Your fleet running reports

[Sundayjumper]

It’s raining.

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[DeskJockey]

I think your rear wing is a tad too big. Going Bosozuko style?

[IanF]

It’s raining.


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That pic is reminding me of Supergirl from the movie The Flash. Handily her character name in the movie is Kara Zor-El, so I think you need to call your car Cara or maybe Kar azorel etc

[Sundayjumper]

So…. this is the wastegate ? Does this mean it’s been flapping around open the whole time ??

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[V8Granite]

It’s because those cut lips do 2 things. Come away but the metal has lost all its spring and it never sits in the groove anyway, or it pings off at a million mph never to be found again.

Yes, you have a loose flap and virtually no wind.

Dave!

[Sundayjumper]

Yes, you have a loose flap and virtually no wind.

It’s been said before. But can we get back on topic and talk about the car now ?

[Matty]

My mom's on her 3rd Smart, loves them....might want to keep a few spare front springs though, they were pretty much consumables on her old one.

[Sundayjumper]

A full set of four are on their way already

I put a zip tie on the turbo thingy and went for a quick drive. Much better. Much MUCH MUCH better Who'd have thunk it ? Mit turbo > Ohne turbot.

We went to Halfords and bought a pack of 225 assorted circlips. I'll find a use for the other 224 at some point.

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[Beany]

Finally got the boot cleared and looked at, and have now drained four inches of water from the spare wheel well.

So I guess now I stuff the soggy contents of boot in the house till the connections hopefully dry out and stop fucking around

If not I'll be pulling the bit apart farther so I can reach the connections and clean them up manually/electrical contact cleaner etc.


It could be coming in from the convertible cover, but as the roof, along with half the other electrics don't work right now I can't tell

What a massive pain in the arse.

[Sundayjumper]

Finally got the boot cleared and looked at, and have now drained four inches of water from the spare wheel well.

You had a full four inches in your boot, without permission ?

It'd be totally bodge city, but I'd be quite tempted to drill a small hole in the spare wheel well to let the water drain out. It obviously doesn't fix the leak, but it would stop it filling up...

What a massive pain in the arse.

A 4" pain in the arse.

[jamcg]

We went to Halfords and bought a pack of 225 assorted circlips. I'll find a use for the other 224 at some point.

Given your recent purchase history I’d imagine them coming in useful sooner rather than later

[Beany]

It'd be totally bodge city, but I'd be quite tempted to drill a small hole in the spare wheel well to let the water drain out. It obviously doesn't fix the leak, but it would stop it filling up...

It's tempting, but it's not a fix to the problem at the end of the day.

Besides, at the moment the K-bus is on the fritz so I think tomorrow I'm going to have to find it's terminator in the glove box and go through each connection one by one to see which parts are playing up.

Hopefully the GM5 module is smart enough to not just flat out die, otherwise I functionally don't have a car.

And I need to drive to Liverpool on Tuesday...

[Sundayjumper]

Other fun with THE SMART today...

It doesn't have a sump plug so the oil has to be sucked out the top. Not really ideal but it's much cleaner than crawling underneath with a bowl, and a benefit is that the container has graduations up the side so you can see how much oil has been drawn out. I got *one* litre out Which figures, capacity is only 2.5 litres, it was barely touching the dipstick before, add half a litre to get to the min, and another litre to max, there's your 2.5 litres. I flushed with ~2 litres of fresh oil, drained again, fitted a new filter and filled with fresh oil.

It has two spark plugs per cylinder. Three are easily accessible from the top, three are awkwardly hidden below. Of the top three, one was quite black and oily. It also looks newer, and the corresponding lead is a different design to the other two. Curious. Wondering if it's been replaced on its own for some reason. The lower three I will tackle tomorrow as part of changing the exhaust. Also the thermostat that brilliantly requires you to lower the engine to get it out.

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I'd already bought a replacement pollen filter but it turns out I didn't need to replace the old one..... because there wasn't one in there to begin with It's awkward to get to, I suspect someone had ripped out the old one then failed to get the new one into position and given up. The cover was jammed in on the wonk too. All fixed now.

Washer jets not working. Pump runs but nothing coming out anywhere. Requires removing the front panels to get to the reservoir.

[Sundayjumper]

Given your recent purchase history I’d imagine them coming in useful sooner rather than later

You say that, but I seem to have got this far in life without needing a stock of circlips, so this lot will probably outlive me !

[JonMad]

I get the feeling you're enjoying working on the Smart more that anything else you have or have had?

[Gavster]

I get the feeling you're enjoying working on the Smart more that anything else you have or have had?

I've got a mental picture of it being like working on toy car

The parts prices are definitely wayyyy more fun than any other car I've owned.

[Sundayjumper]

I am quite enjoying it, it’s so different to my usual stuff, and yes it is a bit like a toy car !

Most fun is that because everything is tiny, and most of my tools are sized for things like the Cayenne, doing the suspension I could just go with brute force and the car didn’t stand a chance

[MikeHunt]

Just picked up the 5 series, it's good to be back in it. The issue according to the paper work is "oil to cooler heater exchange" which has been replaced along with a long list of other parts.

I'm still undecided about what to do with the car medium to long term. It's probably not a lemon, just unfortunate that something failed, maybe lucky that it failed while under warranty. Finding a replacement will be difficult, Im not an Audi fan, the E class is a hybrid, the Lexus sounds great but isnt a drivers car and screams mason. Any other option that isn't an SUV would mean compromising on the practical and stealthyness of the M550i and the I haven't seen anything that won't cost a lot more to buy and/or run.

[Jobbo]

Just picked up the 5 series, it's good to be back in it. The issue according to the paper work is "oil to cooler heater exchange" which has been replaced along with a long list of other parts.

I'm still undecided about what to do with the car medium to long term. It's probably not a lemon, just unfortunate that something failed, maybe lucky that it failed while under warranty. Finding a replacement will be difficult, Im not an Audi fan, the E class is a hybrid, the Lexus sounds great but isnt a drivers car and screams mason. Any other option that isn't an SUV would mean compromising on the practical and stealthyness of the M550i and the I haven't seen anything that won't cost a lot more to buy and/or run.

There's a very limited selection of bigger-engined cars now - you might have to go full M/AMG/RS to get something which feels like a decent alternative. Or a Panamera perhaps?

[Sundayjumper]

More Smart blatherings. Today was mainly exhausting. Lame.

You need to remove the rear bumper to get to it, not too big a deal, but I had to drill out two bolts and found one of the crossbeam bolts already headless where someone had previously cut it off but not removed & replaced the broken bit. The reason for replacing the exhaust was that the exit pipe had fallen off and it was discharging into the bumper. We'd ummed and ahhed a bit before deciding to buy a new one. With the bumper off it was clear we'd made the right decision. It was cracked around the lambda sensor boss and blowing in a couple of other places.

Unsurprisingly the lambda sensor did not come out nicely The studs attaching to the turbo were surprisingly OK. The nuts came off no problem but were pretty manky so got replaced. Apart from the lambda sensor the exhaust was really a doddle.

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I wasn't previously familiar with exactly how a wastegate works. With the exhaust off you can see it. There's a passage that bypasses the turbo. There's a cap that blocks it off. Without the actuator attached it would have been flapping about open the whole time.

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