The 406 Replacement

[Welly]

Doing my short, cold start town trips I am only getting 19mpg

Aha! this is my beef with Diesels, a petrol engine heats up quicker and starts to return better economy. My 2.5 5-cylinder turbo petrol does 24 mpg around town.

Waue - there's a crankcase breather filter on those built into the rocker cover somewhere. These filters were supposed to be maintenance-free but many 530d'ers found the filter to be causing running issues (mainly smoke) they're quite cheap to replace and DIY-able. Also recommended it to remove the swirl-flaps and blank them with a special kit.

There's lots of info about this on "BMW Land".

I like the 530d - especially the sound of them

[Doggy]

Doing my short, cold start town trips I am only getting 19mpg

Aha! this is my beef with Diesels, a petrol engine heats up quicker and starts to return better economy. My 2.5 5-cylinder turbo petrol does 24 mpg around town.

I don't agree, at least not completely. A petrol engine of similar size will warm up quicker, but it will guzzle vastly greater amounts of fuel while doing so. Diesels don't need an artificially rich fuel/air mixture to run while cold, (or at least to nothing like the same extent). A typicall diesel engine will be marginally less economical while cold, unlike the petrol equivalent which will use considerably more fuel while warming up.

My last Omega had an electic pump to force air into the exhaust to feed the deliberate fire in the cats to try to warm them up faster.

I suspect Stuart's experience has more to do with the weight of the 5 series and sheer size of that lovely straight six music generator. Also, dare I say it, the slushmatic 'box.....

Waue - there's a crankcase breather filter on those built into the rocker cover somewhere. These filters were supposed to be maintenance-free but many 530d'ers found the filter to be causing running issues (mainly smoke) they're quite cheap to replace and DIY-able. Also recommended it to remove the swirl-flaps and blank them with a special kit.

There's lots of info about this on "BMW Land".

I like the 530d - especially the sound of them

Me too, very nearly got one when I bought the dogmobile.

[Welly]

I don't agree, at least not completely

I don't disagree, well not entirely

Errm, I know what you mean but overall the petrol is delivering better MPG in this case but I don't know the use of the 530 - it might be purely door-to-door whereas I do keep moving.

Errm, Diesel's aren't meant for really short runs? neither are petrols

Walk?

Cycle?

Levitate?

S'lotta car for sub £3k though and I bet there's quite a few of those sporting a fairly new Engine/Turbo/Eggsauce thanks to those pesky flappers..........

[waue1978]

The petrol engines do heat up quicker, but the diesel should still be giving better economy even when cold. Doing the same journeys as I'm doing now (yes, largely door to door) the 406 returned 30-35 whereas Mum's 2005 1.8 Mondeo (which I had for 4 months) was giving 25mpg doing the same trips. I believe Doggy is pretty much spot on with the cause of my low mpg in that the extra weight & the gearbox are using most of the juice. It would be very easy to say that I should have done my homework before buying, but everywhere you read about them people say that they get 30mpg around town. Very hard to believe when BMW themselves state only 23.9!

The other advantage of the manual 530ds is that one of those wouldn't have had the swirl flaps fitted. The other bummer is that they only started fitting them to the diesels in March 2000 & mine in a July 2000. It definitely has them too - you can just about see the controlling rod if you poke your head down the passenger side of the engine cover. Common sense does dictate that I pay out the money & get them removed (should cost about £150), but there is also that annoyance in paying out another £150 on it when a) this is supposed to be compensating for the mpg deficit in reduced maintenance & b) I'm still unsure as to whether the overall costing is going to work in the Beemer's favour.

The "Car Cost Calculator" spreadsheet was starting to shape up nicely (Thanks to Rich for the help & guidance) until my MS Office trial on the home laptop ran out! If I can get it polished off during my lunch at work, I'll do a bit of number crunching to see if it is more worthwhile shifting it on & picking up something more mainstream. I don't want to just jump in & get rid as any potential savings that could be made in something along the lines of a Xsara or 406 could then be eaten up in money lost on the Beemer.

Much as I still like them, I have learned in recent weeks that the C5 suspension is starting to cause some costly problems over the 10yr old mark. The MOT place that I use say that the last 3 C5 MOT failures have all been for the same front suspension faults which are costing over £300 to replace - if memory serves I think it's the shock absorber they're having to replace? A quick internet search on the subject reveals that a lot of garages seem to fail them when they find a bit of damp on the shock when they are apparently fine when taken to specialist Citroen places, but you still don't need the hassle (or worry) of having one garage say it isn't ok even if another says it is.

[lozz]

Waue, the Bmw wont take as long to heat up compared to the hdi,
they have the pre heat, iirc

ioften wonderd why peugeot didnt have them,

[OdinEidolon]

Waue, the Bmw wont take as long to heat up compared to the hdi,
they have the pre heat, iirc

ioften wonderd why peugeot didnt have them,

Some HDis do have them. Mine does, it heats up very quickly, and in winter air is hot after one minute.

I'd call the gearbox as the guilty for the low mileage. The torque converter must work hard to heat up properly. I've been in a friend's X3 with the 3 liter 204hp engine, auto box. The box is absolutely stunningly idiotic. It is extremely slow and the noise of the engine catching up...

[steve_earwig]

Early HDis had some sort of electric heaters There's a picture somewhere but I can't be asked ) but mine has a water jacket around the pipe from the exhaust manifold to the EGR, which warms the water enough to demist the screen quite quickly but it's obviously nowhere near good enough to warm the engine.

My dad had a Freelander diesel antomatic(sic), man that thing was dangerous - "wait for a gap.... here it comes... floor it! Look at the lovely flowers isn't it a lovely day I wonder where I should go on my holiday this year do I need a shave....and we're off!" My brother reckoned the only way to drive it was to stand on both the brake and the throttle and release the brake when you wanted to pull out into traffic.

[lozz]

My renault as got an Emersion heater,
looks like 2 thick cables attaching to an element, renault ones look like they couid be fitted to anycar, if anyone wants one, dont steal the one off mine,

[steve_earwig]

Ooh, a heater plug, that's what the Yanks use (and Canadians), interesting . My dad's Flealander had a Webasto, which are standard on them (clouds of smoke from under the front L/H wheelarch. I was reading on the FLealander forum (poor chaps) where one of the guys noticed his wasn' working, jacked it up & removed the wheel to find... someone had pinched it

[waue1978]

My dad had a Freelander diesel antomatic(sic), man that thing was dangerous - "wait for a gap.... here it comes... floor it! Look at the lovely flowers isn't it a lovely day I wonder where I should go on my holiday this year do I need a shave....and we're off!" My brother reckoned the only way to drive it was to stand on both the brake and the throttle and release the brake when you wanted to pull out into traffic.

The box probably worked in a similar fashion to my one. As a default it pulls away in 2nd. If you want to do a fast pull away, you floor it & it will use 1st, but there is still a very slight delay before you leave whatever just nosed slightly in front eating your dust. If you're brave enough to use it, you can select 1st in the manual "steptronic" mode & try to reach forward to knock it into 2nd while you're forced into the seat!

[steve_earwig]

Is this the "sealed for life" BMW 'box that needs a regular oil change?

The Flealander's auto 'box is the infamous JATCO - Google for much hilarity.

[OdinEidolon]

Is this the "sealed for life" BMW 'box that needs a regular oil change?

The Flealander's auto 'box is the infamous JATCO - Google for much hilarity.

Every 'box needs maintenance. Every single one of them. They can be "sealed for life" but it is UTTER BULLSHIT. Unfortunately all manifacturers by now use the infamous "sealed for life" saying...

[Doggy]

Well, at least the later Freeloaders have proper engines......

It's interesting to note that PSA engines don't ingest swirl flaps, because those cunning French designers made the flaps BIGGER than the inlet ports. Predictably, their tuetonic conterparts would not have considered this simple expedient, as anything they design is perfect and such precautions are obviously unnecessary.

[waue1978]

Is this the "sealed for life" BMW 'box that needs a regular oil change?

That one seems to depend on who you ask. Some people say that the oil change is necessary, while others have reported that problems have only arisen after having the oil change. From what I've seen so far, when changing the gearbox oil it needs to be replaced with the exact type of oil originally used as most of the problems seem to stem from cheap gearbox oil being used after a change.

It's interesting to note that PSA engines don't ingest swirl flaps, because those cunning French designers made the flaps BIGGER than the inlet ports. Predictably, their tuetonic conterparts would not have considered this simple expedient, as anything they design is perfect and such precautions are obviously unnecessary.

Apparemtly, the swirl flaps themselves don't do a massive amount of damage to the engine as they are only plastic & pretty well disintegrate. The big worry is the screws that are in the flaps. There is a pdf document from Total BMW showing how to change them with pictures of the damage done by these screws in a 320d engine. Pretty scary.

[lozz]

its the scarey stories that make cars cheaper,
feck me, isnt there anything out there that dont implode,

ithink the Bmws have a good solid reliable engine, perhaps those that go pete tongue have been took to the Limits,