Convertiblau! My 1996 BMW 328iC

[Jake]

Lesson learned... when the man selling you the car says "oh yeah, I restore old Corvettes in my free time" but only has a Geo Tracker and a mostly-disassembled Mazda3 ("salvage title, fixing it for my daughter's first car!" he says) in the driveway/garage, he might actually do half-assed work using cheap parts.

He had "replaced the CCV system" with all new parts. I'm sure he spent at least $16 on Rock Auto getting the new oil separator and some hoses, but clearly it would have been worth using quality parts instead. The plastic tube that runs from the valve cover to the separator had already cracked at the valve cover, so it didn't seal right. The separator was making some noise (the internal check valve, I think). And he never actually replaced the hose that runs from the separator to the dipstick.

However, he clearly removed the hose and decided adding a layer of electrical tape would help it somehow. It was super soft and mushy underneath the tape:



Soooo. I replaced everything with a nice little kit from ECS Tuning. All genuine BMW parts, total cost was $120 shipped. They even sent me a new hose clamp and three new screws to hold the separator to the mounting bracket.

And yay, now it's not making weird goose-honking noises anymore.

Still has a touch of rough idle... may be more vacuum leaks somewhere and it's probably worth doing the spark plugs on it. Sometime. Eventually. Oh, and the lower control arm bushings are on their way out. Not a problem now but I should probably deal with 'em in the next 3-4 months.

Walked out to a picture-perfect moment in the driveway this morning, just proving that white (occasionally topless) girls love fall: