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Simply fantastic product and fantastic people. I had been suffering from white exhaust smoke and burning oil. I came across lots of symptoms on forums and came across the dreaded swirl flap issue. Needless to say I was very concerned and got in touch with PMW. There help, advice and expertise was invaluble.
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Although the venerable BMW’s X1, X3 and X5 have been introduced back in 1999, and as a models are now about 11 years old, we are not talking about birthday by age. In a car industry where fashions came and go every year, nobody wants to be reminded for how long their model was in the market. We are talking here about a mark that makes BMW much more proud. BMW’s line of luxury SUVs had passed the million production units.
It is certainly amazing as it is, to sell, for example one million iPhones, or even one million T-shirts. BMW’s X1, X3 and X5 line of SUV vehicles is manufactured in BMW’s US factory based in Spartanburg, South Carolina. When it was first introduced X5 was considered as one of the best off-roaders with distinct on road handling and performance equal to that of a normal car. X5 as well, more belonged to a refined second generation of Sport Activity Vehicles, after the Range Rover and Toyota’s RAV 4.
When BMW owned Land Rover it borrowed heavily on the British 4×4 expertize. Unfortunate as it was, Land Rover was passed around different car manufacturers, first to Ford, than to Tata. But BMW built strongly on this expertize and created several models, like smaller X1 or midsized X3. BMW X5 was conceived as a luxury crossover SUV. It shares several components with Range Rover HSE, like Hill Descent System and Off Road Engine Management system. Last year a new trend was born with smaller SUVs to offer them in both 2 wheel and 4 wheel drive version. This offer quite makes sense, since great number of drivers never take their car off road, but still want to enjoy higher driving position.
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Simply fantastic product and fantastic people. I had been suffering from white exhaust smoke and burning oil. I came across lots of symptoms on forums and came across the dreaded swirl flap issue. Needless to say I was very concerned and got in touch with PMW. There help, advice and expertise was invaluble.
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BMW swirl flaps, burning oil, PMW, swirl flaps, white exaust smoke
Hi Peter
Thanks very much I received the swirl flap blank plates for my car and installed them J
All is 100% and at least I have piece of mind now
Kind Regards
Ivor
bmw blanking plates, BMW swirl flaps, faulty turbo, swirlflaps
Peter & Dan. You had my 330d Sport Touring for fluid changes etc. Thanks for the heads up on the power increase after the vacuum hoses were changed. Wow. What a different. I got down to the A12 taking care as I went. Booted it off the light on the “on ramp” and it went like a bloody rocket. Brilliant. See what happens to my fuel economy now!
Thanks again chaps. Good job.
Laurence
Hi Guys,
Thank you so much for the advice and service received today, the swirl flap mod and new filters have made the car feel like it was when I first collected from showroom.
I will certainly not hesitate to circulate your name amongst my friends and family as good “Old Fashioned Service type organisation backed by expert knowledge and state of the art equipment. Thanks again, see you at next service time
Barry Rutherford
With the arrival of the summer time, even on the British isles, there are more and more sunny days, when sunshine and wind are just begging for a roof to go down. That is the time when we start turning our heads, with a bit of envy, after those convertibles on the motorway or in the city.
BMW certainly has a few models in the convertible format that will turn more than few heads around. The BMW M3 line of models had recently received one such beauty, BMW M3 Convertible. The BMW M3 Convertible made its debut at New York International Car Show. This convertible extends a long list of continuously improved high-performance sports cars, like coupe and sedan. M3 Convertible shares 414 horsepower V8 engine and computer balanced chassis that is “faster than its engine”. The new car features dynamically controlled settings for engine response, steering, damping and stability. More or less one will be able to to setup his BMW from a computer screen, like one would do with iPod or iPhone. The main car settings are available from ‘M-Drive’ button on the steering wheel, while navigation and entertainment system is set up with iDrive controller.
The original M3 series was kicked into existence back in 1986, when BMW needed a new road-going racing car for the German Touring Car Championship. Cars success ensured its popularity with public and a strong sales that resulted. Since than BMW continued to evolve the car M3 series and what we have today is a third generation of the development.
At its heart BMW M3 Convertible is lightweight, efficient car that is a great joy to drive.
I you wanted to drive something elegant like Porsche or Ferrari, you would naturally expect to pay premium for all kinds of parts and services. But in spite of that, would you expect a bill for £7,000 after just a car wash? Most likely you wouldn’t, but the kind of car wash that Mr Gurcharn Sahota does, is by no means ordinary one. For starters, you will need to part with your favorite possession for at least four weeks. And what is involved is not just standard splash with hot jet of steam and some bubbly foam. Mr Sahota uses special pH neutral shampoo and citrus degreaser, which is more or less an orange extract. When you realize that your supercar will be washed with orange juice, you will start understanding why the price is so steep.
Furthermore, every stage of the process requires water that is warmed to a different temperature, from 40 to 140C. And the set of tools are very close to what NASA engineers will be proud of having. Super strong hear dryer is just for starters, as it will be followed by electronic scanner, connected to a laptop, that will scan the paintwork down to 1/1000th of an inch. Scanner’s software than creates a detailed map of the paint-work’s topography and when Mr Sahota finally reaches for a super fine sand paper, he will be looking at removing just 3/1000th of an inch of paint.
And consumables that are involved, are nothing to sneeze at. In order to cover dents and scratches a special brand of natural wax, imported from Brazil at a cost of £8,000 per tin is used.
So, you must ask yourself, having in mind a steep price of his services, how Mr Sahota ever gets any business? As a mater of fact Mr Sahota’s workshop is always full and his team is really busy one. If an owner of a supercar wants to sell his it, and there are few dings and dents on the bodywork, he would be looking at a £100,000 bill for respraying. Instead he can live the car in the Mr Sahota’s workshop and few weeks later, for a fraction of the cost of respraying, he can his car back in a state that is actually possibly better than when it was new, right out of the factory. That is the secret of Mr Sahota’s business success.
There is a wisdom in buying a second hand car, that in its own day was a class leader. Solidly built cars like BMWs, Audis and Volvos have engines that were very well made and can easily do more than 200,000 miles. So, buying a luxurious car that had only one ‘careful’ owner and possibly had spent most of its mileage on the motorway, in the 4th gear, is quite sensible idea.
Lets, for example, have a look into 5-Series BMW E39, that came to the market 14 years ago and, at that time, was seriously praised and wanted car. Although the whole series was replaced in 2003, with a new models, it is still mighty good looker with lots of space in the cabin, large boot and hefty 400 bhp. It boasts particularly good acceleration in a mid speed range, which is just lending itself for cruising and overtaking on the motorway.
So how does economics stuck up? Nowadays, for about £2,500 you can get any 1997 O-reg 520i with a shade over 100,000 miles to its clock. If you want to spend £4,000, you can have a good choice of lower spec high-milers. A 2000 U-reg 530d diesel is more, with a sub-100,000 car closer to £7,000. Certain specs demand higher price like SE or Sport specs. Expect to pay extra £1,000 for estates.
If you really have bias towards buying this kind of a secondhand car, than you might look into what is available in a £10,000 to £15,000 price bracket. There you can choose some 02 and 03-platers that are still in a very good nick. Low-mileage 530i and 540i saloons and estates, or the 525d and 530d four-door can cost around £17,000. Expect to pay extra £5,000 for M5.
Running costs
BMW 5-Series are truly modern cars and they have a light built into the dashboard that alerts you about the need for service. Manufacturer recommends three types of service: regular oil service, inspection level one and inspection level two. Those inspection are usually spaced out at 10,000 miles or once a year. At a time of writing, inspections costs were like this: £220 for oil service, £300 for inspection level I and £400 for inspection level II.
But these are main dealer prices, if you bring your car to PMW Ltd. for servicing, we ca give you up to 50% discount on servicing, compared to main dealer prices.
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Many times when US takes a lead, old Europe jumps on the bandwagon, just to prove it is still kicking about. We finally have a match for Tesla Motor’s Roadster and it comes from Mercedes stable, in a form of gull-winged SLS AMG E-Cell. SLS AMG E-Cell has a very similar performance to that of company’s 6.3 liter V8 engine model. E-Cell will go from 0 to 100 km/h in just 4.0 sec, falling behind only 0.2 sec in comparison with the petrol model. Definitely, environmentally friendly petrol heads will face a very few regrets.
One can only say that electric cars can do much better than that, since this performance is a whopping 0.3 sec behind Tesla’s Roadster, which can reach 60 mph in 3.7 secs. And at that, Tesla’s Roadster is production car, not just a prototype.
Other E-Cell’s numbers stuck up quite impressively: 526 bhp and 649 lb ft torque. Taking a huge 6.2 liter V8 out and replacing it with electric motors, built into each axle, enabled Mercedes’ engineers to improve aerodynamics by changing rear diffuser and front splitter. Those improvements resulted in a greater down force. E-Cell is powered by the same technology as laptop, or a toy RC helicopter: the now ubiquitous lithium polymer batteries. Those batteries are located under the floor, helping with a lower center of gravity. Lithium polymer batteries need a bit of additional weight of integrated cooling system.
This impressive car will be on sale in 2013. No indications of price had yet been disclosed.
Yet to be confirmed by our own sources, apparently the recently unveiled BMW Gran Coupe will go into production in the second quarter of 2012 and will carry the 6 Series badge. The information comes from the UK magazine Autocar citing a BMW source.
The new concept from BMW is built on the ‘backbone’ platform that underpins the current 5-series, 7-series and 5 GT. Design wise, despite having an unique look, the BMW Gran Coupe takes some design cues from the now defunct CS Concept, the beautiful four door sporty car that was unveiled in 2008 at another Chinese motor show, Shanghai Auto Show, and canceled two years later when BMW decided to pursue their EfficientDynamics plans.
Article continues over at BMW blog online
