Your fleet running reports

[Rich B]

The 320d sailed through its MOT this week - no bother at all. It's a great car, it's looking a little scruffy because my wife owns it, but it does everything a car should, very well (except be ULEZ compliant). We've had it for 5-6 years now and no plans to change it.

[speedingfine]

MOT time for the Mazda 2 Wednesday. There's a nasty clonking noise from the back that started last week, probably a bush

C5 is still fantastic. No faults and I've had it 18 months. Very comfortable and doing 45mpg. The smugness is off the scale. £500 and it's probably the most reliable car I've ever owned

Caterham - getting interested in it again cos it's the Spring Still haven't fitted the CF seat but plans are afoot to make up some template fittings in wood then see if work can make some in stainless. Also been looking at getting the exhaust done in matt black Zircotec as the exhaust wrap is all but knackered. Are there any alternative ceramic coater companies or are they still considered the best?

[16vCento]

New car ordered, tried the dog in the Formentor and it was too small for her

Kuga ST Line X 2.5 PHEV in Solar Silver.

Will do the big family car job nicely, decent sound system, massive boot, comfy seats and a lot of decent tech on it.

Can set it to defrost itself in winter and pre heat the seats/steering wheel and front and rear screens, and in summer you can turn the AC on remotely to cool it before you get in.

Reviews seem to rate how they drive for a big old bus, 4 month wait for it now so will soon see!

Currently away with work so will have to take the plate off the XF when I get back, clean the V60 and sell them both.

Thinking of a 5dr Mini Cooper S as no need for 2 massive cars.

[Swervin_Mervin]

FAO @integrale_evo - what would you suggest treatment-wise for this rust that's on the E91 tailgate? It's both sides and I gather they did this on the E46 - crappy plastic trims allow gunge to buildup in spite of BMW "designing" in drainage slots behind the trim clips.



I'm going to have a crack at sorting both sides and fancy doing a bit more than just taking the worst off and slapping some kurust on.

Anyone got any views on how to tackle this? Slap some.kurust on and hope for the best, or take it back to the metal, etch prime and rattle can?

Or another suggestion?

[Swervin_Mervin]

I've got new brackets and bolts but want to get on top of that rust before it gets too bad

[Sundayjumper]

I'll start listing the Bentley problems in here and allow the "guess the car" thread to die quietly.

We've had some steady rain this week and the driver's footwell carpet is damp. This is apparently a common problem on early (pre-'07) Continentals due to the scuttle drain getting blocked. It's in the middle under the heater airbox and a PITA to get to. Nice one From '07 onwards they were relocated to the corners of the scuttle and much easier to get at.

Driving it from cold yesterday morning there seemed to be some looseness in the front suspension that I'd not noticed at the weekend, and it went away again after a few miles. Slightly curious. I've not had a look under the car yet. A full set of front control arms (eight in total) can be had for £500 (e.g.) so although I'm not going to rush into it, it's far from the end of the world if I need to replace a few.

It came with some awful cheap aftermarket mats that I binned immediately and ordered better ones from carmats4u in dark blue with magnolia edging to (hopefully!) match the leather. I never imagined myself as the kind of person to buy mats in any colour other than black but in this car it seems OK.

New reg is lined up and will go on once I've got the new (old) logbook from DVLA. Ordered nice new plates made up with a short front and oversize rear to fill the bumper recess properly. I won't be posting pics because you're all cnuts who hate on non-standard plates

The missing wheel trim is going to be a problem. They're NLA from the factory and I can't find a s/h one right now. In addition to that I think my wheels have been refurbed in a non-standard shadow chrome finish so even if I do find a replacement trim it won't match my wheels. And two of them need a refurb anyway. I'm pondering whether buying a full set of decent wheels and selling these ones is going to be all-round more expedient.

I'm slowly working around the interior trying to deep clean all the nooks & crannies. It makes a big difference to the ambience.

Wifey drove it for the first time last night and concluded "it's quite nice isn't it". This is high praise from her.

[Sundayjumper]

Genuine deep pile mats are "reassuringly" expensive, and then some

https://www.flyingspares.com/continenta ... aev66.html


I am highly amused to see that the warranty is longer if they are fitted by the dealer. I wonder how much they would charge ???

Warranty Period One year as standard; two years if fitted by a franchised dealer

[integrale_evo]

FAO @integrale_evo - what would you suggest treatment-wise for this rust that's on the E91 tailgate? It's both sides and I gather they did this on the E46 - crappy plastic trims allow gunge to buildup in spite of BMW "designing" in drainage slots behind the trim clips.



I'm going to have a crack at sorting both sides and fancy doing a bit more than just taking the worst off and slapping some kurust on.

Anyone got any views on how to tackle this? Slap some.kurust on and hope for the best, or take it back to the metal, etch prime and rattle can?

Or another suggestion?

Completely forgot about this, hard to tell from the photos how much access you have, and how visible it will be afterwards.

Personally I’d be removing as much crusty stuff as you can, a good twisted knot wire brush on a drill will do a fine job. Spend a couple of quid extra on a decent brand like bosch not the cheap soft ones which just coat the rust.

Detox gel or similar to get deep in the pits, then a rust converter, then etch or corrosion resistant primer then a topcoat.

[mik]

Spend a couple of quid extra on a decent brand like bosch not the cheap soft ones which just coat the rust.

Series 6?

[davecG60]

So back in February we enquired about getting rid of our Polo Gti (DSG) that we'd had for 3.5years. Far too small for a weekly shop let alone the removal team duties with kids being at Uni! It was fun, nippy and obv being a VW fanboy it ticked that box. However far too small for us and the ride was solid ( worse than my old Golf G60 which was unforgiving at the best of times)

So we headed off to Lookers for a nosey at potential replacements....
Just off demo Leon Fr estate. We'd had one before ( 184 diesel/ tech ) and whilst the old one looked good, was economical and speedy-ish, the new shape one didn't look anywhere near as good. the inside felt claustrophobic and the heater controls etc had bloody screens

Across the forecourt we spied a 69 plate (phase 1) Ateca Cupra. I asked the wife is she liked the look of it - She did ! Our car is my wifes car but I generally get to choose it ( with her approval obvs ) There was plenty of much needed space, accessibility ( needed to due our health issues) was easy enough. She suggested a test drive so....

I know it may not be to everyone taste but it just ticks all the boxes we want ticking. Its fun, subtle, makes noises when you want it ( switchable driving modes mean it can be quiet too), covers ground quickly and has plenty of space for carrying shite back from endless trips to Uni!

Purchased

Managed 35 mpg on the trip up to Newcastle recently which was ok I thought for a 300hp 4wd SUV.
We've noticed a couple of issues though. Drivers door randomly doesn't unlock via keyless and theres a knocking from the suspension N/S. Booked it in 2 weeks ago for yesterday _ I couldn't wait the estimated 6 weeks for a courtesy car !!
That went in yesterday. dropped it off 9.30am (booked for 10am). Had a call at 11am to say they can't find anything wrong with drivers door but passenger has fault codes on diagnostic. They can't investigate that though as I'd not reported it ! No news on the suspension issue though..
At 4pm we gave up walking round a wet shitty Stockport and went up to the dealer. Apparently they couldn't hear the noise and sent 3 people out in it to check. Mechanic jumped in the car with me and 2 mins later he could hear the knocking noise!!! Diagnosed top mount troubles! He had been out in the car at lunchtime and it had been sat outside since then! Obviously they didn't think to callme then Clueless.

All it would it would have taken is a call to say they couldn't hear the noise and I could have come back to show them. Simple communication.

Now awaiting a call from them as to when it can be booked in for the warranty work. This time they'll be told theres been a problem with the passenger door lock & they can fix that as well!

Will be also be searching for different Cupra dealers

[Swervin_Mervin]

Lookers Stockport? Fucking shite IME. That's who I got the 197 with and they were terrible.

When the wife gave up waiting for the Volvo clowns down the road to get her into her pre-booked test drive of an S80 T8, we moohced up the road to Lookers for a look at the Skodas. After liking the Superb and test driving the 272 version, we went scouting for prices. Lookers behaved like absolute dicks after giving us a price and us then telling them what price we'd been given by RRG in Rochdale.

Never again.

[Swervin_Mervin]

FAO @integrale_evo - what would you suggest treatment-wise for this rust that's on the E91 tailgate? It's both sides and I gather they did this on the E46 - crappy plastic trims allow gunge to buildup in spite of BMW "designing" in drainage slots behind the trim clips.



I'm going to have a crack at sorting both sides and fancy doing a bit more than just taking the worst off and slapping some kurust on.

Anyone got any views on how to tackle this? Slap some.kurust on and hope for the best, or take it back to the metal, etch prime and rattle can?

Or another suggestion?

Completely forgot about this, hard to tell from the photos how much access you have, and how visible it will be afterwards.

Personally I’d be removing as much crusty stuff as you can, a good twisted knot wire brush on a drill will do a fine job. Spend a couple of quid extra on a decent brand like bosch not the cheap soft ones which just coat the rust.

Detox gel or similar to get deep in the pits, then a rust converter, then etch or corrosion resistant primer then a topcoat.

Perfect, cheers Harry. Confirms what I though. Access is easy as it's the lower sides of the tailgate. I've just been made aware of Bilt Hamber's range (I like BH products) and they have a zinc etch primer. So I'll grab some of their rust converter and the primer I think. I do have a wire brush but it's probably cheap! I'll check out the Bosch ones.

Much appreciated, ta.

[davecG60]

Lookers Stockport? Fucking shite IME. That's who I got the 197 with and they were terrible.

When the wife gave up waiting for the Volvo clowns down the road to get her into her pre-booked test drive of an S80 T8, we moohced up the road to Lookers for a look at the Skodas. After liking the Superb and test driving the 272 version, we went scouting for prices. Lookers behaved like absolute dicks after giving us a price and us then telling them what price we'd been given by RRG in Rochdale.

Never again.

The very same !
The old sales bloke was amazing and went out of his way to resolve any issues on our new Leon FR ( swapped the bog standard shitty courtesy car for his own Cupra as he knew we liked the fun cars ). After a couple of not great experiences we went back and at first things looked better. New sales bloke seems good and added some extras to the deal , however, when we went to handing over our old Polo the prices were miles apart. In the end we sold it via Motorway ( totally painless process) in under a week and got over £2k more than Lookers would give us. I'd gone in with Motorways "rough" figure as a guide but Lookers couldn't even be arsed getting anywhere near! In the end the Polo had decreased in value by only £300 over 3.5 years

The service dept however is rude/ignorant/ useless. Previous complaints have been ignored so I'll be off to Chesterfield or Sheffield when this warranty issue is resolved.
It seems that bad service is the norm at Lookers and decent members of staff are pushed out or not rewarded. The opposite of how it should be.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Lookers Stockport? Fucking shite IME. That's who I got the 197 with and they were terrible.

When the wife gave up waiting for the Volvo clowns down the road to get her into her pre-booked test drive of an S80 T8, we moohced up the road to Lookers for a look at the Skodas. After liking the Superb and test driving the 272 version, we went scouting for prices. Lookers behaved like absolute dicks after giving us a price and us then telling them what price we'd been given by RRG in Rochdale.

Never again.

The very same !
The old sales bloke was amazing and went out of his way to resolve any issues on our new Leon FR ( swapped the bog standard shitty courtesy car for his own Cupra as he knew we liked the fun cars ). After a couple of not great experiences we went back and at first things looked better. New sales bloke seems good and added some extras to the deal , however, when we went to handing over our old Polo the prices were miles apart. In the end we sold it via Motorway ( totally painless process) in under a week and got over £2k more than Lookers would give us. I'd gone in with Motorways "rough" figure as a guide but Lookers couldn't even be arsed getting anywhere near! In the end the Polo had decreased in value by only £300 over 3.5 years

The service dept however is rude/ignorant/ useless. Previous complaints have been ignored so I'll be off to Chesterfield or Sheffield when this warranty issue is resolved.
It seems that bad service is the norm at Lookers and decent members of staff are pushed out or not rewarded. The opposite of how it should be.

Yeah the first sales guy we dealt with seemed nice enough. Fairly new into the role I think and IIRC ex-forces. We wanted to give him the deal, but after getting a good offer through Carwow from RRG, his boss got really rude with us. Started with the swaggering cocky sales bollocks, telling us RRG would never honour the deal and that there was no way we'd get a better deal elsewhere. We were talking about £3-4k here. So the wife tore him a new one but made sure to copy the sales guy we'd dealt with into the e-mail, and made sure to make a point of saying how great he'd been.

RRG have been the complete opposite to deal with. Brilliant throughout the 4 years.

When I had hte 197 I remember sitting there arguing with the service manager about whether the gearbox synchro failures were a known fault. This whilst the car was sat on the forecourt with no box and a big sticker in the windscreens saying "do not start". The laugh was, as he was arguing there wasn't a common fault, some other bloke turned up with a 197 on a flat bed to have the same conversation I ended up telling him it could sit on his forecourt as an advert for Renault's reliability until such time as him and Renault UK sorted their shit out, becuase a gearbox failing at 40k miles wasn't an reasonable level of service.

[integrale_evo]

X5 passed its mot.

One advisory for brake pipes above the rear subframe which I need to have a look at. Bit annoying. Tbh I’d like to drop the whole thing off and clean it up at some point anyway as it looks a little scruffy. Depends how long I decide to keep it I suppose

Now to decide what to do with the summer wheels / tyres. I was waiting to see how much the mot was going to cost

[KevH18]

Kona has had a battery drain resulting in it not starting four times in just over two weeks, including last night when I had to call AA to jump start it as the other car was blocked in and the wrong way to use the jump leads. Booked it into Hyundai but the earliest they could look at it is Monday coming, with no courtesy car available until the next Tuesday. When we're going on holiday on Thursday for a few days, that just isn't going to work.

Email sent to Hyundai CEO and, to their credit, have arranged a hire car until it's sorted and the garage are going to try and look at it sooner (of course they will if Hyundai are paying for a hire car!).

It's going to be an auto but a petrol of some kind, and they will honour to pay for any fuel we use while our car is away. Looking at what's available in the our closest Thrifty, it'll be a 1 or 3-series, (or similar). We'll see.

[nuttinnew]

Driving it from cold yesterday morning there seemed to be some looseness in the front suspension that I'd not noticed at the weekend, and it went away again after a few miles. Slightly curious. I've not had a look under the car yet. A full set of front control arms (eight in total) can be had for £500 (e.g.) so although I'm not going to rush into it, it's far from the end of the world if I need to replace a few.

So, when does the Touareg spec unterkracken get fitted?

[Sundayjumper]

Nope. We’re staying totally standard on this. I just want to enjoy the waft.

Also - hilarious Vipa blades fitted I normally default to Bosch but for some reason couldn’t find the right fitment.

2172D7BB-3519-4EBC-8960-84AA3B5F855B.jpeg (61.43 KiB) Viewed 446 times

Also - "last year I was driving a MINI, now I'm driving a Bentley" - sounds like the intro to a MLM scam

[Jobbo]

Not that we have it yet, but probably more appropriate here now. Macan spec was fixed less than two weeks ago and there was a price rise yesterday which would make the same order over £4000 more (though you get the wireless charger/induction hob for your phone as standard now, which I didn't spec anyway). Because our car was locked in on 20 March, the price rise on 29 March does not affect it. Whoop. Lucky. That's probably the first year's depreciation paid for.

[integrale_evo]

Having owned mostly older car with modest tyre widths - the biggest being the 245 40 17s both the merc and standard rear wheels on the e36 M3 wear, the X5 tyres still seem ridiculous to me. I know a lot of other suvs use the same size, some probably even bigger now.

Anyway. The tyres of the car I learnt to drive in / drive when I first passed my test vs the tyres of my most recent purchase. No photoshop or dodgy angles…