Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

1

General Car Chat / Re: P006A-84 Ingenium Diesel

« on: 26 March 2026, 16:18:23 »

Do you have any way to do a pressured smoke test?

From memory that was the error that that 2.0 Disco 5 had that I kept for about a week then sent back to the dealer. Something about a mismatch between manifold pressure and the air coming into it. The local indie hooked it up to a Strap-On smoke machine and pressurised it, result was chuffing smoke from somewhere under the inlet manifold - would have been impossible to see without removing the engine from the car, but definitely there. 

My symptoms were that the car stuttered and stumbled at low rpm/load situations, like if parked at a set of lights and just rolling away when they turned green, say 25% throttle. Or when pottering through a 30 limit. If you gave it a shoe full it behaved normally.

2

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 26 March 2026, 16:11:01 »

It's another RRS , I wasn't fussy on either model but was particular  regarding service history & mileage paid my indi to travel over & inspect this one " you won't find a better one" were his words the seller took mine in part payment which was handy so did the deal yesterday, going in next week for a thorough health check, but I'm not expecting any issues, it's very fast compared to the TDV8 which wasn't a slouch by any means.👍

Sounds like you've found a really nice one! Look forward to seeing some pics, once its washed and polished to your exacting standards obviously 

3

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 25 March 2026, 23:19:03 »

Took the RRS across to Oxford & picked up a 5.0 supercharged autobiography in exchange,what a great journey home over 500 BHP and the sound is amazing 👍

Outstanding 😊.

Is this a permanent exchange?

4

General Discussion Area / Re: 3D Printer Chat

« on: 23 March 2026, 15:24:26 »

I think K2 plus and K2 Pro are similar print heads. Not sure about the base K2, specs imply max lower temps, so something must be different to that

Ah yes, I'd forgotten about the Pro, I'm guessing that's the one that's the same as the max, rather than the boggo K2.

After ordering two and sending them back for being absolute toss, I'm currently printing a pump I can power with a drill to get the diesel out of the chrysler. 

5

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 23 March 2026, 11:35:29 »

Oh, and popped it back on charge, despite it's 300 mile trip yesterday, as all that door opening and having the wireless on took the battery down to 50%

Sounds like you're preparing yourself for life as an ev driver 

Don't let your tanks run low folks!   

Thankfully I have a spare 60L sitting on the driveway. Need to extract it from the 2t of american lawn ornament that's wrapped around it, but nevertheless.

6

General Discussion Area / Re: 3D Printer Chat

« on: 13 March 2026, 09:40:36 »

A mate of mine, who is as tight as a ducks arse, got a K2 Plus, and we have shown you can peel off the RFID tags from a empty Creality reel and put on another without damage virtually 100% of the time, and reprogram.

They might not stick perfectly, but a bit of sellotape over them sorts that.

The second lot of RFID tags I got off eGay program up nicely and do seem to work. Also, I noticed on my CFS monitor that the one genuine RFID tagged reel I have on there looks like its showing half empty. Not sure if this is actually a thing or if my eyes are going....

Also, we were discussing what spares to have on hand....

Its defo worth you having some spare PTFE tube and a spare extruder cover.

Useful to know, thank you. On this point, do you happen to know if the K2 and K2 plus are the same unit (other than the enclosure size - obviously) with interchangeable parts? The reason I ask is that when I've looked online K2 plus parts seem more plentiful/easily available. Clearly aome things will be different, but the print heads for example look visually the same to me.

7

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 12 March 2026, 15:53:50 »

Had £1100 of tyres fitted to it 

8

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 09 March 2026, 10:54:30 »

You did, but being sensible goes against the grain with me.
I feel much older and more boring now I own one. 

Bet its faster than the car it replaced 

Be interested to hear how you get on with it!

9

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 06 March 2026, 12:17:06 »

B58 lump as fitted to M240i/M340i is probably one of the best engines made.

3 litre straight 6 with loads of top end power and 'stump pulling' torque at the bottom end.


My actual car made 445 bhp and 475 lb ft of twist when strapped to the dyno at Viezu. BMW quote a very conservative 369BHP and 369 lb ft of torque.

Yes, I reckon this engine in the 5 series estate, wither this one or the last one, probably makes for one of the best all round family cars money could but. I loved my m140i hugely - when it was working, and the 335d was no slouch either 

10

General Discussion Area / Re: Middle East

« on: 06 March 2026, 10:04:14 »

Asda 143.9p yesterday, up 4p. Some smaller garages up 10p....profiteering.

Same here, up 10p most places and HGVs queuing into petrol stations where you wouldn't normally see them. No movement on petrol though - so I do wonder if its a UK demand issue i.e. big hauliers pulling deliveries forward.

11

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 06 March 2026, 09:34:48 »

I always thought it was a bit cheeky of BMW to name the 4 cylinder 2.0 litre plug in hybrid 330e/530e, which implied that it’s a three litre. I know they are fairly brisk but they are worlds away from a 3.0 litre, so why not just call them 320e/520e. 

It absolutely is, performance wise it sits directly between the 530i and 530d (presumably that's their justification for the '30') but that only holds true if there's juice in the battery - there wasn't when I got it and it felt very much like a 520i with two fatties sat in the back  . It also doesn't have the nice feel of either of the 3.0 units, which is important when you're paying that ludicrous amount of money!

Overall I *can* see a use case for the 530e, since I charged it its returned about 75mpg in mixed use and used about 2.5miles/kwh meaning if you do less than 50-55miles per day then its probably your most efficient option of the three power trains with that level of performance. But you would have to keep it charged up, and without the battery for support it will only do about 28-30mpg - which is poor.

I've now driven a few hybrids and this is the best I've experienced by a country mile, but I still would never own one. I think they're expensive new and incredibly over-complicated with the potential for massive bills when older.   

On balance I can't see me going back to anything ICE powered any time soon for daily duties - even when the government incentives for EVs go away I suspect I will stick with them unless I find the need for lots of (heavy) towing in the future. 

12

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 05 March 2026, 15:09:34 »

Dropped off the iX at BMW Shrewsbury to have a few bits fettled. They gave me a very nice 530e M-Sport, which is light years ahead of the 1-series I was expecting 

They did also say it needs four new tyres - glad I won't be picking up the bill for that one 

13

General Discussion Area / Re: Middle East

« on: 03 March 2026, 17:59:12 »

Brent Crude now at $76.72.  I filled up this morning and diesel was £1.399 in Tesco.

Keeping warm next winter might be a bit pricy though as UK natural gas futures are up 45%! 

I did the galaxy a couple of days ago, the yank lawn ornament also has about 70l in that so far I can tp syphon out, but I might in future 

Sizeable queues at all the local fuel stations today as the general population cottoned on/believed the hype (delete as appropriate). SWMBO has reported no similar congestion to access the plug on our drive, so the BMW will be able to access its usual nightly feed without issue..

I think we will see a lot of price inflation across the board as a result of this. Shipping futures in the strait of Hormunz are trading 50-75% above typical levels 

14

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 27 February 2026, 06:28:03 »

I mean, I know it's your hobby and you'll end up with a really nice car, but is it really worth throwing all this money at? If it were mine, I think I'd be shitting myself about now.
If the unthinkable were to happen, what would the insurance payout be like?

In DG's shoes I'd definitely want an agreed value insurance policy that's for sure!

It's true I could have leased a new Astra for £3,279 down and 47 x £379... So using some spectacular man maths, the 30 months I have had the car for would have cost me £14,649 for the new Astra. I have spent ~£13,300 on the The Proper Car (cost to change, retrofits and maintenance, including the gearbox replacement), so I am still ahead and I own the car

When you put it like that 

15

General Discussion Area / Re: 3D Printer Chat

« on: 25 February 2026, 10:04:37 »

That's useful to know thank you, I'm glad I wasn't missing something obvious in tinkercad.

I haven't played with the proper slicer yet, only the cloud based one and the phone app, so not sure if it's possible there but I will have a play at some point.

The main use case I've got is exactly as you described here, labels, raised text or similar so changing at a specific layer height should work just fine for me.