Hi All,
Happy new year.
Just looking or a bit of advice please.
We bought a 1999 2.0l Z3 last September for a knock down price from a private dealer who had taken it in on a part exchange. The car is cosmetically sound, however with little mechanical knowledge or experience we were taking a bit of a punt on that side of things.
We have only used the car sparingly for relatively short trips between getting it and Christmas, and overall (apart from a problem with the battery running flat which is now sorted thanks to advice from here) we have only experienced small/manageable “quirks”, such as the electric windows & central locking not working. Our aim is to gradually fix these, and a few cosmetic issues such as a cloudy headlight and a couple of interior bits over the next few months and get it ready for Sunny drives out of London in the summer.
We did however take it back to visit family in Sheffield for Christmas and drove it around most days including a couple of 100 mile+ days to visit friends. All in all, we did about 800 miles over the 2 weeks.
The main issue we have is that the engine very rarely seems to get up to temperature, often hovering in or just above the blue section on the gauge and never going past 1/3. This is something that I have noticed before but I guess the winter temperatures exacerbate this at the moment. Then about halfway into the trip we noticed that the engine/gearbox/clutch (no idea really but seemed to be coming from the front drivers side near the wheel arch) started making a slight grinding with a louder sharper grinding crescendo when accelerating through the gears between about 1500 and 2000 revs. This seems to be at its worst when the engine is running at its coldest as when the gauge shows 1/3 then the grinding noise is much less noticeable or not even there.
I am hoping that we can fix the temperature problem which in turn will heal the grinding noise and that they are not two separate issues.
Any advice would be appreciated on this, and also any quick fix for the windows and central locking not working?
Cheers, Nick
Happy new year.
Just looking or a bit of advice please.
We bought a 1999 2.0l Z3 last September for a knock down price from a private dealer who had taken it in on a part exchange. The car is cosmetically sound, however with little mechanical knowledge or experience we were taking a bit of a punt on that side of things.
We have only used the car sparingly for relatively short trips between getting it and Christmas, and overall (apart from a problem with the battery running flat which is now sorted thanks to advice from here) we have only experienced small/manageable “quirks”, such as the electric windows & central locking not working. Our aim is to gradually fix these, and a few cosmetic issues such as a cloudy headlight and a couple of interior bits over the next few months and get it ready for Sunny drives out of London in the summer.
We did however take it back to visit family in Sheffield for Christmas and drove it around most days including a couple of 100 mile+ days to visit friends. All in all, we did about 800 miles over the 2 weeks.
The main issue we have is that the engine very rarely seems to get up to temperature, often hovering in or just above the blue section on the gauge and never going past 1/3. This is something that I have noticed before but I guess the winter temperatures exacerbate this at the moment. Then about halfway into the trip we noticed that the engine/gearbox/clutch (no idea really but seemed to be coming from the front drivers side near the wheel arch) started making a slight grinding with a louder sharper grinding crescendo when accelerating through the gears between about 1500 and 2000 revs. This seems to be at its worst when the engine is running at its coldest as when the gauge shows 1/3 then the grinding noise is much less noticeable or not even there.
I am hoping that we can fix the temperature problem which in turn will heal the grinding noise and that they are not two separate issues.
Any advice would be appreciated on this, and also any quick fix for the windows and central locking not working?
Cheers, Nick