Fresh-air workout
2001 BMW 530i Sport manual
Owned by Joe Breeze (joe.breeze@bauermedia.co.uk)
Time owned One year six months
Latest/total mileage 1283/114,265
Latest/total costs £657.53/£1327.45
Previously New tyres for first MOT
Instead of installing caloriecounting apps and taking out gym memberships in anticipation of a ‘New Year, new me,’ I spent the quieter days in the Christmas holidays planning resolutions of a hopefully more realistic kind. I’ve previously sent my cars to specialists out of reluctance to get my hands dirty, but when buying my E39 I promised myself that I’d attempt all but the oiliest jobs myself. With a world-wide-web’s-worth of E39 and M54 straight-six DIY guides out there, I had no excuse not to. Trouble was, the BMW had largely behaved itself.
But any respectable classic owner knows that preventative maintenance trumps reactive, so I set my resolution. First some investment would be required – the equivalent of new running shoes if you like. I opted for a Halfords Advanced 200pc socket and ratchet spanner set bundled with screwdriver and bit set for £355 – an outlay softened by a lifetime guarantee that you can walk into a branch and exchange a broken tool like-for-like. Another crucial bit of kit would be a diagnostic tool (heart-rate tracker?) so I went for Carly, an OBD-II reader that Bluetooth-pairs to an iphone app that presents fault codes and coding options in a slick and decipherable interface.
Having successfully paired the BMW to an iphone 20 years its junior, I went for that dreaded ‘first run,’ i.e. the maiden diagnostic scan. Twenty-three errors came back – 19 of them thankfully minor and non-urgent, the other four in the alarming ‘engine’ category. They all corresponded to the Lambda (O2) sensors; Carly instructed me to ‘REACT IMMEDIATELY.’ Nothing like a Germanic instruction to get my backside up and active in bitterest early January.
I ordered a pair of OEM Bosch pre-cat sensors (£55.48 each) and soon had the first swapped in. The second is tucked deeper in the bay and would require the removal of the cabin air filter box, vanity cover and ideally half the thickness of my hand for good access. A good time for a rescan first then – lo and behold, replacing the front sensor had wiped all four codes. I’ll still fit the second, but that can wait until temperatures are back in double figures and I can simultaneously raid the spark plugs, coil packs and rocker cover gasket while I’m in there.
That’ll be April I reckon. Longer than any gym streak I’ve ever managed…