So found a ugly rusted spot in the rear side of my car. Has a similar looking thing directly on the left side that's NOT rusted. What is this?



Also, checked the power steering fluid and it was a bit low - so I did fill it a bit with CHF 11S. Runs a bit better but at very low speeds, turning the wheel, you can hear the belt. Not all the time though..

 

That is your right side muffler. Apparently the right side fails before the left side, generally. Recently my right side clamp rusted apart. I bought the parts to do the replacement but I notice a little tiny amount of rust on my right side muffler and so I have been weighing whether to change it now, or if it can make it the whole winter.

Apparently yours is not making loud noises yet, or you would have noticed... That may help me in my decision.

 

That makes sense.. and yeah, no, hasn't been loud at all. Cool, will definitely take a look into that. Thank you sir. More pics to come again!

 

You probably noticed and know this but I'll say it just for newbies who might read this thread later: on the power steering reservoir cap, there are two marks on the dipstick (integrated into the cap). I understand that these are minimum and maximum fill lines. Parking the car on level ground, and letting it sit off for a few minutes is when you want to check that the fluid level is between the two marks.

 

Yeah, when we checked it, car was leveled and I had done a quick google search on my phone when we did it. It's actually just right about in the middle of the lines now. Works fine, but I'm really leaning on getting a good tune up done. Just gotta find the time. Car runs great otherwise.

I've been purposely driving on higher gears and lower RPMS and jeez.. saving a lot of gas! If I start to go over ~2500RPMs, I seem to burn gas rather quicker than I expected. I don't accelerate hard for the most part, but I burned more fuel quicker on auto vs 6spd. Going 6spd I do better on gas than my subie. Going to experiment as I go

 

Hey guys - thinking of doing the spark plugs and trans flush this weekend. Any recommendations for spark plugs/coils?

And I'm thinking this for the trans fluid :
Redline® D4 Atf Synthetic Auto Transmission Fluid

I'll be checking the cables as well, but OUT OF THE BLUE and randomly will it hard shift between 2-3, on auto OR manual.

 

If it's not been modded, wouldn't you just buy stock plugs? The BMW plugs are made by NGK. You can get them without the BMW mark from numerous places including the various advertisers here. Here they are on NGK's website:
http://www.ngk.com/product.aspx?zpid=9344

Don't know anything about the automatic.

 

I normally do get stock - Just was asking if there was some preferred over another. Thanks!

 

So bump. I haven't driven the MINI in forever as I got my subie back, so I drove it to work today and boy, do I miss it. It's so refreshing to drive .... RIGHT UNTIL I remembered my transmission woes. So, I don't notice hard shifts anyway, however, the tranny is starting to slip quite noticeably bad. I don't know what I should do. I want a local shop to check it out but with working full time and trying to keep my shape up at the gym, It's hard to find time to take it to such places. I do feel a flush would do the trick, but there's a chance for it to be worse from it, right? One of my good friends asked his mechanic and he's hesitant on flushing it. What do you guys recommend?

 

Hi Spatizzle. Maybe try making new posts for your issues in the model specific section of this forum here for a better response. Here is a manual transmission fluid change DIY, which should provide some good info about the fluid change as well. Check it out and see if it helps at all.

 

Thanks!

 

Disregard