Your fleet running reports

[integrale_evo]

Boost leak?

[16vCento]

I've not forgotten about the coolant pipes either, just been ridiculously busy!

[Sundayjumper]

Boost leak?

I had all the hoses off as part of doing the head gasket and they seemed fine, and there's several sensors along the way pre / post turbo that will flag up any mismatch that indicates a leak.

And before anyone says MAF it doesn't have one ! My wife's car with the later N18 engine has one, and the US spec N14 engines do, but for whatever reasons the UK spec N14s do not.

Another suggestion was made though, that it could be a poor spark. The lambda sensors - aka oxygen sensors - sense the amount of oxygen in the exhaust. Hence the name Anyway, in normal circumstances, oxygen in the exhaust gases indicates running lean, that there wasn't enough fuel to use up the oxygen in the intake charge, so the ECU will add more fuel until there's no oxygen measured in the exhaust gas. But if the air/fuel mix is actually fine but it's just not burning properly, then you get unburnt fuel & air in the exhaust. The lambda sensor doesn't measure unburnt fuel, it just measures oxygen, and incorrectly tells the ECU to keep adding more fuel.

My bad here, but I didn't check the spark plugs even though I had the head & everything else off. They actually look pretty rough I did about thirty miles in the car today and although it starts & idles absolutely fine it feels a bit flat and stutters on light throttle around 2500-3000 rpm. I also noticed that the instantaneous mpg was only showing around 20-25mpg on steady flat roads. The extra-urban fuel consumption is meant to be 53mpg so I guess it's chucking in twice as much fuel as it should do ?? Yikes.

Manky spark plugs:

AB29D585-F868-4060-B65A-156D9DD05B7B.jpeg (64.3 KiB) Viewed 674 times

I have ordered new spark plugs.....

[drcarlos]

Boost leak?

I had all the hoses off as part of doing the head gasket and they seemed fine, and there's several sensors along the way pre / post turbo that will flag up any mismatch that indicates a leak.

And before anyone says MAF it doesn't have one ! My wife's car with the later N18 engine has one, and the US spec N14 engines do, but for whatever reasons the UK spec N14s do not.

Another suggestion was made though, that it could be a poor spark. The lambda sensors - aka oxygen sensors - sense the amount of oxygen in the exhaust. Hence the name Anyway, in normal circumstances, oxygen in the exhaust gases indicates running lean, that there wasn't enough fuel to use up the oxygen in the intake charge, so the ECU will add more fuel until there's no oxygen measured in the exhaust gas. But if the air/fuel mix is actually fine but it's just not burning properly, then you get unburnt fuel & air in the exhaust. The lambda sensor doesn't measure unburnt fuel, it just measures oxygen, and incorrectly tells the ECU to keep adding more fuel.

My bad here, but I didn't check the spark plugs even though I had the head & everything else off. They actually look pretty rough I did about thirty miles in the car today and although it starts & idles absolutely fine it feels a bit flat and stutters on light throttle around 2500-3000 rpm. I also noticed that the instantaneous mpg was only showing around 20-25mpg on steady flat roads. The extra-urban fuel consumption is meant to be 53mpg so I guess it's chucking in twice as much fuel as it should do ?? Yikes.

Manky spark plugs:


AB29D585-F868-4060-B65A-156D9DD05B7B.jpeg




I have ordered new spark plugs.....

Has it been mapped (quite often done at the same time as a decat)? If it's been mapped without a Cat previously and you've added one now without the appropriate remap would mean it's all over the place.

[Alex88]

Beetle written off

Was hit by a pissed-up driver the other night while parked. Girlfriend is distraught as she loved that car.

Typically, I'd just spent a fair few quid on it, too.

BMW has two viewings this week, not sure if I should sell it now!

[Sundayjumper]

Has it been mapped (quite often done at the same time as a decat)?

I checked with the last owner and he said he didn't know if it had a remap, but also said that he always left the lambda sensor unplugged so I'm guessing it's a "no" to a remap !

I'm going with the spark plug theory right now. Oil from the valve stems seals plus generally not running right due to decat / no lambda sensor has gummed them up and now they only give a really lame spark. New ones are on the way but I might pinch the ones from my wife's car when she gets home just to try them out.

[PaulJ]

The Cayman had its first service at 2 years old this morning. That's £967 I'll never see again. Still, the cakes in the customer reception area were excellent!

[nuttinnew]

Beetle written off

Was hit by a pissed-up driver the other night while parked.

Fortunate she was in the best place to be in such an event, not in the car.

[mik]

Still, the cakes in the customer reception area were excellent!

And only constituted £43 of that total

[mik]

Beetle written off

Was hit by a pissed-up driver the other night while parked.

Fortunate she was in the best place to be in such an event, not in the car.

That. Extremely annoying though.

[Alex88]

Indeed. We're both very grateful that she wasn't at the car at the time!

Especially annoying when you consider that a 2008 Beetle with 98k has a very low market price, but it was literally spot on and had had everything sorted. It was worth a lot to us.

I'll push to get a decent amount out of them.

[Sundayjumper]

Have you tried it with the lambda unplugged to force it in open loop and see if it had power then?

Well well

I was a bit of an idiot. I'd been talking about the post-cat sensor, so after your post I unplugged it and it made no difference. Which seemed to confirm it was borked, so I ordered a new one yesterday.

Today I pinched the spark plugs from my wife's car and tried them in mine. Still no difference, which did surprise me given the state of them. Pic attached below of mine vs. hers. As a double check I ran my spark plugs in her car and they work just fine. So it's not those.

Then in a fit of inspiration I unplugged the pre-cat sensor which is what I think you meant in the first place ? With that unplugged the fuel trims drifted back to zero and it runs perfectly New one ordered. I'll reserve final judgement until that's here - just in case I plug it in and it all goes squiffy again - but I think the car is sorted now

Here's the final (I hope) parts bill. I blew the original £1500 budget but it has stayed under £2k and that includes cam chain & valve stem seals that I'd not originally planned on doing, both very worthwhile. In fact I suspect the valve stems were the root cause of all the problems in the first place.


1,300.00 Purchase
60.60 thermostat
11.99 pollen filter
10.70 air filter
110.71 cat
94.95 head gasket kit
86.26 cam chain kit
62.33 valve cover
26.99 turbo gasket kit
39.00 lower lambda sensor
37.99 spark plugs
6.20 oil filter
15.00 oil (estimate)
45.00 upper lambda sensor

1,907.72 TOTAL

163DA182-4B10-4E84-8847-76520F6696F1.jpeg (73.56 KiB) Viewed 523 times

[16vCento]

It's a cheap car if that's it (for now ).

I like Clubmans, my wife would love one to replace our V60, but I don't think they're big enough.

She loved our R56 Cooper S, especially after I made it much quicker than it should have been.

It felt special somehow, even just to sit in, and it handled and went, brilliantly.

I preferred the R50 Cooper I bought in lockdown to drive, felt a lot sharper, obviously a lot slower, but it just felt nicer to driver somehow.

I might try find a R55 JCW to swap the V60 for and buy a roof box for it.

[Sundayjumper]

It's a cheap car if that's it (for now ).

I like Clubmans, my wife would love one to replace our V60, but I don't think they're big enough.

She loved our R56 Cooper S, especially after I made it much quicker than it should have been.

It felt special somehow, even just to sit in, and it handled and went, brilliantly.

I preferred the R50 Cooper I bought in lockdown to drive, felt a lot sharper, obviously a lot slower, but it just felt nicer to driver somehow.

I might try find a R55 JCW to swap the V60 for and buy a roof box for it.

I agree with all of that !

I've done a few miles in the car now and there's nothing else that's jumping out at me as being ££ / urgent. It steers & brakes fine. No untoward noises. The windows are a bit slow going up & down but I reckon the guides etc. just need cleaning up. Old grease dries out and gets sticky. I'll run it for a bit and see what fall off

Size - I've never experienced a V60 but the Clubman is longer than the hatch/convertible. A bit more wheelbase makes the rear seats usable, and a bit more rear overhang makes the boot useful. It's noticeable compared to the convertible (which has a tiny boot, of course).

Agreed with the R50/R56 thing too. Our previous convertible felt that bit sharper than the current one. But that's the wife's car and it didn't have heated seats or "parking beeps" and those thing matter more apparently.

[Gavster]

Have you tried it with the lambda unplugged to force it in open loop and see if it had power then?

Well well

I was a bit of an idiot. I'd been talking about the post-cat sensor, so after your post I unplugged it and it made no difference. Which seemed to confirm it was borked, so I ordered a new one yesterday.

Today I pinched the spark plugs from my wife's car and tried them in mine. Still no difference, which did surprise me given the state of them. Pic attached below of mine vs. hers. As a double check I ran my spark plugs in her car and they work just fine. So it's not those.

Then in a fit of inspiration I unplugged the pre-cat sensor which is what I think you meant in the first place ? With that unplugged the fuel trims drifted back to zero and it runs perfectly New one ordered. I'll reserve final judgement until that's here - just in case I plug it in and it all goes squiffy again - but I think the car is sorted now

Here's the final (I hope) parts bill. I blew the original £1500 budget but it has stayed under £2k and that includes cam chain & valve stem seals that I'd not originally planned on doing, both very worthwhile. In fact I suspect the valve stems were the root cause of all the problems in the first place.


1,300.00 Purchase
60.60 thermostat
11.99 pollen filter
10.70 air filter
110.71 cat
94.95 head gasket kit
86.26 cam chain kit
62.33 valve cover
26.99 turbo gasket kit
39.00 lower lambda sensor
37.99 spark plugs
6.20 oil filter
15.00 oil (estimate)
45.00 upper lambda sensor

1,907.72 TOTAL



163DA182-4B10-4E84-8847-76520F6696F1.jpeg

It still seems like good value considering the engine has had a major overhaul now, hopefully it runs nicely once the new sensor is in place.

[Alex88]

650i gone.

4 cars down to 1 only the Mustang remains.

I'm sad that the Beemer's gone, but not as much as I thought I'd be. The nice chap who bought it had an X5 4.8, E39 Alpina, E36 328.. so it's in good company.

[mik]

4 cars down to 1 only the Mustang remains.

Pretty drastic!


Following a conversation on The Twitter, followed by a conversation on The Real Life with @scotta (who just applied some to a racecar) I splashed out Fourteen Sterlings (inc delivery) on some Gtechniq G1 glass treatment.



As with most of these things, the application is pretty simple, but prepping properly takes a bit of time. Cleaned and dried the glass. Went over it all carefully with a new Stanley blade. Then clay (which had stuck to the inside of the freezer bag I had stored it in and was a PITA to get out) followed by a windolene once over. Finally feckin ready.

Did the same on the rest of the glass.



1 coat on side glass, 2 on rear glass (one is recommended but I was clearly excited) and 3 on the front glass. Use the “G2 excess remover” which smells suspiciously like IPA) that comes with the kit it to help buff it off - Robert is your mother’s brother.

Thankfully Scottish skies quickly presented a test opportunity - anything over 35mph has the rain gliding up and off the top of the screen. Impressive. Will see how it lasts (claim is “upto 20k miles”).

Weirdly I came across what must be a 15+ year old half full bottle of RainX when I was looking for my clay. Should probably sling that….

I was sufficiently impressed that I did front and rear glass on the E-Tron at the weekend. There was just enough left. Going to get another bottle to do eldest miklet’s car (he was with me when I tested it on the Evora and was blown away). In hindsight I should probably have got the 100ml bottle instead of the 15ml.

[McSwede]

I haven't tried this stuff @mik but I have tried a couple of others including Rain-x and my bug Bear with it is that under 35mph you still need to use the wipers and that they tend to judder. When you do as many miles as I do, that gets quite annoying. I'll be interested to hear how you find it in that respect. @scotta ' experience would also be interesting to hear.

[mik]

@McSwede Yeah there are some reports of judder online, and others who experience none. Those in the latter group generally suggest that something wasn't right with the pre-application prep - one of the reasons I tried to be thorough with that. But.... we'll see!

edit: another suggestion for the cause of judder seems to be inconsistent coverage, or not sufficiently removing the excess. I don't think the instruction around 3 coats on the windscreen is to build up layers of coating - the advice is to apply one coat side to side, one up & down, and one coat using a circular motion - so I assume they are simply trying to guarantee that you don't miss a bit.

Here's someone with no issues. Although why anyone would put a video online that provides evidence they listen to Whitney......

[Jobbo]

Had my Goodyear Vector 4 Seasons tyres fitted on Monday. I was very glad to have them today with the amount of water on the motorways, though I was surprised how well the old Conti Premium Contacts coped with surface water last week with 3mm of tread left.



The ride and handling are much better than before anyway; the old tyres had a 2012 date code on the side and it tramlined quite a lot when they were under 4mm, and directional stability on the motorway had become a bit crap. Did ~20k on them anyway. Be interesting to see how these new ones wear.