Week 7

Day 41 - Little surprise that Transport for London failed to get me home without drama. Poor excuses such as lightning hitting the track and signal failures, as well as a passenger taken ill on the train all resulted in a simple commute home turned into 3 changes and 4 trains.

At least my university have agreed to let me study an extra credit module for an exemption over the summer. Oh and more car parts were delivered today. Car part delivery always bring happiness.

Day 42 - Needless to say everything else in my life is on the back foot and it's all about marking something decent from this bargain basement BMW.

As with most things on this car, the proceudres are all relatively simple, but I still will watch one youtube video about 10 times before attempting it.

This method has proven to be a success so far as the plug swap was quick and painless. Certainly very happy to have new plugs in the car considering the condition of the old ones!

Day 43 - The reality that I was spending too much time with the car and too little on my studies finally hit me. Easiest way was to invest more time into it and less into the car.

Day 44- Ordered up fresh brakes for the track car. Played it safe with a set of full Pagid discs and pads.

I've actually concluded that car parts deliveries literally give me that Christmas Day feeling! Not for what's in the box but purely the act of receiving a big box and having to open it!

Day 45- Valentines day. 9am in the city, this flower shop was fully prepared for those who hadn't!

Day 46 - Let the run on idle for a good while after the service and putting everything back. Needed some fuel for that. Can happily report that everything is all working well so far.

Day 47 - The Z4 hadn't been driven for a long while, so Sunday was purely reserved for being on the road.

Whilst doing so, I ended up forgetting to take my camera. Getting back late resulted in needing a high iso low aperture set up. Nice.

Week 6 - 03/02

Day 34 - The heart of the city of London is probably one of the best places to market your high end luxury items. Though I've never really been a fan of Jaguars,  They certainly had done this right by parking up two of their new models right outside the Lloyds Building.

Would have been rude to not get a shot (or two!)

Bonus content: thought the picture above was my entry for the day, It was a seriously tough call between the two so I'm sharing the other I got as well. Enjoy!

Day 35 - Everyone loves deliveries and us car guys love nothing more than car parts. Needless to say waiting around for car parts to be delivered results in plenty of suspense and anticipation.

Saw the UPS van pull up and was ready and waiting. Four boxes came through (one was for another car...new wipers)

Day 36 - First oil change today. Minimal spillage and seems to be a success. Overall very happy. Still a long road ahead to get the car roadworthy.

Day 37 - Utter misery around London (due to the tube strikes). Plenty of waiting around and extra walking as many of the exits were closed.

I guess the reasoning behind the strikes could be debated till the cows come home but in essence I think it's a simple act of terrorism and those partaking in the strikes should be sacked. Given the number of unemployed in the UK, I'm sure there are many out there who would be desperate for a job, problem solved.

Day 38 - Early class in the morning left me the afternoon for a good old bonding session. Engine got a good dose of degreasing and ensured the rest of the car was in good working order.

Somehow managed to snap the bleed screw on the rad too. Balls. Couple of quid later and ebay has saved me.

Day 39 - Two weeks to the day since the car was purchased, the v5c is in my possession. There appears to be some decent amounts of paperwork from the previous owners for the vehicle, so in keeping with that, I'll be adding to it (even if the car's ultimate destination is the scrappies!)

Day 40 - Weather was miserable so a quick job today. Had the wheels off to sort out the brake wear sensor. Keeping it simple, shorting the sensor wires allows the car to see that the brakes are all okay. Not a big deal given the car will see a healthy maintenance routine.

Week 5- A week of new cars

Day 27 - Back to uni for my final semester. Somewhat stressful given the increased workload and pressure to make it all count. I guess like dangling a carrot in front  of a donkey, the e36 being completed and the opportunity to take it on the track this summer is my carrot.

Needless to say, currently it's all about lists. One list of things to sell, one to buy immediately, one when funds will allow, you get the idea. The day's picture seems to fit into the buy immediately list as it simply feels awful to the touch, I'm sure by it's sight, even you would agree...

Day 28 - Thankfully the first week is never as demanding as one would think and having a relatively spread out timetable results in the opportunity to go over the car with a fine tooth comb ensuring maximum reliability and safety when the car is used.

So the first task was to get some fuel in it. Running on fumes couldn't be good for it, though even chucking 5l of petrol in, barely made an impression on the fuel gauge. A  trip or two more will probably need to be made in the near future.

Once filled, I started making way with cleaning the front seats and tidying up the rear from the work carried out on Sunday before browsing how to control the auxiliary fan manually which was the accomplishment of the day. Knowing that I could flick a switch whilst driving to manually override the fan for enhanced cooling is a good feeling...

Day 29 - Since getting the car moving it has been somewhat of an issue. Stupidly, this is the only e36 I've driven so I've nothing to compare it to, but the throttle feels super sloppy.

Cue some music, a bunch of tools and I went about diagnosing what it could be, the only issue is, for those that know me, I've the mechanical knowledge of a kid with a mechano set, real cars on the otherhand are a different ball game entirely. The process was pretty long, ended up trying to clean a load of different components, even looking at the pedal itself, but never checking the cable (d'oh!)

Day 30 - Ended up meeting a good friend of mine after class who was in town exploring some street photography. You certainly should go and check his photostream out, it's brilliant. (Link is here)

Day 31 - More work ensued on the car. In a bid to advertise the interior up for sale, I decided to ditch the door cards. Weights saving and all that.

Day 32 - Doesn't really need any sort of post I guess. This week has had plenty of work in it, so it was a reward of sorts. Most certainly deserved if I do say so!

Day 33 - Close friend of mine found himself picking up the keys to his S55 AMG this past week. Needless to say I was even more excited than a child at Christmas and wanted to see it in the flesh and this is literally how my Sunday shaped up to be.

Ended up with the shot below being one of my favourite from the lot. It's a super clean car with a full MB service history and has more toys in it than I'd even have time to play with (electric everything, tv's everywhere and even a cradle for those classic Nokias!)

Super super stoked to see Harpreet rolling around in an AMG, especially after all the conversations at length about them. Hope you have many many happy miles and smiles with it bro! (Plenty of hugs and kisses xxxx)

Week 4- Back to work preparations

Day 20 - Yes, the track project has been purchased, well when I say purchased, a deposit has been paid. The current owner was kind enough to leave me in possession of a manifold, a throttle body, a pair of tinted rear lights as well as plenty of stamps and paperwork including the original receipt. Sure enough since under the care of the current owner it's been somewhat neglected, it seems to be a solid enough car that will serve it's purpose well...I hope.

Day 21 - Clearly incredibly displeased with Sytner's service I fired of a polite yet firm email over to the dealer principle expressing my thoughts and feelings at their operation. To my amazement, I had an reply faster than you can blink an eye (slight exaggeration, but it really was a very speedy reply) and it was full of good news!

Considering how great they have been with the sale of our vehicles, I'm glad they've offered to fix the wheel. So it's might be safe to say that once the Alpina B4 makes it's way over to our showroom floor that they would be seeing us again!

Day 22 - After last week's MOT, I applied straight away online for a new tax disc. No surprise really to find out that it's gone up by £10 from last year. The irony is that for so long my Smarts were at £10 and £30. Pennies compared to the Z4, though a huge price to pay, it's certainly worth it!

Day 23 - After Minor work today on the car, just relocating the fire extinguisher to a more convenient place (after much thought, the boot probably wasn't the best place for it given the amount of electrical gubbins in there!)

Shot with the 30mm and an off camera flash (wireless trigger) with a yellow gel.

Day 24 - Had a nice result from Sytner regarding my wheel, so arranged to drop it off to them. Would have been rude to not grab a pic similar to that which I took on delivery of the car a year ago.

Coming up to a year of ownership and anyone considering picking up a z4, highly highly recommended. Although somewhat biased, these cars are aging incredibly well (the coupes not the roadsters) and they drive so well, incredibly comfortable and make a decent sound, credit due to the BMW straight six under the bonnet.

Shot with my 30mm under a sky full of cloud!

Day 25 - The whole day was full of anticipation and a lot of last minute phone calls. The whole week I had been scouring gumtree and the like for a tow to get the new project home, but either had no answer or astronomical prices. With the best quote being £70+vat from my local recovery company I wasn't settled on that. Made one last phone call and managed to get a tow for a decent amount less. Not complaining at all.

With that said and done, we managed to get the car home (barely running on fumes at this point and even stalled it getting up on the drive) I needed to get the battery swapped straight away. Luckily I had the one that came from my Z4 so the swap was relatively painless.

Day 26 - Ended up waking up ridiculously early (akin to Christmas mornings!), didn't bother with food or such and began work straight away on the car. Needless to say the first thing was to go peeping under the hood and was greeted with the oh so sweet working "BMW Individual". Not bad. Not bad.

Ended up working on the car for the rest of the day, removed the rear seats, gave them a scrub (literally came out brand new, and are for sale) removed all the rear carpet and sound deadening as well as all the rear panels.

Was even surprised to find that the rear speakers were the OEM Nokia drivers. Was certainly a nice find and will be up for sale as well considering their condition!

Week 3- Week off

So from the onset, I've decided to change out the way in which I make my posts. Rather than just a few short posts daily, I might as well post weekly and have a longer post.

Day 13 - The week started of with much planned, namely to get some street photography done, but rain ruined it quite successfully, so we ended up rescheduling for later on in the week when less rain was forecasted.

Natural lighting with a 24-105 f/4 L strapped to my 60D yielded the picture. Bokeh isn't too terrible in my opinion either considering some of the reviews of the lens!

Day 14 - Well, where do we begin here. Purchased our second car from BMW Sytner High Wycombe. Not only the same dealer, but the same salesperson. Naturally the sale couldn't have been any more hassle free, however within a few short months of ownership, the wheel started to corrode (and quite badly at that). Fired off a few emails to the sales person whom said bring it in for them to have a look at, as I had exams at the time, I sent plenty of photographic evidence to them and when I did finally manage to get the car in for them to look at the wheel, I was fobbed off with "Oh it looks like it's been refurbished, and quite badly at that" from the person in the service department and from the sales person who promised that he'd make sure something was done about it, "We'd have a look at it again when the Inspection II is due (BMW's big service)

Now to anyone reading this, I'm sure you're thinking what I thought then...if corrosion is looked at in Inspection II and the car isn't due one for 2 years, then what's the point in a warranty/goodwill. Well that's what my thought was too! Incidentally, my university's law school has the most comfortable working environment so I wasn't short of access to a library of legal books on consumers rights. As a result, I've fired off an email to a variety of people at Sytner BMW and will await their reply (hopefully with some good news if they want our return custom when my mother opts for a shiny Alpina!)

Day 15 - Continuing from issues with Sytner BMW, my mum's e92 335i has had a few issues with fueling. After several trips to the dealer (which included them being happy to change just 1 (ONE) spark plug and send the car on its way) I figured it needed a decently long run where it would be able to get upto speed (nothing illegal of course) so a trip to London for a spot of Five Guys was needed (if you go, make sure you get the cajun fries!).

Being shafted by the insurance companies, I was riding shotgun, camera in hand and happened to spot this absolute beauty on the way in. Resulted in a gritty image that I'm super happy with!

60d with a 30mm f/1.4, shot wide open.

Day 16 - Following the rain on Monday, I finally ended up going into london for a day of street photography with my buddy Suraj. (check out his Flickr photostream here) Continuing from that awesomely good looking 911 from the day before, I thought I'd snap this too.

The rest of the shots that made the cul are here.

60D with the 30mm resulting in a  long exposure with the aid of a tripod.

Day 17 - The day has finally come (I always kind of hoped it never would though). The black mk5 you may have seen before in my photostream is going to be up for sale (completely stripped back to oem spec). Before that happened though, we needed a last Rocky's, Starbucks and a few pictures.

60D with the 30mm resulting in a  long exposure with the aid of a tripod.

Day 18 - The last shot I'd get of her (she's named Jasmine for those who were wondering). I guess this constitutes as a separate day due to the fact she's been in my life longer than any of my cars (what an incredibly harrowing thought!)

We've had a lot of fun with this car, fair few miles covered, plenty of curly fries and burgers consumed, coffee drunk and earth shattering bass heard. Will certainly miss this car.

60D with the 30mm resulting in a  long exposure with the aid of a tripod.

Day 19 - Now we're at Sunday and the theme here is track days. Obviously being somewhat of a princess, I didn't want to run the risk of wrecking my Z4 on a track, so I started looking for a cheap trackday car.

Requirements were it had to be cheap, road legal, decent engine and rear wheel drive.

For those petrol heads out there it's pretty much either a Nissan or BMW that would fit the bill and having a huge weakness for BMW's it was a no brainer.

So after finding a decently priced e36 323i coupe for sale, I went and took a look at it and after a drive of the car as well as some negotiation, the deposit was put down.

The previous owner had ended up with a few parts which he never managed to fit, so he literally handed me a box of parts as well as plenty of paperwork, with a date set to pick the car up in a week's time. Excited is certainly an understatement.

Lazy Sunday

First Sunday free from work resulted in a much needed catch-up.

Following that, it was a marathon of the first three Pirates of the Caribbean. A pretty decent way to spend a wet and miserable Sunday.