Adventures in the Snow

Hi!
Today is the 30th of January! The past few days here in Ohio have been really frigid and quite adventurous. We had a snow day this past Wednesday, which is a miracle because Ohio State very rarely has snow/cold days. One would think the snow would have to be so high that going through a door would require digging tunnels before Ohio State would close campus. The day off was much needed, after a stressful week of midterms and book reading.
My E46 is equipped with ESC, aka a form of traction control. With this option I have a separate button to activate the system on or off. This setting is usually ran in this position at all times. Today, I found out that if you turn it off it is fun to drive in the snow (if you are in a controlled situation)! Okay, I know it is not safe, but I was in an empty parking lot and I just had to try it out. ESC is just one of the features that BMW supplies as an option in their vehicles. BMW vehicles are rear wheel drive, unless one has the optional all wheel drive models. I have the rear wheel drive with ESC and I find them to be amazing features if one is not lucky enough to have the all wheel drive. Not to complain about these less than perfect features, I still love my car.
Have a great day!

A Mile at a Time

Hello,
Today is Friday January 23rd. I want to write about the gas mileage my car gets, and the average amount of miles I can go on a full tank. I also want to ask if anyone knows about lights and how they work.
On an average day, driving to and from school and is about 350 miles a week for week. My BMW averages about 25 miles/gallon with a 16 gallon gas tank, I get a little over 400 miles a tank. With today’s gas prices on a relative low, it would cost me about twenty-five dollars to fill my gas tank. Some ways I conserve gas is by going a little slower, and “gunning” it or passing people when unnecessary and overall not being an aggressive driver. Having being said, gas prices have decreased by more than 50% in the past few months… making it easier for all of to fill our tanks, although before it would cost me around sixty dollars to fill up. So obviously when the gas prices were high I was more aware of what miles I had been driving, but weren’t we all.
Set aside that thought; let’s go back to last week’s topic. A little recap, last week received new headlights that I ordered the previous month. After many issues and difficulties, I finally had them working. They are still working wonderfully except my right front corner light. As you may recall, I had tapped into the wires to get my halos to work, well the company sent me the wrong wiring harness so I disconnected them. The other day I noticed the right corner light was dim and not as bright as the left side. QUESTION!!! Does anyone know what could have caused this; did I short the circuit, or anything? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!!!

NEW HEADLIGHTS!!!

Hello!
It's Friday, and today is ridiculously cold out side. I pulled my car out of my garage this morning and my temperature gage started flashing a negative 19 degrees outside. Yeah, its kinda cold. Now, back on topic, my car is the top of the line 328i, it has every bell and whistle on it, except xenon headlights. I know, if you're a car freak, you sort of really want these. On top of the obsession of BMW's, I also have an obsession with xenon's!!! These lights are amazing, the cool, crisp light that the xenon gas emits, is unbelievable. Ever since I can remember, I wanted them to be on my car. Now owning a car that they're suppose to be on, they're not. So, after investigating after market headlights, I finally found a set from DDM Tuning at a reasonable price. I purchased them. These headlights are the exact replica of the factory xenon headlights that come on the BMW with that option. I purchased mine on December 8Th, and waited until January 13Th to receive them. As soon as I got them, I pulled them out of the box and admired their pristine quality. After the shock receded, I began to uninstall my old headlights. After about an hour, they were out. I began to hook up the halo to my battery terminal, soon realizing the company sent me the wrong wiring parts. So, I called DDM, and they promptly sent out the correct wiring parts. One of many snags out of the way, I started installing the headlines. Anxious to see them light up, I installed the passenger's side first and then proceeded to turn on the headlights. With no luck, the light didn't come on. After more tries, and no luck, I called the company back again. They began to explain to me how to hook them up and troubleshoot the problem, but nothing seemed to work. So one of my genius ideas, I changed the polarity going into the headlights power source and completed to install the other headlight. It's a miracle they both came on. Not to get too excited, the passenger headlight went off, and my "canceller" exploded. In disgust with myself, I started uninstalling and packing them away to send back. After six hours of fiddling with them, I couldn't believe that I had screwed up something so simple. Once my mess was all cleaned up, I went to bed. Unable to drive anywhere due to the weather the next day, I decided to uninstall my old lights, and install the new ones to see if I could get them to work without the "cancellers". So, once again I uninstalled the old lights and in with the new! To much surprise, they worked!!! I couldn't believe it, I was told some cars didn't need the "cancellers" for the lights to work, who knew my car was the on that didn't. It's a 1 out of 10 chances it could happen; in other words its slim. BMW's have a computer in them that monitors the operation of the car and its components, since my car was not programed for xenon's, its not set up for the circuitry the xenon's give out, thus it sends a message to the car that the headlight is out, thus the "canceller" bypasses this and doesn't send the error message. My car, "the odd one," didn't need them. I think this is because I used 55w Ballast instead of the 35w Ballast that come standard, I opted for the higher wattage, and in return my car worked properly without the "cancellers" and still carried a full circuit. So, now my headlights work perfect, there everything I had hoped for and now I can enjoy the cool, crisp lights.

A little about me!

Hello!

I’m completely new to blogging, so bare with me through the next several weeks. First off, my name is Kyle; I am 20 years of age and am now attending OSU. I am a freshman here and loving every minute of it, the transition from high school to college wasn’t too bad, but figuring out what my major is difficult. Enough of that for now, I’m here to talk about my interest in BMW’s, and how my infatuation about cars began. For all my life I’ve been obsessed with cars. When I was a kid I’d always head straight to the toys section and pick out all my favorite Matchbox cars, then find my mom and then she would let me get a couple of the cars I picked out. Through the years I have quite the collection of Matchbox cars (no offense to Hot Wheels, but I never liked the “style” of their cars). Matchbox cars where always close replicas to the real thing. So starting young I played with cars, which had obviously got me hooked on them, and today you can almost call me crazy, but I know almost everything about them, just I’m not too familiar all the mechanical aspect of them. Too much surprise, I later found out that the automotive “idea” has been in my family for years. My dad’s father had a new car dealership in Sunbury, Oh. My dad, when married to my mom, was a used car salesmen. So that’s where I believe my interest in cars is from, at least kind of. The other side of me is how I love my car to shine! It can be freezing outside and id is out washing my car, all to make her shine! Later I’ll get into my ride; hence that’s what this page is all about!