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Now back from the CSL trip, more on that in a day or two, with a teaser below.
But while we were away, we left the M5 with Specialised Paintwork in Theale to fix a couple of issues. The first we knew about when we bought the car, which was that the diamond cut alloys were really scabby and horrible. Also an issue with the paint on the rear bumper had appeared. The first problem was that a chunk of paint just peeled off when it was being jetwashed, and then it got slightly dinged in a carpark which removed another chunk. On closer inspection you could see other places where it was bubbling.
I had a somewhat cheaper quote from another bodyshop in Reading, but I was rather less confident in getting a proper job from them. I've used S.P. before, and they've always been good to deal with.
Anyway, the verdict from Karl was that it had had a not very good repair previously, which was now failing, so the bumper was removed, the old repair was sanded out, redone, and then the bumper was resprayed with a blend into the rear quarters. The alloys were stripped and fully repainted in the usual background colour, but not re-cut. So overall they look quite a bit darker, but it's turned out pretty well I think, and we don't have to worry about the problems with diamond cut wheels any more.
Before:
After:
Munich. There were a lot more than this:
But while we were away, we left the M5 with Specialised Paintwork in Theale to fix a couple of issues. The first we knew about when we bought the car, which was that the diamond cut alloys were really scabby and horrible. Also an issue with the paint on the rear bumper had appeared. The first problem was that a chunk of paint just peeled off when it was being jetwashed, and then it got slightly dinged in a carpark which removed another chunk. On closer inspection you could see other places where it was bubbling.
I had a somewhat cheaper quote from another bodyshop in Reading, but I was rather less confident in getting a proper job from them. I've used S.P. before, and they've always been good to deal with.
Anyway, the verdict from Karl was that it had had a not very good repair previously, which was now failing, so the bumper was removed, the old repair was sanded out, redone, and then the bumper was resprayed with a blend into the rear quarters. The alloys were stripped and fully repainted in the usual background colour, but not re-cut. So overall they look quite a bit darker, but it's turned out pretty well I think, and we don't have to worry about the problems with diamond cut wheels any more.
Before:
After:
Munich. There were a lot more than this:
In the first post in this thread I mentioned the CSL Register 10 year anniversary trip to Munich. As it's now 10 years later, that meant the 20th anniversary trip was due. This time it was organised by uber-detail-meister and occasional PH contributor Mike Rainbird, and over four days would take in visits to BMW Welt, BMW Classic, and an optional factory tour. Then onto the 'ring for private track sessions on the Nordschleife and GP Circuit.
We decided to make a longer holiday of it planning to be away for 11 days, and drove down via Strasbourg and the Black Forest before meeting another couple of cars near the Bodensee and heading off in a mini-convoy to Munich. First day was 450 miles, the CSL was effortless on smooth French motorways, and we'd averaged 32mpg at the hotel. Mrs Outnumbered did a couple of hours driving, and we found that auto mode on level 2 shift speed suits her driving style perfectly. Our SANEF toll tag meant we didn't have to faff about with cards at the toll booths. Have a look at http://www.emovis-tag.co.uk if you're going to be driving long distances in France.
Parked next to this, perhaps the polar opposite of a CSL:
Second night and there was a British guy in an Alfa Giulia who'd come down to drive the passes, only to find they were all still closed. His booked hotel had decided not to open, so he was transferring to ours after a lot of hassle with booking.com, only to find his credit card kept being rejected. Not having a fun day at all.
We found a ludicrously twisty road in the Black Forest the next day, probably about 10 miles of smooth tarmac and tight bends, would have been fantastic on the bike.
Later we saw this in an autobahn rest area, I think it was a Mercedes:
We decided to make a longer holiday of it planning to be away for 11 days, and drove down via Strasbourg and the Black Forest before meeting another couple of cars near the Bodensee and heading off in a mini-convoy to Munich. First day was 450 miles, the CSL was effortless on smooth French motorways, and we'd averaged 32mpg at the hotel. Mrs Outnumbered did a couple of hours driving, and we found that auto mode on level 2 shift speed suits her driving style perfectly. Our SANEF toll tag meant we didn't have to faff about with cards at the toll booths. Have a look at http://www.emovis-tag.co.uk if you're going to be driving long distances in France.
Parked next to this, perhaps the polar opposite of a CSL:
Second night and there was a British guy in an Alfa Giulia who'd come down to drive the passes, only to find they were all still closed. His booked hotel had decided not to open, so he was transferring to ours after a lot of hassle with booking.com, only to find his credit card kept being rejected. Not having a fun day at all.
We found a ludicrously twisty road in the Black Forest the next day, probably about 10 miles of smooth tarmac and tight bends, would have been fantastic on the bike.
Later we saw this in an autobahn rest area, I think it was a Mercedes:
Edited by outnumbered on Monday 5th June 11:44
One theme of the 20th Anniversary trip was Mike constantly getting messed about by BMW. As a last minute change, for our meeting at BMW Welt we had to meet initially in a "reserved area" of the underground car park because the outdoor display area was needed for a delivery. We got down there to find... no reserved area, and various other cars scattered among the area they wanted us to park. Anyway, despite that it was fun to watch people turn up, and see registration plates from Turkey, Netherlands, Slovakia, Czech, Austria, Norway, Spain, France, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland.
The first event of that day was a visit to BMW Classic, where they keep a bunch of unusual historic and prototype vehicles, and which isn't normally open for public viewing (but they have a YouTube channel which does features on them from time to time). This was an interesting place to walk around and see for example a couple of Mclaren F1s, the Goldfisch V16 E32 series, F1 cars, old race cars and just some standard examples of historic cars.
This was laid out for some photography
F1 #47 (I believe), M1 in the background
More cylinders than you'll usually find in a BMW
Classic 70s views
The first event of that day was a visit to BMW Classic, where they keep a bunch of unusual historic and prototype vehicles, and which isn't normally open for public viewing (but they have a YouTube channel which does features on them from time to time). This was an interesting place to walk around and see for example a couple of Mclaren F1s, the Goldfisch V16 E32 series, F1 cars, old race cars and just some standard examples of historic cars.
This was laid out for some photography
F1 #47 (I believe), M1 in the background
More cylinders than you'll usually find in a BMW
Classic 70s views
After the tour round BMW Classic, it was back to BMW Welt where we were finally able to get the cars outside into the display area. The initial lineup was a bit random, but after a long time and persistence by official photographer Maris Saulits, there was one Silver Grey line that was almost perfect, with a mixture of cars on the other side.
This display garnered a lot of interest from various passers by, with quite a few people coming over from the BMW factory opposite to have a look. Even some random Influencers turned up.
Cars arriving
This wasn't all of them...
Correct colour on the left, all others on the right.
As we know, CSLs only came in SG and Black, one of the blue ones was a wrap.
In the evening there was a group outing to Motorworld. This is quite a venue, located in an absolutely massive old railway maintenance building. It has several high end and supercar dealers, a hotel, restaurants, car storage, meeting rooms etc.
Car storage. I couldn't really work out how they get vehicles in and out of it from looking at it, but the video below shows that it's actually like a giant sliding tile puzzle !
This display garnered a lot of interest from various passers by, with quite a few people coming over from the BMW factory opposite to have a look. Even some random Influencers turned up.
Cars arriving
This wasn't all of them...
Correct colour on the left, all others on the right.
As we know, CSLs only came in SG and Black, one of the blue ones was a wrap.
In the evening there was a group outing to Motorworld. This is quite a venue, located in an absolutely massive old railway maintenance building. It has several high end and supercar dealers, a hotel, restaurants, car storage, meeting rooms etc.
Car storage. I couldn't really work out how they get vehicles in and out of it from looking at it, but the video below shows that it's actually like a giant sliding tile puzzle !
After Munich it was on to the Nurburgring where there were some events taking place as part of the Nurburgring Classic race meeting. The original plan for private Nordschleife laps on Sunday lunchtime was again scuppered at the last minute, and it ended up with a shorter Nordschleife session on Friday evening, and the Grand Prix circuit on Sunday evening. Unfortunately this meant we missed the Friday session as we'd arranged to stay in Munich an extra night to meet an old friend.
So we drove up to Nurburg on Saturday along with a lot of holiday weekend traffic that rather limited the truly high speed opportunities. We did manage a few decent stretches at 120/130 though. Doing some high speed autobahn driving had been one of my main aims of the trip, as surely the days of derestricted autobahns are numbered. It reminded me a bit of motorcycling, in that you REALLY have to concentrate all the time, so it gets tiring after a while, but still great fun. We had a mini-convoy for a while with a black 996 GT3, the CSL's main competitor when it was launched.
CSLs in the paddock. The GT4RS is owned by a guy whose CSL wouldn't start when he needed set off for the trip !
We saw some of the Classic meeting, with the historic F1 cars being the noisiest, if not necessarily being driven to their full capability.
NOT Jacky Ickx
Post dinner group photo:
We all got stickered up for the track session on Sunday but unfortunately there was a fatality (likely the driver suffered a heart attack) in an earlier race, which resulted in the subsequent races and our session being cancelled. very disappointing, but nothing compared to someone losing their life.
It was a big Touristenfahrten weekend, and the Nordschleife was incredibly busy on Sunday with some long closures. We went back on Monday morning and it was much quieter.
So that was more or less it for car content. We spent a few enjoyable days driving home via the Ardennes and Belgian coast. I'd sprung for Flexiplus on the tunnel, and on the way back we were the only people in the lounge, with only about 30-40 cars on the train. We loaded up with free food in a vain attempt at compensating.
Back home, 1724 miles done, at about 29mpg. The car didn't miss a beat, and is perfectly fine for doing long distances in Europe. All in all a brilliant and unforgettable trip.
So we drove up to Nurburg on Saturday along with a lot of holiday weekend traffic that rather limited the truly high speed opportunities. We did manage a few decent stretches at 120/130 though. Doing some high speed autobahn driving had been one of my main aims of the trip, as surely the days of derestricted autobahns are numbered. It reminded me a bit of motorcycling, in that you REALLY have to concentrate all the time, so it gets tiring after a while, but still great fun. We had a mini-convoy for a while with a black 996 GT3, the CSL's main competitor when it was launched.
CSLs in the paddock. The GT4RS is owned by a guy whose CSL wouldn't start when he needed set off for the trip !
We saw some of the Classic meeting, with the historic F1 cars being the noisiest, if not necessarily being driven to their full capability.
NOT Jacky Ickx
Post dinner group photo:
We all got stickered up for the track session on Sunday but unfortunately there was a fatality (likely the driver suffered a heart attack) in an earlier race, which resulted in the subsequent races and our session being cancelled. very disappointing, but nothing compared to someone losing their life.
It was a big Touristenfahrten weekend, and the Nordschleife was incredibly busy on Sunday with some long closures. We went back on Monday morning and it was much quieter.
So that was more or less it for car content. We spent a few enjoyable days driving home via the Ardennes and Belgian coast. I'd sprung for Flexiplus on the tunnel, and on the way back we were the only people in the lounge, with only about 30-40 cars on the train. We loaded up with free food in a vain attempt at compensating.
Back home, 1724 miles done, at about 29mpg. The car didn't miss a beat, and is perfectly fine for doing long distances in Europe. All in all a brilliant and unforgettable trip.
Sounds like a fantastic trip despite the frustrations and really enjoyed the write up!
(Whoever did the rear bumper must have been the same guy who did the shoddy repair on the front that necessitated me re-painting it after a jet wash). Never spotted it on the rear but glad you’ve got it sorted
(Whoever did the rear bumper must have been the same guy who did the shoddy repair on the front that necessitated me re-painting it after a jet wash). Never spotted it on the rear but glad you’ve got it sorted
MDifficult said:
Sounds like a fantastic trip despite the frustrations and really enjoyed the write up!
(Whoever did the rear bumper must have been the same guy who did the shoddy repair on the front that necessitated me re-painting it after a jet wash). Never spotted it on the rear but glad you’ve got it sorted
Yes, it was great fun. (Whoever did the rear bumper must have been the same guy who did the shoddy repair on the front that necessitated me re-painting it after a jet wash). Never spotted it on the rear but glad you’ve got it sorted
Funny that you also jetwashed the paint off the front, must have been a really s
t job done under KDOs ownership !outnumbered said:
Yes, it was great fun.
Funny that you also jetwashed the paint off the front, must have been a really st job done under KDOs ownership !
It was only a small spot, about the size of a pound coin on the front. It’s weird because he’s a really ‘particular’ guy so I always wondered if either his missus (or maybe a dealer during a service) did the damage and got it fixed on the quiet/cheap before he could find out! Funny that both the front and the back were done. Funny that you also jetwashed the paint off the front, must have been a really s
t job done under KDOs ownership !The only problem that I had with the CSL on the road trip was the windscreen washers failing to work after day 1. I'd filled the reservoir before leaving home, so that needed looking at. The washer bottle sits behind the lower offside wheel arch liner, which already had a big hole underneath, so I ordered up a replacement.
I removed the supply pipe and blew some air through, which was fine, and I could hear the pump was working, so it had to be a blocked filter. After pulling the pump out and experiencing a surprising 5 litre fountain of screenwash which went lots of places that weren't the carefully positioned bowl underneath, I could see the filter was totally sludged up and there was also quite a lot of sludge in the bottom of the tank. So after a good clean and reassembly, it was working fine again, and I had to retrofit the non-broken arch liner, so just the usual wrestling of inflexible brittle plastic into places it doesn't really want to go.
BMW always have dire warnings about only using their proprietary screenwash, but I've never done that, and used the same blue Prestone stuff for years and years without any problems. But maybe it had just been sitting around in there for too long this time.
Maris did some photoshopping on my Munich CSL lineup picture. Looks great !
I removed the supply pipe and blew some air through, which was fine, and I could hear the pump was working, so it had to be a blocked filter. After pulling the pump out and experiencing a surprising 5 litre fountain of screenwash which went lots of places that weren't the carefully positioned bowl underneath, I could see the filter was totally sludged up and there was also quite a lot of sludge in the bottom of the tank. So after a good clean and reassembly, it was working fine again, and I had to retrofit the non-broken arch liner, so just the usual wrestling of inflexible brittle plastic into places it doesn't really want to go.
BMW always have dire warnings about only using their proprietary screenwash, but I've never done that, and used the same blue Prestone stuff for years and years without any problems. But maybe it had just been sitting around in there for too long this time.
Maris did some photoshopping on my Munich CSL lineup picture. Looks great !
Edited by outnumbered on Wednesday 28th June 17:08
Another small outcome of the German trip was wanting to get a Bluetooth music solution. The old Dice adapter was still working fine, but all the tunes on the attached iPod Nano are quite old, and who wants the hassle these days of plugging an iPod into a computer to update the contents. That is so 2010s.
I did a bit of research, and ended up with a BlueMusic adapter https://www.musikimauto.de/BlueMusic-Bluetooth-Aud...
The advantage of this one, which uses a piggyback cable, is that there's no splicing/soldering required, the disadvantage is it won't fit behind the radio without a bit of fiddling. I found a YT video mentioning that removing the glovebox makes it easier, so I did that and could then quite easily push the original connector and wiring loom down beside the glovebox, and leave just the new rear connector in the radio compartment. I already had a slightly sore back from three solid days motorcycling over the weekend, so messing about upside down in the footwell was not really what I wanted to do, but managed in the end to get everything plugged in and working.
The unit shows up as a CD changer, and once selected will just play audio from the connected phone, and you can skip tracks using the buttons on the radio. Seems to work pretty well so far, sound quality is certainly good enough for the low rent 6 speaker setup that the CSL comes with.
Overall it's probably saved a few grams compared to the Dice, too.
I did a bit of research, and ended up with a BlueMusic adapter https://www.musikimauto.de/BlueMusic-Bluetooth-Aud...
The advantage of this one, which uses a piggyback cable, is that there's no splicing/soldering required, the disadvantage is it won't fit behind the radio without a bit of fiddling. I found a YT video mentioning that removing the glovebox makes it easier, so I did that and could then quite easily push the original connector and wiring loom down beside the glovebox, and leave just the new rear connector in the radio compartment. I already had a slightly sore back from three solid days motorcycling over the weekend, so messing about upside down in the footwell was not really what I wanted to do, but managed in the end to get everything plugged in and working.
The unit shows up as a CD changer, and once selected will just play audio from the connected phone, and you can skip tracks using the buttons on the radio. Seems to work pretty well so far, sound quality is certainly good enough for the low rent 6 speaker setup that the CSL comes with.
Overall it's probably saved a few grams compared to the Dice, too.
Edited by outnumbered on Monday 3rd July 15:56
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