juliann

Had to put new front & rear pads on this week so whilst on the ramp, had a chance to have a good look around the car. A couple of things were noticed that may be useful for others :

Self Levelling Compressor - electrical feed wiring harness.
This was chaffing on the lower edge of the rear bumper - had worn through the protective sleeving and through the wire insulation.
Rectification : repair & cable tie away from bumper edge

Brake Master Cylinder & ECU compartments.
Removed the plastic trim at rear of engine compartment (near bulkhead) to check brake fluid reservoir. It was like a lake in there ! Water was about 9 inches deep, covering the brake reservoir & most of the servo and a wiring harness. There are two drains - on at the outer rear side and one under the brake reservoir - both were blocked. There is a really poor seal from the lower windscreen trim to this area so this was sealed better. Similar comprtment on other side housing ECU - fortunately not blocked this side.

narvselius

Excellent post, juliann. Thanks!

One thing, though. When is you car made?

juliann

It's a January 2005 build with 178,000 miles.

The water in the bulkhead compartments is partly due to the windscreen wipers pushing water down that area on their downsweep. The wipers for UK cars are not aligned for RHD (i.e. they are the same as LHD) so if you have a LHD car, the compartment of mine that was filled with water and had the brake servo in would have your ECU in it and the wipers would push water down into that area !!!!

PS : Love your GTV6 - would be great to race it :-)

tooltec

Although I have now got used to the wipers not being converted for RHD,I must say it really annoyed me when I first got my car.

higher

I am 6ft 5" and also instantly noticed this RHD wiper issue, only after I purchased the car unfortunately (UK car). Given that my head is so far (up-my-ass !!! only kidding) up toward the car roof it actually restricts my vision quite a bit bacause of the un-swept wiper arc it leaves on screen.

These last couple of days with snow / rain / spray blowing from all directions and covering the side windown as well, I really stuggled to get good clear vision, particularly when driving through central London (or any city centre) where there are crazed Christmas shoppers jumping into the road. Nearly had a mascot on the hood a couple of times !

Not sue why BMW did not convert the wipers. Anyone know ? I think it could be because of the complex cam arragement on the driver side wiper which pulls the wiper down on the sweep.

My other car (E91) and a couple of VW's we have in the familly are all converted and I really notice when I drive those, the difference in visiion. You would think that import regulation and type approbal would insist on this.