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…and saved about $200. This should clear up the ‘Service Engine Soon’ light problem I described earlier.

The process was pretty easy requiring a modest technical skill set and tools. I think most people can handle it. The real tricky part is threading the wire around the engine compartment but the help of a spouse or stick should be enough to complete the job.

Follow the instructions here at e46fanatics.com.  They’re priceless.

The result is the car’s much more responsive and fun to drive again.

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Shortly after buying my E46 BMW 330i I called around pricing oil changes. Wow. Everyone wanted between $80 and $120 for something I usually pay $30 - $40 for. Turns out, these machines require synthetic oil that runs at least $5 a quart, and it needs six of them. Tack on a $15 (retail) filter and labor and you’re up to at least $80.

For me, it was back to home oil changes. Luckily, bimmerparts.com has filters for less then $10 each so I buy three at a time and I buy the mandatory Castrol 5w-30 Syntec oil when it goes on sale. But that still leaves spending and afternoon jacking up the car and crawling underneath it ( a good time when you’re a teenager, but not later in life,) hoping you don’t strip the oil plug, spilling oil all over, etc.

While up on bimmerforums.com I heard people chatting about the Pela PL-650 oil extractor. I checked around and found a reasonably priced model at Yachtsee.com. I paid with PayPal and it arrived in a couple days.

The Pela PL-650:

The parts that come with it, the extractor, one base tube and two extension tubes of differing widths:

The pouring spout:

The pressure release valve:

It’s a simple but effective device with good build quality. To start, drive the car around so the oil heats up a bit. Stop and let the oil drip back into the sump. Open the filter housing and toss out the filter. Then simply attach the base hose of the Pela PL-650 to its tank and the narrow tube extension to the base and insert the narrow tube into the oil dip stick pipe. Pump the handle about five times and wait about fifteen minutes for it to extract all the oil.

When complete, disassemble and easily tip the unit over and pour the old oil out the spout into old milk containers.

It’s very effective. Typically I can go through the whole process without spilling a drop. The car requires six quarts of oil and when I have that in the sump, the Pela will get it all out. Best of all, I never have to crawl under the car or risk damaging the oil plug.

If you own and E46 BMW and change your own oil, I highly recommend one of these devices.

PS: Be sure to get the Pela PL-650. The others won’t extract the entire sump in one go. You’ll have to stop and re-start the extractions with the smaller models.

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So the 2001 330i’s been a great car to date, even at over 100,000 miles, and at the rate it’s going I suspect it’ll go another 150k. That’s the goal anyway. Unfortunately, I’ve had a couple very intermittent idle stalls, say once a month, and last week two in a row that turned on my “service engine soon” light.

I thought it’d be great to get an engine code scanner and find out what the issue is myself, but after reading a bunch of articles, it wasn’t clear which one I should get. Apparantely, there is a standard code system called OBC-II that all the manufactuers support to one degree or another. BMW fully supports the spec, but then adds a ton of proprietary codes that they keep to themselves and as one guy said, “only lets the dealers see them on Christmas.”

Surfing around shows a lot of standard products, many of them claiming to decipher the elusive BMW codes. The most promising products are the Peake Research R5/FCX-3 and the AutoEnginuity Scan Tool. The Peake Reaearch product seemed a bit pedestrian but claimed to only support BMW automobiles, a good and bad thing. It only cost around $150 so it suited my needs a bit better than the seemingly full featured AutoEnginuity product for close to $500.

Peake sells their product online but want $150 and $8 to ship via the slow boat out of Guatemalla. I found EuroSportDesign but they came across as a bit too slick. Luckily, they have an eBay presence and sold the unit for $138 with fast shipping for $3. I can pay via PayPal. Sold!

The unit arrived in three days:

The contents: tool, case, and manual. The phone is there for a size reference. The R5/FCX-3 was smaller than I expected, simple, but adaquate construction. The manual was simply a photocopy.

The front:

The connector:

Installation was beyond trival: Turn on the car, then under the driver side dash is a panel. Flip it open and plug in the R5/FCX-3. You’ll quickly get this message meaning you’re ready to go:

Press ‘Go.’ Thinking a bit:

19 is the code page. Press ‘GO.’

76! Let’s see, that the throttle position sensor is amiss. Press ‘Go’ again:

41! Hmm, need a new intake camshaft position sensor. Press ‘Go’ again:

CC! Something’s hosed with the idle control. Press ‘Go’ again:

All done!

Was is worth it? Probably, if I use it twice it should more than pay for itself compared to dealer diagnostic rates. The nice thing about it is the size is small enough to keep in the car for freeway side diagnostics. Now it’s off to bimmerparts.com for new parts! Look forward to posts about replacing the above parts

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Note: These events occurred some time ago…

So the whole family’s on the way to sign refinance papers in two cars so I can go back to work after we’re done. I hop in the BMW and out the garage. About 1/2 a block out, things don’t feel right. Two blocks out I feel something’s very wrong, like I’m missing teeth on the differential or something. I pull over and the passenger rear tire’s out. Bad news. Luckily, the wife, kids, and truck are only around the corner so I call them on the cell and they come back to get me.

This should be interesting as I haven’t changed a tire in a long time. Luckily, BMW makes it easy an painless to recover from these eventualities, you see, BMW’s sport a full size spare (sometimes on a premium wheel, like mine.) The shop lift I have in the garage won’t fit under the low slung 330i sport so I use the funny looking contraption jack that came with the car. It worked much better than I expected and had the tire changed in about seven minutes. Needless to say, the kids were very impressed.

A quick inspection revealed the problem, a huge screw in the middle of the tire. Much like this one:

I took it to the dealer and they couldn’t fix it because I’d damaged the side wall during my two blocks of driving, and the tread was too thin. WHAT! I’ve had these Pirellis for about 25,000 miles, they can’t be bad already!

There’s nothing I can do. The dealer won’t fix them and I need the car in top shape. So I head back to tirerack…

If these sport tires are only going to last 25,000 miles I’m getting something cheap. Good thing ’cause the same Pirelli’s are now $50 more, each, and out of stock.

That’s when I found General Tire. I don’t know anything about them, I don’t care. I just need cheap sport tires. So I picked a couple of these General Tire Exclaim UHPs for the rear of the BMW:

…Tire Rack got them to me a day early for less than $100 each. Good deal. Got them to the dealer and had them swapped out for another $100.

Brand new they they tracked (squirmed) around the road funny, but 4000 miles later they’ve settled down and feel like the Pirellis.

I didn’t change the front’s as they still had good tread on them, probably a total 50,000 miles worth. But when they go, I’ll probably get a couple more Exclaims.

Here’s how they look on the car:

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The tires on the BMW wore out so I headed up to tirerack.com to see what the current offerings were.

The requirements were a cool brand, reasonable cost, 40K lifetime and some hope of grip in the snow.

It didn’t take long to land on the Pirelli P Zeros M+S. Ordering a set was painless from tirerack and they arrived on time. The local BMW dealer installed them for me.

What’s fun about owning a performance automobile is that you can instantly detect any change to the suspension. That was definetely true with these new tires. The old Yokohamas were stiff, sticky, and tramlined all over the place. I didn’t take long to learn what lanes of various freeways to stay out of. You’d swerve all over the place like a drunk with them The new Pirelli’s were great. They felt like a new pair of comfortable sneakers. There was no tramlining to speak of and were somewhat quieter than the old tires.

I did get some time in the snow with them and on a 330i sport with traction control, they’re worthless. Telecommute when it snows and you own these tires. I couldn’t even get up a modest lift in the road. It was a total disaster…

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I’m trying out the Zaino car wax system on the BMW and Denali. Neither had been waxed in years and I wanted a good system that would cover up my neglect and minimize the frequency of application. Per all the enthusiast sites, Zanio seemed the way to go. I picked up the starter kit and started with the BMW as it’s smaller and has a more forgiving color (light blue vs black on the Yukon.)

I started with the dawn wash then went into the clay bar. That clay bar makes the whole system worth it. It’s amazing. Even after a good wash, you can feel the bar take off another layer of crud. After cleaning half the hood, the bar’s surface was black with dirt. The bar was destroyed by at the end of the job.

I then applied Z2 Pro, buffed, then Z6. The car looks really good, but the final judgement will be in it longevity…

I just (an hour ago) finished washing, clay baring, and washing again the Yukon and it looks great. Those steps on a full size SUV took exactly three hours. Tommorow I’ll wax with Z5 to hide the swirls on the black paint, then Z6, then Z2, finally Z6. Stay tuned for pictures.

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Picked up some new Pirelli PZero M+S tires for the BMW this week. They replaced the Yokohama AVS Sport tires that were on the car. I can’t give much of a review now as I have about 200 miles on them, but the difference is remarkable. They’re quiet and smooth and I suspect I haven’t lost much dry traction. The important thing is that I can get home if it snows.

The Yokohama’s transferred every bump back to the car and made a modest bit of noise. These tires are like wearing a new pair of tennis shoes.

I also got an alignment and brake flush. I have to replace the front control arm bushings and accessory drive belt, so stay tuned for how that goes.

(Read the article)

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