E30 Zone

Hi
doing a mini service on my 325i (oil,plugs,etc)
took dizzy cap off and its a bit ropey,no cracks just the terminals a bit rough,got in touch with 'euroclots' knowing they would be a bit dearer than 4 pot dizzys,but
"why are they sooo expensive"
taking the one off my 320 tomorrow to check that one out!

bit of fuzz on the terminals is nothing to worry about..... just scratch it off the terminals with a screw driver and stick it back on.

agreed, give the terminals a clean and maybe a new rotor arm first before spunking on a cap

ooh err missus

have done this in the past with other cars and the fuzz was light,but these terminals look like they got an afro
rotors quite bad too,
does it mater how much fuzz is on them before its time to replace?

Another good reason to go wasted spark

Fuzz is the least of your worries. Its how worn the electrodes are, and therefore how bigger gap you have. The bigger the gap, the weaker your spark at the plugs

ill have a good look tomorrow
but why is it nearly £50 for a rotor & dizzy cap?

fuzz will always happen. Nothing you can do about it. As murran said, clean and stick back on. Wear on the other hand is not good. (although with time not avoidable either) Replace in that case.

They're so expensive because not a lot of them are produced. The 4 cylinder bosh caps can be seen on nearly every car of that era. (well, the one fitted with bosh ignition), but I don't know of any other car running that very flat 6 pot cap apart from BMW I6.

The original ones do last well though; I've had three BMs so far that still had original caps and rotors, one on an '88 E34 535iSE had lasted up to 18 years! Snag is, one of the three bolts holding it on snapped when I was trying to renew it - doh!

I relaced cap/leads/rotor arm on the 2.7 just before the rolling road day last November.Made a hell of a difference to the way the car ran...the quality is remembered long after the cost( )is forgotton,well that's what I tell the wife!!

leeparkes wrote:ill have a good look tomorrow
but why is it nearly £50 for a rotor & dizzy cap?

that's cheap it was £55 for a 4 pot rotor for me

When I was last at Halfords buying a rotor arm and cap, the parts desk droid made a sarcastic comment about the price of BMW parts, so I bought from a motor factors instead at quite some considerable saving

I got mine in the US from Pelican Parts as I was going there anyway.
It was about half price: Made in spain, shipped over to the USA and bought there, rather than 4 miles down the road at the dealer in the UK

Crazy.

every dizzy cap i have changed on a 6 pot has been the origional one yes they seem expensive but having to buy one every 15-18 years isn't too bad they seem to last a long time