Why I prefer to hire DIYers

The curse of any DIY job is: you have to do it right the first time. You have no idea what to do, and you can't afford a mistake. You must become as proficient as professionals are, in a fraction of the time, at a fraction of the cost.

So what you do is you learn to learn. You learn how to solve problems the very existence of which you never knew. You think outside of the box, you work beyond limits.

That beats someone who does only the things they were taught to do any time of day.

Open Letter To BMW Dealerships

To whom it may concern:

I just called the <witheld to protect the guilty> dealership to verify what part numbers I need for a specific repair, and was told "We do not give out part numbers, only prices".

I was understandably shaken, because, you know, BMW is a pretty complicated car, and it is kind of difficult to make sure that you are not spending hundreds, and even more often, thousands of dollars just to piss off the seller even more when it turns out that the part you've bought doesn't fit, because it is not the part you actually needed, or the car the part is for is not the car you have (and I don't have to explain to you how many different sub-revisions BMW has).

When I got over the shock, I said, "Why?" and got the answer "Because people call us just to find out part numbers, waste our time and then go buy the same parts on Internet".

Well...

Tough shit.

You were not shy to leverage your unique position of the seller of "The Ultimate Driving Machine" when you were selling the car to us.

You were not shy to gouge us by upselling expensive options that you knew would be wrong or deadly (rear side airbags in a sedan to the family with two kids about five years of age - you knew they will come disabled, with a big red sticker, right?)

You were not shy to repeatedly screw us over by providing substandard service (any BMW owner knows the difference between "BMW quality" and "BMW service quality").

While doing that, you were not shy to charge exorbitant prices for parts and service.

And now you are complaining?

Well, tell you what - you keep doing that, and I will sell my BMW to anyone stupid enough to buy it, given all the above, never buy a BMW again, and switch to a brand that is customer friendly. I've had just about enough of your attitude.

Oh, and I have a suggestion for you - you are in a best position to compete with independent parts retailers because you have direct access to *the* original equipment manufacturer, and you already have distribution channels set up. Why don't you actually start leveraging your competitive advantage instead of screwing us over?

And then, maybe, just maybe, the artificially inflated price becomes appealing enough that somebody will part with their hard earned money and buys the product you're selling, and you, yes, you don't lose your job.

Things We Do For Love: E39 Water Pump Replacement

Water pumps on V8 E39 die. They die repeatedly and predictably. Whether the impeller is plastic (then it disintegrates and contaminates the whole cooling system with debris - but most of these are already dead), or metal (then you're subject to bearing seal leakage).

Mine did too, at 62k miles.

Having learned the lesson the hard way, I've decided, with the help of my friends, to replace it myself.

Learned quite a few things.

If you're thinking whether you need to replace the water pump or not, you're a fool. I was a fool. It will fail. I've heard an opinion once that BMWs must be maintained right on schedule, not a second later, or they fail catastrophically. Respect this rule.

You can't identify the leak source without performing a leak test. Even if it looks obvious, the leak may not be where you think it is. Learning this experience cost me the price of parts 11537505229 and 13621433077 combined, at dealership price.

A simple contraption of a piece of soft rubber or plastic pipe, plus the ball adapter for a bicycle pump, is a decent substitute for the BMW special tool for performing a compression test.

You have to manufacture a special tool to get the fan assembly off. Instructions are here. Heed the part where it says it has to be steel - aluminium will not hold the torque necessary. It might, once, if you're lucky. But you're probably in a crunch to get it done, so don't do it unless you have a piece laying around. Oh, and anything thicker than 1/8" will not fit.

If you replace part 11537505229 (lower water hose), you must replace part 13621433077 (temperature sensor) as well. Old sensor put in a new hose will leak, even if it is one year old. It's all about O-rings - actually, one could just replace those, but I'll be damned if BMW sells me one, and I'll be twice damned if I dare to risk the cost and nuisance of getting another leak and getting inside the car again because I cheaped out on hoses. Wasn't that bad, actually - I found the leak before the belly pan was installed, so all it took was to drain the coolant from the radiator (not the engine), and replace the sensor reaching from underneath.

Your heater control assembly (vicinity of part 64118374994) will leak, too. It is possible, though, for it to leak when performing a leak test, but not normal operating conditions. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Draining the coolant is a wet and dirty job. Get yourself a pair of those chemical googles, sorry, goggles, and a decent drain pan, it'll splash a lot. Five gallons is good enough.

You have to drain the engine block to replace the water pump (unlike water hose replacement, when it is sufficient to drain just the radiator).

It is a very, very good time to inspect the belt drive system and replace the belts, pulleys and hydraulic tensioners.

Same for hoses - unless they've been replaced already, they're pretty much dead by the time you have to replace the water pump. No big deal, especially on later models with quick connect fittings.

Torque wrench is a must, there is a couple of places where the torque is quite nontrivial - for example, the bolts fastening the pulley on the water pump shaft are literally finger tight. Screw that up - and you'll need a new water pump (somewhere between $150 and $300, depending on urgency).

Getting the water pump out is possible without getting the secondary air pipe part 11721433344 out. Tricky, but possible.

Getting the water pump seal in place is a bitch. I don't know if it is possible to do alone, but having two people do it makes it easy enough.

All in all, it was fun :) Unlikely that I will have to face this issue again in next five years, but if I do, I'll do it again.

Why I prefer to fix my cars myself now

Some time ago, my radiator blew up. Back then, I was very busy slaving for the startup du jour, with zero time to spend. Obviously, I wanted this fixed, so I towed the car to the dealership, which shall remain nameless, to protect the guilty (but feel free to take your stab at one of two that exist around here). They replaced the radiator.

And put a dent in the door.

I was understandably upset and asked them to fix it. They did.



And broke the center console.

When I called them, they said "No problem, just get the car here". "Yeah, right", said I. "That'll be the fourth time I have to get the car to you to fix one problem, and how do I know what you break this time? No, you get your ass here and fix what you broke in my garage under my supervision".

They did. The rest was uneventful, but...

A month later the window regulator broke (Arizona heat destroyed a $0.03 part, the rest was the domino effect). Being first day on the new job with no spare money left, I had no option other than tackle it myself (thank God, there was some free time until initial procedures were being completed).

So I took the door panel off, and what was the first thing I saw there? Correct, broken pistons that hold the door panel to the door. Four out of nine.

Couple of years before there was a clicking noise in the window that was "repaired" under warranty, and the door started rattling. I told this to the dealership, and the response was "Oh, they all do that with age".

Age my ass.

The most offensive part was that pistons are literally a dime a dozen, and I'm sure there are buckets of them available at the dealership, but no, whoever broke the pistons didn't take their sweet time to reach into the bucket and replace the pistons. I was supposed to believe that they've performed the job to the best of their ability.

Oh, and I'm not even talking about the time when they've washed the car after an oil change, and killed xenon headlights - inflicting $1752 penalty on themselves.

Long story short, every time since then, when I reach inside the car, I see traces of inept and careless workers screwing things up - a cut and soldered wire here, a nick on a pipeline there.

I can do better than that. At least, I care.

The Curse of the Black Pearl

Having the trackball cease to function was a major dread for me while I had the Curve. Now that I have G1, the same thought is still in my head.

Apparently, all is not as bad - it's possible to replace the trackball, and they're actually pretty cheap, if you're not afraid of some DIY.

The G1 trackball unit is different and may not be as easy to obtain - let's keep eyes open and fingers crossed.

Topsy-turvy HTPC case

Wrote a couple of critical reviews on Antec P182 (on Newegg and here), and immediately remembered the good old YY-0110 (YY0221 is a closest approximation available today).

It wasn't too good at all when I bought it. Well, to begin with, it was bought in 1999 (it was difficult to find and especially verify anything on Internet back in those times), and I had very little idea about what I was doing - it was the first time I was building a computer. Stamped steel, point welding, sharp edges, damaged threads. Resonated like a steel guitar. Inferior PSU, gave up the ghost pretty soon.

However, the role this box played in the transformation of a person with no practical skills into a person that is not afraid of any DYI work can't be underestimated.

...It all started with a freezing video card, Riva TNT2. It was freezing as soon as the card temperature was above 30°C (for comparison, XFX GF7950GT PVT71JYHE9 feels just fine at 130°C). And of course, there was no money to replace it. Well, the less money you have, the more is your motivation to turn on the brains, so I did. Took out the card, took off the heatsink, swore at lazy workers that didn't put the thermal paste right, fixed it, put it back, rejoiced. But there was a side effect to it - at first, Pulse was created, and it eventually grew into DIY Zoning...

But I digress.

All in all, this box had been in service until 2005 (running PIII/550 with 512K RAM), first as a workstation, then as a server. Then it was retired, and it was collecting dust - until the need for a new computer materialized.

That was when things got interesting.

By that time the noise finally got on my nerves.

Lian-Li PC-60 (the original, with three 80mm fans) was bad. Lian-Li V-Cool PC-V1200B, with two 120mm fans and a squirrel case, even on rubber grommets, was even worse. So the verdict was: no new case, YY will be modded, 80mm and 90mm fans will be thrown away, quiet 120mm fans will be installed, and the end result must be quiet enough to put it in the bedroom or into the entertainment center.

The case was gutted, metalworking tools were engaged, and in a couple of weeks the case was difficult to recognize: instead of one 80mm and one 90mm fans there were four very quiet 120mm Scythe S-FLEX SFF-21D (bought here). I can't say whether they really deliver promised 8.7dBA, but you can only hear them in a very quiet room at night, and you have to get down on your knees to hear them. Two intake fans at the front, one intake fan at the left (where the CPU is), and one exhaust on the rear (below the PSU).



PSU chosen was fanless (kind of) Antec Phantom 500. That was before I got disappointed in Antec PSUs after two consequent failures, both shortly after warranty expired. Interesting fact is that I'm seeing a sharp decline in Antec popularity recently - I guess I'm not the only disappointed one. Another disappointment was that as soon as the auxiliary fan kicks in, you realize that no, it is far from zero noise, it's much worse than regular - but that doesn't happen very often, especially if you're only using the computer as HTPC, and not as a gaming station.

After long consideration, fanless XFX GF7950GT PVT71JYHE9, fresh new on the market, was bought. That turned to be the worst disappointment of all: it didn't fit into the case. I was 4mm short. Sure YY is a big case, it's just that the motherboard compartment is more shallow than most... I said, the hell with it, cut out the hole in the side panel, and it works happily since.

That was the end of it, and it seems that the case turned out quite right. It is quiet as a coffin, and cold as a tomb.



CPU temperature (AMD X2 3800+) doesn't get above 49°C with the fanless video card (above), and doesn't get above 52°C with two G92 8800GTS/512 SLI (it is interesting that even those two monsters, the noise level wasn't bad at all). Hard drive is in a wind tunnel between two fans, I don't think it will ever overheat.

Bottomline...

It's been 10 years since I've started buying computers out of my own pocket.

• Bought two whole computers - HP Pavilion out of ignorance, Dell Dimension E521 because of crazy sale;
  
• Bought four cases - YY-0110, Lian-Li PC-60, Lian-Li V-Cool V1200B Plus, Antec P182;
• Got four cases as a present;
  
• Built total of eight computers (not counting endless tinkering with existing ones).
  

All things considered, this case is so far the best.

Yes, it is somewhat ugly.
But it works.
And it is cold.
And it is quiet.

And it is NINE YEARS OLD.

I don't think I'll be buying more cases anytime soon. There's a stack of old cases gathering dust in the corner, I'll just pick the one that fits the purpose the best and start hacking away...

R.I.P. E39 Brake Pads & Rotors

5 years, 6 months, 14 days, 60,731 miles, "check brake linings". Time for a new DIY endeavor.

At about forty thousand miles, I've complained to the dealership that the brakes don't feel right. After taking a look at them, the shop foreman (somehow, my car always ended up in his hands) looked at me and said - "Sir, new brake pads on this car are 10mm thick. They need to be replaced when they get down to 2mm. That usually happens at about twenty thousand miles. Yours are about 8mm thick, and you've been driving this car twice as long. Do you brake at all?" "Of course not", - I responded. - "Who needs brakes when you can downshift?"