Best smoker barges 1-5 large [Vol 13]

[ian316]

I have always wondered why they aren't hidden, exploding head

[will730i]

rm163603 said:

That struck me as well.

Really well written ad but why not get the wheels refurbed, replace the air strut and fix the broken vent?

I have one of these and also have the air strut issue after a week of not using the car or in very cold weather. I've also not fixed it in a year or so as its never really been an issue, although I hear it means the pump works overtime to compensate and could eventually fail due to excess use.

Looks like a nice car with decent options

[Patrick Bateman]

At the risk of jinxing myself, hopefully getting the car sold.

Nice chap came to see it tonight, offering £2300 despite the lowest in my head being £2500. Just in the past day though a clicking sound has re-appeared from one of the rear wheels and on the drive with him the sunroof tilt was playing up and wouldn't close for ages, eventually got it closed thankfully.

For the sake of £200 I'm just going to accept though, it's a hard pill to swallow losing a decent chunk of money in less than a year plus all the ecxpensive and common repairs I've done but it's not going to get much better to be worth waiting.

Cue the guy changing his mind knowing my luck! Outrageous amount of car for the money though, even if the price at the bar is extortionate.

[josh00mac]

There are good P38s out there. Parts aren't that expensive and a decent indy will help you with glitches.

Buy a bad one and it will probably put you off the brand forever. I am not sure why some suffer so much with electrics and others don't.

I have been getting mine into the best shape possible. With an heir on the way I will have to remove myself from barge land whilst finances are redirected onto more mundane things. A sad time but I've had a good run with it and needs must.

[SpeckledJim]

ian316 said:

I have always wondered why they aren't hidden, exploding head

Well, the ones you don’t know are there, are. Doooo pay attention, 007.

[Croutons]

Talking of shedding it, saw this earlier today, had a curious aura of "I think you're trying to save it and the sun is out so what the hell" cool...

[Krikkit]

Nice to see it getting a run out, no matter how ropey.

Patrick Bateman said:

At the risk of jinxing myself, hopefully getting the car sold.

Nice chap came to see it tonight, offering £2300 despite the lowest in my head being £2500. Just in the past day though a clicking sound has re-appeared from one of the rear wheels and on the drive with him the sunroof tilt was playing up and wouldn't close for ages, eventually got it closed thankfully.

For the sake of £200 I'm just going to accept though, it's a hard pill to swallow losing a decent chunk of money in less than a year plus all the ecxpensive and common repairs I've done but it's not going to get much better to be worth waiting.

Cue the guy changing his mind knowing my luck! Outrageous amount of car for the money though, even if the price at the bar is extortionate.

Fingers crossed for you - that is an extreme bargain for the buyer.

I agree about the niggles over the final chunk of the price - a couple of hundred quid is a bit of a sore point but not a disaster when you need shut of it.

Forgive me if I've missed it, but what's next on the barge calendar?

[Patrick Bateman]

Krikkit said:

Fingers crossed for you - that is an extreme bargain for the buyer.

I agree about the niggles over the final chunk of the price - a couple of hundred quid is a bit of a sore point but not a disaster when you need shut of it.

Forgive me if I've missed it, but what's next on the barge calendar?

Absolutely sod all.

Selling this will pay off a large chunk of the credit card and I'll run the Clio on its own for a while and see how I get on- might be nice to save some money now and again!

What I will say is this, whatever's next, it will not be a BMW V8...

[SpeckledJim]

Patrick Bateman said:

Krikkit said:

Fingers crossed for you - that is an extreme bargain for the buyer.

I agree about the niggles over the final chunk of the price - a couple of hundred quid is a bit of a sore point but not a disaster when you need shut of it.

Forgive me if I've missed it, but what's next on the barge calendar?

Absolutely sod all.

Selling this will pay off a large chunk of the credit card and I'll run the Clio on its own for a while and see how I get on- might be nice to save some money now and again!

What I will say is this, whatever's next, it will not be a BMW V8...

My suggestion would be to get it gone. It could easily pop something worth £1000 while you wait for someone with the extra £200.

Seems that bloody car is financial buckaroo and you're the only one playing.

Saying that, I think herself's E-Class has either battery or alternator problems. Priced a battery yesterday thinking that's the easiest and likeliest first step, sans proper diagnosis. £187+vat for an Exide. £217 +vat for a Varta. Crumbs. Anyone know anyone cheaper?

[JF87]

I get my batteries from this place. They always seem to be cheapest.

https://www.tayna.co.uk/car-batteries/types/019/

[RicksAlfas]

JF87 said:

I get my batteries from this place. They always seem to be cheapest.

https://www.tayna.co.uk/car-batteries/types/019/

Me too. Excellent service.

[E65Ross]

GLWTS Patrick Bateman. Knowing your luck, it'll be trouble-free motoring for the next buyer

RE the sunroof, that happened to me once, to get it to shut I got out of the car, pressed and held the lock button on the keyfob, and that worked

[Prinny]

RicksAlfas said:

JF87 said:

I get my batteries from this place. They always seem to be cheapest.

https://www.tayna.co.uk/car-batteries/types/019/

Me too. Excellent service.

And me - ordered one for the M6 back in April/May, came in 36h, about £90 cheaper than my local place (they couldn’t get near it on price). The only problem with running older, big engines is the size of the batteries - the one for the 760 is near as dammit 2’x1’x1’ and about 35kg - good exercise lifting it over the boot lip & then into the well though!

[Krikkit]

Another Tayna customer here - have had 3x from them now, all delivered quickly and about as cheaply as I could find them.

[Budleigh]

SpeckledJim said:

I don't think I can think of a single reason to go for an E61 545i over an S211 E500.

Are they any nicer to drive con brio? Maybe that's the one reason?

As an E60 V8 owner, I'll take a stab. The E6x (and the wagon variant thereof) is certainly one of the more polarizing barges, generally receiving quite short shrift here. Compared to the very knowable E39, it alienates people. The dash architecture doesn't scream "cosseting". It doesn't feel intimate, like an E34, or reassuring in the way that a 211 does. Certainly, when I bought my 550i, I was also considering a 211 Benz, and I was coming from a wood n' leather E34



which was (so these things go) thought of as being rather sterile and clinical in its day, but which is now accepted as a fundamental part of the barge canon. I switched between the two for a few months, and initially I struggled to bond with the E60. It was, forgive the Orientalist cliche, like going from steak to sushi:


But it was only when I had the opportunity to take the E60 on a longer road trip that I came to understand its raison d'être. On a trip which included three countries and 2500 miles of road (and not-road), the car began to make more sense. It is insulated, it is calming to drive, everybody I put into it remarked on how smooth it is, and it admirably transitions from mile-eater to tar-burner when required. I wouldn't feel like I was doing something unseemly to it if I hurled it down a (insert road test hyperbole) road at (insert road test journo cliche about fast driving).


Then, the interior. The E6x is sort of retro-future-modernist in its architecture. The dash is stark. It swoops. Cupholders emerge from drawers. The layout draws the eye along a horizontal, rather than vertical, trajectory.



Press photos like the one above with the contrast colours are flattering, but I don't think they're true to the design ethos of the car. The wood looks out of place for me, because it doesn't suit the character of the car (a bit like installing a honking great slab of a Victorian wardrobe in a Le Corbusier building). In black, with the brushed metal trim, the E6x reminds me of a Breuer B3 chair. The minimalism is the point. Of course, since cars are subject to the style whims of their day, you're going to find a lot of E60s with dreary light-grey interiors, a colour that flatters no vehicle.

I don't mean to call the 211 retro by comparison - it's wonderfully elegant and its swooping forms are very pleasing to the eye. It's like an Eames lounge chair, all leather and pretty curved veneers, the 211. It's certainly more welcoming, I would wager. But the appeal of the E6x is in how it marries conceptual high-art form (reduce the buttons, elevate the screen, fulfil the modernist dream of (visual) simplicity via the iDrive and its omni-button aesthetics) with excellent dynamics. It doesn't ride as cossetingly as an E-Class (even on grandad non-Sportspack springs, like mine), but it feels unflappably competent, the engine is magnificent (when it isn't spewing oil and smoke) and it doesn't feel like a car from 2006, especially because while the subsequent F10 etc 5s moved the game on in terms of tech and equipment, they're (a) Huge, and (b) a conceptually compromised nostalgic reimagining of the E39 ethos, intent on disproving the Wolfean adage "You can't go home again". I think the clearest testament to the soundness of the E6x design is how Merc's 211 successor, the brutalist 212, tries to copy the slash n swoop aesthetic, but without seeming to understand what underpins it, which is why it looks like the box the dog's dinner was left in.

I don't know if the E6x will have its moment. It is an anomaly amongst the 5s, but I would make a case for it being the most successful of the mid-noughties BMW designs, albeit that the wagon is not as cohesive an evolution as the S211 is to the W211. In any event, I struggle to fit comfortably in a 211. Not in terms of actual space, but more in the sense that the driving position feels like it was built around a stouter frame than my own. Which is probably a Merc thing, granted. History seems to have shown the E to be sturdier than the 5, but this too is how the lines have always been drawn.

[SpeckledJim]

That's pretty unanimous then! Thanks all, I'll report back.

[Patrick Bateman]

E65Ross said:

GLWTS Patrick Bateman. Knowing your luck, it'll be trouble-free motoring for the next buyer

This is an instance where I think I can honestly say, I very much doubt that.

[SpeckledJim]

Well, £160 inc vat is certainly a decent chunk cheaper, but it's for an 'Enduroline' which doesn't ring any bells for me?

Versus £260 for a Varta, I think it wins though.

Learning as I go now, it seems the car (2005 E280CDi) is recommended to have an AGM battery, but is that something to do with start-stop? The car doesn't have start-stop. It breaks down more than I'd like, but that's not proper start-stop.

Without the AGM bit, the same size Varta battery with the right 95Ah and 850Aen is £95 inc vat...

[RicksAlfas]

SpeckledJim said:

Well, £160 inc vat is certainly a decent chunk cheaper, but it's for an 'Enduroline' which doesn't ring any bells for me?

Versus £260 for a Varta, I think it wins though.

Learning as I go now, it seems the car (2005 E280CDi) is recommended to have an AGM battery, but is that something to do with start-stop? The car doesn't have start-stop. It breaks down more than I'd like, but that's not proper start-stop.

Without the AGM bit, the same size Varta battery with the right 95Ah and 850Aen is £95 inc vat...

Don't AGM batteries need coding to the car? Or is that just BMWs?
This claims to know if your car needs an AGM battery...
https://www.racshop.co.uk/car-battery

[tobinen]

Is AGM the brand or an acronym?