Best smoker barges 1-5 large [Vol 21]

[Geekman]

Speed addicted said:

TyrannosauRoss Lex said:

Bear-n said:

I feel, with the impending crisis, this is the right time to stop hemorrhaging money on my pampered Z4 and tired S40, sell both and buy a FFRR

It's much more 'me' than a 2 seater sports car - and will look ridiculous on my drive so decision made. Obvs petrol is what I'm thinking/would like because peer pressure.


Before I embark on reading endlessly repeating internet facts that may or may not be true, which I know is inevitable, does anyone have anything to share from first hand experience?

All I care about is that it has cream interior and looks a bit classy like. And doesn't ruin me, although I know that's a laughable idea - so maybe the best balance of ruining and value. And things to look out for would be nice. Or sell me yours because you're all such upstanding people.

I will fully start researching myself, it's just I've offered the Z4 for sale today so better start my homework sharpish - and a few of you are also fools experienced in this area.

Thanks in advance (of inevitable bankruptcy).

£5-7k budget. The usual danger done for any 'premium'car.

Edited by Bear-n on Wednesday 10th August 17:00

BolideMichael is running one

https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

They are lovely things, but they do scare me a bit (and I've even had an E65 7 series with a V8!)

5-7k would get you into a BMW engine cars? So you get possibly the most unreliable V8 BMW ever made mated to an aging Range Rover.
What could possibly go wrong?

I've looked at Range Rovers quite a few times over the years, they are lovely things. But almost all of the cars I've looked at have had something wrong with them and an impending sense of bork. I always get the fear and buy something else.

Sorry that sounded very negative, I'm sure it'll be fine.

Get one with a 4.4 or 4.2 Jag V8 and history of air suspension maintenance, gearbox oil change etc, job done. They're really not that bad in terms of running costs: most of the horror stories come from the older BMW engine ones or the diesels.

[Krikkit]

Speed addicted said:

JeremyH5 said:

Bolide has the Jag engine in his. Much more reliable I’m
told.

To be fair pretty much everything is more reliable.
I had the V8 in my 6 series, just constant hassle. It was like playing wack-a-mole with problems.

I may be a little jaded.

The V8 in your 6 was the N62, this is the M62 and much more reliable. Still not perfect (it's a BMW engine), but doesn't have the big ticket items like the N62's valley pipe and stem seals etc

[anonymous-user]

Krikkit said:

The V8 in your 6 was the N62, this is the M62 and much more reliable. Still not perfect (it's a BMW engine), but doesn't have the big ticket items like the N62's valley pipe and stem seals etc

Timing chain and VANOS issues aplenty with the M62 though. BMW started off OK with V8s but they got worse and worse until the current hot turbo V8 which sounds like an absolute total disaster in every way.

They're putting that in a Range Rover now too. I think that will truly be the most awful used car to try and keep going in 10 years.

[Krikkit]

stickleback123 said:

Krikkit said:

The V8 in your 6 was the N62, this is the M62 and much more reliable. Still not perfect (it's a BMW engine), but doesn't have the big ticket items like the N62's valley pipe and stem seals etc

Timing chain and VANOS issues aplenty with the M62 though. BMW started off OK with V8s but they got worse and worse until the current hot turbo V8 which sounds like an absolute total disaster in every way.

They're putting that in a Range Rover now too. I think that will truly be the most awful used car to try and keep going in 10 years.

At least it's one single fault source - get the VANOS and chains done, forget about it.

N63 seems to be getting better with every generation, word from my neighbour is they hardly see any of the last couple of generations in the dealers, compared to masses of the first-gen.

[TyrannosauRoss Lex]

Krikkit said:

Speed addicted said:

JeremyH5 said:

Bolide has the Jag engine in his. Much more reliable I’m
told.

To be fair pretty much everything is more reliable.
I had the V8 in my 6 series, just constant hassle. It was like playing wack-a-mole with problems.

I may be a little jaded.

The V8 in your 6 was the N62, this is the M62 and much more reliable. Still not perfect (it's a BMW engine), but doesn't have the big ticket items like the N62's valley pipe and stem seals etc

BMWs can make good engines, and reliable ones. Just not for 20+ years or in V8 guise

M30 was a hugely reliable engine, M52 was also pretty solid.

[bolidemichael]

Good luck bear-n. I might not chop in my barges after I return from France, so may not have an FFRR available depending on my appetite for bork. To be clear, I'm not grooming you for a purchase nor implying that I wish to sell my vehicles, just reflecting my general state of mind to like minded people that might gaslight me into thinking that it's normal and sensible to run two dodgy old V8s.

I'm also talking nonsense to keep this thread going and feel as though I have the prerogative to do so as I have form in contributing, unlike that johnny come lately Foeux with his flurry of entertaining posts then a quick attempt to shoot fish in a barrel with his flighty get out quick barge sale and swift departure from all barge related chat. We should've seen through those short shorts, though not literally, you understand. Right... guys?

[Bear-n]

Very entertaining, BM. That, and previous posts, have given me a proper chuckle tonight - there's life in this thread yet.

And whilst I wait for wordle, picture 49 is why I want to ruin myself. Need to obviously research this Jag/BM business as an aside.

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/2022080584...

[carinaman]

cluckcluck said:

Bit of exclusivity or so crap no one brought them. Nice rump though.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202208038...

Rear lenses say Carina E to me.

£615 RFL. Ouch.

[BlackStang5point0]

For a bit of balance on the L322 front - I've had mine for 6k miles and nearly 12 months. In that time servicing and repairs have totalled less than £250. Ok so I spent over double thread max purchasing it but it had a great SH and lots of very recent preventative maint which I think is the key to these things - maybe I also lucked out and have just jinxed myself for some severe wallet rapeage..!!

[BigBen]

BlackStang5point0 said:

For a bit of balance on the L322 front - I've had mine for 6k miles and nearly 12 months. In that time servicing and repairs have totalled less than £250. Ok so I spent over double thread max purchasing it but it had a great SH and lots of very recent preventative maint which I think is the key to these things - maybe I also lucked out and have just jinxed myself for some severe wallet rapeage..!!

I bought mine at about the same time as you also for double thread. I have put 10k miles or so on it and a service / MOT cost £700. It has never failed to proceed and is the perfect cruiser

[Krikkit]

TyrannosauRoss Lex said:

Krikkit said:

Speed addicted said:

JeremyH5 said:

Bolide has the Jag engine in his. Much more reliable I’m
told.

To be fair pretty much everything is more reliable.
I had the V8 in my 6 series, just constant hassle. It was like playing whack-a-mole with problems.

I may be a little jaded.

The V8 in your 6 was the N62, this is the M62 and much more reliable. Still not perfect (it's a BMW engine), but doesn't have the big ticket items like the N62's valley pipe and stem seals etc

BMWs can make good engines, and reliable ones. Just not for 20+ years or in V8 guise

M30 was a hugely reliable engine, M52 was also pretty solid.

I was thinking more modern than last century, that's cheating

[BlackStang5point0]

BigBen said:

BlackStang5point0 said:

For a bit of balance on the L322 front - I've had mine for 6k miles and nearly 12 months. In that time servicing and repairs have totalled less than £250. Ok so I spent over double thread max purchasing it but it had a great SH and lots of very recent preventative maint which I think is the key to these things - maybe I also lucked out and have just jinxed myself for some severe wallet rapeage..!!

I bought mine at about the same time as you also for double thread. I have put 10k miles or so on it and a service / MOT cost £700. It has never failed to proceed and is the perfect cruiser

Great bits of kit aren't they. Just had a week in the cotswolds and over 600 mile round trip, fully loaded with all sorts of ste and didnt miss a beat. Plus averaged 30mpg which I thought was good going.

[TyrannosauRoss Lex]

Krikkit said:

TyrannosauRoss Lex said:

Krikkit said:

Speed addicted said:

JeremyH5 said:

Bolide has the Jag engine in his. Much more reliable I’m
told.

To be fair pretty much everything is more reliable.
I had the V8 in my 6 series, just constant hassle. It was like playing whack-a-mole with problems.

I may be a little jaded.

The V8 in your 6 was the N62, this is the M62 and much more reliable. Still not perfect (it's a BMW engine), but doesn't have the big ticket items like the N62's valley pipe and stem seals etc

BMWs can make good engines, and reliable ones. Just not for 20+ years or in V8 guise

M30 was a hugely reliable engine, M52 was also pretty solid.

I was thinking more modern than last century, that's cheating

I'm fresh out of ideas

[BenjiA]

New Barge purchase - definatley barged sized, powered by the correct juice, but sadly relatively speaking slightly underpowered for perfection. Suitably wafty and huge, nicely quiet too with the Bose stereo so it's a nice place to spend an hour or so.



£1,400 and 1.8 turbo charged petrol litres. 120,000 miles. Cloth interior. Reason for the downsided engine is that it will be driven by two of our early 20's children who are just starting Jobs in Leeds and Cambridge, Insurance is £1,300 as it is...

It's just had belts and Water pump, Oil and filter and an aircon regas.

It was about £1,000 less than any others i could find, genuine reason for sale as the young chap who owned it has moved to London and has a VW Fox for use there.

Had no ticket left, so got it done for the cost of a new track rod end and £20 for adjusting the headlights which were pointing at the floor.

Drives nicely, but as usual with my car purchases I didn't really do my homework properly and when I got the V5 only then did I realise that it's got a CVT gearbox, which apparently, lots of blokes on the internet say are terrible and won't last 40k miles.

Whilst Ticks in the service history seem to indicate that "extra work" due at 60,000 miles has been done twice which should include changing the cvt fluid, I decided to do it anyway, just in case.

Not a BAD job, but CVT fluid absolutley stinks. The stuff that came out was pretty black, didn't smell burnt. It seems that a drain only empties half of the stuff, so I'll do it again when I can be bothered. A quick test drive afterwards gave me a probably false impression that a slight judder when coming to a stop was reduced, the revs seem to drop slightly as the clutch or whatever disengages.

It has headed straight up to Lancaster from London for child moving, all well apart from a check engine light, which according to the code reader is a boost/vacuum leak of some sort - given the amount of bloody pipes in the engine bay, I'm not surprised. As it's running ok, and isn't down on power I'll wait for it to come back and poke around.

After that it will get a machine polish as it seems to have been cleaned with a pan scourer and then will be run until it breaks. At 33mpg, it's started paying for itself over the Cayenne already.

[TyrannosauRoss Lex]

Great buy, I think these are a well rounded, handsome design. Hope it serves you and the family well. Even if you get it up to scratch for £2500 that's great value in today's age I think.

[tobinen]

Congratulations BenjiA

[tobinen]

I think I forgot to post the half-term purchases so here it is. By comparison, this time last year I recorded 65 so it's a very slow year for buying. No surprise that the usual top three are the L322, E39 and X350 as with most years.

Petrol Barge Purchases 2022

Bargista	Forecourt/other pic	Barge
Cascade360	26/01	X350
r129sl	27/01	C124
Neil O	30/01	R500
Ninety1	11/02	LS460 (ex-Baked_Bean)
Geekman	16/02	Town Car
Nath911t	20/02	L322
AdrieBiemans	28/02	S80
Muncher	02/03	W221
IgnitionMS	05/03	S80
stickylabels	11/03	E39
mholt1995	01/04	S60
loquacious	06/04	X350
Geekman	07/04	07/04
Piersman2	07/04	X308
figtree	17/04	W201
surveyor's steplad	18/04	E39
twizellb	21/04	A209 CLK63
BenS94	23/04	X350
steve_naive	04/05	W116
AlexNJ89	07/05	W221
dscam	11/05	S80
TobyLerone	14/05	940
stickleback123	08/07	V70 (ex-Big Pants, ex-CdG)
tobinen	30/07	R129 (ex-QuantumTokoloshi)
Autobantz	06/08	W221 600
BenjiA	11/08	A4

Derv Barge Purchases 2022

Bargista	Forecourt/other pic	Barge
ChocolateFrog	02/02	X350
JOB2.5-16	07/02	Allroad
alec.e	07/02	E60
LayZ	12/02	25
robsco	20/02	156
Baked_bean	21/02	V90
sprouting	30/03	X5
lemansky	28/05	L322 (ex-Han Solo)
Mikedknight	09/07	W221

Barge count 2022

barge	quantity
X350	4
L322	3
E39	2
LS460	2
S80	2
W221	2
25	1
156	1
940	1
A4	1
Allroad	1
C124	1
E60	1
R129	1
R500	1
S60	1
S80	1
Town Car	1
V70	1
V90	1
W201	1
W/A209	1
W116	1
W221	1
X5	1
X308	1
total	35

[Mammasaid]

Just an fyi on these as they're cousins to the B5 Passat.

Check your plenum regularly and it gets blocked with leaves, and overflows in the cabin, where ECUs are located.

Also, 1.8T is known for the oil pick up to block, so could be worth dropping the sump to check.

[defblade]

BenjiA said:

Drives nicely, but as usual with my car purchases I didn't really do my homework properly and when I got the V5 only then did I realise that it's got a CVT gearbox, which apparently, lots of blokes on the internet say are terrible and won't last 40k miles.

I had a multitronic/chronic A6 Avant for a good while. Lots of people seem to hate the way they drive, but I really quite liked it. It seemed a little slow to get going, but then from about 30mph where it had (presumably) got the engine to peak torque it just kept on pulling - 50 to 70 seemed particularly strong. Very relaxed and barge-y.




But... (and I hope I have this right, it's what I remember from my research at the time)
...the problem I had with it was that apparently the gear selector gubbins, for no good reason I can think of, run inside the box, in the oil. And they're Hall Effect sensors rather than switches as such. So the magnets picked up the metal filings and started to refuse to recognise where the selector was. Ay first it would, maybe once every week or so, refuse to accept it was in Park, and so wouldn't let you start the engine for a while. I fitted a switch with a live from the battery under the bonnet to the starter solenoid... it didn't do it quite often enough to make me bothered to move the button into the cabin.
Then one day trying to come out of Leigh Delamare, it suddenly refused to believe it was in Drive for about half an hour.

I traded it in (problems declared) for a 156 2.0 TwinSpark the next day. (Which lasted 3 months before throwing a rod out of the engine!)


So definitely do the oil changes, and use a (strong) magnetic plug if you can to pull the metal out as much as possible.



There is a thread on here somewhere about the 'box (in general, not just mine... it was long when I arrived!) with a quote from an Audi tech - something like "all auto boxes are unexploded bombs... the multitronic isn't - it's a grenade with the pin out!"


Enjoy it, cross your fingers, brief your kids on possible failure modes*, make sure your recovery cover is paid up and includes everyone








*I think there should be a lot more on this when learning and in the driving test. We spend a long time on teaching how to drive when everything's perfect, but very little on when something's not. An hour on a skid pan should be mandatory, for a start. How to not panic, assess escape routes, signal and move to safety when something like your engine or power steering cuts out. Things you can do if your brakes fail. I'm sure there's more.

Edited by defblade on Thursday 11th August 14:21

[maxwellwd]

Just on the L322 front Bear-N. I have had mine now for 18 months, have put about 12,000 miles on it, and has been mostly faultless apart from a split intercooler hose which put it in limp mode.

I wouldn't discount the 3.6 TDV8 though, very good engine, but only 'if' looked after. Ensure that the EGR is blocked out and whether the turbos have been done.

So many people skimp on maintenance on these cars now, I specifically searched one out with FSH. Rust can be an issue though, a lot of them getting that way now. I would avoid the early BMW engined ones as the gearboxes always seem to go and need to be rebuilt.

A lot of good advice on forums and ways around things now. Still so good for the money, I would absolutely love an L405 but the cost to change is way too much for the supposed benefit.