Your fleet running reports

[Swervin_Mervin]

Talking of batteries - a combination of low miles this last 12mo, and an extended period of sitting on the drive not moving through December, meant that the 330's original battery (15yo this year) didn't have quite enough grunt to start it last Friday.

So I've ordered a CTEK and will hopefully be able to get enough charge back into it. Given it won't be going anywhere anytime soon I didn't see the point of buying a new battery for it to not be used. Plus, a weird part of me is keen to see how long the original battery will last. I was surprised to see it's only 70aH - my b-i-l's E61 530i with the same N52 is 110aH, albeit that does have CCC iDrive and the air rear suspension.

[Barry]

I've put a Halfords solar panel on the Civic, hopefully enough to trickle the battery until I can use the car properly again.

[16vCento]

I've just ordered this; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/193362505306 on a battery charging related note.

I was going to order the CTek MXS 5.0 from Tayna, but this was half the price and seems to be the same spec as it, for 37 quid its worth a go.

[V8Granite]

If you want to save the planet and charge up absokuteky dead batteries, which a CTek will not do then I’ve been hugely impressed by this....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B07JVJ ... asin_title

I was getting 4 amps out in summer and 1 amp in low winter sun on a cloudy day, very good set up. I added a permanent connection in the Defender for when we go camping to keep the auxiliary battery topped up.

Dave!

[Sundayjumper]

Cayenne S

After leaving the battery on charge all day it still baulked at starting on the first attempt, but then fired, and did not trigger a CEL. I took it for a 20 spin around local roads and it seems to be driving fine now, yet it's still registering a P0016 fault in the ECU, just not enough to trigger the CEL. I've ordered crank & cam sensors (Bosch, just over £100 for all three). If battery & sensors doesn't cure it I'm going to ignore it until it becomes an actual problem. I'm feeling fairly confident it's not the cam chain now. Still reading 0 & 3 for the camshaft deviation.

And then we move onto the next bits

It's also recording a P2181 error now that it's been driven a bit. Likely a dodgy thermostat. No surprise there, pretty much every car I've had has benefitted from a new thermostat. The thermostat itself is not too expensive but it's behind the water pump so it turns into one of those "while you're there...." jobs.

And I think there's a slight clunk from the front suspension. Most likely the lower arms. My Touareg was similar but a lot worse and it was a pig of a job. MOT is in March. I might do it then if the weather cheers up a bit.

Cooper S

I put some petrol in it. There's something loose in the passenger door. Goes alright.

[JonMad]

I suppose you wouldn't want it to be boring and just work!
Does it have a tow bar?

[Sundayjumper]

Not yet. Keeping an eye out for the right parts at the right price

[Carlos]

Cayenne S

After leaving the battery on charge all day it still baulked at starting on the first attempt, but then fired, and did not trigger a CEL. I took it for a 20 spin around local roads and it seems to be driving fine now, yet it's still registering a P0016 fault in the ECU, just not enough to trigger the CEL. I've ordered crank & cam sensors (Bosch, just over £100 for all three). If battery & sensors doesn't cure it I'm going to ignore it until it becomes an actual problem. I'm feeling fairly confident it's not the cam chain now. Still reading 0 & 3 for the camshaft deviation.

And then we move onto the next bits

It's also recording a P2181 error now that it's been driven a bit. Likely a dodgy thermostat. No surprise there, pretty much every car I've had has benefitted from a new thermostat. The thermostat itself is not too expensive but it's behind the water pump so it turns into one of those "while you're there...." jobs.

And I think there's a slight clunk from the front suspension. Most likely the lower arms. My Touareg was similar but a lot worse and it was a pig of a job. MOT is in March. I might do it then if the weather cheers up a bit.

Cooper S

I put some petrol in it. There's something loose in the passenger door. Goes alright.

I was watching Cayenne Turbo Wheeler Dealers this week and the thermostat was changed whilst fixing coolant leaks. i'm not sure if its the same but it was accessed via the top of the engine under the intake manifold rather than through the front via the water pump ?

I fancy a project. It currently wouldn't make any difference if my car worked or not at the moment.

[Sundayjumper]

Hmm. The write-ups I’ve seen have it at the front. I’ll check out the wheeler dealer episode. Ta !

[integrale_evo]

Good luck with the tow bar, I think Ste had quite a lot of trouble trying to get hold of a proper westfalia one as it’s the only one which properly integrates with the cars electronics or something.

[Foz]

Same part as the VW toe-rag isn’t it?

[Sundayjumper]

Good luck with the tow bar, I think Ste had quite a lot of trouble trying to get hold of a proper westfalia one as it’s the only one which properly integrates with the cars electronics or something.

He must have been being an utter mong again, they're not rare, there's several on Ebay right now

I just want one at the right price.

Foz - you can use the Touareg one, and if you buy a new Westfalia one off the shelf they're identical, but the Porsche-OEM-supplied one is slightly different, it's extended out to fill the bumper more:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/154268983716

Anyways, new battery fitted today, fired up the engine and we’re now sitting at zero degrees on both banks

FCA85CC3-A254-4D29-BC5E-02640630A9C9.jpeg (95.76 KiB) Viewed 2109 times

[Ascender]

In other news, I am now a dashcam wanker. More so I can save photos of amusing things I see on my long commute than anything else, but I’m wondering if it might be useful in the Jimny too when green-laning.

What did you go for then? I've been meaning to put one in because the amount of sheer mental driving seems to be massively on the increase round here.

[integrale_evo]

I believe he wanted a new one and most of the places he ordered them from didn’t actually have them in stock they just drop shipped them from the manufacturer who didn’t have any and had no immediate plans to make any more.

[Nic]

Definitely an inlet off job for the thermostat.

[Sundayjumper]

Definitely an inlet off job for the thermostat.

Pelican Parts disagree with you.

https://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticl ... cement.htm

[McSwede]

It currently wouldn't make any difference if my car worked or not at the moment.

Too true. I'm paying approx £480 BIK for a car I've barely used this last 10 months

[Jobbo]

In other news, I am now a dashcam wanker. More so I can save photos of amusing things I see on my long commute than anything else, but I’m wondering if it might be useful in the Jimny too when green-laning.

What did you go for then? I've been meaning to put one in because the amount of sheer mental driving seems to be massively on the increase round here.

I have a Nextbase GW522 - it feels quality but looking at the footage it isn’t really possible to read other cars’ registrations. So I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it.

[NGRhodes]

In other news, I am now a dashcam wanker. More so I can save photos of amusing things I see on my long commute than anything else, but I’m wondering if it might be useful in the Jimny too when green-laning.

What did you go for then? I've been meaning to put one in because the amount of sheer mental driving seems to be massively on the increase round here.

I have a Nextbase GW522 - it feels quality but looking at the footage it isn’t really possible to read other cars’ registrations. So I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it.

Check settings, I accidently changed the exposure on mine old Nextbase and was enough to really screw the picture quality. I found setting exposure to zero restored picture quality.

[Jobbo]

Cheers Nick, I’ll try that

ETA: Googling how to change it also brought up a recommendation not to have too much sky visible since the auto exposure will be affected by the proportion of that in frame. So I’ll re-aim it down a bit too.