Your fleet running reports

[Rich B]

And some driving lessons for the wife...

Do they teach you not to drive home with an overheating engine as part of test prep these days? Seems a bit niche

Ah ha! Another problem solved by swapping to EVs

[Simon]

And some driving lessons for the wife...

Do they teach you not to drive home with an overheating engine as part of test prep these days? Seems a bit niche

Nearly. The wife passed her test on Saturday and I was helping her prepare for her 'show me, tell me questions'. Sure, an over heating engine wasn't on the list but other maintenance items were, like checking the oil level and water level.

[Mito Man]

Sounds like an adult game
Forgot about that silly part of the test.

[McSwede]

Just insured the Mazda for Mrs McSwede and myself. A whopping £126 fully comp with all the additions and £100 excess

[Zonda_]

I thought they were excellent. The day they got a bit smokey I was definitely pushing the envelope in that grey area between “talent” and “luck”

I remember a few instances like that being what made me throw the Fiesta St159 280s on the Puma (which were a genuine bolt on and even came with plenty of meat on the pads from the scrapyard).

Never experienced fade again, and not because I drove the car any gentler

Having 'too much brakes' is definitely one of those big things that makes a car feel easier to drive quickly, with far more confidence that you can stop in time

Just a shame the Puma ended up having to much breaks, in the end.

Switching to better compound pads in the lotus made a big difference.

The Merc brakes are hopeless and cover the wheels in dust so badly that I genuinely thought the wheels were gunmetal until the first time I washed it. Better pads on the cards I think

[McSwede]

I remember a few instances like that being what made me throw the Fiesta St159 280s on the Puma (which were a genuine bolt on and even came with plenty of meat on the pads from the scrapyard).

Never experienced fade again, and not because I drove the car any gentler

Having 'too much brakes' is definitely one of those big things that makes a car feel easier to drive quickly, with far more confidence that you can stop in time

Just a shame the Puma ended up having to much breaks, in the end.

Switching to better compound pads in the lotus made a big difference.

The Merc brakes are hopeless and cover the wheels in dust so badly that I genuinely thought the wheels were gunmetal until the first time I washed it. Better pads on the cards I think

I used Autodoc app for mine as it's based in Germany with great choice of brands. Good prices too.

[RobYob]

Clicked over 240,000miles on on the way home yesterday.
At low engine speeds the engine has started shunting like a bastid, so this weekend's job is to go hunting for a vacuum leak.

[Broccers]

Will need new plates as the old ones have eu flags on - wheres cheap and good online?

www.plateservices.co.uk are my usual these days.

Cheers. None EU plates ordered.

Might take up to 4 weeks for the DVLA to get back to me tho...

These arrived in a few days and I was really impressed all the fittings you would need were included.

Popped plates on today - noone can tell its an old knackered car

Oh and I bought the original sales brochure for it too off ebay because I am geeky.

Have the ones for M Coupe somewhere in a filing cabinet, probably be worth some money one day along with the die cast UT model ..... jesus just looked on ebay and they are 100 quid

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/UT-Models-1- ... SwEdteJdOe

[NotoriousREV]

It’s amazing how a shit set of plates drag a car down.

[Broccers]

It’s amazing how a shit set of plates drag a car down.

[Sundayjumper]

Bargain new wheels for The Touareg. A set of near enough unused Cayenne wheels & tyres - the tyres still have the moulding bobbles on them - for £148. Plus £6 for some blank centre caps because they didn’t come with any and although I’ve got some spares I’m not the kind of twat that puts Porsche badges on a VW.

0A71BA65-42D2-4486-B70F-730E1D7E6910.jpeg (63.62 KiB) Viewed 2660 times

[integrale_evo]

And at the complete opposite end of the scale, I've just picked up a set of original 12in steelies for the fiat, which very nearly fitted in the boot of the mito

[integrale_evo]

Which means if I put them on the car we'll have cars with

12" fiat
13" 1.1 metro (metro GTi oe size)
14" camper ( golf oe size)
15" golf + metro GTi ( e30 oe size)
16" e30 m3 + e46 touring
17" merc + mito ( e36m3 oe size)
18" e36 m3

[Barry]

After my first week in the EV I had a spare hour this afternoon so I thought I'd give the Civic a run out, just to get some heat through it mainly. Oh boy, was that a nice reminder why we like fossil burners. A total event after a week wafting about in EV with its vanilla driving experience, noise, gears, clutch, modulating throttle through corners, VTEC yo.. awesome.

A thought occured to me as well, having the easy daily runabout EV actually improves the experience when I do take the Civic out, which is nice.

Ioniq is great at what it does, waft me about with minimal effort and maximum connectivity, but its no hot hatch

[Nic]

Bargain new wheels for The Touareg. A set of near enough unused Cayenne wheels & tyres - the tyres still have the moulding bobbles on them - for £148. Plus £6 for some blank centre caps because they didn’t come with any and although I’ve got some spares I’m not the kind of twat that puts Porsche badges on a VW.


0A71BA65-42D2-4486-B70F-730E1D7E6910.jpeg

It’s so closely related to the Cayenne you could get away with it

[Sundayjumper]

Which means if I put them on the car we'll have cars with

12" fiat
13" 1.1 metro (metro GTi oe size)
14" camper ( golf oe size)
15" golf + metro GTi ( e30 oe size)
16" e30 m3 + e46 touring
17" merc + mito ( e36m3 oe size)
18" e36 m3

I can’t quite match that, but I’m close:

15” on the MINI
16” on the Compact
17” on the Passat
18” on the Touareg & Porsche
19” on the Aston
20” on the 740

And 12” on the trailer but I don’t think that counts.

Incidentally, 12” is a fair bit smaller than the brake discs on the Touareg @ 350mm !

[Simon]

Well, had our first blip in the Yeti. Got in it yesterday morning to go out and it didn't start. Well, to be exact it started for exactly 1 second then stopped. And the instrument cluster was completely dead. Checked all the fuses etc but what with the weather didn't have any more opportunity to fiddle with it.

With a break in the rain today, and after a bit of Google'ing, it seems that if the car can't talk to the cluster then it shuts down by design. So I took the cluster out (with the ignition on) and as I was withdrawing it it sprang into life. I took the multiplug out and cleaned up the contacts with some contact cleaner and the side of a screwdriver to 'scrape' them clean, then put it back together. It's been fine since then.

Got the chance then to take it out for a drive to give the battery a charge up. A lot of the fields and roads around here are pretty flooded. Wouldn't have risked it in the Merc, but the Yeti is that bit higher that it's easier to get through the water ok.

[Sundayjumper]

In my entire experiences with cars, over about thirty years now, it's only been the fuse *once*. And I was amazed.

[Mito Man]

Wonder if it’s all the recent rain getting somewhere it shouldn’t

[McSwede]

MX5 went for MOT on Friday and promptly failed. I had wrongly thought that as the power steering had failed 8 could disconnect the pump and it'd be ok. It wasn't.

On the plus side the only other things were a track rod end and a failed bulb in the fog light. This feels like a massive win. I've ordered all sorts on pipework for the steering and it'll get fitted at the back end of this week and will get an MOT. I can the tax it and enjoy it (when the wife isn't using it).

Still can't get over the £126 fully comp insurance. Crackers!