A couple of e39 questions

So not a DIY friendly car then...

Trouble with putting blocks under the wheels is that when you jack the car up the wheels drop down so you'd need to jack the car up a long way to lift it that way.

Hi Peter,

A couple of comments:

The brown marks are probably a sign that you do have dimming mirrors - the photochromatic coating seems to degrade over time and give you brown marks on the underside of the glass - you can get new glass from OEM specialists.  I think the small dot in the middle is the photo sensor, there is one in the rear-view mirror too.

The auto wipers seem to be working from what you have said if they respond to the watering can treatment - there is an extra bit of cleverness that will only wipe intermittently while the car is stationary, assuming that will be enough! 

Once you build up speed it switches to continuous.  Another piece of BMW genius that just works beautifully - I've been on many long drives in variable weather and never needed to touch the wiper stalk at all.  The only thing it doesn't seem to do is switch to the fastest setting in a torrential downpour (i suppose wet is wet from the sensor's perspective, so fair enough)

Its these little touches that make the cars so special, and which you'd really miss if you traded down to a lesser marque!

Cheers,

Ali