Your fleet running reports

[Rich B]

Elise body sent away on a little holiday yesterday, will return in a couple of months very different indeed

like.

[Sundayjumper]

Comfort/able seats fitted.

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Some headaches to figure out with the coding though. I’ve done the coding the internet told me to do, they don’t work from the controls on the side but I can connect to the seat modules via the diagnostics and control them directly. So the seats clearly work, it’s a communication problem.

[dan]

Will it be carbon when it comes back, Dan?

Maybe

[John]

New steering wheel fitted



Also replaced a break drum with a stripped wheel bolt thread yesterday, the wheel bearing was a bit of a battle to say the least.

[jamcg]

Is that a fire extinguisher between your legs or are you just happy to see us?

[John]

Yes

[Beany]

Comfort/able seats fitted.


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Some headaches to figure out with the coding though. I’ve done the coding the internet told me to do, they don’t work from the controls on the side but I can connect to the seat modules via the diagnostics and control them directly. So the seats clearly work, it’s a communication problem.

It's not something fucking dumb like the connectors between the controls and the bus needing a blast of contact cleaner and a shoogle?

[Sundayjumper]

It's not something fucking dumb like the connectors between the controls and the bus needing a blast of contact cleaner and a shoogle?

No, but it did turn out to be slightly dumb !

The old seats were electric / heated / memory so had all the wiring in place..... or so I thought. For some reason the controls for the Comfort seats need a separate switched live signal (not power, there's a chunky cable for that) to wake them up. Old seats did not. But both that & the power are fed from terminal 30B. So I have just soldered a link across the two on the seat side of the connector. Job done and seats fully working

[Jobbo]

I was looking forward to the update SJ - glad you’ve sorted it. I think I’ve only been in that generation’s comfort seats as a passenger in a 7-series though I didn’t actually check. Based on my E61 experience they’re probably by far the best option and very few people would have tried them to realise.

[mik]

Decided to wash the cars. Evora is still covered with insects and rubber marks from Anglesey.

Washed the Etron, and took it for a quick run up the road and back to dry the brakes. Reversed right over the top of my rinse-bucket.

So the Evora remains manky….

[mik]

So I have just soldered a link across the two on the seat side of the connector. Job done and seats fully working

I love it when a good (educated) bodge works effectively - nice one

[16vCento]

Jaguar gone

Pub time I'd say.

[Jobbo]

Jaguar gone

Pub time I'd say.

Pub time when you’ve ordered or collected the replacement, surely?

[Sundayjumper]

We have a long-standing tradition of having McDonalds when buying a car - ideally using the new car to get drive-through. This has recently been augmented by KFC when selling a car. But pub is acceptable for either

[16vCento]

I've not gone to the pub as I've been sidetracked looking at something my wife suggested, but I don't think I'm up for.

Teslas

[Sundayjumper]

Slightly longer weekend fleet update as it seems to have been pretty successful.

The F10 seats needed collecting from London yesterday morning so I took the i3 - partly because it's the only estate-ish car we have now, and also because ULEZ. Two hours to do forty miles. Each way. London sucks. But the i3 is pretty good for town driving. Instant smooth take up when pulling away and the one-pedal driving is great for stop-start traffic. It was also nice not having an engine idling all the time - not just the noise but the feeling that you're wasting fuel. Stop-start systems obviously do the same but they're a bit intrusive and on the MINI at least it would get caught out sometimes. I'm liking the i3. I'm still hating London.

Fitting the seats I've covered already. The coding was - for reference - removing S459 (electric memory seats), adding S456 (comfort memory seats). And then a bodge to the seat wiring. All sorted.

This afternoon I picked up a spare set of wheels for the HUGE sum of £57.56. I'd normally use CASH for such a LARGE event but they didn't want a DEPOSIT so I just paid via ebay. The car has had quite a bad vibration at around 70-75mph and I'd discovered two things - 1, F10s seem to be very susceptible to this and 2, one of the original wheels was quite buckled. Spinning it around off the ground there was ~5mm of lateral movement. These are a downgrade to 17" and the tyres are a bit old but they're 5-6mm all round and matching spec/age so they don't trigger my usual emotional response to mismatched tyres. Nicely local, and thanks to a half-hearted listing, a bargain well worth a punt. They scrub up OK and seem to have cured the wobble. Win. I'll put some winters on these rims and/or get a set of nicer eighteens now I'm confident it was just a wheel problem.

Check the sidewalls on these pups. 225/55/17

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I think it's also giving me clarity on where to go next. I've been enjoying being back in a BMW and kept mulling whether I should have stretched to an M5. But with these comfort-oriented changes it's reminded me that's exactly the point of this car - comfort. For a motorway schlep an M5 would probably be slightly less comfortable while costing twice as much to run. If I want to go fast or attract attention I have other cars. The anonymity of a grey SE-spec 5-Series pleases me.

And that means the imaginary extra budget for an M5 that I don't have but had mentally justified can be diverted to a van. I enjoyed my Vito and fancy a Viano - that's the "posh" Vito with nicer seats and carpet. All it needs is some cheap wine and a dangerous £5k Paypal account on a Friday night

[Jobbo]

Disappointed that you took that wheel photo before putting the BMW centre cap in. You did that, didn’t you?

[Ascender]

New addition to to the fleet... A 2022 Polaris gator atv thing for doing stuff on the croft, up here and for collecting horse . That last one is a real time saver as was a case of wandering round the field with a wheelbarrow.

Road legal so useful for pottering around the village, also its size makes it handy for getting into the field by the house for pulling stuff out as the access is really tight.

Had to get the insurance on the croft policy as it seems the youths have ruined it for everyone by thrashing quad bikes around the place for the "likes". Which was also what the dealer selling it was talking about when I was asking about maintenance, reliability etc.

So far its been very practical and great fun, likely to also be my best option for getting up and down the hill to the house in the winter unless I get some funky tyres for the 911. 10K well spent.

[nuttinnew]

[DeskJockey]

Those four in the back aren't horses...