3 months on

[Grumpyjohn1957]

As the proud owner of #973 (Betty) for a little over three months I’ve managed to clock a good few miles and finally got to know the car.

Frozen black really suits the G31 shape, I love it, a bold choice by the original purchaser indeed. Such an unusual colour especially for an Alpina, it highlights the cars silhouette accentuating its subtle curves and angles without being ostentatious, it invites you to touch it. The himalaya grey wheels blend the bright silver of the disc rotors into the cars black accentuating the spokes whilst hiding the brake dust. A great practical and visual combo. Again, good choice by whoever specified her.

Thanks to PPF she’s actually been quite easy to keep clean. The secret is to use deionised water for a final light rinse and wipe down. Without it faint grey streaks and spots are left everywhere from the tap stuff. The lower side panels and side skirts where the thickest road dirt accumulates seem particularly prone to this. I’ve been using a blend of snow foam and fairy liquid, covering the car with a good thick layer then leaving for at least 5 mins or longer before washing off with a hose brush. I then follow this with a simple bucket of clean tap water and woollen wash mitt. I’m sure detailers will be horrified, but it works very well.

From what I can glean the use of wax directly on frozen paint is an absolute verboten. Strangely, applying a hybrid ceramic wax to the PPF doesn’t seem to affect the overall matt appearance, I’ve tried a small test area on the front bumper, and it looks, erm, well, matt. If anything, it increases the perception of colour depth. I’ll see what winter brings before I try a bigger area. Some people advocate protecting PPF in this way. It’s strange stuff, you expect to feel a hard metallic surface when you touch the car but instead it greets your fingertips with a rubbery feel. At shallow viewing angles PPF does reflect light creating a hazy grey effect making it obvious the black is overlaid, viewed directly you wouldn’t know.
Speaking of bad weather, mid-November is the time I put winters on. Not quite sure how my Alpina Silver winter wheels are going to look against matt black, as said, the Himalayas suit the car perfectly. Dark grey serves well to hide volcanic quantities of dust the performance brake system creates; silver definitely won’t. I’m actually contemplating switching to EBC pads because of it. I’d be interested to hear from anyone who’s tried them.

At handover a couple of things peeved me, the Alpina floor mats were missing and the steering wheel felt like sandpaper. It took a bit of effort to persuade Sytner to provide a replacement set. They eventually did so six weeks after I’d got the car, but fair enough I now have them. My last Lavalina steering wheel got trashed due to repeatedly having industrial handwipe residue deposited on it. I decided to clean it using Pears soap and when I did the surface disintegrated on contact. I don’t know what has or hasn’t been done to this one. The leather felt very dry, harsh & stiff plus the surface was losing colour in places. Wanting to sort it quickly and finding it difficult to get accurate information about Lavalina care I took a chance by soaking it overnight with Russell & Bromley handbag cream. Came up a treat, black, soft and shiny, Mrs Grumpy wasn’t too pleased, but I was delighted.

On my first long journey I thought something about the car didn’t feel quite right. I’d only had it 3 days and yes OK it is slightly different from the pre LCI I was used to, but not by much. The handling really felt quite “odd” especially on roundabouts and was accompanied by vibrations and various rumblings at speed. Thinking it through whilst driving I decided to start by having the wheels road force balanced whereupon all was revealed. The fitter showed me on the balancer; two out of four rims distorted on the barrel side. One front, one rear, both bent, not terribly but way more than enough to cause very noticeable shudder on smooth roads. Most definitely in need of the straightening that I’ve yet to get done. Both the front tyres looked original, the rears were plainly new. On the car the fronts appeared to have plenty of tread, off the car the innermost shoulder/edge showed serious scrubbing, I replaced them. Tracking, both front & rear was an absolute country mile out. It also felt like the car was crabbing, something which I’d dismissed as not possible. We found the front and rear toe angles to be completely wrong with front & rear wheels pointing in opposite directions to each other as the bonus. (By not an inconsiderable amount either). When I’d briefly pushed the car to its limits the first time, I can only describe the handling as treacherous, no wonder.

A couple of hours on a Hunter sorted it all out and together with a pair of new fronts she was driving like an Alpina should. How an alignment could get into the state this was in I’ve no idea. The tech who worked on it was horrified. Anyway, all sorted and happy. So much for dealers PDI eh?
The headlights and HK sound system are still proving disappointing. The HK’s shortcomings are well documented for all variants of facelift G3x cars. The bean counters obviously decided not to spend the ha’porth on tar. Apparently, it’s due to cheap speakers, rubbish amp and a mickey mouse DAC. A 1970s AM/LW Motorola probably sounds better, even Beethoven would be disappointed, compared to the old cars its awful. The Lights? Fitting lasers can be done but £5k plus buys me a lot of carrots so not going there.

Next up oil, according to the iDrive it appears the car was due for a change around the time it was traded. I’m hoping being sat in various showrooms for a few months was the reason it never happened as opposed to the previous owner not bothering. Either way I’ve now got a permanent amber 2 months past due highlight in the service record. I’m praying it was actually changed rather than just being reset. When I got around to dumping the “changed” oil out it was showing as having travelled 5000 miles. I replaced it with new filter and my preferred lubricant. Have to say what came out doesn’t look or smell particularly healthy. An intermediate change will be done in November so an oil analysis should prove interesting, I kept a sample of it for this purpose.

I commented previously about how the LCI is quite different in its power delivery. There’s been a number of changes made to the post LCI engines, the biggies being ECU, turbos, induction and exhaust systems. Alpina say the LCI is 621 hp vs the previous 608 hp. I knew the old cars figure to be understated but was slightly shocked when I saw 654hp & 920nm from it on the dyno. I’m now quite sure Alpina have been fibbing again. I’m going back to the dyno man shortly and would not be surprised if this one makes 670hp. Its flipping quick with the right fuel, the mid-range punch is phenomenal.

Fuel economy is definitely not as good as that I’ve been used to. I can just about wring her out using eco to pip 35mpg, hard work, not to mention very boring. Around town she’s about 3 mpg down and on a mixed run again 2 or 3 down. Extra grunt obviously carries a penalty. On the plus side it doesn’t half make you smile. One minute a half-asleep teleporter, then if seriously provoked, an apex predator.
I actually struggle for words to describe the all-round competence & completeness of the B5 touring. If you are able to find its limits methodically and incrementally on a circuit, you not only discover but doubly appreciate the depth of engineering that’s gone into these machines. On the road the majority of owners will never, or for that matter need to, experience a fraction of what these beasts can deliver.
A massive shame there’ll not be anything like the B5 or its brethren again.
Hopefully I’ll still be as chuffed with this one a year from now.

Some fascinating comparison stats from ZE Perfs.com below

[MikeR]

Any more pics?