BMW E39 528i SE Auto - Bangernomics

[vsonix]

bearman68 said:

On my E39 I've had a load of trouble with the front discs. I remembered now I have followed the thread through. Heavy ish braking will produce a fair bit of vibration in the wheel. So I've changed the front discs and pads, and all is well...... for a few thousand miles tops. And then it starts again. I found this with cheap brakes, so I put a decent set on with a 2 year warranty, and 6 months in, I can feel the same problem. When I put the discs on, I was pretty careful, and clocked the discs to ensure they were running true, and spent a while not braking heavily to bed them in, but still no good.
So, I'm about to change the discs for the 3rd time in about 5k miles. What's going on??

E46 suffers with the same issue, callipers get clogged with brake dust causing them to intermittently bind slightly, this then causes the discs and pads to get hot and cause steering wobble, people generally think the heat is causing the rotor to warp but in actual fact it's more like material from the pads is building up in certain spots, so if you have new-ish rotors it can be a better idea to skim them rather than replace. It's an annoying problem but it can be avoided by servicing (i.e. stripping and cleaning) the callipers every 7-10k miles. If you haven't cleaned the callipers this'll be why you keep feeling like you need new discs every couple of weeks!

Edited by vsonix on Monday 11th May 13:21

[ATM]

vsonix said:

bearman68 said:

On my E39 I've had a load of trouble with the front discs. I remembered now I have followed the thread through. Heavy ish braking will produce a fair bit of vibration in the wheel. So I've changed the front discs and pads, and all is well...... for a few thousand miles tops. And then it starts again. I found this with cheap brakes, so I put a decent set on with a 2 year warranty, and 6 months in, I can feel the same problem. When I put the discs on, I was pretty careful, and clocked the discs to ensure they were running true, and spent a while not braking heavily to bed them in, but still no good.
So, I'm about to change the discs for the 3rd time in about 5k miles. What's going on??

E46 suffers with the same issue, callipers get clogged with brake dust causing them to intermittently bind slightly, this then causes the discs and pads to get hot and cause steering wobble, people generally think the heat is causing the rotor to warp but in actual fact it's more like material from the pads is building up in certain spots, so if you have new-ish rotors it can be a better idea to skim them rather than replace. It's an annoying problem but it can be avoided by servicing (i.e. stripping and cleaning) the callipers every 7-10k miles. If you haven't cleaned the callipers this'll be why you keep feeling like you need new discs every couple of weeks!

Edited by vsonix on Monday 11th May 13:21

When you say clean the calipers do you mean just that or strip and lube them?

[ATM]

Edited by ATM on Friday 4th May 09:57

Edited by ATM on Sunday 12th May 09:22

[ATM]

Sheet

I think the new plates are way bigger than the old ones. Really should've measured up. My new ones are 13 x 7 inches. That's almost the same size as my macbook.

[healeyneil]

I also bought a 528i se ( touring) as a bangernomic. Just about every toy known to man when it was built. Just love it.
Anyway, E39s have a different hub centre size from all the others - its bigger. I bought a set of winter wheels from an E60, and had to get the centres opened up a little. If you use your wheels on another car you will need little plastic spigot rings

[ATM]

healeyneil said:

I also bought a 528i se ( touring) as a bangernomic. Just about every toy known to man when it was built. Just love it.
Anyway, E39s have a different hub centre size from all the others - its bigger. I bought a set of winter wheels from an E60, and had to get the centres opened up a little. If you use your wheels on another car you will need little plastic spigot rings

Yeah thanks. These are genuine BBS and therefore have a metal BBS locating ring which is larger than for all other BMW cars. Luckily though I have a set of these correct and smaller BMW sized rings already.

[ATM]

Before

Edited by ATM on Friday 4th May 09:56

[ATM]

Edited by ATM on Friday 4th May 09:57

[ATM]

Bought another BMW.

Edited by ATM on Friday 4th May 09:57

[ATM]

Now gone. Very sad. Probably the best car I've ever bought when you consider the purchase price. I had it 6 months and never put in any water, oil or fluid of any kind except petrol [maybe just some screen wash]. Car never let me down. AC blew cold and almost everything worked. I took the BBS wheels off it and snapped some pics of the BBS suspension part numbers - coil over on the back looked fancy.

Edited by ATM on Friday 4th May 09:57

[ATM]

Still going strong although now it belongs to my Cousin. Now with a UK radio, mph clocks and the widescreen display fitted.

Edited by ATM on Friday 4th May 09:57

[ATM]

Boot now repainted

Edited by ATM on Monday 22 January 10:25

Edited by ATM on Sunday 12th May 09:27

[ATM]

I gave this car to my cousin. Now he is finished with it. I cant decide if I want it back. Obviously I dont need another car. I just love it. What do I do?

[tektas]

Isn't it obvious?

You buy it back, sort it out and either put a Turbo or a LS engine in it

Just for the fun of it.

[ATM]

Could this be repaired or does it need a new bumper?

Edited by ATM on Monday 22 January 10:26

Edited by ATM on Friday 4th May 09:57

[Jimmy Recard]

Any chance of a better picture?

[ATM]

So I'm still having sleepless nights thinking about getting this car back. It's one of my favourite cars but i dont know why. Maybe it is because it's just a great story. I dont know. What I do know is now that I am down to 3 cars I dont really need this. But I want it. It makes no sense. I need help. I am clearly addicted.

[vsonix]

it's pretty obvious to me, get it back, buy it the occasional nice bit (favourite colour leather from breakers, nice wheels again etc etc), polish it up nicely and take it to BMW meets and events, just enjoy an awesome car for cheap. I love the amber corners by the way, tiny detail that is incredibly unusual to see and just adds a certain individuality to it but in a really subtle way. If I didn't already have 5 BMWs and no more parkings space I'd have encouraged you to get rid of it and thrown you a lowball offer lol. FWIW three of my BMWs are M52B28 cars - those 2.8 lumps really are peachy

[ATM]

vsonix said:

it's pretty obvious to me, get it back, buy it the occasional nice bit (favourite colour leather from breakers, nice wheels again etc etc), polish it up nicely and take it to BMW meets and events, just enjoy an awesome car for cheap. I love the amber corners by the way, tiny detail that is incredibly unusual to see and just adds a certain individuality to it but in a really subtle way. If I didn't already have 5 BMWs and no more parkings space I'd have encouraged you to get rid of it and thrown you a lowball offer lol. FWIW three of my BMWs are M52B28 cars - those 2.8 lumps really are peachy

Well you need to update your garage on here. The thing is I just dont do fiddling myself anymore. So the old girl will end up costing me good money.

I did find the box a bit jerky. Does that mean it needs a fluid change? Is that easy enough a job?

[vsonix]

Oh yeah I forgot about the garage function on here.
Currently 2x Z3 2.8, 1x E36 328i Touring, 1x E46 330d and an E38 740i although idk how long the latter two are gonna stay with me. Contemplating grabbing the 4.4 and dumping it into one of the Z3 and I don't do diesel miles these days so the 46 may have outlived its usefulness.