BMW: One Week In

After one week, the BMW has seen a number of updates and a few more are on the way.

All clean, sitting at home.

Starting with the free items, the hood bra was falling apart and made it's way into the trash before the whole exterior got a wash. The wind deflector for the sunroof was a factory accessory and I'm sure helps with a little wind while the sunroof is open, but it was cramping my style, so I easily unbolted it from the roof (also to help better clean the roof).

Shot of the cleaned up interior.

The interior benefited from a vacuum and almost a full bottle of leather cleaner.  The back of the driver seat was put back in place and I cleaned out a few odds and ends left by the previous owner. If you find yourself cleaning really grungy old plastic inside a car, I can now recommend the Magic Eraser sponge. It worked great!

45 minute wait to check out at LKQ on the 4th of July.

Thanks to a tip-off by Kyle, the LKQ junkyard in Greenville just dumped an '88 BMW 5 series on their lot on Wednesday, and being 4th of July, they offered 40% off! I snagged a replacement set of side mirrors (the passenger side did not come with the glass mirror), weather strips for all four doors (the ones in there were extremely rough and falling down), as well as a 10 disc CD changer to replace some parts missing from the one in the car now. The line to check out was huge, but I snagged a bunch of needed parts for $58, when new replacement parts online would cost over $1000!

One ex-CD changer.

Saturday, Luke used his electrical engineer wizardry to diagnose a failed starter.  Sunday, I spent most of the day replacing the starter, but I got it all sorted out and it fires up every time now! At only $66, it was a pretty affordable fix to do at home. I did get a shot of the new cheapo shift knob to replace the one that had broken and could easily be pulled off while making a quick shift.

The Sony unit in the junkyard car looked similar to the one in mine, so I took a chance and it paid off. I replaced the broken cover and now have a 10 disc holder so I can actually use the CD player! $10!

If all that isn't enough, I've noticed the driveshaft's center support bearing seems to be going bad and the rear end of the car is sitting a couple inches lower than the front, so a new bearing and some rear shocks are on order to remedy those issues. The odometer and trip counter stopped counting at some point in it's history, which I've found is a common issue with these cars, so for $17 there's a kit with new gears to get it ticking again. Hey, maybe we can hit 400,000!

The new shift knob that stays with the shifter!

All of that should get the car back to solid mechanical shape, but I'll see what else pops up and keep making small updates as it goes.

E28

Today the NMS South fleet adds a Bavarian classic. I just got a great deal on a 1986 BMW 528e that I couldn't pass up. For those not in the inner BMW circles, most of their cars are most identified by the chassis designation. The first generation of the 5 series was the E12, after a few iterations they released the second generation known as the E28.

Picking up the car from Olin and Jay at Imports Only in Columbia. 

The odometer broke a little over 307,000 miles, but the straight six motor still runs smooth as butter. It has a five speed manual transmission, 8-way power seats, ice cold air conditioning, power windows and sunroof, tan leather seats, and premium cassette audio. Not bad for a car two months older than I am!

Original 2.7 liter Eta straight six motor.

The car runs and drives surprisingly well for how old it is. It does need some paint work and the interior is a little rough, but there isn't a spec of rust in sight and everything can be cleaned up or fixed. 

BMWs of this era were known as the "shark nose" deaign.

Big thanks to the previous owner, Nick! He bought the car a few years ago and decided it was time for a new owner to give it some love. More to come!

Where's Your Car From?

'MERICA!

Without going into politics or talking about trade tariffs, my guess is that most Americans know where their car was made, but may not know where all of it was built. We've seen Civics built in England, Fords built in Canada, with one of the most international cars being the NMS FIAT, which was designed in Italy, assembled in Mexico, and has it's motor built in Detroit. We're kind of more interested in world peace, delicious chili, and cheap fast cars for all instead of wanting to debate politics, so let's make this simple. Do you know where most cars sold in the US are built?

Let's make it a multiple choice question, since everyone likes taking tests right?

WHERE DO MOST CARS SOLD IN THE US COME FROM?
A) Japan
B) Korea
C) Germany
D) Canada
E) Mexico
F) USA

A) If you picked Japan because the Toyota Camry is the number one selling car in the US, then you're wrong twice, because the Camry is built in Kentucky, and cars imported from Japan are only 7% of all cars sold in the US. JAPAN = 11%

B) Did you pick South Korea because Hyundai and Kia seem to be making great cars and they've been sold here since the 1980s? Not a terrible guess, but wrong. Shoot, we'll even include North Korea, since I'm pretty sure they don't build any cars there. KOREA = 4%

C) OK, you might have picked Germany because of all those BMWs, Audis, Mercedes, and Volkswagens that we see all over the place. Again, this is not correct, thanks for playing our game! GERMANY = 4%

D) Maybe you picked Canada, with several Detroit automakers building cars in Ontario just across the river from Detroit? Nice try, good creative thinking, since Canada ties with Japan for 2nd place! CANADA = 11%

E) Let's go south of the border to another NAFTA country and guess Mexico. Hey, they make great tequila, guitars, and other products there, with several brands built around Mexico City. Sorry, but again a pretty good guess, with Mexico right up there with Japan and Canada! MEXICO = 11%

F) Letter F would be the correct answer, with over half the cars sold in the US being built in the US.

If you're interested in more car related information like this, we suggest you check out CAR, the Center for Automotive Research at their web page: CAR

Here's the 2017 numbers from the Center for Automotive Research: