stuartinzg
Active member
Been a few months since I did any work on the Z, enjoying it over the summer - did a fair few miles. Now with winter coming up and the Doblo arriving tomorrow I thought I'd get it all done and ready for the winter so that come spring I have nothing to do except drive it 
I get the best rates now because the guys working on the car are in their least busy period.
First thing to be done is an oil service and filter, plus check and replace airfilter if needed (doing oil every 4k miles now). Then a polish and ceramic top up. I had a bit of an "accident" in Germany (over tired) and thought I put the petrol pump back properly. To my horror as I walked away it fell off the stand and hit the car (the metal nozzle just painfully scraped down the side) :|
I saw a white scratch on the rear bumper and my heart sank. Extremely pissed off I went and paid for the fuel and came back. Just on the off chance I had a micro-fibre in the back of the car and decided to give it a quick rub (even though it was all dirty, detailers nightmare - but seeing as it would need a respray anyway... f**k it). To my amazement it just rubbed off - no trace of the scratch whatsoever. A very small groove can be seen where the ceramic was if you look from 20cm. How is this possible?! Seems the ceramic really does what it says on the tin ...
After that is done I will get the Scotchgard applied which I bought from Germany. Amazing stuff. I noticed (and all you fellow E89's) will also notice, stone chips on the rear arch in front of the wheel by the sill. This is unavoidable. Some of you have a lot of chips there, I have been very lucky and only have a few. I'm acting now before it needs a respray. They will make a template and it will look a bit like how Porsche do it.
With the extra material I will also add a small bonnet bra (don't have enough to cover the whole bonnet) but not bother with the bumper as that will be resprayed next year. I will more importantly get the door sills/kickplate done where people knock with their shoes getting in and out. Women with high heels are the worst (especially if the heel is worn out!). Any left overs will cover other bits where stones might hit.
Next up is to replace the centre console controls..... never leave a magic tree in your car in direct sunlight. Mine stopped smelling so I attached it to the airvent so it would work for a while longer - it was resting on the plastic controls. In 40c sunlight this just melted the plastic because of the chemicals in the magic tree... doh.
Managed to find a crashed E89 in Lithuania ?! (RHD...suspicious?) and bagged an almost new one for £100 including postage... result.
Next is a possible change or addition of another brodit clip so I can have the pad connected to the car for the MHD tune which I will finally do after this latest service. This will let me see all the engine information in real time (same as the GTR). More sensors means more data on display (oil pressure/timing/boost) etc. I want to have this mounted so that the phone can go somewhere else if necessary. The pad will have bluetooth and wifi, so I will pull internet from my phone as a hotspot, bluetooth will stream music to the car (have a receiver plugged in the aux-in) and manage Waze/Here maps and display the front facing wireless cameras (acting as a dash cam plus another one to see the front splitter).
The interior is a bit tatty now because the lacquer on the trim has deteriorated and it bugs my slight-OCD, so I have decided to have a full 3M carbon wrap done, rather than replace all the trim (as it will probably happen again). Here are some examples of the work done to the X5 which I think turned out great. I always thought the red/silver/black combo was a bit of an eyesore, so now it will be black/red only with a few silver bits remaining being the dials/buttons/gear shifter.
Before
After
One high res
I love the wheel retrim here (alcantara and nice perforated leather) the Z4 has the latter but not former, and that stitching is great ... I might get that on the Z too !
After all that is done the car will have the exhaust valves added to the new system that was fitted recently. I am currently trying to build my own control unit which will be connected via a wifi module (Arduino or Pi, haven't decided yet - Pi is easier as I have a lot of them floating around and they have wifi built in), which I want to connect to the exhaust valves. I will then build an Android app to send a signal to the valve and show me its current status (open/closed). I will probably implement a slider in the app so I can partially open it and close it. I was thinking about adding a mic module to the board too so I can get a very rough dB rating in real time
Need to look at the leaking roof next... I suspect it's rubbers need treatment of something blocked. Water drips come down in heavy rain if the car is stationary by the passenger footwell under the sun visor.
And finally the OEM wheels are getting the cracks repaired and then being refurbed. May put new rubber on them and/or sell them, haven't decided yet.
So that just about sums up my Z winter project - in the summer I'll start looking more into the engine.
The Doblo is getting a full service before I pick it up (every belt/cambelt/fluid) with the 180hp remap looking tempting
Also popping in a brodit clip for the phone and if it doesn't come with sensors (I didnt ask) i'll be retrofitting those with wireless cameras.
I get the best rates now because the guys working on the car are in their least busy period.
First thing to be done is an oil service and filter, plus check and replace airfilter if needed (doing oil every 4k miles now). Then a polish and ceramic top up. I had a bit of an "accident" in Germany (over tired) and thought I put the petrol pump back properly. To my horror as I walked away it fell off the stand and hit the car (the metal nozzle just painfully scraped down the side) :|
I saw a white scratch on the rear bumper and my heart sank. Extremely pissed off I went and paid for the fuel and came back. Just on the off chance I had a micro-fibre in the back of the car and decided to give it a quick rub (even though it was all dirty, detailers nightmare - but seeing as it would need a respray anyway... f**k it). To my amazement it just rubbed off - no trace of the scratch whatsoever. A very small groove can be seen where the ceramic was if you look from 20cm. How is this possible?! Seems the ceramic really does what it says on the tin ...
After that is done I will get the Scotchgard applied which I bought from Germany. Amazing stuff. I noticed (and all you fellow E89's) will also notice, stone chips on the rear arch in front of the wheel by the sill. This is unavoidable. Some of you have a lot of chips there, I have been very lucky and only have a few. I'm acting now before it needs a respray. They will make a template and it will look a bit like how Porsche do it.
With the extra material I will also add a small bonnet bra (don't have enough to cover the whole bonnet) but not bother with the bumper as that will be resprayed next year. I will more importantly get the door sills/kickplate done where people knock with their shoes getting in and out. Women with high heels are the worst (especially if the heel is worn out!). Any left overs will cover other bits where stones might hit.
Next up is to replace the centre console controls..... never leave a magic tree in your car in direct sunlight. Mine stopped smelling so I attached it to the airvent so it would work for a while longer - it was resting on the plastic controls. In 40c sunlight this just melted the plastic because of the chemicals in the magic tree... doh.
Managed to find a crashed E89 in Lithuania ?! (RHD...suspicious?) and bagged an almost new one for £100 including postage... result.
Next is a possible change or addition of another brodit clip so I can have the pad connected to the car for the MHD tune which I will finally do after this latest service. This will let me see all the engine information in real time (same as the GTR). More sensors means more data on display (oil pressure/timing/boost) etc. I want to have this mounted so that the phone can go somewhere else if necessary. The pad will have bluetooth and wifi, so I will pull internet from my phone as a hotspot, bluetooth will stream music to the car (have a receiver plugged in the aux-in) and manage Waze/Here maps and display the front facing wireless cameras (acting as a dash cam plus another one to see the front splitter).
The interior is a bit tatty now because the lacquer on the trim has deteriorated and it bugs my slight-OCD, so I have decided to have a full 3M carbon wrap done, rather than replace all the trim (as it will probably happen again). Here are some examples of the work done to the X5 which I think turned out great. I always thought the red/silver/black combo was a bit of an eyesore, so now it will be black/red only with a few silver bits remaining being the dials/buttons/gear shifter.
Before
After
One high res
I love the wheel retrim here (alcantara and nice perforated leather) the Z4 has the latter but not former, and that stitching is great ... I might get that on the Z too !
After all that is done the car will have the exhaust valves added to the new system that was fitted recently. I am currently trying to build my own control unit which will be connected via a wifi module (Arduino or Pi, haven't decided yet - Pi is easier as I have a lot of them floating around and they have wifi built in), which I want to connect to the exhaust valves. I will then build an Android app to send a signal to the valve and show me its current status (open/closed). I will probably implement a slider in the app so I can partially open it and close it. I was thinking about adding a mic module to the board too so I can get a very rough dB rating in real time
Need to look at the leaking roof next... I suspect it's rubbers need treatment of something blocked. Water drips come down in heavy rain if the car is stationary by the passenger footwell under the sun visor.
And finally the OEM wheels are getting the cracks repaired and then being refurbed. May put new rubber on them and/or sell them, haven't decided yet.
So that just about sums up my Z winter project - in the summer I'll start looking more into the engine.
The Doblo is getting a full service before I pick it up (every belt/cambelt/fluid) with the 180hp remap looking tempting
Also popping in a brodit clip for the phone and if it doesn't come with sensors (I didnt ask) i'll be retrofitting those with wireless cameras.
Wrap looks really good on the X5 
