Rotor arms

My brother has had several stuck calipers on his 3 Series, yet my older 5 Series has been fine. Any guesses?

On mine it was both N/S ones, the front was bad, the rear just starting to go but I rebuilt all 4 for the sake of it. This was about 12-18 months ago so I put it down to the bad weather of 2012 and just too much plowing through puddles (a weakness of mine, but good for cleaning out the wheel arches) forcing a small amount of water in past the seals.

Not a terribly good explanation really and at 10 years old it's just as easily par for the course. I must say I've never read anything to say

3ers are more prone to sticky calipers than 5s or even that it's a particularly common issue. Perhaps just bad luck on your brothers part. Were his calipers replaced or refurbed?

He does do more driving on rural roads than me so they may well get soaked more often.

IIRC, exchange units from a local motor factor.

Don't know if it's the case for older BMWs, but you can feel the difference in quality between the 1, 3 and 5s.

Even if a part looks the same (eg. interior door pulls on the 1 and 3 series) - they often aren't - in the case of the door pulls / handles, the parts look identical, only the 3 series part has a rubbery coating on the bit you touch whilst the 1 series is just hard plastic.

I didn't appreciate this was the case when I went for a 1 over the 3, though - won't be making that mistake again.

First time I've ever heard about it, too - and you'd REALLY think I might have done...

Go on, Peter, tell us what car it was. "French" covers a multitude of sins.

Citroen BX 1.6, H reg - 1990.

Utter shit, steel rots inwards from the cut ends. With a new clean wire, unless you scrape the copper off to the core when stripping it, you will need a magnifying glass to see the bright silver colour of steel at the cut end.

Citroen used an IDC for the tail lamp, that left the end of each conductor exposed. Modern wiring to waterproof standard IP65 will use a sealed connector and end crimp terminals. So cut end is inside the sealed connector and should not suffer as quickly. Give it 20 years instead of 10.

Strange how I've never had nor heard any of those problems with any of the late '80s, early '90s PSA products - including my current 1990/G Pug

205...

Inside the boot, with the lamp body sealed to the bodyshell.

I've given it 25 years on the 205, so far. No problems. The odd bit of corrosion on the copper, sure, but nothing that won't come bright in seconds.

I have come across this problem too, but I have no idea what car it was on, I just kept cutting back till I found something I could solder onto. Several inches back it was ok (how does that translate to metric and still be understood by most people?)

It was fine until I had to unplug it to fit a new bulb.

Pugs used to be far more reliable than Citroen. Over 2x more reliable.

1998 Lex contract hire data.

Peugeot 15th with 19 MBPHV. Citroen 23rd (last) with 44.1 MBPHV.

Alfa came 22nd with 42.5 MBPHV.

VW at the time of the "If only everything in life was as reliable as a Volkswagen", 17 MBPHV and 50% of makes were more reliable (including Jaguar). Tied =12th with Toyota, Jeep and Hyundai.

You don't need to remove the lamp body or even lens to change a bulb, so there'd be no difference to the weather-tightness. You just unclip the multiplug, then unclip the bulb holder from the inside. If water ingress was getting to the wiring, then the boot would be full of water.

Don't you find that a bit strange, considering they've been built by the same company, from the same parts, on the same production lines - since the mid '70s?

The BX used the same floorpan as the 405. If it'd been a 1.4, it'd have had the same engine family as my 205. If it'd been a diesel, it'd have had the same engine as a 205 diesel. Many of the components will have been marked with the Talbot T, Pug lion and Cit chevrons right next to each other.

The boot was dry. It was 5 door so the lamp is in the rear quarter panel. Just unplugging it and un-clipping the bulb holder assembly broke all the rusty wires. I had to cut about 5-8cm off the end to find some wire that had a core I could crimp to.

Once rust forms on end of wire from moisture in air it can stay wet and just keep rusting away.

Air contains invisible (usually) water vapour - it's where the water that drains out of air con system comes from. The UK has (had many more in the 90's) many days of mist/fog/heavy rain with 100% relative humidity. Even at 0°C that's 5g of water per cubic meter of air. At 10°C it's 9g/m³, 15°C it's 13g/m³. It condenses out on any cool surface, it's called dew. I've seen cars covered in it a few times this month. Dry road and pavement, wet car, big puddles around car at drain points but no rain.

They did comment it was mainly due to the drop to the floor suspension not pumping up. Also even though they had much design in common they are assembled by a completely different set of workers.

I never noticed anything about either my old '94 325i or current '04

320d that compared badly to a friend's '03 530i. The 5 had a more grown-up feel than the 3, but engineering wise there was nothing in it.

As a bit of apples vs oranges comparison, my 3's leather interior is entirely leather compared to my previous '52 Jag S-Type (ie 5 series size) that only bothered with leather seat & squab faces while the side bolsters and head rests etc were vinyl (or leatherette, if you will)

I wonder BMW has had the bean counters in, like Merc did in the 90s?

When I rebuilt mine I spent time scouring out the piston cavity - I wonder if the pro-rebuilders are less contientous?

I think they have - certainly in the 1 and a little less so in the 3.

Audi and Mercedes have moved the game on significantly in the last couple of years - the A3 is really nicely built using quality parts, and the new C-class is a true return to form for Mercedes. Can't wait to try the new A4 and E-class.

Oh, and BMW 'Dakota' leather is absolutely awful. Feels like it came from an Elephant's arse, but wears like it does in a 1990s Japanese car.