Allison (our 9 year old daughter) joked this morning that she’ll turn 11 before I will – thus making her ‘older’. (…defining ‘Tom Years’ in last year’s post).
…and, sobering thought, I’m only 25 years aways from full retirement age.
With my predilection for foreign cars (from the VW GTI back in 1986 to the current BMW wagon), I have always been looking for a good, small, independent auto repair shop where I could establish a trusting relationship with the folks who work on my car.
While the car is under warranty, the dealership has been the natural choice for any and all work – however, with the wagon’s warranty ending this month, I renewed my quest for the ’shop’.
As I perused the latest issue of Roundel (the BMW Car Club of America’s monthly magazine), I ran across a reference to the International Association of Independent BMW Service Professionals whose site lists three shops in Illinois. I had already tried Don Dethlefsen’s ‘The Werk Shop‘ last year and found it to be a nice place run by kindred enthusiasts – but it was quite a hike to get to (in Lake Bluff) and it seemed like their focus was restorations.
I decided to check out Euroquipe , “an independent professional, service center for BMW, Mercedes, MINI and Porsche automobiles” located in St. Charles. One of the services they offer is a “Complimentary pre-warranty expiration inspection” – a perfect fit for my current situation and a low-risk (and low cost) way for me to give them a try.
Definitely worthwhile and recommended – I’ll be going back.
Euroquipe
Sidwell Ct.
Suite I
St. Charles, IL 60174-3415
630-377-3774
Last night as I was ready to nod off, I heard a loud metallic crash from our deck. I hopped out of bed and started downstairs since I thought I could catch the ‘bandit’ red-handed.
As an avid griller who uses the gas grill on the deck throughout the year (it’s not uncommon to see me cooking steaks, burgers, etc. on the deck while it’s snowing), I guess I’ve opened myself up to some interesting problems. The fact that we back up to a forest preserve teeming with a variety of wildlife doesn’t help, either.
The drip pan beneath the grill proved to be too tempting a target for a crafty young raccoon who proceeded to pull the drip pan and the whole bottom section of the grill off its track for a snack. I pulled back the curtain on the door and flicked on the outside light and started pounding on the glass. I spooked him a bit, but he only moved to the stairs, turned around and just calmly watched to see what my next move would be. From those intelligent eyes, I could sense him mocking me… “Go back to bed, boxer short boy, and let me finish my snack.”
I thought I finally drove him away with my ensuing wild native gestures, but he was back on the deck within 5 minutes. I ran back upstairs and rummaged under the sink to find some ammonia (we normally use it for cleaning, but I read on the Web someplace that raccoons aren’t to fond of the smell). I sprinkled some on the area and went back to bed.
No more bumps in the night – though I’m not looking forward to cleaning up that mess on the deck this morning.
I hit 40k miles on the wagon tonight on my way downtown for dinner with the guys.
I was on the Kennedy, near Cicero – right before the junction.
(Just wanted to test out blogging via my low-res phone)
As an affirmed car junkie, I’m always ‘looking around’ for interesting cars…. though these days, it’s purely to look and not acquire since we’re pretty happy with the wagon and minivan.
One of the places I look is on eBay, which I visited almost daily in the first half of last year in my quest to find the right wagon. Yesterday, while I was looking at the BMW wagons available on eBay, I fondly remembered my beloved 1988 BMW M5, which I bought the day before I started at InstallShield (September 1996) and traded in on the 540i in February of 2000, and casually decided to do a search.
In the search results, I was surprised to find an E28 M5, like I had, among the more recent examples. This was pretty amazing, as these were quite rare with only about 1200 or so making it into the US in 1988.
As I looked at the 40+ pictures of the car on the eBay posting, I experienced a funny feeling of deja vu – the non-standard shift boot (like the one I had in my car); the missing seat badge on the driver’s seat (like the one in my car); the last 4 digits of the VIN were ‘1664′ which seemed oddly familiar (as….in…my….car). I know…you’re probably thinking “what kind of wacko remembers his car’s VIN?”
Conveniently, the eBay seller included a free link to the Carfax vehicle history report for this car which allowed me to do some more verification.
That sealed it.
From the Carfax “Detailed Vehicle History” it was in a dealer’s inventory in Schaumburg in August 1996…. it had title registered in Elk Grove Village (where I lived in 1996) at the end of 1996….it was sold to a dealership in Naperville in 2000 (Bill Jacobs Motorsport where I leased the 540).
Amazing…. it was my M5.
I haven’t seen it in over 6 years and some nearly forty thousand miles and, while it definitely shows the extra years and mileage and seems like it hasn’t been cared for too well (what’s with the ugly steering wheel cover and missing wheel center caps?), overall it doesn’t look too bad for an 18 year old car.
For a brief moment, I thought ‘what if…?’ ….but then quickly navigated away.
Was listening to XRT in the car the other day and a great song caught my ear… White Limousine by Duncan Sheik.
I had heard the name Duncan Sheik before (though, even now, it still sounds like a brand name for some latex products or a donut shop near an oil well)…..anyway, I picked the song up on iTunes and it’s been in heavy playlist rotation on the iMac and iPod.
Next time I’m at Best Buy I’ll need to pick up the CD as the comments on iTunes say there’s a bonus DVD included.
Update: Via NPR, “White Limousine comes with two discs, one labeled “MINE,” the other “YOURS” — a DVD that allows listeners to remix and re-imagine Sheik’s songs.”
I made my annual pilgrimage to the auto show today. More photos after the jump.Selected pictures from the 2006 Chicago Auto Show
Thanks to tuaw.com for pointing me to Volumes 1 and 2 of the Schoolhouse Rock collection on iTunes. What a wonderful way to relive a fond childhood memory.
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