Let the repair season begin

About a week ago, I put together a list of things that will need to be addressed this spring. Turns out, that now that the BMW is well out of warranty, I'm starting to look beyond the manufacturer recommended maintenance schedule and look for other trouble in that car as well. Frankly, I never really thought it was a good idea to go 15K miles between oil changes. So, after some research, I found a few things that could use some preemptive replacement. You cannot look at a service shop with a BMW less than $600, so I think it's time I try and spend some effort with dome DIY there too. Most ambitious will be replacing the water pump, legendary for its ability to fall apart at exactly 60K miles.

As for the roadster, the power windows managed to stop working today. Don't know why. It is NOT fuse #5 - I checked it, and that was the culprit for the electrical problem from last year. Remember - that fuse also runs most of the instrument cluster. Since it's both windows that failed at the same time, I am going to assume that it's not either switch or motor, but instead the relay that runs it all. I am taking this with enough faith that I have ordered a replacement (not cheap), which should be here soon. I don't know if it was the weather, or the extra time I had this afternoon, but since I was chasing electrical stuff, I thought I would finally get around to replacing burned out instrument cluster lighting. While I'm back there, I'll check the ground connection as well, since that can lead to really strange problems impossible to diagnose. Here are a couple of pictures...


At least it will be hard to steal.


Rear of instrument cluster.