a spare set, and for me to fiddle with.
During the holidays, I set about splitting them into 2 pieces each, and applying multiple coats of Rustoleum Flexidip to the grilles.
I am liking the matt look (as done on the X3, where the Flexidip has held up well), so at some point when I get time again, I will fit them to the car.
At the beginning of December, while I was at the scrapyard sourcing a mirror glass for the X3, I picked up a few bits for the 130i as well: some new gas struts for the hatch (off a much newer E87, and also a new boot light.
(Yes they are dirty, but they cleaned up nicely...)
My clip broke at some point, so the light has been dangling in a miserable state for a period of time:
New light fitted:
Then last weekend, I decided to do a quick service on the car. This entailed a new pollen filter and oil change.
Old vs new pollen filter:
Pics of the oil filter and oil, not too bad for 15000kms:
I also added some Ceratec as part of the oil change. I'm keen to see if this makes the motor smoother and helps with the noisy lifters from time to time:
The air filter wasn't too bad at this stage. I cleaned it out a bit and refitted. Will change this later in the year:
Lastly, my power steering fluid reservoir has been leaking / sweating a bit, so I purchased a new o-ring for the cap. Will see if this addresses the issue. When I refitted the cap, it did feel more positive and like it was sealing better with the new o-ring (it is also one of the most expensive O-rings I've ever purchased, haha):
That's all for now, driving the car now during the quiet time, and thoroughly enjoying it still. Next on the cards will be a proper detail (once Spiro wakes up from his 2018 hangover - hint hint) :hammerhead:
gavsadler
///Member
May-2018 update:
Been using the car sparingly over the past few months, but then as per my other thread, with the breakdown of the X3, we had to use this car for our holiday trip to the KZN south coast on the recent long weekend.
This car was jam packed with everything we would need to keep the family comfortable and entertained (we also loaded a bunch of stuff into my brother-in-law's car as well).
It's still an awesome car. I was very pleased with the fuel consumption overall. On the trip down, I managed 7.1l/100kms, and then on the trip back up I managed 7.9l/100kms.
It's a blast to drive down there too. The thick coastal air does wonders for the N/A motors. On the highway, it always feels like you are 1 gear lower than you actually are (i.e. it feels like you are in 5th gear when you are actually in 6th gear etc). We stayed in the coastal towns, so didn't really stretch it's legs too much, but was still good fun.
So now this is the mommy-mobile until the X3 gets sorted.
Been using the car sparingly over the past few months, but then as per my other thread, with the breakdown of the X3, we had to use this car for our holiday trip to the KZN south coast on the recent long weekend.
This car was jam packed with everything we would need to keep the family comfortable and entertained (we also loaded a bunch of stuff into my brother-in-law's car as well).
It's still an awesome car. I was very pleased with the fuel consumption overall. On the trip down, I managed 7.1l/100kms, and then on the trip back up I managed 7.9l/100kms.
It's a blast to drive down there too. The thick coastal air does wonders for the N/A motors. On the highway, it always feels like you are 1 gear lower than you actually are (i.e. it feels like you are in 5th gear when you are actually in 6th gear etc). We stayed in the coastal towns, so didn't really stretch it's legs too much, but was still good fun.
So now this is the mommy-mobile until the X3 gets sorted.
gavsadler
///Member
July-2018 update:
Well, things got interesting one day on my way to work. I was cruising along through down, when I felt a judder/miss, only for a moment or so. Then, a few minutes later, when I tried to pull away from a stop street, as soon as I accelerated in 2nd gear, the car jerked violently. I pulled over to check if there was anything obvious wrong, but didn't see anything.
Then, a few hundred metres down the road, as i was crawling to a stop for a red robot, the car switched off suddenly. I restarted and then all was ok. I decided to pull over for 10mins, and then try limp back home. The 5km trip home was uneventful, with only a couple of warning lights showing up in the dash. As i got home, I was reversing onto the grass, when the car seemed to loose power and eventually stalled. It wouldn't start again for another 8 attempts.
A pic of the faults showing in the cluster:
So, onto the diagnosis...
BMW On-Call Edenvale (aka DannyBoy), came through to scan the car. It was showing all sorts of faults, from a faulty crank sensor, to a starter motor malfunction, to a DSC fault, to an ABS fault.
We tested starting the car a few times as well as the voltage (as we suspected maybe a dodgy battery was generating all the random electronic faults). The car would battle to start and idle smoothly, but once it settled down and the voltage stabilised around 14.4v, the motor sounded normal.
This then led us to testing out some different batteries. In total we tried 4 batteries, but the faults and symptoms were still there regardless. A little bit more investigative work and suggestions then pointed to a faulty crank sensor.
I managed to source one from Goldwagen at R570 (incidentally, this is the same part number for the E87 135i N55 motors). The OEM BMW part was over R2000!
Here's a pic of the part:
To install this piece of kit requires tiny hands, a good deal of patience, some luck and let's not forget the use of quite a few expletives during the process.
Here's the location of the crank sensor:
We put the car on the ramps, and the easiest (if you can call it that) way to access the crank sensor is from underneath the car. It sits at the back of the motor on the LHS, just underneath the starter motor. You literally cannot see what you are doing at all, and most of the job is done by feeling with 2 fingers as that is all that space allows for.
I did get quite despondent about this, but Danny persevered and managed to make a plan.
Once this was done, car started up 1st time as per normal, settling into a steady idle, with no faults showing in the cluster.
I took it for a long drive a few days later, and all was well, no issues, no fuss. So I'm glad this has been resolved and I can enjoy the car again.
I'll upload some videos off the issues just now....
Next up is the track day at Red Star Raceway this weekend, looking forward to that and stretching it's legs a bit in a controlled environment, plus hooning is fun :smilebounce:
Well, things got interesting one day on my way to work. I was cruising along through down, when I felt a judder/miss, only for a moment or so. Then, a few minutes later, when I tried to pull away from a stop street, as soon as I accelerated in 2nd gear, the car jerked violently. I pulled over to check if there was anything obvious wrong, but didn't see anything.
Then, a few hundred metres down the road, as i was crawling to a stop for a red robot, the car switched off suddenly. I restarted and then all was ok. I decided to pull over for 10mins, and then try limp back home. The 5km trip home was uneventful, with only a couple of warning lights showing up in the dash. As i got home, I was reversing onto the grass, when the car seemed to loose power and eventually stalled. It wouldn't start again for another 8 attempts.
A pic of the faults showing in the cluster:
So, onto the diagnosis...
BMW On-Call Edenvale (aka DannyBoy), came through to scan the car. It was showing all sorts of faults, from a faulty crank sensor, to a starter motor malfunction, to a DSC fault, to an ABS fault.
We tested starting the car a few times as well as the voltage (as we suspected maybe a dodgy battery was generating all the random electronic faults). The car would battle to start and idle smoothly, but once it settled down and the voltage stabilised around 14.4v, the motor sounded normal.
This then led us to testing out some different batteries. In total we tried 4 batteries, but the faults and symptoms were still there regardless. A little bit more investigative work and suggestions then pointed to a faulty crank sensor.
I managed to source one from Goldwagen at R570 (incidentally, this is the same part number for the E87 135i N55 motors). The OEM BMW part was over R2000!
Here's a pic of the part:
To install this piece of kit requires tiny hands, a good deal of patience, some luck and let's not forget the use of quite a few expletives during the process.
Here's the location of the crank sensor:
We put the car on the ramps, and the easiest (if you can call it that) way to access the crank sensor is from underneath the car. It sits at the back of the motor on the LHS, just underneath the starter motor. You literally cannot see what you are doing at all, and most of the job is done by feeling with 2 fingers as that is all that space allows for.
I did get quite despondent about this, but Danny persevered and managed to make a plan.
Once this was done, car started up 1st time as per normal, settling into a steady idle, with no faults showing in the cluster.
I took it for a long drive a few days later, and all was well, no issues, no fuss. So I'm glad this has been resolved and I can enjoy the car again.
I'll upload some videos off the issues just now....
Next up is the track day at Red Star Raceway this weekend, looking forward to that and stretching it's legs a bit in a controlled environment, plus hooning is fun :smilebounce:
gavsadler
///Member
Well I did think Ceratec made a a difference and cured the hydraulic lifter noise when starting after long periods of standing... but there have been 2 occasions now since the service where I started the car and head the lifters making a noise.
But that's more the exception than the norm, other than that the car runs great and is quiet and smooth.
Some videos of the symptoms of a faulty crank sensor:
[video=youtube]
[video=youtube]
But that's more the exception than the norm, other than that the car runs great and is quiet and smooth.
Some videos of the symptoms of a faulty crank sensor:
[video=youtube]
[video=youtube]
michael.joseph
Active member
Thankfully its sorted now...
Still my favourite 130i
raise:
Still my favourite 130i
raise:
gavsadler
///Member
Update October 2018.
A bit long overdue, but I attended the track day at Red Star Raceway a while back, had some great fun chasing some properly quick cars. There are photos uploaded elsewhere on the forum.
Since then not much has happened. I am planning to get my rims refurbished soon, and when that's done I will fit the new tyres.
Missing the car a bit as I was using the Coupe as my daily, and now more recently the Corsa Gsi that I'm saving.
I think soon I'll be hitting the 150000kms milestone as well.
A bit long overdue, but I attended the track day at Red Star Raceway a while back, had some great fun chasing some properly quick cars. There are photos uploaded elsewhere on the forum.
Since then not much has happened. I am planning to get my rims refurbished soon, and when that's done I will fit the new tyres.
Missing the car a bit as I was using the Coupe as my daily, and now more recently the Corsa Gsi that I'm saving.
I think soon I'll be hitting the 150000kms milestone as well.
