Detailing World Forum banner

E91 320d M Sport Daily Beater Progress Thread

60K views 181 replies 30 participants last post by  AS_BO 
#1 ·
This thread is going to be a place for a bit of craic and a chronicle of the various jobs on my newly acquired daily beater.

Everyone say hello to Betty......



My 12 year old, 190,000 mile BMW 320d M Sport Touring. This faithful old girl has served well in my other half's family for 6 years, with piles of paperwork and history it was a bit of a no brainer for me to buy it for the princely sum of £1700!

It wears a few battle scars, road rash all over the front end and the odd small dent but I can deal with that. The aim of this project is to get it turned around in the next 6 weeks or so ready for when my current car goes back to the lease company. There is mechanical work to be done, so I'll be covering that too.

I've got a spreadsheet running to keep track of spends, it's going to be a bit of a bangernomics project this one. It's cheap so I may as well document a total of running costs to see how much value I can get out of it!

I washed it at the beginning of the week, as seen in the above picture. It looks well from 10 feet [emoji23] here's some other pictures I took.




Today with the weather getting out I took the opportunity to let battle commence.

Round 1 - Engine Bay

The task for today was to get it looking way more presentable under here, 12 years and 190k is never kind to the business end of a motor!

This is what I was greeted with 🤦🏼*♂








Basically covered in s**t [emoji23] spent 15 minutes getting rid of the leaves and twigs, then lifted the grates out of the drain channels to clear those.

For products, all Autoglanz. Pre soak was taken care of with Piste Snowfoam and left to dwell for 10 minutes.



This was rinsed, then Autoglanz Infinite APC at 5:1 was sprayed liberally throughout the under bonnet, inner wings and bay and left to dwell to get to work. Agitated with worked with Vikan long reach brush, Meguiars flexible wheel brush and various detailing brushes.

The bay was then dried with a couple of old microfibres and sprayed with Autoglanz Trim Reaper 4:1. This was wiped and buffed to leave me with this









Wasn't expecting this turnaround! Looks a million dollars to me, really happy with it for a couple of hours graft [emoji1303]

Thanks if you've made it through round 1, comments welcome.

Next update will be round 2 - interior including wet work and deep clean of the leather.

Cheers

Matt
 
See less See more
17
#11 ·
Hi betty. Lol

That's an outstanding afternoon's work there Matt. It looks immaculate. Really nice car that!!

Keep the updates coming bud.

Cooks
Thanks Niall, I'd resigned myself to it just looking "presentable" but it's come up rather well! I still need to go around the strut tops and use some tar remover to take off some old transport wax and quality control pen marks then it'll be done.

Hope you're well matey!
 
#14 ·
Nice car there. I’ve just seen this but haven’t read any post so I do apologise in advance. My dad has one in New Zealand and he’s got an app called Carly for bmw and you have this dongle you plug into your obd and you can change all your car setting like your day time running lights etc etc. Worth a listen ok. Costs about 80 pounds also. I did a similar thing to the fords that I had and activated things that the dealer wouldn’t do without costing the earth.

Ryan


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
#16 ·
Nice car there. I've just seen this but haven't read any post so I do apologise in advance. My dad has one in New Zealand and he's got an app called Carly for bmw and you have this dongle you plug into your obd and you can change all your car setting like your day time running lights etc etc. Worth a listen ok. Costs about 80 pounds also. I did a similar thing to the fords that I had and activated things that the dealer wouldn't do without costing the earth.

Ryan

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Thanks Ryan, appreciate it pal! I was going to look at Carly once I've got the car sorted and code some features in [emoji1303] nail on the head with the dealers, I'll just do it myself thanks [emoji23]
 
#18 ·
Lovely car and looking forward to seeing your progress with it.
I've been looking at these for a couple of months now and they seem great value.
For me it has to be post Aug. 08 as the road tax over here in this simple little country of Ireland is crippling before that date and petrol due to the horrifying stories of timing chain failure on the N47 engine.
Has yours any history of timing chain problems ?
 
#20 ·
Lovely car and looking forward to seeing your progress with it.

I've been looking at these for a couple of months now and they seem great value.

For me it has to be post Aug. 08 as the road tax over here in this simple little country of Ireland is crippling before that date and petrol due to the horrifying stories of timing chain failure on the N47 engine.

Has yours any history of timing chain problems ?
Thanks man, appreciate it [emoji1303] as mine is an early model it's the M47N2 engine, it's the later model N47 that had the issues. Only swirl flaps and turbochargers on mine, luckily they've both been done.

Best of luck finding the car for you, I haven't driven mine much but I've driven them before and think it's a great all rounder.
 
#23 ·
Thanks for identifying the paint colour President Swirl, it's likely I'll get them refurbished Ferric Grey as I think they're a bit dark and they do need some TLC.

PedroC see above though dude, could be Sparkling Graphite [emoji1303]

Does anyone know where I can replacement centre cap badges reasonably priced while on the subject of wheels?
 
#36 ·
Very nice motor and a fantastic price :)

Engine bay has been transformed - looks a different car :)

I put some BH DSW on top of the sealant on my silver one and I'm really impressed for the winter - like glass and very glossy...
Thanks Andy, it came up incredibly well for a couple of hours graft [emoji1303]

I've got some BH DSW that I'm still yet to try, bought it over a year ago so this might spur me on! What sealant did you use underneath? And get some pictures up, i don't mind sharing in this thread!
 
#43 ·
Nice tidy motor that! I've got the E90 based Alpina D3 so will follow this with interest.

I've not been brave enough to foam and wet the engine bay so did it with damp cloths! Seems your missing the under bonnet sound/fire protection sheet unless it was removed for cleaning.

Look forward to the updates.
 
#49 ·
UPDATE TIME!

Round 2 - Interior Deep Clean

I'm going to apologise in advance for the pony pictures, the sun was a pain all day but at least it was dry [emoji23] I was also concerned the weather could turn so tried to crack on.

Monday, after recent crap weather in the North East I finally got a break to get cracking on Betty's interior.

Work commenced at 10:30 and I was done by 5, so a full day at it and I still didn't quite get it complete!

Out came the tools and I started removing the seats, front and rears came out a doddle.

4 T45 bolts through the floor and one on the side of the seat frame to unbolt the seatbelt. Tilt the seat back and remove the electrical connector then they're out [emoji1320]







The trusty Henry came out to tackle the initial vacuum, considering the interior had never been out based off the original thread lock on various bolts it wasn't too bad.







And after a thorough vacuum







I tackled the plastics, door cards, trims and centre console next with Autoglanz Infinite and a selection of various brushes to agitate and remove years of grime.



After these had been wiped clean I move onto the wet work for the interior carpets, with power tools [emoji23]





Again Autoglanz Infinite was used here as the detergent to rid the carpets of stains and ingrained dirt, worked with the Makita drill then extracted with George. Looking much better









I then tackled the seats while they were out of the car with Gliptone Intensive leather cleaner. Worked into the seats, agitated with a nail brush and Sonax upholstery brush then wiped away with a damp Microfibre. I'm not happy with these after the initial clean, it's removed the majority of the dirt and shine but I think they have more to give so I'll be doing them again.





Total time spent so far - 8 hours

Better pictures next time...... that's a promise!

More to come

Cheers

Matty
 
#56 ·
Great work!

Don't bemoan the sun shining ! We'll put up with a bit of glare, you enjoy the treat!

Do you know the spit arm rest and all but the rear vents are extra cost options?
Mine doesn't have them

:)
I shouldn't really, I'm pig sick of cleaning them after all of the salt, grit and general s***e because of awful weather!

I didn't mate, I'm learning so much about this car thanks to you [emoji23][emoji1303] I've somehow lost one of the 12v socket blanks so need to replace that.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top