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Now, a drive from Johannesburg to Sun City and back (+-400Km). To summarise, I LOVE THIS CAR! So smooth, so effortless, so … 7.
Two anecdotes from the trip that you might enjoy.
Going there - I wanted to 'test' a statement that someone from the E38 group made, so I took the car from the 120Km (speed limit) up to 180Km/Hr (speed traps very infrequent on that road…). So, we are doing 180 for some 5 minutes (whole family in the car), and I tell me wife, quoting the statement from the group: 'Darling, you know what I like best about this car - the fact that if you don't look at the speedometer, you just don't know if you're doing 80 or 180'. She looks at me, ponders for a moment and says: 'So, what is it???'. A case to remember, about point proven!
From the return part of trip:
Almost immediately after we left Sun City, I start hearing this nerve-wrecking sound, loud enough to come through the music and chatting, something like all valves have gone nuts, or the catalytic converter is blowing out bits of the core through the exaust, or there is plastic cover of some sort inside the engine space, rattling like crazy - pretty impossible to describe, actually. So, I turn the music off, silence the passengers, move myself left-right/front-rear in the seat while driving trying to locate where the sound comes from. Darn, it's from the front of the vehicle - must be something nasty and expensive, right? To cut the long story short, I drove for almost 200Km expecting the worst to happen - luckily, it didn't.
Missing information: On our way back, I was trailing our friend's Merc 200E ('123', 1984-5). My mother-in-law was travelling with them (Z;-). We arrived home (I'm still a wreck because of the noise I was hearing the whole time…), they drop-off my mother-in-law and they're gone. She comes into the house and says, noticeably worried, that she was so afraid on the way back, because our friend's Merc is making this horrible rattling noise (!!!!!!!). I immediately put 2 & 2 together - yep, the noise I was hearing the whole trip, from a distance of 50 - 60m between the cars, through all the road, wind and cabin noise and through BMW's double-glass, were Merc's rear axles attempting to … explode!!!
Consumption data:
Avg. consumption measured on +-200Km of open road, mostly at 120Km/Hr = 10.3L/100Km, while my city traffic avg. = 18.4!!!
And, finally, a question if you don't mind:
After 200Km with air-con on, mostly 'outside-air' position, with about 100Km of light rain, wet road & humidity, after I parked the car, left it for about 30 minutes and started it again - as I moved out, I noticed (to my absolute horror!) a wet spot left on the paving, from under the center-middle (more-less) of the car. I checked it out immediately, and no, it was not oil but water - quite a bit of it. Please remind me and put my mind at ease - the air-con de-humidifier outlet would be somewhere in that area, right?
Regards to all,
Mihajlo
Randburg
South Africa
'97 740i
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