I hope everyone had a Happy Fourth of July holiday.
I spent my Saturday helping Ken and Will move into their new house, and then spent July 4th at Hans and Betina's barbecue. Hans and Betina had more food than I've ever seen at a barbecue hosted by friends -- Amongst the leftovers were probably at least 20 chicken sausages and ridiculous amounts of potato salad, fruit salad, brownies, chips, cookies, salad and everything else.
On Monday, I replaced the dead batteries in my 850i. That's right. Batteries. Plural. The 850 has two of them (most cars only have one), and they need to be replaced at the same time. This took much longer than it should have, but it was a good learning experience. After that, the 850 started right up, and I was able to enjoy a little joyride through the peninsula.
I didn't go too far or too fast since I had forgotten to put the new registration sticker on the plate. I had also forgotten just what a big difference torque makes. My Celica makes 180 hp, but it only puts out 130 lb-ft in torque. The 850, on the other hand, has 296 hp and 332 lb-ft of torque. The difference is amazing -- if you took the torque of my old '96 V6 Camry (203) and then added it to the Celica's (130) then you'd just barely exceed the torque of the 850.
While I was cruising, I went above 100 for a short bit without even realizing it. It got up there quite effortlessly, and I have a feeling this car may get me into trouble someday.
There are a couple of things which bother me about the 8 like the ancient-looking climate controls and the slightly uncomfortable front seats. I am hoping to replace the seats with M3 Sport Seats, but I don't think anything can be done about the climate controls. Pity. The steering wheel is 4-spoke which I don't care a great deal for. I need to replace the on-board computer at some point as well.
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