It hasn't needed to go in the shop for anything since I moved to Indy, so I don't actually have "My Mechanic" locally. Pete's, over at 49th and Penn, advertises as specializing in imports, so I decided to go pay them a call.
They happen to be right across the street from Cafe Pretenchou, whose specialty omelet this morning was delicious...
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| That's a three egg omelette stuffed with Goose the Market jowl bacon, feta cheese, and sun-dried tomatoes, and drizzled with Sriracha sauce... |
Decided not to leave the car, what with Winter Storm Draco!!! on the way. (It's going to snow in the Midwest in December. Somehow this is such an awe-inspiring event that it needs a terrifying name. Perhaps even theme music on The Weather Channel. I'm waiting for Spring Drizzle Vlad the Impaler!!!)
At least I had a filling breakfast out of the excursion.
They are lazy around here, just calling it the Blizzard of 2012.
ReplyDeleteIt got cold enough last night that I had to get up and close the bedroom windows. Hope it warms up a little bit this weekend, I'm going out shooting all day both days.
ReplyDelete"Spark plugs"? How quaint, even my 25 year old Benz doesn't bother with such things....
The benz also doesn't corner like a z3 either.
ReplyDeleteThat's an E36, right? Bloody easy plug job, but like all aluminum heads, you gotta at least take 'em out and inspect 'em every 10k miles or they try to weld themselves to the cylinder head. I would be more inclined to believe that one of the coils is hiccuping. Which, unfortunately, is a much more expensive part.
You can pull the cover off the coils (A tiny screwdriver and a socket) and visually inspect the coils for damage or arc-over. A good step by step for that here:
http://www.pelicanparts.com/bmw/techarticles/E36-Spark-Plugs/E36-Spark-Plugs.htm
Best of luck.
Mmm. Looks tasty. Good blizzard food.
ReplyDeleteBest of luck on the car. I don't envy you in the mechanic interviews.
Nice tasty food you have there! The car, well I am of no help there. It is not over 30 years old yet!
ReplyDeleteFinding a decent mechanic can be as difficult as finding a decent gunsmith.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with THE STORM. I was going to be driving in that across the plains, but decided to wait a day or so.
Malamute
Too bad you aren't down here in Bloomington, I've got a great mechanic for Eurocars (Allroad Motorsports). My VW did the same thing and it was a coil pack. It would run like holy heck and then get back to norm for a bit.
ReplyDeleteO.K., what is Sriracha?
ReplyDeleteSriracha is also know as Red Rooster Sauce from the illustration on the bottle - a thick, hot, chili sauce packed by Huy Fong Foods Inc. of Rosemead, California. Ingredients are red chiles, sugar, salt, garlic, distilled vinegar, potassium sorbate, sodium bisulfite and xanthan gum. Naturally colored a deep red from the chiles.
ReplyDeleteYum! However, coffee does not taste as good for me after Sriracha has met my taste buds. So I drink my coffee first, then move on to the eggs with Sriracha.
Around here all the best car mechs are called "undocumented aliens"....
ReplyDeleteIf only you could get to Greenfield-Nick at Jason Imports is cheap, fast and thorough
ReplyDeleteApropos of 'randomosity'...
ReplyDeleteThinking more about Newton, something comes to mind. They say 'guns are the problem, ban them!' We say 'no, it's the crazy people, how about banning them?' In truth, our current mental health care system sucks with the power of a small black hole. What if we were the ones to propose doing something constructive? What if we said something like, 'look, how about a 1% sales tax (fed or state, dunno which yet) on firearms & ammo, to go specifically for improving mental health care? More beds in the hospitals, more treatment programs, more training for cops, etc.' We've shown ourselves to be enormously generous already, what if we aimed that generosity at the real problem and source of these disasters?
Just a thought. Maybe too much port.
"Noah Johnson is RIGHT"
ReplyDeleteHere in Missouri we got THE STORM!!!11oneone today. Lots of wind, no power for about 4 hours and about 2-3 inches of snow was it. Sound and fury that's about it.
ReplyDeleteGood luck on the mechanic... sigh...
ReplyDeleteI about went into giggle-snorts tonight when THOT told me that the storm was called "Draco". I wanted to know when they started naming every cotton-pickin' storm, and he wanted to know why they named a snowstorm for a mythical fire-breathing dragon.
ReplyDelete>That's an E36, right? Bloody easy plug job, but like all aluminum heads, you gotta at least take 'em out and inspect 'em every 10k miles or they try to weld themselves to the cylinder head.
ReplyDeleteD'oh! Kano Aerokroil applied now & a few heat / cool cycles before even trying to pull them out by an experienced hand then. Unless you're willing to tow it somewhere for a thread insert if things go foobar.
anti-seize compound applied throughly but sparingly to the threads of the new ones too. Yes, it's conductive. Having a spark plug chaser tool isn't a bad idea either.
You should also go do the plug wires, cap and rotor then too.
-SM
Hunh, that's the second time I've seen FUBAR spelled foobar.
ReplyDeleteIs foobar an actual word and the acronym just made up? Or has it entered the lexicon like snafu?
I'm pretty sure it's F'ed Up Beyond All Recognition and it has been morphing into foobar. Which is apparently where Dave Grohl drinks.
ReplyDeleteSM, the Aerokroil is a good idea anytime, as is the anti-seize- I use copper based on plugs so as not to insulate them. The E36 has coilovers, though, Bosch hasn't used wires and cap/rotor fr generations.
I too just hate it when any sales agent of any type is condescending. This will make me walk right out the door in a heartbeat. What's wrong with sales these days ? Don't they know that customers are always right? At least that is ,until they are out of sight...
ReplyDeleteThey named a blizzard after Malfoy? I mean, I knew they were cold and pale, but dang!
ReplyDelete"OK, what is Sriracha?"
ReplyDeleteYou ask that in this group? That's almost as surprising as hearing a "so, who's this Heinlein guy?" question.
Try it with peanut butter. No, seriously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foobar
ReplyDeletehttp://www.catb.org/jargon/html/F/foobar.html
foo, bar, baz and qux are used in coding like Alice and Bob are used for encrypted message examples.
-SM
Is foobar an actual word and the acronym just made up? Or has it entered the lexicon like snafu?
ReplyDeleteMetasyntactic variable
Sriracha.
ReplyDeleteTake all the red jalapeños that Americans won't eat on their nachos. Add vinegar, garlic, sugar, and salt, and make a hot sauce the consistency of ketchup. Use like ketchup.
Sriracha is the generic product, Huy Fong Foods makes the most popular brand with a rooster on the bottle and a green cap. Sold in Wal-marts coast to coast as well as most grocery stores.
-SM
Sriracha and peanut butter? Don't forget the coconut milk, diced green onions and soy sauce.
ReplyDeleteThat reminds me. I have not had any Thai recently.
I'd junk the motor and swap in an BMW N54 twin turbo inline 6, just to be safe. Open up the exhaust and a tune and your at a comfortable 400 horsepower. Perfect for winter driving.
ReplyDeleteI'm with jeff^^^^ although an alternate idea is going here http://autorepair.iatn.net/?action=search&gc=&page=1&street=Indianapolis,%20IN,%20USA&radius=10&gc_lat=39.7685825&gc_lng=-86.1579557&show_all= to see if you can find a shop you might get along with. iATN is a pretty large collection of the top ten or twenty percent of techs in the world. The amount of stuff I've learned from these guys is mind boggling and I was already a ASE Master certified tech.
ReplyDeleteTam:
ReplyDeleteIf the plug thing doesn't work in the zed drei, have a peek at your cooling system thermostat - it may be stuck open or broken. That could account for the poor idle, both cold and hot. A broken thermostat doesn't allow the engine to come up to temperature, and it will make it miss something terrible, and may even blow black smoke from impure burning of the combustibles. It will also prevent you from being able to, well, umm . . . run in the upper rpm range on the freeway (or anywhere else for that matter).
BSR
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