Evening all,
Just wanted to add a thread to share my experience with the MCoupé. I’ve owned it now since January 2014 and I’m still in love with it. I bought it at low mileage – 22,500 miles when I got it – and over the last two years the mileage has been creeping up as I’ve used it. It’s my only car and it is driven occasionally during the week (like maybe once per month) but the majority of the time it is a weekend car. I love driving it out into the Dales, further afield on Forum meets (must’ve done 5 or 6 in the last year including the English/Welsh meet 2015 and a trip to play with the Newcastle folk in October, a few Yorkshire breakfast meets thrown in along the way), down to Southampton to see my family a few times a year and occasionally to the local Tesco for food and fuel. Fairly standard usage for an only car I’d guess.
I organised the Inspection 2 service last month. It took some deliberation to work out who I wanted to do the work and cross-referencing that against price, standards, distance away from home and ability to do the work – I’d been looking into it since November time. I eventually settled on getting the work done at Redish in Bristol, so I organised to stay over with a mate in Bath and had the car in with James for it’s work. I decided to change the engine mounts to Vibratechnics whilst the engine was being looked at and also to go with a VANOS uprating/rebuild using Beisan Systems parts imported from the US. I never really had many doubts about the VANOS (i.e. it wasn’t rattly, leaking, down on power, throwing fault codes) but having had an E36 M3 previously, it was just for total peace of mind that I wasn’t going to have serious (and expensive) engine problems if the worst happened.
The work took 2 days and I’m very pleased to have had it done. The mileage counter shows something like 15k miles to the next service (Insp1) although I’ll do another oil change early in 2017 if I still have the car at that time. I don’t mind the expense of doing the Insp2 if I’m fairly sure I’m going to keep it – it’s a bit of a waste if you’re not going to keep it in my view and it gets used against a seller from a price perspective in any event if it is looming, so you could say it is false economy not to do it when it is needed, rather than eeking out those last few miles. My mate swallowed pretty hard when he knew the amount spent but the way I look at it is that it’s a bit of preventative maintenance and should not need repeating for something like 4 to 5 years according to the mileage I do in it.
James at Redish was quite complimentary about the car – he sees a few of these along with all of the other M cars and some “normal” BMWs he deals with – in fact that was a grey MCoupé dropped off there when I went to pick mine up, hiding in and amongst a host of M3s (a few older and neglected convertible E36s), a few E46s, 2 E39 M5s and a E60 M5. Whilst I have no proper affiliation with Redish, I really came away with the impression that he cares about these cars. I couldn’t fault his work at all and he is clearly much more clued-up about the S54 than my local independent garage I regularly use. As other have already done on this Forum, I have the photo record of everything he carried out, loads of paperwork to show in detail what was done, a list of some advisory matters that I might like to look into as general maintenance matters - to be honest it reads like a list of what to do in order to make the car precisely as it was when it left the factory, which is a bit much for me! That being said, a few items are certainly worth doing so I've got a few jobs to keep me busy. James has an extremely high standard of cleanliness which really appeals. In a word, I’d describe his level of attention as forensic. In the end, because I dropped the need for an MOT test on him at short notice, he stayed around in the garage until 8pm on day 2 and at no stage did I feel I’d outstayed my welcome – customer service is a strong point at Redish. I know I'm paying for that but this isn't the only garage I've been to, so a comparison is possible (and favourable to Redish). He showed me all of the parts before fitting, how long each part would take and in which order they’d all be done. I was also extremely pleased that James was able to identify two performance upgrades that were fitted to the car without me even knowing it!
I don’t think there’s a great need to post up pics, mostly because they’re of engine internals which can already be found on this Forum. If you’re considering doing an Insp2, definitely consider using Redish, although of course there are others who must be just as competent and perhaps nearer to wherever you are all based. Having said that, I don’t mind posting up a few if there is a desire for that. Or PM me if you prefer. The total of the work came to about £2,200 inc VAT give or take. It is partly an investment in the car as I see it.
So, I’ve updated my servicing and historical records relating to this car to reflect what I’ve had done to it, which will all be ready for the next owner, if and when. I did mention on another thread quite a long time ago that I’d been undertaking a similarly forensic exercise of piecing together the car’s history and I’m happy with the level of detail I now have recorded. The service history was not a massive pack of paper when I bought it but it looks significantly better and is more thorough now – but I suppose that’s a feature of the fact that it was under warranty for quite a while and the real looking after a car comes when it gets a little older and either work needs doing or parts need replacing. The previous owner did a reasonable job of keeping records but the first three owners don’t seem to have passed the paperwork along.
Car is now just shy of 35,000 miles and ready for battle. I'm pretty sure I'll acquire an Eventuri air intake in the near future and the BCS back boxes are another likely addition but later in the year. The only question in this piece is whether you would recommend a remap if/after those two mods are done? I don't think I'd do it just for the filter myself. The car could now do with some detailing, which I'll be on with when the weather improves a little. The car has a bit of a hard life sitting permanently outdoors so it does need regular detailing but I quite like doing it although I do struggle for time a bit too often. It doesn't have a hard life on the road, however - I reset the second mileage/mpg counter last year (I should've done it when I bought it - so I've missed out on over 12 months data but I know it's not very different from what I've recorded) and its shows 28mpg on average over the last 9 months. I get about 31 on a motorway cruise and rarely use it in an urban setting for any length of time. BMW say something like 15mpg in an urban context! Also, the tyre tread depths, measured at Redish, show average of 6.9mm at the front and 5.9mm at the rear - I put new boots on it in July 2014! I'm probably not using it as it was meant!
Thanks for reading.
Stevo
Just wanted to add a thread to share my experience with the MCoupé. I’ve owned it now since January 2014 and I’m still in love with it. I bought it at low mileage – 22,500 miles when I got it – and over the last two years the mileage has been creeping up as I’ve used it. It’s my only car and it is driven occasionally during the week (like maybe once per month) but the majority of the time it is a weekend car. I love driving it out into the Dales, further afield on Forum meets (must’ve done 5 or 6 in the last year including the English/Welsh meet 2015 and a trip to play with the Newcastle folk in October, a few Yorkshire breakfast meets thrown in along the way), down to Southampton to see my family a few times a year and occasionally to the local Tesco for food and fuel. Fairly standard usage for an only car I’d guess.
I organised the Inspection 2 service last month. It took some deliberation to work out who I wanted to do the work and cross-referencing that against price, standards, distance away from home and ability to do the work – I’d been looking into it since November time. I eventually settled on getting the work done at Redish in Bristol, so I organised to stay over with a mate in Bath and had the car in with James for it’s work. I decided to change the engine mounts to Vibratechnics whilst the engine was being looked at and also to go with a VANOS uprating/rebuild using Beisan Systems parts imported from the US. I never really had many doubts about the VANOS (i.e. it wasn’t rattly, leaking, down on power, throwing fault codes) but having had an E36 M3 previously, it was just for total peace of mind that I wasn’t going to have serious (and expensive) engine problems if the worst happened.
The work took 2 days and I’m very pleased to have had it done. The mileage counter shows something like 15k miles to the next service (Insp1) although I’ll do another oil change early in 2017 if I still have the car at that time. I don’t mind the expense of doing the Insp2 if I’m fairly sure I’m going to keep it – it’s a bit of a waste if you’re not going to keep it in my view and it gets used against a seller from a price perspective in any event if it is looming, so you could say it is false economy not to do it when it is needed, rather than eeking out those last few miles. My mate swallowed pretty hard when he knew the amount spent but the way I look at it is that it’s a bit of preventative maintenance and should not need repeating for something like 4 to 5 years according to the mileage I do in it.
James at Redish was quite complimentary about the car – he sees a few of these along with all of the other M cars and some “normal” BMWs he deals with – in fact that was a grey MCoupé dropped off there when I went to pick mine up, hiding in and amongst a host of M3s (a few older and neglected convertible E36s), a few E46s, 2 E39 M5s and a E60 M5. Whilst I have no proper affiliation with Redish, I really came away with the impression that he cares about these cars. I couldn’t fault his work at all and he is clearly much more clued-up about the S54 than my local independent garage I regularly use. As other have already done on this Forum, I have the photo record of everything he carried out, loads of paperwork to show in detail what was done, a list of some advisory matters that I might like to look into as general maintenance matters - to be honest it reads like a list of what to do in order to make the car precisely as it was when it left the factory, which is a bit much for me! That being said, a few items are certainly worth doing so I've got a few jobs to keep me busy. James has an extremely high standard of cleanliness which really appeals. In a word, I’d describe his level of attention as forensic. In the end, because I dropped the need for an MOT test on him at short notice, he stayed around in the garage until 8pm on day 2 and at no stage did I feel I’d outstayed my welcome – customer service is a strong point at Redish. I know I'm paying for that but this isn't the only garage I've been to, so a comparison is possible (and favourable to Redish). He showed me all of the parts before fitting, how long each part would take and in which order they’d all be done. I was also extremely pleased that James was able to identify two performance upgrades that were fitted to the car without me even knowing it!
I don’t think there’s a great need to post up pics, mostly because they’re of engine internals which can already be found on this Forum. If you’re considering doing an Insp2, definitely consider using Redish, although of course there are others who must be just as competent and perhaps nearer to wherever you are all based. Having said that, I don’t mind posting up a few if there is a desire for that. Or PM me if you prefer. The total of the work came to about £2,200 inc VAT give or take. It is partly an investment in the car as I see it.
So, I’ve updated my servicing and historical records relating to this car to reflect what I’ve had done to it, which will all be ready for the next owner, if and when. I did mention on another thread quite a long time ago that I’d been undertaking a similarly forensic exercise of piecing together the car’s history and I’m happy with the level of detail I now have recorded. The service history was not a massive pack of paper when I bought it but it looks significantly better and is more thorough now – but I suppose that’s a feature of the fact that it was under warranty for quite a while and the real looking after a car comes when it gets a little older and either work needs doing or parts need replacing. The previous owner did a reasonable job of keeping records but the first three owners don’t seem to have passed the paperwork along.
Car is now just shy of 35,000 miles and ready for battle. I'm pretty sure I'll acquire an Eventuri air intake in the near future and the BCS back boxes are another likely addition but later in the year. The only question in this piece is whether you would recommend a remap if/after those two mods are done? I don't think I'd do it just for the filter myself. The car could now do with some detailing, which I'll be on with when the weather improves a little. The car has a bit of a hard life sitting permanently outdoors so it does need regular detailing but I quite like doing it although I do struggle for time a bit too often. It doesn't have a hard life on the road, however - I reset the second mileage/mpg counter last year (I should've done it when I bought it - so I've missed out on over 12 months data but I know it's not very different from what I've recorded) and its shows 28mpg on average over the last 9 months. I get about 31 on a motorway cruise and rarely use it in an urban setting for any length of time. BMW say something like 15mpg in an urban context! Also, the tyre tread depths, measured at Redish, show average of 6.9mm at the front and 5.9mm at the rear - I put new boots on it in July 2014! I'm probably not using it as it was meant!
Thanks for reading.
Stevo
)
Great choice on the vanos if little early to do such work imo, but..... nothing wrong with preventative pieces.