2000tii Touring Restoration Project Update

Just added some new pictures to the restoration page on the main www.carmamotorsports.com website. Pics can be viewed here.

Slow progress has been made -- the bad paint and bondo has been stripped away, the rust removed in most places, exposing what's left of the good bare metal. Man, was there a lot of bondo on this car! I think whoever "restored" it before used more bondo than paint on this car.

The nasty old trunk pan has been removed, and the new one has been tacked in place. The next step is to put the car on a frame jig and remove those old nasty frame rails! We have a set of rails that Jeff graciously harvested from a sad but intact and rust-free old 2002 that was waiting for the crusher in South Atlanta. I think he nearly had a coronary cutting the things out with a sawz-all! It was probably over 100 degrees in the sun that day.

Unfortunately the project is currently stalled for lack of funding, but we will no doubt resume work soon!

Service / quick lube update

So I found this interesting -- sometimes a customer will comment that our Oil Services are quite expensive when compared to other shops, or "Just as much as the dealer." The fact is, almost nobody makes money on oil services. It's usually what's called a "Loss leader" -- a service item that is used to get someone in the door so you can sell them more work. We don't use it that way, it's simply a service we offer to our customers so that we can ensure all of their maintenance is done properly by qualified technicians, using parts and fluids that meet all the required specifications.

All that being said, I was recently presented with an invoice from Jiffy Lube. This invoice was for an oil change on a 2001 BMW 325i -- a very common engine, the M54. At Carma, an Oil Service on an M54 usually runs around $110, and you are getting Valvoline Synpower 5W40 Full Synthethic motor oil, which meets the newest BMW requirements, a MANN oil filter (which is the OEM for BMW -- same filter the dealer uses) and a highly qualified BMW technician working on your vehicle. So guess how much the customer paid at Jiffy Lube? $103.66! Here's the invoice, for evidence.

What do you get for $103.66? Most likely an aftermarket, sub-standard, made in India / Korea / Pakistan / etc oil filter, hopefully some full synthetic oil (if you're lucky), and a guy making maybe $8 an hour who probably cares very little about you or your car.

I think the extra $7 is worth, at the very least, the peace of mind Carma can bring.

What's going on at Carma?

Sometimes our customers ask what we've been up to over here at Carma, so here's a summary of some of the more interesting things we've been up to recently...

We've just finished a nice mini-restoration project on a Euro 1981 BMW 320/6 Baur. For those of you that are not familiar with the Baur, it is a T-top convertible modification done on (at the time) E21 3-series BMWs. It's pretty neat to see one of these cars, as they are quite rare these days. Parts were hard to come by, but we've managed to work most of the issues out. The customer had us cover a long list of repairs and rebuilds, including going through and rebuilding the entire brake system, replacing the timing belt, and installing an updated 2-barrel Weber carburateur.

On more recent vehicles, we have just completed a transmission replacement on an '02 BMW 745i, which comes equipped with the 6-speed ZF 6HP26 automatic transmission. This transmission is notable because it does away with almost all mechanical linkages, having only a single cable that disengages the parking pawl, that only being necessary for safety reasons. All shifting is handled internally, and even the electronic control unit is located within the transmission itself! We are seeing a growing trend that is part of a larger picture. BMW (and almost all car manufacturers these days) are building their cars to only last around 100,000 miles. It is expected, on their end, that you will throw the car away and buy a new one at that mileage. This means their components are designed to last no longer than that mile-marker. Since they are expecting the components to fail, they see no reason to recommend adequate maintence that may extend the life of these components -- hence the claim that these transmissions are "Lifetime Fluid Fill" and do not require service. If you do not care to keep the car over 100k, fine, don't service the transmission. Just throw the whole car away when it breaks, or shell out the $7,000 or so that a replacement transmission goes for.

Which sounds better to you? If it were my car, i'd put the $500-$600 into it (less on other BMWs, this one just has extremely expensive fluid) and hopefully get at least 50% more life out of the transmission... but that's just me.

Otherwise, business as usual. Broken water pumps and belts here and there, services and suspension, etc.

Pictures of the Baur will be added soon!

But (Insert Quick-Lube chain here) can change my oil for $50!

So why should you let Carma change your oil? Today, while performing an Oil Service on a customers '03 325i, I found a good example of why, and one that I come across quite often.

Here I am cleaning the threads for the drain plug in the oil pan. I had to do this because someone (Quik-Lube tech) over-tightened the plug. And the plug?

The drain plug on the left is the old plug. If you look closely enough you can see the top thread on the plug is flattened out. The plug on the right is a new one. What has happened is the Quik-Lube guy tightened this plug too much, squishing the final thread, which then wreaked havoc on the oil pan on the way out. The drain plug is made from steel, which is harder than the aluminum the oil pan is made from.

So that's one reason that I personally think it's better to let Carma change your oil. It may cost a bit more, but do you really want someone screwing up your baby?