According to Plutarch, when Theseus returned from his adventures in Crete, his ship was docked in the harbour in Athens, maintained as seaworthy, and used each year for centuries thereafter in tribute to Theseus and the god Apollo.
Being wooden and sat in the sea, it rotted, and the Athenians diligently replaced the various timbers as required to keep the ship in eh... ship shape: "for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place".
This gave rise to the philosophical question: If, over the centuries of repair, every part had been replaced, was it still the original ship of Theseus?
And thus do I ponder the same question of my Z4...
It's a 35is, bought in November last year with 30,000 miles on the clock.
In the intervening period I've driven a little less than 4000 miles, and it's had the following issues:
Water ingress via the rear light cluster - cluster replaced
Malfunctioning roof mechanism - microswitch replaced
Buckled wheel - new wheel please
Delaminating windscreen - windscreen replaced
Shortly after I got it back with the new windscreen, I noticed the SatNav was wonky. It was showing my location as variously in the North Sea heading towards Esbjerg, circling aimlessly off the Isle of Man, and heading northwards somewhere south east of Iceland, amongst other exotic locations. Who knew a Z4 was seaworthy?
I figured it was probably something to do with the sensor unit that was replaced with the new windscreen, and since I don't use the satnav much, decided to get it sorted next time the car was needing a service.
I noticed recently an oily stain on the drive, and checking out, found that the OSF shock absorber was leaking. Bummer.
So back along I went to the local BMW dealer. They checked the car as usual and found the nearside front shocker was goosed too.
They diagnosed the satnav issue as being the GPS antenna, replaced that, but it didn't sort the problem. So they've now replaced the iDrive head unit to fix the fault.
Two new shockers and a new CIC unit later and the car's back on the road, but I'm starting to wonder, with such a chronic list of problems in such a short period of time, how much longer I'll need to keep the car before, just like the ship of Theseus, virtually everything has been replaced.
Given the Retail price of the repairs to date is around 33% of the cost of the car, my guess is, with 5 months remaining on the AUC warranty, I won't keep the car long enough to find out!
Being wooden and sat in the sea, it rotted, and the Athenians diligently replaced the various timbers as required to keep the ship in eh... ship shape: "for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place".
This gave rise to the philosophical question: If, over the centuries of repair, every part had been replaced, was it still the original ship of Theseus?
And thus do I ponder the same question of my Z4...
It's a 35is, bought in November last year with 30,000 miles on the clock.
In the intervening period I've driven a little less than 4000 miles, and it's had the following issues:
Water ingress via the rear light cluster - cluster replaced
Malfunctioning roof mechanism - microswitch replaced
Buckled wheel - new wheel please
Delaminating windscreen - windscreen replaced
Shortly after I got it back with the new windscreen, I noticed the SatNav was wonky. It was showing my location as variously in the North Sea heading towards Esbjerg, circling aimlessly off the Isle of Man, and heading northwards somewhere south east of Iceland, amongst other exotic locations. Who knew a Z4 was seaworthy?
I figured it was probably something to do with the sensor unit that was replaced with the new windscreen, and since I don't use the satnav much, decided to get it sorted next time the car was needing a service.
I noticed recently an oily stain on the drive, and checking out, found that the OSF shock absorber was leaking. Bummer.
So back along I went to the local BMW dealer. They checked the car as usual and found the nearside front shocker was goosed too.
They diagnosed the satnav issue as being the GPS antenna, replaced that, but it didn't sort the problem. So they've now replaced the iDrive head unit to fix the fault.
Two new shockers and a new CIC unit later and the car's back on the road, but I'm starting to wonder, with such a chronic list of problems in such a short period of time, how much longer I'll need to keep the car before, just like the ship of Theseus, virtually everything has been replaced.
Given the Retail price of the repairs to date is around 33% of the cost of the car, my guess is, with 5 months remaining on the AUC warranty, I won't keep the car long enough to find out!
