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Thought I'd make a thread about this, just for fun!
I'm not 100% sure it could be considered "retro", but I was appalled to learn that the E85 Z4 is almost 20 years old. To my mind, it's still a relatively modern car and I still see a fair few around, so I wouldn't have assumed it would be so old. Where does the time go? I guess in 2004, a car from 1984 would look noticably dated whereas a lot of the early 2000s designs can still blend into traffic quite well even today.
How I acquired this car was a complete impulse buy. I was quite happy driving my Omega around until it conked out, and I was half waiting for that day in a way because I've fancied a chance of scenery for years but couldn't justify moving on a working car just on a whim. When the Omega did finally give up the ghost, I quickly popped onto all the usual websites trying to see what was out there and was horrified to see the state of the second hand car market. I've been out of the game of buying cars for a while now so when I saw the absolute detritus that was fetching over £1k, I figured it might be harder than I thought to find a drivable car within my budget, let alone one I wanted.
When I saw this Z4 just a few miles away from where I live, I was pretty taken by it. I've never been massively into BMWs and especially Z cars, but when I actually started looking at them properly I couldn't help but wonder why they had been under my radar for so long. It's a small, light roadster based on mass-produced saloon underpinnings. The driving dynamics are brilliant due to the classic formula of biggish engine and small RWD car, 50/50 weight distribution and a short wheelbase. Mine is only the baby 2.2 but even this really impressed me when I test drove it, due to how silky it is and how smoothly it delivers its power without being overkill for the size of the car. I was worried about the repair costs, but looking online the consensus seems to be that the underpinnings are fundamentally reliable and parts are easy/cheap to replace when they do go wrong.
Anyway, I was so smitten after the test drive that I more or less bought it right away, but in the days following me buying it I would uncover a few problems which the seller did not disclose to me, which I'll go over in the next post. But for now, here's a shot of the other half enjoying the sun from a couple of days after I bought it 😎
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brachunky
Scotland
Posts: 1,317
Club RR Member Number: 72
Member is Online
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2004 BMW Z4brachunky
@brachunky
Club Retro Rides Member 72
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In the first instance, the car looks superb and one I too have thought of buying at some point, nice purchase! Seeing as this is 2023, I am deeply offended that you chose to adorn your car with a pose from your youthful and attractive other half in an attempt to enhance the car and your thread. It is extremely insensitive and ageist to those on here who do not identify with what you have posted. I feel insecure and a lesser man knowing that if I were too buy the same car or indeed a better car like the Z8 and request my wife of 60 years old to rest carefully against the car, I would not enjoy the thread attraction as you and would remain disadvantaged. To repeat, I am offended and to lessen the impact of this situation, here is a picture of another Z4
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May 24, 2023 13:24:19 GMT
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I can only imagine what that is like over speed bumps, as far as I know mine is standard ride height but I'm constantly grounding out on bumps as it is! The first issue which I ran into was the car suffered an intermittent no crank no start condition. Very weird, and left me stranded a few times. The car would make no effort to turn over and just click. It would happen even if I had just finished a journey and immediately tried to start the car after turning it off, so I knew it was unlikely to be the battery. I tested the battery and it was measuring 12.4v which was slightly low, but this did rise to 14.2v when running so the alternator was working. A look at the fusebox revealed that a cheap fuse adaptor, something like this: Was plugged into plug 4 in the fusebox, which is A) unused and B) permanently live. I have no idea what this was for as the interior is standard with no obvious aftermarket parts fitted. Once I unplugged it, the car stopped the intermittent stop so whatever it was, it must have been the cause of the issue. A nice, easy fix. I was driving the car after sussing this out, feeling pretty proud of myself when the coolant warning light came on. A quick check revealed it was very low on coolant and the expansion tank was wet. Very annoying and I very nearly ordered an expansion tank because that's a common failure point but on closer inspection, the tank itself is fine and the coolant was dripping down from the expansion tank which connects it to the engine, pictured here. Phoned BMW and they wanted £65 for the hose. Pftt, yeah right. Ordered a Gates item from ebay, £20 posted and a ten minute fix. Had to remove the airbox to give me access but once I did that it was a doddle and the car now has no coolant leak. I am still likely to replace the expansion tank when it ticks over to 90k, as I know these are a preventative maintenance item in the eyes of many M54 owners. However, for now, I'm just happy that it was a cheap and easy fix. Spoiler alert- not all of the issues with the car are likely to be so cheap or easy.
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Jun 10, 2023 16:46:59 GMT
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The next, and most serious, job I decided to attempt was the power steering. Issues with this are becoming quite common on the Z4 as it approaches 20 years old. Whilst the Z4M has a hydraulic system similar to that of an e36, the standard Z4 has an electric system which I suppose is the precursor to that of the later 1 series. I'm not sure why the different spec'd cars have a completely different setup. Maybe engineers from the M division didn't have faith in the electric unit and in my experience, they were correct.
My car had two issues which I initially had erroneously thought were related. The steering wheel would stick in position and constantly need to be broken loose to turn, almost like a very weak steering lock. It was annoying and spoiled the driving experience of what should be a well-mannered "driver's car". There are numerous old-wives tales online about greasing parts of the steering column and drilling a hole into the EPS module so you can spray grease inside. However, the official method to solving this is to adjust a concentric ring situated between the EPS module and the steering column. It is accessed from under the steering wheel. I simply loosened the two bolts on the EPS module and used a hammer to tap the ring slightly clockwise until I was satisfied that the sticky steering was fixed. It has not returned since but this did not solve the second, more serious problem.
The EPS began to intermittently fail shortly after I bought the car. Soon, the frequency of it failing increased to the point that it never worked. Now, one of my main hobbies is bodybuilding so I didn't really mind driving without power steering, but the MOT expires soon and I knew it'd be a failure so began researching ways to fix it.
The most common failure point is the EPS module itself, although it can also the torque sensor and steering angle sensor. I spoke to a friend, an experienced BMW mechanic, who scanned it with an autel which revealed the steering angle and torque sensors were fine so the fault would lie with the EPS module.
This is where I had a massive stroke of luck. I has resigned myself to sending the unit away and spending about £300 to have it repaired but just on the off chance, went to see a local automotive electrical company who told me they were going out of business, had just entered liquidation and would no longer be there as of a few days. They were only still there to complete the backlog and wouldnt be taking any more work on. However, as luck would have it, they had a spare EPS module which they used as a test unit and I could have it to try if i wanted although they were not sure if it would need to be coded. Of course, I took it to try.
Fitting the motor was one of the least pleasant jobs I've ever done on a car. It was claustrophobic, frustrating, and made me feel Ill because i was laying upside down in the foot well. Access was a total ball ache and I could hardly see what I was doing. However after what felt like hours of getting nowhere, I fired the car up and found that the new EPS works. On subsequent test drives the EPS hasn't missed a beat and the car is now back to being a joy to drive.
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Jun 15, 2023 17:52:39 GMT
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The bulk of the work I have carried out since the last post has been in preparation for the MOT, which expires tomorrow.
I have had certain cars which really seemed to nickle and dime me over the years, my various Saabs and XJ8 being good examples whereby everything seemed to be more expensive than it should be. Thankfully, so far at least, this BMW has been quite cheap to buy parts for. Like, similar prices to my old Punto cheap. Granted, I dodged a major bullet by not having to pay for an EPS repair or new EPS unit, but general maintenance items have been pretty reasonable from the usual ECP and GFS type shops.
I must admit, although I approve of the idea of servicing a second hand car when you first buy it, in practice I've often been put off by the price of parts but this time, parts are so reasonable that there wasn't much reason to forego it. I decided to start with the brakes since the car was showing an intermittent brake pad warning light which would fail the MOT so I figured new pads would probably solve that. Despite it being a pretty enjoyable job to replace the pads and rust proof the arches and suspension whilst I was at it, sadly the new pads did not solve the brake pad warning light.
For anyone who has an E85, you can reset the brake pad warning light by turning the ignition on for 10 seconds, and then opening the drivers door for 30 seconds, then turning the ignition off. I believe this also works for other BMW models from the same time but don't quote me on that. I figured I would try that process and it did clear the code, but sadly it kept coming back. I tried other workarounds like taking the wear sensor out of the pad or unplugging it, but the light kept coming back on so in the end, I paid the princely sum of £8 for new sensors which were easy to fit and appear to have solved the problem. The housing in the front passenger side wheel arch which the connector for the sensor sits in was caked in all kinds of dirt and muck inside it, so I made sure to thoroughly clean that while I was at it. It might not have made a difference but it just doesn't feel right putting it back together dirty!
I do unfortunately think that the car will fail its MOT and that's because it had a persistent SRS light which keeps coming back after I clear it. It is for the occupancy sensor and I have an emulator arriving from Ebay to fix this common problem, but it won't arrive by the time of the MOT so my plan of attack is to clear it right before I go into the testing centre and pray it doesn't come back.
Thankfully I believe aside from that, the car is in good shape and should pass the MOT. Once that is out of the way, I look forward to doing some more quality of life mods to the car.
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brachunky
Scotland
Posts: 1,317
Club RR Member Number: 72
Member is Online
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2004 BMW Z4brachunky
@brachunky
Club Retro Rides Member 72
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Jun 15, 2023 18:09:21 GMT
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Good luck with the MOT. Nice work so far!
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,194
Club RR Member Number: 170
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2004 BMW Z4ChasR
@chasr
Club Retro Rides Member 170
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Some great work here. Being an E91 owner, I wonder if I will have some of the issues you have.
The brake pad warning sensors can be fussy. From what a mechanic told me, generally, genuine or 'OE' based parts don't cause issues, but of course, the price goes up.
Interesting work on the EPS as well.
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Just a quick update today: the car passed it's MOT with a few niggly advisories. Most of the issues highlighted in the test are just normal wear and tear items like brake discs and tyres which I am more than happy with. There was a slight leak on the gearbox sump plug. I've not looked at the gearbox on this car but I had a similar issue on a Fiat once which was because someone had reused the old sump plug washer so I assume this might be something similar.
From my own investigations into the car, there are a few things which, although not outright dangerous or MOT advisories, generally let down a prestige car like this. Things like a tatty steering wheel, poor quality aftermarket gearknob, loose seat rear etc ruin the interior fit and finish. The bump stops on the rear shocks are also severely deteriorated. My plan is to address these issues gradually over the next few weeks/months, so watch this space!
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Work on the BMW has been a little slow lately. I've either been working, busy with other things, or it's been raining! I have a growing list of things I'd like to do to it but unfortunately there are rarely enough hours in the day. Yesterday, the weather was good for the first time in a while, and it gave me a chance to address some issues with the front suspension.
I'll caveat this by saying there was nothing wrong exactly with the car. I could really just drive it as-is and enjoy it. However, I want this example to be as good as possible and thought refreshing some bushes and worn suspension parts would be a good start. I recently purchased a needle attachment for my grease gun which allows grease to be injected into otherwise un-greasable ball joints. Whilst I was going through the ball joints one-by-one, I noticed the rubber surrounding the ball joint on the driver's side drop link was badly perished. The bushes on the rear of the wishbone have also been flagged as advisories on prior MOTs, and as luck would have it, I found a deal on ebay for both the bushes and drop links for quite a reasonable price.
Replacing the drop links was simple enough. It involved a little bit of finessing the car by jacking it up, and then lowering it, rinse and repeat until everything was lined up. The condition of the old drop links becomes obvious when compared to the new.
Whilst I was there, I thought I'd replace the ARB bushes. Simple enough whilst I was underneath, with only a bracket holding them in place. The old bush was not too bad, but it looked like it had softened a bit with age and wasn't snug around the ARB. Bare in mind, I don't know if these have ever been replaced and so it's pushing 20 years old at this point.
Once again, the comparison between new and old was quite clear!
The bracket it was housed in was a bit gammy looking. Covered in vulcanised rubber and rust, grime and all manner of other nastiness. I therefore set to work with the wire brush and some Rocket TT, which is like a beefed up WD40. It'll remove the rust on the metal and prevent it from rusting in future.
With everything re-assembled, the car significantly tighter and nicer to drive. The steering feels more direct and tight, with less wobbling and vibrating. This was quite a pleasurable job on a nice, sunny day and was well worth doing. Next thing will be to replace the bushes on the wishbones, replace the snapped rear spring, and check the track rod ends. They were flagged as an advisory a few years ago on the MOT, but have not been mentioned on any since so it's unclear if they were replaced or whether this was an over zealous tester.
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Jul 22, 2023 14:50:44 GMT
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Yesterday, I did some more work which was much needed.
Interestingly, I recently found out that my parents live only 2 minutes away from a chap called peter newman. Peter is a bit of a legend in the world of BMW mechanics. He has been working on BMW since the 70s and knows them inside out. We were recently talking and he mentioned that the head bolts on these cars have a tendency to become slack, and it would be good to take the cam cover off so we could check they were tight and nip them up if needed. The gasket was perished anyway and was allowing oil to leak onto the manifold, so we could kill two birds with one stone and replace the gasket at the same time.
Removing the cam cover revealed that the cams were in good condition and the inside of the engine generally looks visibly in good condition. When it came to the head bolts, the whole reason we started the job, it did not really go as planned. The first head bolt we checked was torqued to spec already, and when we got onto slacking the centre bolts, they seemed seized and refused to budge. We decided to avoid creating a problem, as the bolt felt pretty close to stripping completely, so we just left it well enough alone.
Replacing the gasket was a bit fiddly but didn't take long, all things considered. Finally, I replaced the spark plugs with a set of Densos I picked up for cheap from GSF. The old plugs were NGKs with 4 straps and reading them, they were all uniform in colour and not sooty or unusual looking at all which reassured me that the engine was running well. My observations are that the engine runs slightly smoother with the new plugs and the average MPG has increased slightly, but it might have lost a small amount of shove lower down the rev range. This might be placebo, however.
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Life's not always allowed me to get much done on the car recently but I have been making decent, if a little sporadic, progress with a number of small jobs. To quickly summarise these, I have: - Fitted a new Sony stereo to replace the OEM one. - Deep cleaned the convertible roof, which was looking very tired and mouldy. - All new fluids and filters (except brake fluid). - Had new tyres fitted all round. - Performed a basic paint "enhancement", courtesy of a clay bar and some Autoglym SRP using my DA. - Uprated the OEM DISA valve with an X8R replacement (safeguarding against the plastic internals of the OEM unit becoming brittle and breaking). - Fitted a new Msport gear knob to replace the cheap nasty one that was in it. - Waxoyled underneath and inside doors and box sections. The car is running sweet, but it has developed some slight little niggles and some existing issues are still yet to be fixed I still haven't reattached the seat backing yet, despite constantly telling myself I really should do that "tomorrow"! The uprated stereo is definitely far better than the basic OEM one but it's really showing up how much of a bottle neck the existing speakers are. Definitely will need to uprate those at some point because I just can't hack a car with a rubbish sound system, even with a straight-six soundtrack. I read online that the speaker covers are actually empty and don't even have speakers underneath so I'll investigate that and get some decent quality replacements/additions depending. I've just gotten new tyres all around and I've heard that a big improvement can be detected with a good alignment. I'll probably have that done sooner rather than later because I want to preserve the new tyres and maximise the sure-footedness of the car as it comes to winter (I'll be daily driving it), but I do believe I need new outer track rod ends so will wait until I've fitted these before I have the suspension properly aligned. Since I fitted new brake pads, which were a little cheap and cheerful for a car like this admittedly, the brakes have made a click when I'm slowing to a stop. I suspect they might be slightly undersized for the caliper. To be fair, I need new brake discs on the front anyway as mine have a distinct groove worn into the OS/F, so I'll replace the pads when I do the discs. I can always keep these ones as a backup pair, after all. In the meantime, just keeping my eyes out for any sales at ECP! Speaking of brakes, there's a few bits in the pipeline for the calipers. I plan on painting the calipers but rather than just tarting up the 20 year old once on it, I'm thinking of buying a rebuild kit for 40 quid which will functionally give two new calipers, which I can de-rust and paint once they're stripped. I'll then change the fluid at that point. Plan will be to spray them Merlotrot to match the paint, as the alloys are so open and greatly expose the rusty calipers, which don't look too great behind them. I think a traditional Brembo style red will be too garish and clash with the car's paint. The domino effect has been ever-present with this "build" and it's the same here. Don't want to paint the calipers without fixing them up first and then don't want to put them behind tatty alloys. One job inevitably just leads onto the next, it's just a case of letting the first domino fall...The CSL reps I've got are a nice design in my opinion but they're looking aged and have a lot of kerb marks and flaking paint around the centre caps. I hope to have a chance to refurb them soon, before the weather turns. Long story short is eventually, I will have new tyres wrapped around refurbed alloys which display freshly painted and rebuilt calipers. That'll be nice... Lastly the car has developed a niggle with the central locking not opening the passenger door which I believe is to do with the GM5 module, if my research is accurate. Not a massively difficult fix but annoying for sure and I'll be glad once it's done. To end this post on a high, I'll say it's actually been a real pleasure to own this car and I continue to get a real kick out of driving it. For an old car the issues are really pretty minor and so I'm taking a nice, chilled approach to gradually fixing them as I enjoy driving it. Happy days
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doa
Kinda New
Posts: 9
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Love these, the wheel and colour combo work a treat together. A straight six one of these is the only car that would tempt me out of my e39 530.
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Last Edit: Jan 1, 2024 11:58:12 GMT by doa
E39 530i
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I do like that, drove a 1.9 z3 round france, always fancied a Z4 with a straight 6. My current daily 630i is putting me off bm's though, so many electrical faults and a curse word previous owner 😁
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Bicycle x1 Alfa Giulietta (now wife's) Alfa 156 BMW 630i Honda rc36
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I hate to say it but I'm rapidly losing interest with it, actually. Since last update it's really been one problem after another with the car. The outside door handle has given up so now I need to use the key to open all the windows so I can reach in and open the door from the inside every time I need to get in the car. This takes about 5 or 6 seconds which isn't great considering most days I'm doing it in the rain, desperate to get inside the car, waiting for the windows to drop. Not that it's any better inside really, because the roof leaks. Easy fix, though.
It has also developed a dreadful stalling issue on a cold start which tends to resolve after about 15-30 seconds, but during this time it'll buck, stall, the revs will bounce, the dashboard will light up and then un-light. Seems fine afterwards regardless of how long it's driven, but it's left me not really enjoying driving it out of constant fear it'll just die while I'm driving. I've done some troubleshooting and believe this is an issue with the DME which I'm still waiting for a garage to get back to me about, because from what I hear a simple software update of the DME has been known to resolve this issue. Still, in the meantime, it's not great. It had be really thinking the other night, because my other half was very ill and I thought "If I have to drive her to the hospital, will the car actually make it?". Not a good thing to have to factor into emergency situations. I did toy with the idea of buying a boring stop gap, something like a derv mondeo or astra, and retiring the Z4 for the winter period so I can take the time to fix these issues before next spring/summer, but then I keep coming back to the idea that the money spent on another car would probably be best spent on the BMW anyway. It's just hard to fix a daily driver because I daren't strip things down knowing I have to commute to work.
Still, it does get looks and attention, which I enjoy. And when I re-read this thread and see replies like the last two, it does kind of reignite my desire to get the car back to its pomp.
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A positive update. As some of you may know, I retired the Z4 for the winter and bought a Mondeo (thread here: forum.retro-rides.org/thread/226450/2003-mondeo-ghia) as it had this stalling issue which was getting worse and rendering the car undrivable. What was first just a little hiccup became a stall, then several stalls, then a no-start. Before long I was staring down the barrel of it being a non-runner. I had the codes scanned and there were about 1000 codes but the relevant ones were to do with the throttle body and the DME. I did a bit of research and surprisingly there wasn't too much about it online. A few threads on forums where people had the same issues and chased it with spark plugs, ignition leads, injectors, throttle bodies, etc etc. Well, I found a local BMW breaker who had a throttle body for 30 quid and I rather enjoy removing a throttle body, I think I've done it on every car I've had. There was no porting and polishing this time, just business like tearing down and replacing in the freezing and rainy weather. This was in January so it wasn't pleasant to work in but needs must. I didn't have much faith that this would fix it but I hung my hopes on that TB code and hoped it might be a simple fix. When I started the car, it had NOT fixed the issue so I was dejected and spent a few hours on the forums trying to find any evidence of a fix. Finally, I found one solitary thread from years ago on an e46 forum in which someone reported having the same symptoms and reported that a DME flash and update fixed it. I spoke to a few specialists who said based on the code I had for the DME, it was touch and go whether an update would fix it or whether the DME's RAM was failing, in which case it's going to need a new DME. I decided to chance my arm with the DME update. It took a while for a variety of reasons, mainly the car not being drivable, but eventually I managed to get it to a BMW specialist who confirmed there was a software update available. They installed it and with crossed fingers I started the car. Well, the great news is that the DME update has solved the problem. The car no longer stalls. It seems to run better than before in general. I've been driving it around for a few days now and it's not let me down and has been a pleasure to drive. I'm falling for it again! However, there are still things to fix. The central locking is a problem, I believe this might be the GM5 module from what I can tell online. The outside door handle also doesn't work and needs to be replaced. Those are the most obvious issues which make a difference to how the car is to live with. However, quite simply, it's now running and driving wonderfully so it's a great platform to work on.
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