Tailor made BMW

BMW 530d after crash test

If you want to drive a car that will turn heads, then you have to be ready to dress to impress. Not yourself, the car. This is exactly what BMW’s design team, lead by Chris Bangle, has achieved with BMW’s GINA roadster. This concept car ventures further than many petrol head’s imagination will ever go, so we might safely say that it will never see serial production. But we are sure that it will be very popular with car magazine editors.

The fabric that is used is water resistant and translucent, polyurethane coated Spandex. Spandex is well known for its durability and resistance to stretching even if exposed to either low or high temperatures. Actually, Spandex is used in a clothing industry under the different name, known as Lycra. So, most people who are interested in outdoor sports will know about it.

In the features department, GINA’s skin offers some surprises. It is not simply a roadster that is covered by fabric, it is a car that can change shape as well, James Bond style. Although not yet on a level of the Transformers, but more in kind of semi-practical way. For example, fabric and frames around headlights form the shapes similar to eyelids. So when you turn the headlights on, hidden electrical and hydro-electrical actuators get into action until those ‘eyelids’ open. Another feature is, that depending on the speed, you can raise a rear wing, to get a more speed hungry look.

As well, doors are shaped like scissors and they literally roll up, as you open them. And fittingly enough, if you are possibly looking for any indicators or brake lights, they are only available in a hide-and-seek mode. That is to say, they are hidden under the fabric, which is translucent enough. Whatever was the design brief, but it looks very cool.

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BMW’s iDrive extends support for iPod

iDrive

The times when you had to depend on a few old cassette tapes to add to that feeling of freedom that fast driving gives you, had long gone. Now, your BMW is fully compatible with a panoply of indoor and outdoor portable entertainment systems, like iPod, iPhone, MP3 player and USB sticks. With a flick of few switches, you can choose amongst thousands of your favorite songs. The main advantage of this system is that they have a very similar user interfaces it is really easy to transfer from one device to another.

Actually BMW is actively working on evolving the iDrive into ConnectedDrive technology, which is a type of a networked car intelligently integrated into the services available in the outside world, like GPS and Internet. What this means in relationship to iPhone and Ipad, is that one will be able to not just listen to the preselected music from these devices, but he will be able to download and exchange the software applications between the car and his mobile devices. Also, according to BMW’s US Technology Offices senior engineer Robert Passaro, we will not need to wait longer than 2011 to see these goodies in action. System is going to be completely upgradeable, so users will have a complete access to the latest features and applications.

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Testimonial: Alcuin Wilkie 16th November 2010

Having read a letter in ‘Straight Six’ (the bmw car club magazine) on the swirlflap disaster waiting to happen I got straight onto the internet and read the article on the PMW website – minutes later I had compared options for the cost of new blanking plugs and decided to go with PMW which were cheaper ( and anyway looked like they would be happy to provide technical advice). The following weekend I attacked the job which although straightforward was not just a matter of removing 16 bolts and a cross member (as the article suggested) and turned out to be a bit more complex. At the point I realised this a quick phone call to PMW and some words of expert advice from Peter Mould himself gave me the confidence and knowledge to complete the job.I just wish I lived near Chelmsford so I could take my car in there!

Alcuin Wilkie

Testimonial: Paul Thomson 10th November 2010

Many Thanks to you, Peter and other colleagues for your excellent service today.
Within a few days of discovering the potential horrors of the swirl flap issues you had
resolved it for me.
You discussed this and other issues with me in a professional, respectful and impartial manner
including some great tips.
I found your costs for swirl flap modification, service & MOT quite reasonable.
 
Lastly and perhaps most importantly, although this was my 1st visit to you, I felt that my car was in good hands.
 
I enjoyed my 2 hour drive home despite the traffic !!!!!!
 
Regards, Paul 

Ecotune What?

We are pleased to announce to our regular customers that we now have EcoTune software platform in our workshop. This ECU diagnostic and tuning solution enables us to bring your car to the new performance level, without compromising your car insurance or manufacturer’s warranty.

The way EcoTune works, every customer can choose his own optimized tuning, either for performance, economy or environmentally friendly basis. From our experience, it seems that everybody wants performance on the pedal first and then some economy second. We can certainly deliver most of our customer’s requests. The only caveat is that software can, nowadays, push hardware beyond its limits. This means, that in some cases, when customers want the highest possible performance, we would need to advise them to first get appropriate hardware updates. Otherwise, longevity of the vehicle can be seriously jeopardized.

Will EcoTune affect my motor insurance policy? To really give a proper answer to this question one would need to look into each case separately. But, in general this upgrade will enable safer overtaking and cleaner emissions. A good thing to know is that EcoTune is completely transparent to even main dealers and one could certainly say that insurance companies in the current economical climate will be hard pushed to refuse any applicant who implemented this modification. We certainly advise you to be completely open with your car insurance provider and provide them with all the information regarding EcoTune. At this point it needs to be said that large numbers of Local Councils and logistics companies are using vehicles with EcoTune.

Currently, we only can do EcoTune performance tuning on the vehicles that are brought in to our Chelmsford workshop, but in a future we plan to provide a mobile service at either your home or workplace.This type of work might take a few hours at most, as each car is different. Some cars can be accessed through diagnostic port, some need interaction with vehicle’s computer and others would even require replacing the chip inside ECU.

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