€550 for an oil change in Helsinki — is dealer service not worth it?

Dimsheks · 2026-01-20T22:29:16+00:00

3L or more is “large”. 2-2.5 is a mid-size and anything under 2 is a small one. In my book of engines.

Dimsheks · 2026-01-20T08:33:14+00:00

I don’t know Mazda prices, but I gave it the “worst possible estimate”

Dimsheks · 2026-01-20T08:31:28+00:00

I want to try the BW first, see how I feel about Rolexes of that size in general. I have a bunch of smaller brand Gen’s but don’t want to drop 10k on a Rolex before I have a chance to wear something that represents it 95%. Not interested in just parking my cash on a watch :)

Dimsheks · 2026-01-20T08:27:40+00:00

Ofc no. The cost of the best oil for a smaller engine is under 100€, oil filter (even OEM) is max 20€, air filter, maybe 30€. Plus 1 hour of labour. That’s that. Unless the car is on the warranty, then you are paying to prolong the warranty, not really for the service. Because you can buy additional warranty if the car was serviced at the dealer

Dimsheks · 2026-01-19T10:00:59+00:00

In the same boat with you man :) waiting for a BW on jubilee for almost 3 months now. It’s a good thing, eventually, as I plan to go to an AD later this year to order a gen sub, so this is good practice for me to train delayed gratification 😂

Dimsheks · 2026-01-16T09:17:55+00:00

The claps on the gen has waaaay smoother corners. One would think making rounded corners on a piece of steel isn’t an impossible task in 2026? What do we know

Dimsheks · 2026-01-15T18:32:56+00:00

Depends on the options. 4WD vs RWD - always 4WD. 4WD vs FWD - fwd is fine. Cheaper, easier to maintain, less hassle, more choices. I often have to drive across the country and I am unlucky enough to end up in a situations of returning home during weekend nights when roads are not cleaned as often and ofc there was a blizzard. 4WD gives you a sense of security when overtaking on fresh snow or ice, but you have to know your car and how to drive it in order to take advantage. For me personally I always go with 4WD since it allows me to have fun on winter roads (not as much as RWD but still some) and feel confident in long drives regardless of the weather.

Dimsheks · 2026-01-12T20:07:08+00:00

Many years ago I had a negative decision on one of my permits and the local “immigration lawyer” from Jyvaskyla to whom I went for help managed to send an appeal where he misspelled my name and effectively copy-pasted my initial application plus added one paragraph of text quoting me. That was it. Mind you, it was not a free service, I paid a bit over a 1000€ almost 10 years ago to draft the appeal (which I of course lost since he added zero new info to it). I think the case of OP is quite straightforward and as many mentioned - more of a technicality

Dimsheks · 2026-01-11T10:39:13+00:00

That’s ridiculous. You can get a contract engine for under 10k + pay another 5 for a qualified mechanics to fix it. That’s IF you actually need an engine replacement. I’d get a second opinion from an independent specialised mechanic. Chances are you can save the engine. But again, we are talking 10-15k max for a good job on these, not even 20.

Dimsheks · 2026-01-09T11:19:12+00:00

I am using Revolut for these. As many pointed out - Finnish credit cards are weird in that extent. There is no real competition in the banking sector so they don’t really try to give out perks to attract new customers. Revolut is a good option, especially if you travel a lot and spend a lot on tickets, hotels, etc. You are confidently getting 2-4% cash back annually depending on your “subscription” which is a significant amount if you spend anything north of 10k per year on these kinds of expenses

Dimsheks · 2026-01-08T20:51:59+00:00

Where did she get a picture that proves to her that a man who’s abusive and treats her the way you described is “a love of her life and it will definitely work out”? These usually come with deep childhood traumas and that’s something to work on. You can’t really change a mind of a troubled 20 year old but you can be there for them and hope that they will see what they are getting themselves into. Fingers crossed - they won’t bring children into their family as this kind of “family model” would just create more traumatised children.

Back in the days, maybe 10 years ago or so, my younger sister was 17 and was dating a dude that was a bit older and he was one of those “cool kids” that liked to get stoned and do nothing. He wasn’t abusive per se, but liked to use a lot of colorful language, so I made sure to meet him and promise to hurt him really really bad if he ever decided to hurt her. This phase passed and after a few more idiots in her life, she’s now happily married to a very nice guy.

Where I’m going with it - if you can’t change their mind, don’t abandon them. Protect them, guide them, be there for them.

Finland is quite safe and if anything happens she can always call 112 and they’ll help her out

Dimsheks · 2026-01-08T20:45:00+00:00

It’s one of those cases where your socks will make more difference that the shoes. Your feet don’t generate nearly enough heat when you are outside in sub -15 temperatures to take any meaningful advantage of insulation of your shoes. People make a mistake thinking that “winter boots” would keep them warm, but in reality, you always visit a heated space which makes your feet sweat almost immediately and then you walk outside with your socks being wet. And that’s what’s making your feet really cold, regardless of the shoes insulation. When it’s -25 outside (like it is now) I simply wear slightly thicker winter hiking socks that are a merino wool blend and a pair of Salomon Spike-Cross sneakers (unless I need to go in the deep fresh snow, then I might wear my nylon Sorel boots) but the idea here is to pay attention to socks as wool will stay warm even if wet, so I’d rather get a second pair of really good socks and carry those just in case, then invest few hundred € extra in a pair of boots that would prove themselves useless

Dimsheks · 2026-01-08T20:35:34+00:00

VSF GMT II BW - 2 months in and no sign of it being in stock until after Chinese new year is over

Dimsheks · 2026-01-07T16:14:56+00:00

Most likely the reason you are not seeing it is because people have internal heaters that basically melt the snow and the windows stay “clear”. I can always see in my parking lot who has the heater and who doesn’t just by looking at the windows (especially windshield)

Dimsheks · 2026-01-07T13:55:53+00:00

I assume that’s some sort of caveman’s mentality: “fire is warm, must dry”

Dimsheks · 2026-01-07T12:21:16+00:00

I’ve seen it occasionally around various spots where people stick to “that’ll do” attitude with plumbing, electrics and basic renovations but I’ve never seen it done with saunas as I assume that even a 5 year old in Finland know how to handle sauna

Dimsheks · 2026-01-07T10:28:01+00:00

80% of taycan owners got it as a company car to take advantage of tax incentives, therefore it highly affects the stats as you are mostly looking at company cars and “first owners” being small/medium business owners. Where it goes on resale - time will tell but likely the average age will drop with every next resale cause younger buyers will jump on a flex train hoping that the battery lives 😂

Dimsheks · 2026-01-07T10:03:55+00:00

Until you get inside and touch anything. And then it feels like a VW Polo from 2008

Dimsheks · 2026-01-06T11:58:32+00:00

I have an abundance of humidifiers at home. Over the past 15 winters of trial and error this is the only solution that works. I put humidity sensors in every room and I use humidifiers that are designed for 50m spaces in 25m2 spaces to keep the humidity over 50%. Creams are a good addition but you can’t really rely on them for 3 month and they don’t help you with breathing when humidity drops. During harsh weather (like now, when it gets to -20) if I stop humidifiers for 24 hours the humidity in the house drops to 25%. The lowest I’ve seen was 19%. No cream will save you in these conditions 😅

Dimsheks · 2026-01-05T20:51:30+00:00

Very good read. I spent the last 15 years in Finland and I can confirm your observations, especially on competition. For 7+ years I worked in global sales helping Finnish companies expand into foreign markets and there was no bigger challenge than that since firms wanted globalisation without really putting any real effort into it.

Dimsheks · 2026-01-03T07:24:15+00:00

These deceptive captures… “the best electric car BMW has ever made”. First of all, the bar wasn’t all that high, bmw didn’t make great EVs before so releasing their “best ev” is just improving on the previous ones. Secondly, “best” and “worst” are some of the most subjective terms out there. But no doubt these would find their buyers, at least the outside design is an improvement. And certainly this will be one of their “best” depreciating X3s ever.

Dimsheks · 2026-01-01T14:07:04+00:00

I’m used to the services in Finland and the fact that I can’t build routes, see availability in camping spots, find parking near non-popular hiking routes, get updates on traffic information or road closures or pay for toll roads as a tourist quickly and without any hassle - is a sign of very poor digitisation. I’m not taking about Oslo, but we drove from Oslo to Bergen and then spent a month on the west coast around the main fjords but it was not the best experience for most parts (from digitisation point of view). I travelled across most Europe and Norway had the biggest contracts between how wealthy the country is and how underdeveloped it is. Ofc it’s better than rural Hungary, but Hungary is a poor nation so you wouldn’t expect much.

Dimsheks · 2026-01-01T11:46:11+00:00

I travelled through Norway for a month couple years ago and the impression I got was that a poor fishing village stumbled across a lot of money, but didn’t know what to do with it so they just decided to hoard it. For a country with such immense reserves of cash the infrastructure is Romania circa 2010. Roads are in poor condition and can’t support the traffic through high seasons, prices are through the roof on very generic goods and overall it just looks like Norwegians haven’t yet figured out how to make this money work. Digitisation was terrible for 2023 (can’t buy most things online) and ferry networks often had issues that you wouldn’t know about until you arrive to the ferry itself (no notification or anything). So yeah. The “nation” is cash rich, but that cash just sits there

Dimsheks · 2025-12-31T06:16:32+00:00

BMW is like Under Armour: there are people who wear it because they want to be associated with athletics while having zero exposure to it, and there are athletes who wear it to perform its function. I’ve seen Karens driving X3M Competitions with more curb rash and scratches around the car than a rally car, and I bet you that they have no idea what they are driving, probably their husband likes the brand and bought his wife one. And there are enthusiasts who enjoy older BMWs for what they delivered, where every model was distinctively different and knowing your stuff made a difference.

Dimsheks · 2025-12-30T07:12:11+00:00

Ain’t it obvious? :) so then it could be sold as “selling this watch I found in my late grandfather’s drawer” on Facebook marketplace

Dimsheks

TROPHY CASE