This is James, my minded ’00 740i. I bought it in great nick 18 months ago and since then I’ve fixed the minor body and interior issues it came with myself with OEM parts, had it serviced twice with trusted indies, and I’ve had some mechanicals done by Cork BMW specialists Ardfallen Motorcare: alternator (used), intake breather (new OEM), and aircon valves/pump (new OEM). The ABS pre-charge pump (used) was also replaced by one of the indies.

The suspension was given a good going over by my mechanic when I bought it, and I haven’t had any problems since. The engine is running beautifully. The M-Parallel alloys are genuine BMW and the tyres have at least half their wear left. The original standard alloys will come with the car, but I’m happy to keep the M-Paras back if you’d like to reduce the price by a few hundred quid.

It comes with all the features you’d expect from a car that originally cost in the region of €100k: electric windows, mirrors, seats and tilt/slide sunroof, cruise control on the multi-function steering wheel, 6 CD changer, on-board computer, auto-dimming rear-view mirror, auto-wipe with rain-sensor, soft-close boot. Other nice touches are footwell lights, puddle lights in the door bottoms, and natty door handle lights.

Service history is as follows. The last two indies are my guys.

0 (10/00) Murphy & Gunn BMW – Pre-Delivery
13473 (01/08/01) M&G BMW – Oil
26556 (05/04/02) M&G – Inpection I, Microfilter
38290 (12/11/02) M&G – Oil
52675 (14/08/04) M&G – Inspection II
60978 (30/11/05) M&G – Oil
68134 (03/11/06) M&G – Pre-Purchase Service, Wishbone
76570 (27/04/07) M&G – Inspection I, Microfilter
94117 Gerald Perry Motors – Oil
107888 Cork Engine Centre – Oil
115000 (09/11/10) O’Learys Garage Ballincollig – Oil
121745 (09/08/11) East Cork Motors – Spark Plugs, ABS Pre-Charge Pump
122348 (02/09/11) Ardfallen Motorcare – Intake Breather Valve
124631 (29/02/12) Ardfallen Motorcare – Aircon Valves/Pump

I’ll provide copies of all maintenance and parts invoices I have to go with the service book. I’ll also throw in a brand new Bentley manual for the E38, which is worth €100; and removable custom-fit mesh sun blinds from Nigel Marston Motorsport worth another €150. It comes with two fully-functional keys, and NCT to October this year. The current mileage is 125735m. I’m happy to provide the reg if you’d like to do a MotorCheck report, just ask and I’ll PM it to you.

There are very few faults with the car. It has a /very/ small dent on the passenger-side rear wing, barely noticeable, and the leather in the front seats isn’t perfect, it’s just very good for a 12 year old car; ditto the headlining. On the maintenance front, it’ll need a service in about 6000 miles, and I think a transmission flush wouldn’t go astray in the next 15-30k, to keep changes nice and fluid. It’s a simply job on about the level of a regular oil change, and documented in the Bentley manual; budget around €250 if you’re doing it yourself, €350-400 with an indie.

I’m open to /reasonable/ offers; I won’t respond to lowballs. I’ll also consider a swap / part-exchange with a largish (max 2.5l, but preferably 2.0-2.3) high-spec saloon or estate, preferably turbocharged, in very good condition only. Don’t offer me a hatchback or small saloon, I’m not interested.

It’s a joy to drive, I’ll miss it terribly but it’s time for me to try something new. You can email me if you’d like to ask any questions, or you can use Adverts.ie if you’d prefer.

It’s the quick 2.0 turbo-diesel, not the manky 1.7 with the Isuzu engine. Low mileage (89.5k miles), electric windows, CD player, serviced every 10k since I got it, and minded. Just got a new shock and battery, and it had the front suspension done last year.

It’s a nice looking van too: 15″ Irmscher alloys, debadged, tints and a body-coloured bumper at the front. It also comes with a partial set of black 17″ Team Dynamics rims (+ 1 cracked), roofrack bars, and I’ll even throw in the undrilled plates I never got around to fitting. :)

Here’s the ad on adverts.ie, I’m open to offers and I promise I won’t even laugh too hard if you know me already. :)

[Sorry about the dupe post, stupid Hellotxt has a problem with ampersands. Seriously, ampersands. I'll be switching back to TwitterFeed unless they get their house in order.]

Now I have to sleep in the same room as two people, one of whom grunts, groans, squeals and quacks with terrific might to achieve massive, forceful, gusts of wind; followed by whimpers of release and delight; and accompanied by barely suppressed shoulder-shaking giggling from me; all because burping isn’t yet in the repertoire.

Henry’s grand though.

Sir,

If “Dawkins’s case against religion creaks at every joint”, then James Mackey’s case against Dawkins (July 12) is splintering and cracking at the seams like a cheap stool under a fat man. He doesn’t appear to have a functional understanding of evolution theory, never mind the quantum theory he is bizarrely tacking on to it; which has about the same logical sense as saying “creationism is true because cows fart”.

If your readers would like to learn the basics of quantum theory, I’d suggest “The Code Book” by Simon Singh, which breaks quantum down in a wonderfully simple way in the context of an overview of “The Evolution of Secrecy”. Mr. Mackey may need to look up “quantum” in the dictionary beforehand.

Yours faithfully,
Adam Beecher
Killeagh, Co. Cork

These days, following a severe winter by Irish standards, it’s hard to drive any distance without coming across a pothole. This is having an impact on our vehicles and subsequently our wallets. Since the beginning of the year, AA Patrols have attended a slew of vehicles with punctures where the wheel rim has also been damaged, a real tell tale sign that a pothole was involved. With the cost of petrol and diesel at a premium, the last thing most of us can afford is to fork out for car repairs brought on by bad roads. It is a cost issue and it is also a safety issue: damaged road surfaces affect car’s handling in an emergency, and cyclists and motorbikes also have to swerve dangerously to avoid buckling a wheel on a pot hole in busy traffic.

While we appreciate that resources are limited for our local authorities and some priority repairs have been carried out, we believe that our roads are in an unacceptable condition and the pothole problem will get worse unless repairs are carried out now. Left untackled, the bill to of fixing our roads will only escalate.

To this end, we invite you to sign our pothole petition below in a bid to lobby the local authorities in your area to ramp up their efforts to repair local roads.

These posts will henceforth be prepended FFF, for First Friday Fun. Cringeworthy, eh?