Doog's Mercedes-Benz E350: My Biggest Update Yet
- Thread starter Doog
- 338 comments
- 46,957 views
- 1,601
- Indianapolis,IN
- JrDarknes
Normally I agree, with lowering your car with stock wheels isn't a great idea, but like every BMW wheel looks badass haha. My personal favorite are the style 37 (if that's what their called)
Either way it's sweet your about to put some mods on this thing. Can't wait.
Either way it's sweet your about to put some mods on this thing. Can't wait.
👍
- 6,091
- Phoenix, AZ
So I only had two days of school last week, with the rest of the week being a "fall break". Most of my friends either had no plans or planned to spend their break working. My dad's been pretty available to do whatever lately, so he agreed to accompany me to Salt Lake City so that I could finally meet @Davis and @Zyla, two good friends who I've known for over three years. We left on Thursday morning to drive to Salt Lake City, which was a bit more difficult than driving to, say, Los Angeles or Las Vegas, because there isn't a direct interstate route from Phoenix.
There's two popular routes to Utah, of which we tried both. The first route was more direct - I-17 to Flagstaff, Highway 89 to Panguitch, and I-15 to Salt Lake City, but Highway 89 is primarily a two lane road with some passing zones. Personally, I prefer four lane interstate highways due to the comparative ease of the drive. Constantly fluctuating in speed depending on the traffic on two lane highways is more interesting, but it's not something I want to do for an extended amount of time.
The I-17 to Flagstaff isn't a particularly long drive (you can do it in under two hours), but how much you'll enjoy the drive depends widely upon the traffic. Driving back from Flagstaff to Phoenix on a Sunday afternoon is hellish, but driving to Flagstaff from Phoenix on a Thursday morning was no big deal at all. After you get to Flagstaff (which is a lot smaller than I imagined), you get on Highway 89 for the next several hours. It's not a bad drive, and you see some good views through northern Arizona, but there was a lot of construction about an hour in that was pretty annoying to drive through. Unfortunately I had to stick closer to the speed limit than usual because the road after the construction was bumpy enough in some sections to incite some rub from my right rear tire! During this portion of the journey, I tried some macadamia nuts - big mistake. In the weirdest reaction ever, I didn't suffocate and die like a lot of nut allergies, but rather developed symptoms of a very bad cold. I persevered for an hour, but finally pulled over in the forested section near the Grand Canyon to let my dad drive for a while. Once we got to Kanab, Utah, my dad went through a McDonald's drive-thru and curbed two of my wheels, so I'll have to have them refinished soon.
I re-commandeered the wheel shortly after that and drove the remaining stretch of the 89 until Panguitch. Even though I dislike the afternoon sun, the mountain scenery was very nice, and I enjoyed this portion of the drive. If I ever go that way again, I'll have to open the sunroof and drive a lot faster to get the full experience. After Panguitch, you take a short highway called the 20 to get to the I-15. Even though we were in the middle of nowhere, I quickly found myself immersed in a pack of Utahn traffic, reminiscent of an evening commute, even though there was no big city or suburb nearby. An interesting thing I noticed was that if you follow a diesel through the mountains (a 6.0 Excursion in my case), it's easier to maintain your distance from them because they roll a little bit of coal when accelerating up the hills. That, and I just like seeing Excursions during my travels.
The end of the 20 and the onramp to I-15 were a momentous occasion for me. I followed the Excursion onto the highway and made my way past some big rigs to see it: "ah yes, the 80mph speed limit". Despite my propensity to exceed that while driving around Phoenix, I set the cruise to a reasonable 82 and powered through central Utah in the evening. The nice thing about the I-15 is that they have 'climbing lanes' up the mountains, where the highway gains an additional lane. This means that the semi trucks don't have to crowd the entire highway when ascending and descending the mountain, something that would be helpful on the I-17. I gassed up in Provo to find that despite the mountainous terrain, I had achieved 27mpg on the drive from Flagstaff. I cruised up the last stretch from Provo to Draper at a reasonable 75 in a 70. Despite this, I was passing almost everyone on the freeway, albeit by a small margin.
The plans for the following day came under some scrutiny due to circumstances, but Davis and I went back to our original plan to meet up in Draper Park. I got to the park half an hour early to clear some clutter out of my car and people watch. It was a nice, sunny day in suburban Utah with a slight breeze. I studied the E46 330i I parked next to, which was some sort of mongrel with ZHP wheels, a sport bumper but a base interior. I watched a woman take the cutest little black dog for a run. A bunch of kids were doing some sort of arts and crafts activity while a woman shouted "YOU GUYS!" repeatedly. Every time I could actually hear an engine, I looked up, but so far it was a construction vehicle or an old truck each time. Finally I heard a car come up the street, then saw a red shape turn into the parking lot: it was the Porsche. I was relieved to find that Davis was not in fact a rapist or a serial killer, and I'm sure he was pleased to find that I was not a sex offender.
I showed Davis the BMW, and he showed me the Porsche. We passed judgments on the park-goers and discussed whether Ben was dead or not. After 15 minutes of Porsche and chill, I got into the 944 and rode with Davis to go to Pei Wei. The Porsche was a fun car! The suspension was constantly wobbling and bouncing around under the car, but you really only heard it and got this weird, sketchy yet comfortable ride quality. Under wide open throttle, the 944 sounded rather nice. It wasn't very fast, but you got to have a nice, steady climb to redline in each gear that's somewhat diluted in newer cars with more power and more gears to choose from. The horn worked, sort of, after a couple of presses and after a light-sitting RAV4 had woken up in time to get through a now yellow light. To top it all off, my seat readjusted on its track as we came to a stop near Pei Wei.
We passed the next few hours by playing GTA Online with @Pinkintron until Ben became available. Finally, we got back into the Porsche (the Mini was too immaculate to take out just yet) to meet up with Ben at a gas station near Davis' place. We pulled into the Chevron to find our boy Ben gassing up the Ranger. Ben drove us around the parking lot in the back of the Ranger, which is really fun, I found out. After that, I got back in the Porsche (the Ranger currently has a legal seating capacity of one) to go back to Draper Park to collect the BMW. Davis got a little lost on the way there, but it was all good because listening to rap in the Porsche and making lewd gestures at Ben in the Ranger was a good way to pass an afternoon.
We were subjecting the Porsche to some potholes in a dowdy neighborhood in Midvale when we turned onto a street to get to Draper Park when Ben rang me on the phone. We had turned onto the street about half a minute ahead of Ben, but assumed that he was still following us at some distance. Well, he had been, but a pothole within a turn had done the Ranger in! We turned around and helped push the Ranger out of the way of a driveway while Ben went to the house to let them know that some stranger's truck was going to be out front for a bit. We got lucky, though, as the homeowner was a bit of a shade tree mechanic and came out with a box of tools. In no time, he pried off a connection to the Ranger's battery and cleared it of some debris before correctly reinstalling it. The Ranger restarted on the first try.
We all piled into the BMW to go drive up Big Cottonwood Canyon, chilling to rap music and rubbing over the bumpy, hilly roads the whole way there. I turned onto Big Cottonwood, thankfully free of the old Jaguar XJ I had followed most of the way there with its left turn signal on, signaling the eventual left. I rolled on the gas and came around the first curve just in time for an errant cyclist to cross the road! There was some evening traffic on Big Cottonwood, but to be honest, I didn't mind. The temperature was superb, there was a nice smoky smell coming in through the open sunroof, the trees were starting to change colors, and the sunset looked pretty nice.
We drove through Park City, where Big Cottonwood/Guardsman Pass ends and then got on I-80 to drive back to Salt Lake City. This is where Ben and Davis got to experience one of the BMW's strong suits: cruising the freeway and chilling to some rap music. We dined at Wendy's, then went back to Draper Park to collect the Porsche and the Ranger. Ben and Davis warmed their cars up while I made fun of the Porsche's pop-up lights and waved at a Veloster full of girls. After that, we split for the night. I'm pretty sure I had the coolest route back 'home' of us three, cruising up Highland Drive and seeing all the lights of the valley below me, then driving up a small mountain to get to my lodging.
We regrouped the next morning at a parking garage in Cottonwood Heights where Ben and Davis have met countless times before. Davis was browsing on his phone as I powered up the second story of the garage and blared my horn at him. Moments later, the Ranger was heard storming up the garage, and we both turned around to see Ben arrive with a handbrake turn to boot. I took a couple pics of the group, then we headed to Chevron in the Mini and the BMW to gas up for the day's activities.
We first drove up Emigration, a canyon road in the mountains east of the Salt Lake Valley similar to Big Cottonwood, but much longer and less busy traffic-wise (there were tons of cyclists, though). Davis set a nice pace in the Mini, with me following and occasionally falling behind in the BMW. At first there was a decent line of cars ahead of us, but after the first passing zone and a couple of 'custom' overtakes, only the red Mini remained in front. Emigration gave way to SR-65, which had some long straights through the woods, but then became technical as it met with the mountains. I had a good time navigating the curves to keep up with the Mini, and a couple choice gestures from the cyclists showed that we were making good pace, too. We turned onto SR-66, which had a very nice set of switchbacks with perfect visibility, good for taking that racey line through a bend. Davis turned around shortly after the curves ended, but as he was driving over the edge of a road, he high-centered and hit his power steering pump! For the rest of the day, the Mini did not have power steering.
We hauled ass up the remaining, mostly straight stretch of SR-65 and passed the town of Henefer before we came to an old gas station. Not two minutes after we parked, a white Ford Fusion Hybrid pulled into the lot. I feared that it was some busybody coming to tell us to leave, but it was actually the owner of the now-defunct gas station, wondering if we needed gas. We didn't need gas, so he told us to look for his gas station on an upcoming TV special, then disappeared down the road. Ben told me to look inside the garage, where there was a beautiful old Cadillac ('59?) and a bright red riding lawnmower that was new, apparently.
After getting lunch, we drove out past Lehi to check out SR-68 and the classic Sinclair gas station that has starred in some of Ben and Davis' posts. At first, I wasn't sure what the appeal of SR-68 was. It involved driving out in the fringe suburbs, which meant that there weren't many main roads, so traffic was a little dense. Luckily it cleared as we passed the last subdivision, but there were still a few more cars left. A few 'custom' overtakes later, including overtaking a Ford Explorer with bikes on top doing an impressive 90mph, and we were free once again. The first open part of SR-68 was rather hilly and induced some rubbing for me on the rebounds, but a couple corners later, it was quite flat and straight. Once again, Davis set the pace. Some *ahem* advanced speeds were achieved, our favorite part being where Davis moved over and turned on his indicator to let me overtake. We agreed that it looked like something from the Autobahn. Davis was able to go faster than me, but I think I would've had the edge if it weren't for the altitude.
Ben showed me the inside of the other abandoned gas station across the street, then we backtracked on SR-68 to our next destination. There was a bit more traffic this time, but we were still able to achieve some *cough* extralegal speeds on the straightest stretch. We came back through the fringe suburbs, took a right, drove out into the fields for a bit, then drove through an even further fringe suburb, then took a turn down a rocky path. The destination? The abandoned airfield Ben discovered recently. Davis and I did a couple drag races and 10mph pulls, with the Mini winning each time. We were a bit tired after this, so we drove back to the parking garage and got into the bed of Ben's Ranger to rest for a bit. Somewhere along the line we migrated to my car, but then we decided to get an early dinner. Ben drove us in the BMW. I think he liked it; he said it was really smooth.
We came back to the business park with full stomachs and hooned our cars to a different parking garage, where my fuel door flew open as I came around the last corner. Having driven so much already, we took a little walk down the path going through the business park to a nearby abandoned mill. It was too early to go inside, so we went back to the garage to grab a car and get some drinks. I rode in Davis' Mini for all of two miles, but that was all I needed to tell the differences from my mom's Mini. My mom's Mini sounds much different than Davis'; almost a little exotic-sounding, whereas Davis' sounds more like a normal four cylinder and has a ton more supercharger whine. Davis' Mini jostles you down the road, but my mom's Mini is choppy over any and every road imperfection, even with the deletion of runflats. Riding in Davis' Mini made me remember a very clean R53 I'd seen on Craigslist earlier this year, but it was gone within a day of being listed. But yeah, his car was pretty likable. After being chauffeured around the business complex in the back of the Ranger one last time, we all left for the night, having had a lot of laughs and making some new memories in just two days. The next day I drove back to Scottsdale, this time going through Las Vegas to get home. The drive would've been a lot less boring if I were alone and free to speed as I wished, but such was not the case. I covered nearly 700 miles in about 10 hours. My total trip mileage was just over 1,800.
I had a lot of fun on the trip, and hopefully I'll be back relatively soon.
There's two popular routes to Utah, of which we tried both. The first route was more direct - I-17 to Flagstaff, Highway 89 to Panguitch, and I-15 to Salt Lake City, but Highway 89 is primarily a two lane road with some passing zones. Personally, I prefer four lane interstate highways due to the comparative ease of the drive. Constantly fluctuating in speed depending on the traffic on two lane highways is more interesting, but it's not something I want to do for an extended amount of time.
The I-17 to Flagstaff isn't a particularly long drive (you can do it in under two hours), but how much you'll enjoy the drive depends widely upon the traffic. Driving back from Flagstaff to Phoenix on a Sunday afternoon is hellish, but driving to Flagstaff from Phoenix on a Thursday morning was no big deal at all. After you get to Flagstaff (which is a lot smaller than I imagined), you get on Highway 89 for the next several hours. It's not a bad drive, and you see some good views through northern Arizona, but there was a lot of construction about an hour in that was pretty annoying to drive through. Unfortunately I had to stick closer to the speed limit than usual because the road after the construction was bumpy enough in some sections to incite some rub from my right rear tire! During this portion of the journey, I tried some macadamia nuts - big mistake. In the weirdest reaction ever, I didn't suffocate and die like a lot of nut allergies, but rather developed symptoms of a very bad cold. I persevered for an hour, but finally pulled over in the forested section near the Grand Canyon to let my dad drive for a while. Once we got to Kanab, Utah, my dad went through a McDonald's drive-thru and curbed two of my wheels, so I'll have to have them refinished soon.
I re-commandeered the wheel shortly after that and drove the remaining stretch of the 89 until Panguitch. Even though I dislike the afternoon sun, the mountain scenery was very nice, and I enjoyed this portion of the drive. If I ever go that way again, I'll have to open the sunroof and drive a lot faster to get the full experience. After Panguitch, you take a short highway called the 20 to get to the I-15. Even though we were in the middle of nowhere, I quickly found myself immersed in a pack of Utahn traffic, reminiscent of an evening commute, even though there was no big city or suburb nearby. An interesting thing I noticed was that if you follow a diesel through the mountains (a 6.0 Excursion in my case), it's easier to maintain your distance from them because they roll a little bit of coal when accelerating up the hills. That, and I just like seeing Excursions during my travels.
The end of the 20 and the onramp to I-15 were a momentous occasion for me. I followed the Excursion onto the highway and made my way past some big rigs to see it: "ah yes, the 80mph speed limit". Despite my propensity to exceed that while driving around Phoenix, I set the cruise to a reasonable 82 and powered through central Utah in the evening. The nice thing about the I-15 is that they have 'climbing lanes' up the mountains, where the highway gains an additional lane. This means that the semi trucks don't have to crowd the entire highway when ascending and descending the mountain, something that would be helpful on the I-17. I gassed up in Provo to find that despite the mountainous terrain, I had achieved 27mpg on the drive from Flagstaff. I cruised up the last stretch from Provo to Draper at a reasonable 75 in a 70. Despite this, I was passing almost everyone on the freeway, albeit by a small margin.
The plans for the following day came under some scrutiny due to circumstances, but Davis and I went back to our original plan to meet up in Draper Park. I got to the park half an hour early to clear some clutter out of my car and people watch. It was a nice, sunny day in suburban Utah with a slight breeze. I studied the E46 330i I parked next to, which was some sort of mongrel with ZHP wheels, a sport bumper but a base interior. I watched a woman take the cutest little black dog for a run. A bunch of kids were doing some sort of arts and crafts activity while a woman shouted "YOU GUYS!" repeatedly. Every time I could actually hear an engine, I looked up, but so far it was a construction vehicle or an old truck each time. Finally I heard a car come up the street, then saw a red shape turn into the parking lot: it was the Porsche. I was relieved to find that Davis was not in fact a rapist or a serial killer, and I'm sure he was pleased to find that I was not a sex offender.
I showed Davis the BMW, and he showed me the Porsche. We passed judgments on the park-goers and discussed whether Ben was dead or not. After 15 minutes of Porsche and chill, I got into the 944 and rode with Davis to go to Pei Wei. The Porsche was a fun car! The suspension was constantly wobbling and bouncing around under the car, but you really only heard it and got this weird, sketchy yet comfortable ride quality. Under wide open throttle, the 944 sounded rather nice. It wasn't very fast, but you got to have a nice, steady climb to redline in each gear that's somewhat diluted in newer cars with more power and more gears to choose from. The horn worked, sort of, after a couple of presses and after a light-sitting RAV4 had woken up in time to get through a now yellow light. To top it all off, my seat readjusted on its track as we came to a stop near Pei Wei.
We passed the next few hours by playing GTA Online with @Pinkintron until Ben became available. Finally, we got back into the Porsche (the Mini was too immaculate to take out just yet) to meet up with Ben at a gas station near Davis' place. We pulled into the Chevron to find our boy Ben gassing up the Ranger. Ben drove us around the parking lot in the back of the Ranger, which is really fun, I found out. After that, I got back in the Porsche (the Ranger currently has a legal seating capacity of one) to go back to Draper Park to collect the BMW. Davis got a little lost on the way there, but it was all good because listening to rap in the Porsche and making lewd gestures at Ben in the Ranger was a good way to pass an afternoon.
We were subjecting the Porsche to some potholes in a dowdy neighborhood in Midvale when we turned onto a street to get to Draper Park when Ben rang me on the phone. We had turned onto the street about half a minute ahead of Ben, but assumed that he was still following us at some distance. Well, he had been, but a pothole within a turn had done the Ranger in! We turned around and helped push the Ranger out of the way of a driveway while Ben went to the house to let them know that some stranger's truck was going to be out front for a bit. We got lucky, though, as the homeowner was a bit of a shade tree mechanic and came out with a box of tools. In no time, he pried off a connection to the Ranger's battery and cleared it of some debris before correctly reinstalling it. The Ranger restarted on the first try.
We all piled into the BMW to go drive up Big Cottonwood Canyon, chilling to rap music and rubbing over the bumpy, hilly roads the whole way there. I turned onto Big Cottonwood, thankfully free of the old Jaguar XJ I had followed most of the way there with its left turn signal on, signaling the eventual left. I rolled on the gas and came around the first curve just in time for an errant cyclist to cross the road! There was some evening traffic on Big Cottonwood, but to be honest, I didn't mind. The temperature was superb, there was a nice smoky smell coming in through the open sunroof, the trees were starting to change colors, and the sunset looked pretty nice.
We drove through Park City, where Big Cottonwood/Guardsman Pass ends and then got on I-80 to drive back to Salt Lake City. This is where Ben and Davis got to experience one of the BMW's strong suits: cruising the freeway and chilling to some rap music. We dined at Wendy's, then went back to Draper Park to collect the Porsche and the Ranger. Ben and Davis warmed their cars up while I made fun of the Porsche's pop-up lights and waved at a Veloster full of girls. After that, we split for the night. I'm pretty sure I had the coolest route back 'home' of us three, cruising up Highland Drive and seeing all the lights of the valley below me, then driving up a small mountain to get to my lodging.
We regrouped the next morning at a parking garage in Cottonwood Heights where Ben and Davis have met countless times before. Davis was browsing on his phone as I powered up the second story of the garage and blared my horn at him. Moments later, the Ranger was heard storming up the garage, and we both turned around to see Ben arrive with a handbrake turn to boot. I took a couple pics of the group, then we headed to Chevron in the Mini and the BMW to gas up for the day's activities.
We first drove up Emigration, a canyon road in the mountains east of the Salt Lake Valley similar to Big Cottonwood, but much longer and less busy traffic-wise (there were tons of cyclists, though). Davis set a nice pace in the Mini, with me following and occasionally falling behind in the BMW. At first there was a decent line of cars ahead of us, but after the first passing zone and a couple of 'custom' overtakes, only the red Mini remained in front. Emigration gave way to SR-65, which had some long straights through the woods, but then became technical as it met with the mountains. I had a good time navigating the curves to keep up with the Mini, and a couple choice gestures from the cyclists showed that we were making good pace, too. We turned onto SR-66, which had a very nice set of switchbacks with perfect visibility, good for taking that racey line through a bend. Davis turned around shortly after the curves ended, but as he was driving over the edge of a road, he high-centered and hit his power steering pump! For the rest of the day, the Mini did not have power steering.
We hauled ass up the remaining, mostly straight stretch of SR-65 and passed the town of Henefer before we came to an old gas station. Not two minutes after we parked, a white Ford Fusion Hybrid pulled into the lot. I feared that it was some busybody coming to tell us to leave, but it was actually the owner of the now-defunct gas station, wondering if we needed gas. We didn't need gas, so he told us to look for his gas station on an upcoming TV special, then disappeared down the road. Ben told me to look inside the garage, where there was a beautiful old Cadillac ('59?) and a bright red riding lawnmower that was new, apparently.
After getting lunch, we drove out past Lehi to check out SR-68 and the classic Sinclair gas station that has starred in some of Ben and Davis' posts. At first, I wasn't sure what the appeal of SR-68 was. It involved driving out in the fringe suburbs, which meant that there weren't many main roads, so traffic was a little dense. Luckily it cleared as we passed the last subdivision, but there were still a few more cars left. A few 'custom' overtakes later, including overtaking a Ford Explorer with bikes on top doing an impressive 90mph, and we were free once again. The first open part of SR-68 was rather hilly and induced some rubbing for me on the rebounds, but a couple corners later, it was quite flat and straight. Once again, Davis set the pace. Some *ahem* advanced speeds were achieved, our favorite part being where Davis moved over and turned on his indicator to let me overtake. We agreed that it looked like something from the Autobahn. Davis was able to go faster than me, but I think I would've had the edge if it weren't for the altitude.
Ben showed me the inside of the other abandoned gas station across the street, then we backtracked on SR-68 to our next destination. There was a bit more traffic this time, but we were still able to achieve some *cough* extralegal speeds on the straightest stretch. We came back through the fringe suburbs, took a right, drove out into the fields for a bit, then drove through an even further fringe suburb, then took a turn down a rocky path. The destination? The abandoned airfield Ben discovered recently. Davis and I did a couple drag races and 10mph pulls, with the Mini winning each time. We were a bit tired after this, so we drove back to the parking garage and got into the bed of Ben's Ranger to rest for a bit. Somewhere along the line we migrated to my car, but then we decided to get an early dinner. Ben drove us in the BMW. I think he liked it; he said it was really smooth.
We came back to the business park with full stomachs and hooned our cars to a different parking garage, where my fuel door flew open as I came around the last corner. Having driven so much already, we took a little walk down the path going through the business park to a nearby abandoned mill. It was too early to go inside, so we went back to the garage to grab a car and get some drinks. I rode in Davis' Mini for all of two miles, but that was all I needed to tell the differences from my mom's Mini. My mom's Mini sounds much different than Davis'; almost a little exotic-sounding, whereas Davis' sounds more like a normal four cylinder and has a ton more supercharger whine. Davis' Mini jostles you down the road, but my mom's Mini is choppy over any and every road imperfection, even with the deletion of runflats. Riding in Davis' Mini made me remember a very clean R53 I'd seen on Craigslist earlier this year, but it was gone within a day of being listed. But yeah, his car was pretty likable. After being chauffeured around the business complex in the back of the Ranger one last time, we all left for the night, having had a lot of laughs and making some new memories in just two days. The next day I drove back to Scottsdale, this time going through Las Vegas to get home. The drive would've been a lot less boring if I were alone and free to speed as I wished, but such was not the case. I covered nearly 700 miles in about 10 hours. My total trip mileage was just over 1,800.
I had a lot of fun on the trip, and hopefully I'll be back relatively soon.
- 1,289
- Salt Lake City
- Ferraridude308
My butt's not gonna squeeze itself.
- 6,091
- Phoenix, AZ
If you visited the Post a pic of your real car thread about a month ago, you would've seen that my car was missing a piece of trim on the rear bumper and was sporting a very nice speed hole for a brief time!
The Tuesday after I returned from Utah, there was a promotion going on at Dutch Bros, so I decided to go before work. As expected, there was quite the line. Unfortunately, with the way this particular Dutch Bros is situated, there isn't that much space for cars to line up before you're out of the parking lot. I waited to turn left as a new Impala turned right into the parking lot, where I was planning to go. The light turned yellow, so I turned behind the Impala, but suddenly it stopped! I decided that instead of driving around the obstruction as is usually my instinct, that I would just wait! Mistake! The driver of the Impala gets out and starts going off on someone whom I can't see. Because the Impala had stopped suddenly, I was still sitting in the crosswalk, not sticking out into the road, but still an undesirable place to be. As I scratched my head wondering what this woman was on about, thunk! I look back to see that I've been hit! I looked back in disbelief: that guy just hit me!
Long story short, the Impala was leaving the same parking lot, but at a different exit down the road. As it was turning into nearly-stopped traffic, a beat-up Corolla hits it, so the Impala turns into where I'm turning to deal with what happened. The Corolla was following the Impala, but because the light was yellow and they were crawling along, I figured they were going to stop at the light. No, they were crawling along because they had no brakes! So now I was in the Corolla's path, and instead of maybe turning around me, my car became the brakes. But yeah, yadda yadda yadda, no one died, everyone had insurance (good thing the driver of the Impala opted for rental insurance), and my bumper took all of the minimal damage. I went to work, told everyone all about it, then went back to the same Dutch Bros on break to claim my discounted drink. The smoothie was good, but it wasn't worth getting in a collision over. lol
Mr. beat-up Corolla's insurance tried to pull that bull**** where they try to buy used parts for your car, but in the end, I got my car back looking normal, which is perfect! If you saw the bumper, you'd assume it had been on the car since day one; it matches perfectly. The time between getting hit and getting my car back wasn't too bad, either. I was glad to have my car back, but as is the case with this car sometimes, there was a caveat: a recurring check engine light that brought with it reduced performance and a couple instances of stalling. After ~$2k and a bunch of new parts, some air leaks under the hood were fixed, and the car was back to normal. Once again, I was glad to have the car back, because I had been enjoying it a lot. I'm really happy that I bought new wheels for the car - I used to think that it was somewhat lacking in curb appeal, but now I really like how it looks when I walk up to it. I'm leaning towards buying some M Sport springs to complete the look. I'll probably have to - reluctantly (gotta stay flush bro) - roll the rear fenders after that, as I really gotta watch out on some of the roads around school with friends in the back seat already.
The weather's starting to get really nice, so you know what that means...snowbirds and their ass-backwards driving habits time to detail the car! I detailed the car last year but I don't think I ever posted about it. To be honest, it's not something that I was really looking forward to because it's really tedious and time-consuming (7.5 hours total), but I had to take advantage of it finally not being a million degrees outside. I washed, clay-barred, polished, waxed and sealed the car, which sounds like much less of an undertaking on paper. In reality, clay-barring took forever, polishing was really boring, waxing was actually tolerable, and sealing was so tedious. Bitching and moaning aside, the car looks really nice now, and it's sure to be the cleanest E39 for miles.
The Lexus hit the big one hundred last week. I'd make a bigger deal of it, but it happened when my dad was driving it and I managed to miss the rollover by over 200 miles. Outrageous! It's quite dirty, so no pics, and no pics for a while because I need to build up the emotional strength required to wash a black car.
The Tuesday after I returned from Utah, there was a promotion going on at Dutch Bros, so I decided to go before work. As expected, there was quite the line. Unfortunately, with the way this particular Dutch Bros is situated, there isn't that much space for cars to line up before you're out of the parking lot. I waited to turn left as a new Impala turned right into the parking lot, where I was planning to go. The light turned yellow, so I turned behind the Impala, but suddenly it stopped! I decided that instead of driving around the obstruction as is usually my instinct, that I would just wait! Mistake! The driver of the Impala gets out and starts going off on someone whom I can't see. Because the Impala had stopped suddenly, I was still sitting in the crosswalk, not sticking out into the road, but still an undesirable place to be. As I scratched my head wondering what this woman was on about, thunk! I look back to see that I've been hit! I looked back in disbelief: that guy just hit me!
Long story short, the Impala was leaving the same parking lot, but at a different exit down the road. As it was turning into nearly-stopped traffic, a beat-up Corolla hits it, so the Impala turns into where I'm turning to deal with what happened. The Corolla was following the Impala, but because the light was yellow and they were crawling along, I figured they were going to stop at the light. No, they were crawling along because they had no brakes! So now I was in the Corolla's path, and instead of maybe turning around me, my car became the brakes. But yeah, yadda yadda yadda, no one died, everyone had insurance (good thing the driver of the Impala opted for rental insurance), and my bumper took all of the minimal damage. I went to work, told everyone all about it, then went back to the same Dutch Bros on break to claim my discounted drink. The smoothie was good, but it wasn't worth getting in a collision over. lol
Mr. beat-up Corolla's insurance tried to pull that bull**** where they try to buy used parts for your car, but in the end, I got my car back looking normal, which is perfect! If you saw the bumper, you'd assume it had been on the car since day one; it matches perfectly. The time between getting hit and getting my car back wasn't too bad, either. I was glad to have my car back, but as is the case with this car sometimes, there was a caveat: a recurring check engine light that brought with it reduced performance and a couple instances of stalling. After ~$2k and a bunch of new parts, some air leaks under the hood were fixed, and the car was back to normal. Once again, I was glad to have the car back, because I had been enjoying it a lot. I'm really happy that I bought new wheels for the car - I used to think that it was somewhat lacking in curb appeal, but now I really like how it looks when I walk up to it. I'm leaning towards buying some M Sport springs to complete the look. I'll probably have to - reluctantly (gotta stay flush bro) - roll the rear fenders after that, as I really gotta watch out on some of the roads around school with friends in the back seat already.
The weather's starting to get really nice, so you know what that means...
The Lexus hit the big one hundred last week. I'd make a bigger deal of it, but it happened when my dad was driving it and I managed to miss the rollover by over 200 miles. Outrageous! It's quite dirty, so no pics, and no pics for a while because I need to build up the emotional strength required to wash a black car.
- 6,091
- Phoenix, AZ
There's a little man-made lake down by the McCormick Ranch golf course with a couple of accessible parking lots on either side. The pic I used in my post was taken in the parking lot of the McCormick resort west of the lake, but you can also use the Chart House's parking lot:
There's also a little vacant bank next to the golf course where you can get the lake and mountains in the background:
- 6,091
- Phoenix, AZ
Still really enjoying my new wheels, however I really wasn't enjoying the monster truck ride height! To fix that, I did some research and decided that I wanted some Fortune coilovers. Most lowered BMWs seem to use BC Racing coils these days, but I didn't want those because some people said that they needed to be adjusted occasionally, and others noted some noise under impacts. The Fortunes are newer to the E39 market, but they were getting pretty positive reception from owners. But then my parents said they didn't want me to get coilovers, so I went and researched spring and shock combos. Eventually I settled on B&G springs and Bilstein HD shocks. A popular way to lower E39s is to pair H&R springs with Bilstein HDs, however I didn't choose this combination because they left the car with a slight rake. The B&Gs and Bilsteins can do everything the H&Rs can do, but without the rake.
The new springs and shocks really closed up the wheel gaps and give the car a much sportier appearance. The ride quality has suffered a bit; it was more stable and flat before, whereas now it's a little bouncy but distinctly sporty-feeling. It's not uncomfortable, but it's definitely firmer and something that I can live with. The Phoenix metro area generally has well-kept roads, so I can't really speak for the ride quality over really bad or potholed pavement, but the main road by my house every day is long overdue for a repave and the car still feels fine. The fact that I replaced stock springs and shocks with 90.5k miles on them probably narrows the ride quality difference between stock and lowered a good bit; I'd imagine that you'd notice the difference more if there was an E39 with a refreshed stock suspension to compare against. The freeways here are generally in excellent condition, so the car does not have issues there. The fastest I've gone so far is about 100 and it still felt fine.
I can't really speak for the handling difference because the body roll - while I do think it's been reduced - causes the car to rub quite a bit, and rubbing makes you want to die. Through the few corners I've put the car through aggressively, it definitely able to stick to the road at a higher speed. The only issue with the car is one that I induced by sticking 275-width tires in the rear: rubbing. It's still not much of an issue when I'm alone, but with friends in the car it rubs over everything. It's really bad. I guess I can't put off having my fenders rolled any longer.
Lowering the car definitely gave it a little bit of camber - it's accentuated by the inward curve of the bumper in this picture, but you can still see how the tire angles away from the body of the car some. It looks really nice. Hopefully the tires won't wear excessively now.
I've had the car lowered for a week, and when I first got it back from the shop, I drove it a lot over the weekend under typical conditions to make sure the suspension was livable. There was some rain early this week, and my car was dirty anyways, so on Tuesday I was eager to finally wash the car and see how good it could really look now. So I washed the car and took it on my first laid-back, chill drive with the new setup with everything looking good. I decided to go to Dutch Bros and pulled into the parking lot behind a 330Ci. The 330Ci decided that it didn't want to wait in line and shifted in reverse to get out. I left some space behind them since there wasn't anyone behind me. The way the base of the drive-thru was set up, there was a bit of room to reverse a bit and turn away from it. Unfortunately, the 330Ci wanted to back all the way out, and so it went, heading towards me backwards. I didn't have time to look back and make sure it was clear to back up, so I laid on the horn, but to no avail. Despite me being behind the 330Ci in traffic earlier, following it all the way to Dutch Bros, it was not aware of my existence. So I laid on the horn, the 330Ci kept backing up, and *thunk*, I had had my second Dutch Bros crash.
To be honest it didn't really do much damage to my car, except for a bit of paint nicked off of the center trim on the front bumper. I don't really wanna deal with insurance or have the hassle of not having my car for several days while it's being fixed, so I'm just gonna leave it. Next time I go to a Dutch Bros, I'm gonna park far away and just walk to the place, my god.
On Sunday the 13th, I passed two years(!) of ownership of this car. In two years, I have received no speeding tickets, several speed camera tickets (but they don't mean anything because the car isn't titled to me), have drifted it, drag raced it, reached top speed many times, backed it into something (no damage though) once, been hit twice, put 26,000 miles on it, and have used plenty of my parents' resources in keeping the damn thing running right. I think if I had kept the car stock, I would be bored of it and would still be looking for a nice Tahoe to replace it with. But now that I've modified it to my tastes, the car has became much more personal to me and is a source of pride for me. Hopefully I won't tire of the mods because I'm broke now. lol
One more thing: these pictures are from today, or week since the car was lowered. In that time, I put about 500 miles on the car, so the suspension should be fully settled by now. Honestly, though, it looks about the same to me.
The new springs and shocks really closed up the wheel gaps and give the car a much sportier appearance. The ride quality has suffered a bit; it was more stable and flat before, whereas now it's a little bouncy but distinctly sporty-feeling. It's not uncomfortable, but it's definitely firmer and something that I can live with. The Phoenix metro area generally has well-kept roads, so I can't really speak for the ride quality over really bad or potholed pavement, but the main road by my house every day is long overdue for a repave and the car still feels fine. The fact that I replaced stock springs and shocks with 90.5k miles on them probably narrows the ride quality difference between stock and lowered a good bit; I'd imagine that you'd notice the difference more if there was an E39 with a refreshed stock suspension to compare against. The freeways here are generally in excellent condition, so the car does not have issues there. The fastest I've gone so far is about 100 and it still felt fine.
I can't really speak for the handling difference because the body roll - while I do think it's been reduced - causes the car to rub quite a bit, and rubbing makes you want to die. Through the few corners I've put the car through aggressively, it definitely able to stick to the road at a higher speed. The only issue with the car is one that I induced by sticking 275-width tires in the rear: rubbing. It's still not much of an issue when I'm alone, but with friends in the car it rubs over everything. It's really bad. I guess I can't put off having my fenders rolled any longer.
Lowering the car definitely gave it a little bit of camber - it's accentuated by the inward curve of the bumper in this picture, but you can still see how the tire angles away from the body of the car some. It looks really nice. Hopefully the tires won't wear excessively now.
I've had the car lowered for a week, and when I first got it back from the shop, I drove it a lot over the weekend under typical conditions to make sure the suspension was livable. There was some rain early this week, and my car was dirty anyways, so on Tuesday I was eager to finally wash the car and see how good it could really look now. So I washed the car and took it on my first laid-back, chill drive with the new setup with everything looking good. I decided to go to Dutch Bros and pulled into the parking lot behind a 330Ci. The 330Ci decided that it didn't want to wait in line and shifted in reverse to get out. I left some space behind them since there wasn't anyone behind me. The way the base of the drive-thru was set up, there was a bit of room to reverse a bit and turn away from it. Unfortunately, the 330Ci wanted to back all the way out, and so it went, heading towards me backwards. I didn't have time to look back and make sure it was clear to back up, so I laid on the horn, but to no avail. Despite me being behind the 330Ci in traffic earlier, following it all the way to Dutch Bros, it was not aware of my existence. So I laid on the horn, the 330Ci kept backing up, and *thunk*, I had had my second Dutch Bros crash.
To be honest it didn't really do much damage to my car, except for a bit of paint nicked off of the center trim on the front bumper. I don't really wanna deal with insurance or have the hassle of not having my car for several days while it's being fixed, so I'm just gonna leave it. Next time I go to a Dutch Bros, I'm gonna park far away and just walk to the place, my god.
On Sunday the 13th, I passed two years(!) of ownership of this car. In two years, I have received no speeding tickets, several speed camera tickets (but they don't mean anything because the car isn't titled to me), have drifted it, drag raced it, reached top speed many times, backed it into something (no damage though) once, been hit twice, put 26,000 miles on it, and have used plenty of my parents' resources in keeping the damn thing running right. I think if I had kept the car stock, I would be bored of it and would still be looking for a nice Tahoe to replace it with. But now that I've modified it to my tastes, the car has became much more personal to me and is a source of pride for me. Hopefully I won't tire of the mods because I'm broke now. lol
One more thing: these pictures are from today, or week since the car was lowered. In that time, I put about 500 miles on the car, so the suspension should be fully settled by now. Honestly, though, it looks about the same to me.
- 1,467
- Carrollton, GA
- thaSTIGroe
Doesn't look the same. It looks wayyyy better.
- 14,378
- Wellington
I think he's saying it looks the same lowered pre and post settling.
- 2,235
- Norway
Love it..! 
PS: Give me your dad's email, I will educate him on why you just buy coilovers in the first place*
* The answer is of course, while there is no such thing as 'cars' and 'cheap', you will move to a smaller tire when you've rubbed through the old tires to eliminate rubbing. Then you'll want to lower the car more to eliminate fender gap. Because you have springs you'll have to buy coilovers anyway..
PS: Give me your dad's email, I will educate him on why you just buy coilovers in the first place*
* The answer is of course, while there is no such thing as 'cars' and 'cheap', you will move to a smaller tire when you've rubbed through the old tires to eliminate rubbing. Then you'll want to lower the car more to eliminate fender gap. Because you have springs you'll have to buy coilovers anyway..
- 6,091
- Phoenix, AZ
Back in January I was screwing around on a rainy night and hit a curb, destroying my left front wheel and a control arm! The car's been bouncing around between the shop I usually take it to and the other location of that shop because one place has the equipment to mount wheels on tires and the other doesn't. I had to wait a while for my replacement wheel to ship because it's pretty popular and Varrstoen had to physically produce more wheels first. Then the replacement wheel came and it was cracked! So now I'm waiting for the replacement replacement wheel to come, which is supposed to be soon.
- 6,091
- Phoenix, AZ
So yeah, what a hassle that was. There's not really much else to say about what happened between that post and now (in regards to the wheels), other than lots of waitiiiiiiiiing. That's just about the wheels, though. During the past two months, other aspects of the BMW's existence were more positive. Two weeks ago I did a much-needed overhaul of the car's aging audio system. Other people who've done similarly have harsher things to say of the non-DSP E39 audio system; personally I always thought it was of decent quality, but the necessary power for properly enjoying my terrible rap music just wasn't there! To remedy this, I ordered a stage one speaker upgrade kit from Bavsound, replacing all the speakers except for the front midranges. To solve the power problem, I ordered a powered 12" subwoofer from Rockford Fosgate. Much to my friends' collective dismay, I didn't have an aux input installed - I asked the audio shop (which did great work by the way) about having one installed, but they were unable to do so. Other than that, listening to music in the car is so much nicer now. I turned the bass all the way down both on the radio's settings and on the physical subwoofer because I'm not into that earthquake bass, but it still packs a nice punch when appropriate.
During the BMW's downtime, I was quickly tiring of driving the Highlander whenever I had to go somewhere, so I borrowed a relative's Suburban for several weeks. Driving the Suburban was overall a positive experience! I enjoyed the time I had it and put around 1,100 miles on it easily.
Yesterday I received the car back and was immediately reaffirmed of the assertion I had made to my friends that my car was superior with the bigger wheels when asked why it was so important. The car looked fine when lowered on the stock style 42s, but it's no match for the larger BBS reps. The car's stance strikes a nice balance between looking nice to me while still being driveable, although pulling into my culdesac at more than a few mph causes the front bumper to scrape. Next week I'll be getting the fenders rolled to hopefully resolve the rubbing in the back.
