BMW #4-Big Body, Big wallet!

[djacinto]

Hello everyone,

I've finally gotten my next BMW and this marks my 4th BMW. In my stable I have an F32 428i, an E82 128i, and my beloved E38 750iL. My daily driver for the past 7 years has been my lovely Bella the 4er, and it's been wonderful. I've had great trips and memories wrenching on the car and being my first foray into the bavarian world. I had been a bmw fanboy growing up and I am happy to continue being with the brand and furthering my knowledge and wrenching abilities to each car I own. For the past year and a half I debated between the f32 440 and a F06 650 as I love the driving dynamics and chassis of the f32 but felt that I would be in a much more luxurious car in the 650. I wanted the awesome Bang and Olefson sound system, adaptive cruise would've been nice, and the oh so comfy seats with alcantara headliner sounded wonderful. I just couldn't find the right car after flying across the country and working with dealers for months just to have cars sold under me, not the right price, or in the last instance-not feel like it was the right car.

After this disparaging search, I almost gave up, wanting to wait until later in the year to restart my search when something piqued my interest...

On April 20th, I flew out to California at 7 in the morning, got to LAX at 8:30, to pick up a beautiful 2017 750Li RWD in Singapore Grey on Schwarz, and was back in my bed same day by midnight.

With a near 100k msrp depreciation curve, 2 owners and 57k miles, I just had to get another money pit and this was the one for me.

From the factory, we see almost every option outside of rear seat entertainment, executive seating, and the cooler. Besides that, it was optioned with M sport, 648m wheels, driver assistance plus, bowers and wilkins, sky lounge, comfort seats, heated, ventilated and massaging at all 4 corners, executive package, autobahn package, rear integral steering, the command tablet, and the holy grail: the display key with 2 spares.

I got the car transported back as I have already done the trip from both coasts to Texas. I prefer i-40 for the trees, but this time decided I'll let someone else do the trip to keep the mileage down.

On April 26th, she finally came to me and I got everything ready for her arrival: weathertech mats, sunshade, trunk liner, and even the floating center caps

While I am not new to these forums, I am to the G12's, and to that I say hello and thank you all for helping me make the right decision!

Welcome everyone to Giulia, the G12 7er, my second 7 series

[djacinto]

Reserved for photos

[djacinto]

So for the first post, here's the initial plan for the car:

Seeing as this is a 6-figure car, and it takes 6 figures to run it, my goal is to keep the car as reliable as possible. My e38 is a restoration project and it costed roughly the same in 2000's money. While E-chassis parts are semi abundant and cheap, G-chassis parts are just abundant lol

As I mentioned in the intro, I've already put floating center caps and some weathertech accessories. A preliminary list of modifications include:
-m760 m sport steering wheel
-m760 front (and potentially rear calipers)
-resonator delete
-BM3 tune
-Wheel spacers
-Maxton design bodykit
-ARM chargepipes
-m8/m5 wheels? (Unsure what style as of now)

I've also ordered some maintenance bits to get the car to my standards.
-Liqui Moly Engine flush, 5w-40 molygen oil, Ceratec additive
-NGK spark plugs
-Dinan coil packs
-engine air filters
-cabin air filters
-wiper blades

...with more later on. I plan on doing all the fluids fairly quickly, as around the 50k mark I like to be preventative.

Outside of that, not much is planned. I'm of the mindset of oem+, so keep everything with reliability but improvements where possible.

As owners, please let me know what are some good tips and things to look out for!

Excited for this journey!

[BManBimma]

You're going to love it I like your plans for the big body since it's quite similar to mine

[BlackM750i]

Congrats, any plans to lower it?

[djacinto]

Originally Posted by BlackM750i

Congrats, any plans to lower it?

Yeah I’ve been reading into threads of people doing it. I don’t have ista setup yet so I need to get on that

[djacinto]

Got some of the maintenance items in today after getting back from a trip. Unfortunately, the boxes looked quite banged up and while the integrity of the parts are fine, this has been a continual problem with FCP’s orders where the packaging is inadequately supporting the items.

I sent them an email about it to see if they have any comments but otherwise should be getting to it over the week.

-ngk spark plugs, dinan coils
-meyle engine air filters
-corteco cabin air filters
-liqui moly moly gen 5w-40 oil with engine flush and ceratec,
-dijectron fuel cleaner
-Bosch wiper blades.

[djacinto]

My dashcam also came in today. Went with the viofo a229, since i have the 129 on my old 4 series. looking to do the hardwire kit, but not the same was as the advanced eye since i'll probably do add-a-fuse's in the fusebox. anyone have some tips on that? Looking in the g30 forums currently to see if anything similar comes up

[djacinto]

Originally Posted by djacinto

Got some of the maintenance items in today after getting back from a trip. Unfortunately, the boxes looked quite banged up and while the integrity of the parts are fine, this has been a continual problem with FCP’s orders where the packaging is inadequately supporting the items.

I sent them an email about it to see if they have any comments but otherwise should be getting to it over the week.

-ngk spark plugs, dinan coils
-meyle engine air filters
-corteco cabin air filters
-liqui moly moly gen 5w-40 oil with engine flush and ceratec,
-dijectron fuel cleaner
-Bosch wiper blades.

Got everything buttoned up and squared away. The chargepipes were an absolute bitch to get on but they got on after some finagle. Collected a sample of the oil for a blackstone labs report as well. I did this on my f32 before tuning to get an idea of health as well as a final sample for the buyer of the car. Doing that again here so I can plan accordingly when/if tuning is an option.

car drives smoothly as expected. I do think motor mounts are probably somewhere in the list, there's just a bit more vibrations than I would expect in this car. I also noticed the driver tension control arm inboard bushing was leaking while the passenger side wasn't. I replaced the f32's around this mileage as well so that will be on the list to do. The rest of the fluids will be done as well, transmission being one of the major ones. If someone could walk me through getting ista setup and how to do the alpina transmission tune as well, I'd greatly appreciate that!

[BManBimma]

You should upload a vid of how it sounds now? I'm waiting impatiently for my parts to arrive

[djacinto]

Originally Posted by BManBimma

You should upload a vid of how it sounds now? I'm waiting impatiently for my parts to arrive

I mean I haven’t done anything exhaust wise, you just want a stock exhaust clip?

[djacinto]

Got the relatives together.

Here’s Stella and Giulia together

[djacinto]

Happy Sunday everyone!

Just got back from a road trip to Louisiana for a wedding. 327 mile each way, and man oh man. I loved my road trip from rhode island in my e38, nothing will top that because that v12 is something lovely, but this g12 is a beast. my partner sat in the back and let me tell you, she was passed out lol

Getting to know how all the systems work with adaptive cruise, finding it's sweet spot for cruising speed, and getting to know the car in its entirety was so fun.

Massage seats, ventillation going, comfort plus and the quiet road going 85 with an average of 28 mpg's! i was cruising for a bruising!

On top of that, I installed the viofo a229 front and rear dash before the trip cause the drivers we saw were insane. One note is that I am trying to figure out how to put the dashcam in parking mode. I put the same settings from my 129's in my other cars, but the camera seems to just continue recording. I followed tommylgarage's video on his f90 m5 and put my add-a-fuses in the same spot (in the proper direction, mind you lol, but it doesn't seem to want to sleep, and when I went to start the car, the battery cutoff seemed to trigger

Another note on the car, I think I need to get the front windows retinted because I am still feeling a bit of heat when the sun is facing the front of the vehicle. Got a nice tan on my left arm because of it lol

I'm continuing to fall more in love with the car and I know I won't be doing too many road trips in the near future, but Giulia made it so wonderful to drive!

obligatory dirty car pic

[Raimo5]

7 Sure is the car for a road trip! You pictures and stories make me miss my E38 so much.

Regarding cameras - are they supposed to power down on their own or via power supply cutoff. Maybe you are taking power from terminal that is not going to sleep, or draw from camera is preventing the terminal from sleeping?

[djacinto]

Originally Posted by Raimo5

7 Sure is the car for a road trip! You pictures and stories make me miss my E38 so much.

Regarding cameras - are they supposed to power down on their own or via power supply cutoff. Maybe you are taking power from terminal that is not going to sleep, or draw from camera is preventing the terminal from sleeping?

They do power off themselves. I used this thread to show which fuses were turned on by accessory. I believe I used f50 for the acc wire (yellow in my case)
https://www.7post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2066034

[Raimo5]

Originally Posted by djacinto

They do power off themselves. I used this thread to show which fuses were turned on by accessory. I believe I used f50 for the acc wire (yellow in my case)
https://www.7post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2066034

Fuse F50 is powered by terminal 30B which should indeed go to sleep. Just to clarify - was it the car battery or camera battery that was empty?

[djacinto]

Originally Posted by Raimo5

Fuse F50 is powered by terminal 30B which should indeed go to sleep. Just to clarify - was it the car battery or camera battery that was empty?

No battery on the camera, the car battery “battery management system” message came up

I’ll try and share some pics of the setup when I can get to the car next

[djacinto]

This is what the fuse setup looks like

View post on imgur.com

[Raimo5]

Originally Posted by djacinto

This is what the fuse setup looks like

View post on imgur.com

I mean ... I'm not the biggest fan of circuit expanders, but if installed in correct socket and getting its power from 30B, then the power should be cut by the bus. Perhaps it draws too much power and prevents consumer shutdown. Or perhaps there is another issue. Either way there should be fault codes stored for those draw violation events.

[ggonxhi]

I installed the 70mai exactly the same way as you did.
I used the cig lighter fuse and have had it for a month no issues at all.

I used f50 fuse.
Why are you running 2 taps? Is this a dual camera setup that requires power separately? If that’s the case run them both from the f50 and see if the issue goes away?

https://ibb.co/Qms2yyg

[JellyStyle]

I would stay away from -Dinan coil packs, replaced so many that its not worth it. They are all made in china after Steve sold the company, i already have a few RMA's and went back to OEM, which last longer and do not mishire.

[djacinto]

Would anyone by chance know the distance between the jacking points on our long wheel bases?

Old trick on the e38’s for quick jacks is to use a 2x4, and have it cut to the length needed. My Stella is 70 inches so I assume the new ones are a bit longer since the cars have added some length.

If not, I’ll go measure myself, just a little tough when I’m by myself lol!

Quick edit, the g12 is about 81 inches and the e38 is 69 tip to tip! That’s a big jump!