[Abhi_Automobile]

How did you get the front kidney grille blacked out? Was it a part replacement, or a wrap via 3M or something? Couldn’t re-read through the entire thread bro so a direct answer will help.

I helped myself to a new 3 Grand Limousine, which has chrome grille in the Luxury line. I like the block gangsta look though

[iliketurtles]

Originally Posted by Abhi_Automobile

How did you get the front kidney grille blacked out? Was it a part replacement, or a wrap via 3M or something? Couldn’t re-read through the entire thread bro so a direct answer will help.

I helped myself to a new 3 Grand Limousine, which has chrome grille in the Luxury line. I like the block gangsta look though

I think it was Bill Gates who extolled the virtues of the lazy man, saying he would choose him to do a hard job since he would always find an easy way to do it. That's a view I can fully get behind

To answer your question, this was a straight replacement grille, ordered off Aliexpress. There's also the option of wrapping your current grille via any car wrap specialist worth their salt. Both are good option, although I liked the simple plug and play philosophy of the the third party grille, so went in that direction. Don't forget to share photos if and when you decide to shake things up!

[iliketurtles]

I am not often a man with a plan, but this time, I had a 3 point plan. And it was beautiful, and bulletproof.

However, by the time I reached stage 2 of this 3 point plan, the realisation dawned on me that the bullets were, in fact, quite problematic.

I know a lot of you are lazy bums that need arguments to be crisply summarised. All you MBA types. So I took the time to list down the Bulletproof Plan, in 3 succinct bullets (of course).

• Add a catless downpipe
• ????
• Vroom vroom, baby

The observant amongst you would have noticed that the Bulletproof Plan ran out of bullets by point number 2.

Frankly, I expected the catless downpipe to add not just some performance gains, but some boomy vocals to the exhaust. However, there was a bump in the road. I did not expect it to add as much gruffness and baritone as it did. This would be a problem. And so back to the drawing board I went. One thing led to another, and grand plans were drawn up to

• Add a resonated midpipe
• Add a new non-resonated end can
• ???

Since I already had the artists at said drawing board, with a gun held to their head, I goaded them on a bit more and got them to whip me up a new design, with two single tips at either end of the bumper, like quarreling lovers socially distanced at opposite ends of the bar.

Many business models have been devised around my propensity to make terrible decisions, but this, as it turns out, was a great one. How about that? I’m gonna let the pictures and videos do the rest of the talking, because I’m told I speak too much, by people who don’t know too much. C’est la vie.

https://youtu.be/yexYssiQDUs

Before I move on, some final points

• She’s now running a stage 2 tune, after the below saga, with a steady diet of 95 Octane
• No, I will not dyno her
• There is no third point

But as always, a spanner was thrown into the works.

Chapter 2: Where have all the ponies gone?

Unbeknownst to me, at some point, several ponies had escaped the stable, leading to a rather flat, NA experience rather than the full-blown turbocharged tumult I should have been enjoying. Unreal, and harrowing.

I was down on power (and how!), but not out. One call (and then a second, and a third) to my favorite local supergarage, Redline Autohaus, was made as I sought to get to the bottom of this internal power struggle.

After detailed analysis, a few intriguing fixes were offered to me

• Buy a 316i badge, and slap it on
• Adorn her with a custom, 3D “Low and slow. Deal with it” decal
• Paint her in Vanta Black, so my shame would be hidden

After some consideration, and wailing, I turned down all three options, and implored the good folks at Redline to help me out.

Much tinkering later (I won’t bore you with the details), the good wizards at the old ‘Haus conjured up some magic, and realized I had a boost leak on account of a cracked turbo hose pipe.

From here on, you know the drill. New pipe goes in, old car feels like new, and a middle-aged man feels young again. It’s the Circle of Life, and all is well in my corner of the world again.

Until next time, Hakuna Matata.

Special thanks go out to Redline for fixing this in what felt like a jiffy, Salman @ Mark Performance for the exhaust-ing work, Ghostrider for burning up the roads and making a beeline to help me take off the tune at short notice, and Tanveer_2558 for being a petulant man-child that would throw a hissy fit if I didn’t mention his name here.

[iliketurtles]

To paraphrase what the renowned poet-philosopher Rihanna once said, some nights you just want to shut up and drive. This was one of those nights.

The unending lockdown and restrictions had got my inner Grumpy Bear wanting to break free of the shackles, and so keys were picked up and off we went. Working weekdays be damned.

Petrol prices might be through the roof, but so was the driving pleasure after slapping a stage 2 tune on this bad boy. The ESC light flashed on and off, so I guess new tires will be in order soon-ish.

Until next time, peace out, yo

[d3mon]

Originally Posted by iliketurtles

After detailed analysis, a few intriguing fixes were offered to me

• Buy a 316i badge, and slap it on
• Adorn her with a custom, 3D “Low and slow. Deal with it” decal
• Paint her in Vanta Black, so my shame would be hidden

[/center]

This list is beyond hilarious.
If I may add one more decal that might have helped - "I like turtles and I cannot fly"

[iliketurtles]

Originally Posted by d3mon

This list is beyond hilarious.
If I may add one more decal that might have helped - "I like turtles and I cannot fly"

I'll take that advice underconsideration and paraphrase that bit if and when I make a decal.

You think I jest, but my (asinine) friends added a 316i badge to their cart on some website, and sent me the screenshot to ask if I wanted them to pull the trigger. Friends really are the family you choose for yourself...

[iliketurtles]

Captain’s log, Stardate 81221.7

A strange orange light lit up on my dashboard. I was previously given to believe this light, known in popular parlance as a Check Engine Light, only existed in a species known as Volkswagen’s. Clearly, I was mistaken.

The Engineering bay got to work on fixing this little impediment, but it remains a snafu. The light persists, and it continues to taunt me.

It seems I will have to go where I have never gone before if I am to get to the bottom of this little mess.

The 3 stages of grief, automotive edition

To be continued...

[dealer]

Originally Posted by iliketurtles

Captain’s log, Stardate 81221.7

A strange orange light lit up on my dashboard.

Have you tried using the read codes function that bootmod3's app/website has? It has helped a lot in such situations and works well in almost all cases unless its an ecu that requires a specialized program like esys.

[iliketurtles]

Originally Posted by dealer

Have you tried using the read codes function that bootmod3's app/website has?

Aye, I did. I have the code with me too, I’m going to take her in to a workshop and get this figured out. Something to do with the O2 sensor.

Power delivery doesn’t seem affected at all, but that Check Engine Light is pesky. Gonna get to the bottom of this.

[dealer]

Originally Posted by iliketurtles

Aye, I did. I have the code with me too, I’m going to take her in to a workshop and get this figured out. Something to do with the O2 sensor.

Power delivery doesn’t seem affected at all, but that Check Engine Light is pesky. Gonna get to the bottom of this.

If it's just an o2 sensor code, you can turn off cat monitoring in the bm3 app to get rid of that CEL. O2 sensor CELs do show up for some after going catless and stage 2 so it shouldn't be a cause of concern.

[agambhandari]

Originally Posted by iliketurtles

Aye, I did. I have the code with me too, I’m going to take her in to a workshop and get this figured out. Something to do with the O2 sensor.

Power delivery doesn’t seem affected at all, but that Check Engine Light is pesky. Gonna get to the bottom of this.

Sounds very much like the CEL for the catless downpipe.

If you hook it up to ISTA, it will clearly say catless downpipe detected

[iliketurtles]

Originally Posted by dealer

If it's just an o2 sensor code, you can turn off cat monitoring in the bm3 app to get rid of that CEL.

That's the very first thing I did, and it still showed up after I re-flashed the tune with the cat monitoring option switched off. Mystified. I'll take her in to an FNG in the coming days and figure this out.

Originally Posted by agambhandari

Sounds very much like the CEL for the catless downpipe. If you hook it up to ISTA, it will clearly say catless downpipe detected

It certainly does. Not that I'm gonna be taking her into the authorised workshop, but the guys at their service centers here are pretty friendly and won't bend you over a barrel for something like this unless it leads to something seriously wrong on the car.

It's an annoyance I'll just have to get sorted one way or the other.

[dealer]

Originally Posted by iliketurtles

It's an annoyance I'll just have to get sorted one way or the other.

Please do update the thread with whatever solution you find. I'm going stage 2 with a catless downpipe on my F30 too next week and your experience will be of great help if I run into such issues.

[iliketurtles]

Dear God,

How you doing, big guy in the sky? Been a while since we last spoke. The world’s kind of gone to pot since, which makes me wonder if you’ve fallen asleep at the wheel. Or maybe this is all some part of the elaborate Grand Plan?

Anyways, I’m sending this memo to you via something called The Interwebs to just thank you for the greatest gift to mankind since the invention of the pet rock. No, I’m not talking about car headlight eyelashes (what the hell was that anyway, the outcome of a drunken night out on town with the boys?)

No, I’m talking about space saver tyres. I know I don’t often invoke you, but I sent heartfelt thanks to you when I was parked on the shoulder of the expressway, my tyre wall shredded by a sharp stone that decided to be on a first name basis with my tyres.

God works in strange ways

I know those Germans waffle on about superior engineering this, and driving pleasure that, but goddamn, it’s mystifying how they engineered a spare tyre out of the boot, where it usually existed. They didn’t even have to reinvent the wheel on this, but no. They had to go to tinker town.

Which brings me back nicely to space savers. It’s kind of a midway house between the “no spare” German philosophy, and the “get real” school of thought that everyone else with half a brain subscribes to. But, it gets the job done, even if it puts your misery or failure on show for the entire world to see.

It also reminds me never to skip leg day, so that’s a good thing too, I guess.

Anyways, thanks for doing us car guys a solid. You’re not all that bad. Now I’m gonna leave you to it, there’s this worldwide bug that I think you’re long overdue crushing underfoot. Anytime you feel like it, no pressure.

P.S.: I realise I shouldn’t have said goddamn earlier. Please don’t send me to hell. And if you do, save a spot for me next to the German engineers that decided to do away with spare tyres.

There’s always light at the end of the tunnel

[iliketurtles]

3 lessons from 3 years and some 30,000 kilometers with the 3

Looking back, my life can be neatly divided into two phases. Let’s call them AD (Age of Diesels) and BC (BMW Cars) for easy reference.

If I cast my mind’s eye to 2018 BC, I realise the precise moment I knew change was afoot.

My wife, she who pronounces salad like Malad because she knows it annoys me so, was leaving town for the next 3-4 days, and threw one of her trademark phrases my way to add to her greatest hits collection of quick quips.

This includes eternal favourites of mine, such as

"Shut your mouth and eat your dinner, there’s no such thing as overcooked chicken"

“Baby, how much do you love me?”

“Stop it, you big baby”

Or her firm favorite, “No, Karan! Don’t do that!”

So, anyways, that’s when it happened.

Bags packed, almost out the door, she turned and fixed a glare on me, saying, “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m away.”

Stupid? Me? Perish the thought, woman.

And that’s where the problem started.

I’ve never been one to do what I’m told, and sure enough, my inner rebel stirred. Barely 24 hours later, I had made a down payment for the 3, and she would be home in a week. Surprise, fräulein! At least you caught me canoodling with the right kind of redhead.

3 years later, I’m still painting the town red

I'm alright, standing in the street lights here

Is this meant for me? My time on the outside is over

It’s been 3 years since I brought the 3 home, and it’s been a helluva ride.

You know how they say, “when you know, you know?”. The moment I clapped eyes on her, I just knew. It was that heady, intoxicating rush of blood that we call love. Or lust, depending on the direction of said rush. Regardless, I never looked back after picking her up. The reversing camera helps a great deal in that regard, truth be told.

I’d like to say it’s been a rollercoaster ride, but it hasn’t. She’s been surprisingly reliable, with only a few niggling issues that come about with age (iffy sensors, mainly). It helps that I’m proactive with fixing gremlins that pop up, and with service requirements too. I guess that’s a good thumb rule to follow with all things Teutonic. There’s a Check Engine Light I’m looking to get fixed (I think related to the instalationl of the downpipe) that needs to be fixed. All else is normal.

She’s currently about to bring up 48,000 clicks on the odometer, so I’ve notched up some 30,000 kilometers at the helm of this red rocket ship. Doubtlessly, I’d have added even more were it not for cussed Covid.

Even after I decided to embrace the low-life, I’ve taken her on multiple sorties and longer forays (mostly to Goa) without breaking much of a sweat. I’ve driven her like she was meant to: with vim and vigor, when life in the big city allows me to, with a spot of relaxation thrown into the mix now and then. My first Bimmer has been a rewarding, enjoyable experience, and I have learnt much from our time together, as I shall now bore you recounting.

Lesson #1: RWD matters

A lot of us buy cars for rational, pragmatic reasons. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But I identify closely with the rebels, the misfits, the crazy ones. The ones that don’t follow the beaten path, or take the route less travelled. The ones that don’t just see a car as a means to an end. That’s because cars are an extension of us, our most visible outfit for the world to see.

For instance, if you choose to buy a Prius, you’re immediately assumed to be a rabid eco warrior with zero appreciation for design sensibilities.

Or, if you drive a Hummer, you suffer from what the medical community calls Small Scrote Syndrome, a tragic medical condition where the size of your lugnuts are inversely proportional to the size of your choice of vehicle.

The more observant among you might have noticed I did not name any Indian cars on sale. Astute. That’s because everyone likes to take offence. No offence.

A slice of old-school cool

But, to get my point, choosing a BMW doesn’t mean you’ve arrived (although it does for some), so much as how you’ve arrived. Mechanical wizards might work their magic on FWD cars, but there are limits to the extent of the power of the dark arts. A FWD car pushed to its limits inevitably sounds like a stable of pigs squealing as they escape the sty.

Sure, even BMW is moving away from the RWD formula, sadly. But companies like Cadillac (Cadillac, incredibly!) are showing that AWD is not an absolute necessity even when you’re pushing 500 BHP, as it is with the Cadillac CT4-V Blackwing, or it’s big brother that pushes nearly 700 BHP. And it heartens that this is so, that a few rage against the dying of the light.

That’s because, ​​simply put, rear-wheel drive matters. In the furthest recesses of a petrolhead’s cranium, we know that power delivered to the rear wheels is a central pillar of the temple of the automotive gods. Sure, FWD gets the job done in almost all urban applications, and AWD is a must for burly off-roaders, if not 4-wheel drive.

But at speed, switching off the electronic nannies brings the car to life. The machinery embraces you for waking it up, and draws you deeper into its very core, encouraging you to go harder. Of course, this 3 is no race car, but as a corner-carver cum city-goer, it is excellent, a master of many trades with an allure that runs deep.

Perhaps it’s because I lowered her, but the 3 has a heavier steering than the normal 3, and she turns in with immediacy, scampering from one corner to the next as if Thor were flinging her. It’s joyous in extremis, and I believe a big part of it is because it’s got rear-wheel drive at play.

Lesson #2: Welcome to the club, bub

Something they don’t tell you prior to buying a BMW is that it’s like joining a cult, except you never got the memo.

Almost every BMW driver you roll up next to sees you as a Bavarian brother from another mother, and shares a deep spiritual connection with you.

“Come, brother. Let us commune, and together break tread.”

And then, of course, there is the larger German reich that welcomes you readily. Just don’t expect the FWD Audi’s to break tread with you readily.

And, of course, sometimes you get people seeing you differently.

For instance, my business head at the time I bought the 3 drove a Honda City. Not just any City either; one of those fugly dolphins that somehow made it to production. Suffice to say I cajoled her into buying a new Camry to keep up appearances, just so I didn’t upset power dynamics.

And then, of course, your success sometimes breeds resentfulness, be it begrudging or contemptuous. Guess all you can do is drive off muy rapido, a peal of squealing rubber sound-tracking your getaway as you scream, “WHAT’S THAT, BUD? I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF SUCCESS.”

What I’m saying, is that the club definitely has its perks, but there are some downsides too. You might expect a flaming red BMW to bring all the girls to my proverbial yard, but this toy only attracts all the boys to my (non-existent) yard. Reminds me of something that rhymes with chick magnet, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Lesson #3: The value of hard work

No matter how high a station in life you ascend to, it is hard to escape your early grounding. I guess there’s a reason it’s called your formative years.

Like any other middle class boy, I was instilled with a few basic values; work hard, stay honest, you know the lot.

Of these, the value of hard work has become amply clear to me. How else are you going to pay for exponentially increased service bills and go-fast bits? And all those aren’t going to pay for themselves either. In fact, it’s why they’re mooching off you, you magnificent BMW owner, you.

Truth be told, she hasn’t been that expensive to maintain (I am talking about the car here, to be clear).

Let me put that in perspective with cold, hard numbers. I have an insurance renewal coming up in 2 weeks, and have been quoted ₹6xxxx for a zero dep policy, which came down to ₹54xxx after some back and forth. Not too bad for a 9-year-old car.

I slapped on a new set of Michelin Pilot Sports 4s on her, which set me back about ₹81000, and expect it to last me about 25,000 kms.

Fitment seems to be a bit of an issue, to be honest

A brake job (pads, sensors, fluids, etc.) sets me back about ₹30,000 for EBC yellow stuff, and lasts about 25,000 kms too.

So, all said, it’s not that expensive to maintain. Although I understand expensive is relative, as are relatives, especially during wedding season.

All this simply goes on to underline what they all say: work hard, and party hardly. Because you’re going to need all that extra cash for your ride.

Bonus Lesson #4: Hand on heart

Note how the watch is clearly visible, a perfect display of wealth

Hand placement is of the essence, gotta get them pics for the ‘gram, bois. (Also, this leaves one hand free to showcase your bird collection to fellow drivers. Win-win).

Right then, that’s my rambling done. Peace out, and stay cool, fellow kids. See ya.