Snow Shoes

Well, one thing the Fiver is not well known for is its handling of snow. We have already had some, and a rear wheel drive car with a big engine up front and all season tires is not a good formula. Accordingly, I went in search of winter tires and found some aggressive looking firestones for the stock wheels. They look like they would be noisy and rough on dry roads, but they are neither. They do compromise the handling in turns, but that is to be expected. They performed very well in some slushy stuff when non-AWD vehicles were all abandoning the highway. Impressive so far, and a lot safer....

 

Routine Care

The Fiver is definitely one of those vehicles that is in a no-mans-land between vintage and modern. Now that it is a daily driver, I treat it like a modern car. That would normally mean that I don't tackle even routine maintenance like an oil change. Time wise, and financially, you cannot beat a $25 oil change on a car that needs 5 quarts of oil. However, as a vintage vehicle, I immediately bought some filters when I got the car. The change of both oil and air filter was very simple, and was needed on both fronts. Some small critter had found the airbox to be a nice home and had stocked up on small seeds. I may do something to help the car breathe a litlle better going forward, but for now a stock filter is back in place.

Commander Commuter

The Fiver has been converted into a daily driver, and it does about 400 miles per week in this fashion. It has been averaging just under 25 mpg, which is not bad but that of course is premium juice which has gotten quite spends once again. Other niggles include a trim panel on the driver side rear door where the glue dried out and it came loose. It is surprising how difficult it is to apply pressure to that particular spot so that the adhesive dries properly. That may have something to do with why it became loose in the first place. These are minor issues though as the car is an excellent mileage muncher.

New Contact Patches

Some things in life just belong together. Peanut Butter and Jelly, fish and water, BMWs and BBS wheels. It's just the natural order of things. When I saw some scuffed up BBS rims for sale cheap, I had to rescue them, and I had to put them on the fiver. After all, they came from a fiver and were the correct 15 inch variety. So this is the first noticeable departure from bone stock, but it could have come this way as an option, so i can claim continued authenticity. And besides, it just looks right....

 

Oh and by the way, the rubber was gone, so I finally used a tire rack gift certificate and got some new shoes. So now there is a set of stock rims with decent rubber ready to be pressed into service...

Turning 28

The trouble with owning a great cruiser like the fiver is that you want to take it on every long drive that presents itself. I had a long work trip and decided to take for a 400+ mile roundtrip. The trouble with a car this smooth is that you end up going faster than you think. The trouble with going fast is that you attract the attention of the constabulary. The other trouble with going fast in the fiver is that you burn vast amounts of premium gasoline. The difference in mileage between travelling at legal speeds and travelling at warp speed is CRAZY in this car. Like 100 miles less on a tankful crazy. I actually thought I had a gas leak. But the car sounds so good in the upper rev range, and it is dead stable at triple digits. What we need is some Autobahn around here. The trouble with that is I want to be the only one on it....

Oh, by the way, happy 28K !!

First Miles

Finally, the weather and work, and a host of other things were aligned and I could take the Fiver out for some miles. I ended up driving it to work, which is a 150 mile roundtrip of almost all highway driving. A typical workday this time of year starts in the dark and ends in the dark, so you get to exercise the lighting system. It is also rather chilly, so you get to exercise the heating system. It was the dawn of a beautiful if cold day, so to begin the test, I fully opened the sunroof, and turned up the heat. The last sunroof car that I had was another BMW, a 320i (see moonbathing). It was a nice sensation to have the roof open in the dark. The heat more than compensated for the cool air.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the car was new-car flawless. The only dissapointment was that it seems rather thirsty. According to the onboard computer, it averaged 23.8 MPG for the trip. Pretty low for highway mileage, so I checked the specs and the forums. The EPA highway number was 25mpg, so it is not far off the mark given my heavy right foot. In the forums, real world mileage is frequently cited as in the teens, so I guess I should be pleased !! The mileage however, does not tell you anything about the experience. The car is smooth and quiet, and you have to pay attention to the speedo or you will get into license-confiscation territory very quickly.  

The Sunliner Crisis

When there is almost nothing wrong with a car, you have to make the most out of minor issues. In this case I thought of the National Enquirer style title for this post to describe the smallest os issues on the 525i. The headliner material around the edge of the sunroof was wrinkled !! (cue the dramatic cliffhanger music). It was wrinkled because some of the adhesive around the front edge had dried up over time, and allowed some material to pull loose. Holy glue gun Batman, what are we going to do !!

It turns out the quite a bit more was about to come loose. It was all easily solved with some 3M spray adhesive, a little clamping, and some patience. 20 minutes tops. Boy, that was a disaster waiting to happen. Is there no end to the work needed on this jalopy? ;-)