Your fleet running reports

[Barry]

Painful as that is, it's still a 911.

I've just spent £712 on the front end of a 16yr old Civic

Post MOT I had it inspected at VtecDirect (local Honda specialists). They advised a few things that needed sorting:

Both front wishbones
Engine mount.
CV boots perished

Getting the wishbones out needed 12tonne+ pressure, which fubar the CV anyway so it then had two new shafts as well.
That required Geo of course, which in turn needed caster bolts.
And removing the shafts lost gearbox oil of course, so that was replaced as well (might as well, its old).

Haven't had chance for a test drive yet, just the bimble back through town, but the old geo was way off

I have a sinking feeling this car is going to end up having a mini-resto to perk things up

[nuttinnew]

New tyre ordered for fitting tomorrow. £180 ouch.

WTF tyres are you running on the Galaxy?! That sounds extortionate.

The same size as the Yeti.



[mention]DeskJockey[/mention] Whereabouts are you? I've got a get-out-the-poop Conti here if it'll help buy you time to save a bundle.

[Rich B]

£3k for rear discs?!

[DeskJockey]

New tyre ordered for fitting tomorrow. £180 ouch.

WTF tyres are you running on the Galaxy?! That sounds extortionate.

The same size as the Yeti.



@DeskJockey Whereabouts are you? I've got a get-out-the-poop Conti here if it'll help buy you time to save a bundle.

SE London. Thanks for the offer, but I want matched tyres.

[GG.]

£3k for rear discs?!

I wasn't even provided with the figure for the rear discs as I think they must have thought taking it in for a minor service and getting an four digit estimate starting with a 4 might have given me a heart attack.

It is ten years old in a month so I guess it is getting a birthday present...

[nuttinnew]

WTF tyres are you running on the Galaxy?! That sounds extortionate.

The same size as the Yeti.



@DeskJockey Whereabouts are you? I've got a get-out-the-poop Conti here if it'll help buy you time to save a bundle.

SE London. Thanks for the offer, but I want matched tyres.

No worries (I wasn't thinking as a permanent fix, just long enough to get a better deal for a Michelin).

[Carlos]

£3k for rear discs?!

I wasn't even provided with the figure for the rear discs as I think they must have thought taking it in for a minor service and getting an four digit estimate starting with a 4 might have given me a heart attack.

It is ten years old in a month so I guess it is getting a birthday present...

Aren't they 2 year interval servicing ?

[DeskJockey]

The same size as the Yeti.



@DeskJockey Whereabouts are you? I've got a get-out-the-poop Conti here if it'll help buy you time to save a bundle.

SE London. Thanks for the offer, but I want matched tyres.

No worries (I wasn't thinking as a permanent fix, just long enough to get a better deal for a Michelin).

Ah. Misunderstood you. Thanks for the offer anyway. Tyre was delivered earlier today, so fitting is first thing tomorrow.

[nuttinnew]

No problem

[GG.]

£3k for rear discs?!

I wasn't even provided with the figure for the rear discs as I think they must have thought taking it in for a minor service and getting an four digit estimate starting with a 4 might have given me a heart attack.

It is ten years old in a month so I guess it is getting a birthday present...

Aren't they 2 year interval servicing ?

Yep - this is its fifth service though it isn't in reality as I have the oil changed annually. Do you mean why is it a minor not a major?

[Rich B]

£3k for rear discs?!

I wasn't even provided with the figure for the rear discs as I think they must have thought taking it in for a minor service and getting an four digit estimate starting with a 4 might have given me a heart attack.

It is ten years old in a month so I guess it is getting a birthday present...

so are the rear discs £3k or not!

[GG.]

Probably by the time they find other stuff whilst its in there for a £300 job.

[McSwede]

Probably by the time they find other stuff whilst its in there for a £300 job.

Brembo discs for the rear perforated and vented are £65 each

[Carlos]

I wasn't even provided with the figure for the rear discs as I think they must have thought taking it in for a minor service and getting an four digit estimate starting with a 4 might have given me a heart attack.

It is ten years old in a month so I guess it is getting a birthday present...

Aren't they 2 year interval servicing ?

Yep - this is its fifth service though it isn't in reality as I have the oil changed annually. Do you mean why is it a minor not a major?

I ask as in old money I work on £1000 a year for servicing/maintenance. £3k doesn't seem to scary for 2 years of deferred maintenance plus tyres.

[GG.]

I take your point but thinking back I lied when I said I hadn't spent anything on it - I had to spend £400 on a rear light cluster that short circuited due to water ingress and I think there was another few hundred quid on a window regulator (I've now replaced both). If you total that lot up plus the discs which do need doing and I think you're at £4.5k over two years, excluding the elective oil change I did 12 months ago.

Plus I spent £2k in 2018 on a new clutch, air oil separator and other minor bits, so that's err. £6.5k over 3 years, over double what you'd have budgeted for. Look, i'm not saying these cars should be peanuts to run but equally it is quite galling that things like a steering rack have a design flaw and regularly fail - same with the coolant pipes - they shouldn't be crusty and leaking on a 9 year old car with 50ish thousand miles.

As Jobbo found with replacing silly stuff on his Boxster like the alternator (all generic Bosch parts I expect), that shouldn't break, German reliability is not all its cracked up to be... it just might be still better than the rest

[Delphi]

Just dropped the 928 off at Strasse for cam belt, tensioners and water pump, plus a service. My wallet is anticipating a bit of a battering as I'm pretty sure they'll be other stuff I've not yet discovered and the booked work is £1600 already!

[Mito Man]

As Jobbo found with replacing silly stuff on his Boxster like the alternator (all generic Bosch parts I expect), that shouldn't break, German reliability is not all its cracked up to be... it just might be still better than the rest

I’ve actually found that across all my cars and even garden equipment the bits which fail most regularly due to a stupid design/poor quality as opposed to just normal wear and tear are Bosch branded!
When looking for home appliances my dad always told me to avoid Bosch too as in his experience they’re pretty rubbish.
Bosch car batteries - also crap compared to the competition despite costing more.

[JonMad]

Took the Fabia for a spin this morning. It sounds fairly fruity from the outside apparently. Between a couple of roundabouts I gave it a needless razz to the redline past a BMW 318d. That was followed by the driver staring at me for behaving like a child (which I was). And the driver was a young chap in a baseball cap - exactly the kind of person you'd expect to see razzing around in a noisy hatchback, and his car was exactly what you'd expect to see a late 40s bloke driving. This amused me.

[V8Granite]

Took the Fabia for a spin this morning. It sounds fairly fruity from the outside apparently. Between a couple of roundabouts I gave it a needless razz to the redline past a BMW 318d. That was followed by the driver staring at me for behaving like a child (which I was). And the driver was a young chap in a baseball cap - exactly the kind of person you'd expect to see razzing around in a noisy hatchback, and his car was exactly what you'd expect to see a late 40s bloke driving. This amused me.

I once saw an old man riding a Harley, the old woman on the back was flipping everyone in the street the bird. Sometimes you just have to let out your inner self

Dave!

[Swervin_Mervin]

As Jobbo found with replacing silly stuff on his Boxster like the alternator (all generic Bosch parts I expect), that shouldn't break, German reliability is not all its cracked up to be... it just might be still better than the rest

I’ve actually found that across all my cars and even garden equipment the bits which fail most regularly due to a stupid design/poor quality as opposed to just normal wear and tear are Bosch branded!
When looking for home appliances my dad always told me to avoid Bosch too as in his experience they’re pretty rubbish.
Bosch car batteries - also crap compared to the competition despite costing more.

Most of my power tools are Bosch and had them years without issue. I also think that the OE battery in the 330 is Bosch but can't be sure. That'd be over 14yrs old now