Someone butchered my car.. :S

[genphreak]

Welcome aboard the board...

On the euro e34 I don't think Engine check is used- it is what was used prior (on e23, 24, 28 and so on). e34 has an LCD panel to provide a better description of the problem at hand.

In the US they use it to comply with the regualtions that state that all cars with diagnostics have to display the info so you are not tied to dealer servicing. It was a big problem with Dealers locking customers into using them in such a pre-meditated fashion. Something that we in Oztralia don't give stuff about of course... and in europe would not happen, as workshops organise their equipment and staff in a more long-term fashion as opposed to looking always engineering new ways to scam customers :P

The seatbelt light is a 10 second (or so) warning unless yours has pre-tensioners, etc. in which case it may be smarter about seatbelt status. My car was not messed with before I got it, and my CEL was missing. The seatbelt warning may have been also, or maybe was blown. I can't remember. I have put a bulb in each now, but never seen the CEL come on, even with a recent oil pressure warning!

If you are worried, go over the car. There will be problems if you are right about the PO. Usually these cars have been well looked after, and at this age the level of idiocy in the maintenance is limited to simple things like 'free-flow' exhausts to replace the 'restrictve factory setup', poor leather care, incorrect rear camber (if lowered) and the use of incorrect coolant (can be tragic) and not changing the brake fluid regularly or with using trans, brake and power steering fluid of the correct type.

If you are new to the car, change all fluids for what you know or can verify with other forum members to be correct. Clean her up and make a spreadsheet of the wear items coming up, or required quickly. Planning is the secret to affordable BMW ownership in the long-term.

Keep a log of everything you do also, it helps to know what was done when, its easy to forget. No girlfriend likes that Nick

[genphreak]

What? He drove it with no bumpers on for 2 years? What did the local constabulary say about this? ;-) Shaun

Oder Volvos didn't need them. The car was tough enough without them. It was the marketing department that tacked them on, saying they needed to make this benefit more obvious to prospective customers... Nick

And whilst I am in such a serious mood, I might speculate that it was perhaps the same marketers that took the tail off the Audi TT (because it upset somebody's ideas about styling, and which the engineer's felt was the only way they could keep it on the ground at speed (an opinion that mattered not to marketing it seems). After a spate of serious accidents from flipped TTs, the engineers were asked to come up with a spoiler for the car, a request to which some responded 'slightly indignantly'

Here is a discussion about it lifted from the pdf link below;

When it comes to basic design of the rear of the Audi TT it shares several similarities with the Porsche 911. This means that both cars also ought to share the same characteristics when it comes to aerodynamic features. Since the sloping shape, this begins almost at the top of the front windshield, causes low pressure over the top of the car. This gives that both cars, in their basic design, experience lift forces over the rear axle. In the case of the Audi it has a lift force of 70 kg at 200 km/h [www.caranddriver.com], which affects the handling performance of the car at high speed in a negative way. The TT and the first version of the 911 also have approximately the same rear axle load, 620 kg, which ought to give a similar effect due to lift forces [www.canadiandriver.com].

We have not been able to find any information of to which extent this behaviour has been the cause for accidents on the earlier models of the 911, but since the TT is of a much more recent date and its problems more widely written about in different magazines and other media it has been easier to find relevant information concerning the aerodynamic problems.

Another reason that the problems might not have been so widely discussed on the earlier 911 is that the speed was not as high, which is a crucial part in these problems. With the help of the TT information that we have found, we will be able to analyse how the design affects the high speed handling performance and what steps Audi took to minimize this problem. When the TT was introduced to the market in 1998 it was praised for its clean design, the rounded profile made it a very graceful car. The rear end of the car showed obvious signs of that the Porsche 911 had been a source of inspiration in the design process. The handling problems were first discovered in Germany when driving at high speeds on the Autobahn.

The problems were especially significant when the drivers began to slow down and at the same time started turning to get onto an off-ramp. The rounded design of the rear of the TT did not give the air a fix release point, instead the release point wandered. This gave the TT a certain degree of instability, which caused the rear of the car to wobble. When this wobble was combined with high speed braking, which gives a dynamic shift of the gravity centre towards the front axle and thus decreasing the load on the rear axle, and also cornering the TT could no longer sustain sufficient
rear wheel grip. This resulted in 22 severe accidents were the TT spun around and ended lying upside down at the side of Autobahn [www.caranddriver.com].

Audi quickly realized that they had to do something about the problem because of all the negative press, which could affect the sales of the TT like the elk-test had done to the Mercedes A-class. Audi came up with different solutions for the 2WD and the 4WD. The common solution for both
models was to recall all sold cars and mount a small spoiler on the deck lid. This spoiler reduced the lift forces from 70 kg to 25 kg at 200 km/h. On the 2WD version Audi installed an extra 60 kg in the luggage space to increase the load on the rear axle. This was not considered necessary on the 4WD version, since it already had a higher rear axle load because of the 4WD-system.

There were also a lot of other changes made on the TT in order to increase the degree of under steer, but these were mainly changes done to the shock absorbers, bushings and stabilizers and therefore not interesting to explain in this report. Audi also offered an ESP installation; in some countries free of charge and in other for a small charge. An interesting thing to know is that many of the Audi performance specialists took away the 60 extra kg because they wanted to fit a two-pipe exhaust system to the car. Once again was the handling performance of the car set aside for design purposes. [www.caranddriver.com]

The TT, and its original problems, ought to share several similarities to the ones the original 911 experienced when it was introduced to the market in 1964.

This is an exerpt related to the TT lifter from a good discussion on aerodynamics and stability on Porshce and other 'cowpat-shaped' cars can be found here (pdf document).

Nick

[BimmerMeUp]

What? He drove it with no bumpers on for 2 years? What did the local constabulary say about this? ;-)

Shaun

You would think that in a state like California, he would have been ticketed in a heartbeat, but it never happened. At the time California had emmisions inspections, but no safety inspections. Maybe they avoided him becuase of the surfboard bungied to the roof....

[Michael999]

OKAY! ive gotten the steering wheel to extend out, i unscrewed that nut all the way off the shaft, it still wouldnt move! no matter how hard i pulled.
I got dad to come out and have a look whilst i was yanking on it, he said it was just the bush that was moving.

He went and got a soft face hammer and gave everything a good hard tap, still nothing, so he started hitting the flange upwards(toward driver) whilst i was pulling, still zero movement.

So we moved onto a sledge hammer.. SUCCESS! tap after tap it moved about 3mm, finally got it to where we thought was the furthest it was designed for (we guessed via the slide marks on the shaft where the clamp is).
The wheel still doesnt extend either way, but with me being the only driver, i really dont care since its where i want it.

Upon close examination it looks like a previous owner has had a shimmy or steering play and tried to eliminate the problem, using loctite thread-lock, and overtightening the nut so much that the spline has been gouged into.

Well thats my story