X6 first annual service

Posted on by Ian C.

It’s already more than a year since I bought my X6 and even though it’s only driven about 3,700 miles, it’s time for an oil change. I booked it in at Fields BMW South Orlando because I’m still unhappy with the Winter Park location. In hindsight I should not have gone to the Winter Park location when I ordered this car – the only reason that I did was because their website claimed to have a vehicle in stock, and that wasn’t true anyway!

On the other hand, while service at the South Orlando location seems to be better, it was a pretty desolate place to hang out while I waited – there’s only maybe 6 display vehicles there, not a single salesman spoke to me when I looked at the display vehicles (they could not have known that I wasn’t a buyer) … there was happily made-to-order food service at lunchtime (I got a meatball sub). Overall I was at the dealership for about 1-1/2 hours, and headed home with a clean X6 with new oil.

I got this video inspection sent to me, which is quite amusing – the car is just a year old, driven hardly any miles, and unsurprisingly the tires are still perfect, the brakes are unused, and everything looks good!

[After] The Big Freeze

Posted on by Ian C.

While we were in Egypt back in January, Florida had VERY unseasonably cold weather – the coldest for 15 years or more, with overnight temperatures well below freezing. We knew about because friends told us, and also because I got thermostat alerts that the house was tool cold even with heat running!

When we got back, I took some photos in the back garden; most plants looked very dead. This is already more than two weeks since, which explains the few new green leaves …

We decided to wait a month and see if anything could recover, but more recently Margaret has started cutting down and clearing dead plants. However there’s a few little green shoots on some – and on those we have cut down to just above that new growth:

The big Prickly Pear Cactus in the back showed signs of freeze damage on the tops of some “Nopales” (leaves?) but recently it’s been growing loads:

Hopefully by mid summer there will be lots more new growth.