Your fleet running reports

[GG.]

@Sundayjumper Pre-heat on EV's is a fabulous feature - mrs mik loves this on her E-Tron (although relies entirely on me to set it up of course )

The fuel-burning-heater on the Disco is indeed intended to get the coolant upto temperature (75 DegC from memory) so the climate can deliver heat as soon as you get in the car (with the knock-on effect of reduced cold-start engine wear of course). Our D3 had one, but I added a timer to it which made a huge difference. D4 has a timer already.

The FBH is also a very good tool to bring your neighbours to your front door to advise that they think your car may be on fire.

edit: diesels are relatively thermally efficient, so in cold weather often cool down if you are just idling in traffic. You'll find the FBH also activates in this scenario to bring your coolant temperature back up.

Annoying development in the later Range Rovers is that even though mine has a webasto fuel burning heater it is "auto-on" below a certain temperature and you can't manually set it to come on. LRs suggestion is you use the remote start to heat the cabin - yeah right! So... how did your car get stolen sir... well I left it on the street running with the doors locked. Ah let me check, yes I can see from my computer screen that's

<<<<**--**CLAIM DENIED**--**>>>>

Smart is apparently ready to collect so will be making the annoying trip down to Weybridge in the freezing cold. Will probably take my son this time and we'll go to the Mercedes Benz museum and poke around at Lewis' old F1 cars.

[16vCento]

Also @16vCento , you need to update your profile !


1aa77655-92b9-3c28-4035-dd04e595910a.jpeg

I forgot that even existed

[Sundayjumper]

It only shows up if you hold your phone landscape or use the desktop site.

[Sundayjumper]

edit: diesels are relatively thermally efficient, so in cold weather often cool down if you are just idling in traffic. You'll find the FBH also activates in this scenario to bring your coolant temperature back up.

Ah yes, my T4 had one too (although it never worked), Caravelle so designed for being a taxi, a combination of large internal volume + lots of windows + possibility of doors being opened & closed a lot meant potential for a lot of demand for heat. It had no kind of pre-heat function, it was purely as you say, to keep the engine temp up while running.

Or I suppose without such demand for heat you wouldn't need it, so you could view it as being used to heat the interior, via the coolant, which happens to be shared with the engine.

Either. It never worked anyway

[DeskJockey]

Zoe could do the remote scheduling until 3G was switched off. App no longer connects to the car. Not a massive issue, can set it in the car obviously and it is parked right by the front door. Even so, it is annoying as it removes a useful feature.

More annoyingly it also means no sat nav updates or live traffic data.

[Sundayjumper]

Which network ? The Range Rover was due to have the same problem but IIRC some networks were keeping 2G and some 3G devices will fall back to 2G. It's slower of course but not an issue just for turning stuff on & off.

[Matty]

Pre heat? Diesel heaters? Small car and a car port = clear car with no global warming impact. I hope you all feel guilty for our 1.5deg limit increase this year.

Zoe could do the remote scheduling until 3G was switched off. App no longer connects to the car. Not a massive issue, can set it in the car obviously and it is parked right by the front door. Even so, it is annoying as it removes a useful feature.

More annoyingly it also means no sat nav updates or live traffic data.

This is a concern for me with modern, electronic-heavy features on cars now. How many of these will start to become increasingly redundant as tech is turned off or not supported, killing off core functionality and impacting resale?

[DeskJockey]

Which network ? The Range Rover was due to have the same problem but IIRC some networks were keeping 2G and some 3G devices will fall back to 2G. It's slower of course but not an issue just for turning stuff on & off.

Can't remember, it is not something that is user changeable. Renault's response to questions about upgrade modules, that people are happy to pay for (!) is a shrug and meh.

Even if you could get 3G it looks like they're discontinuing support/updates for the ICE units. But if there's a clever little box that can fake a (very low power, because illegal) 3G signal and use a regular data SIM, that would be useful for the features that remain.

[Mito Man]

Yes, I was going to buy an XJ8 but the analogue TV didn't work, doesn't have DAB, the telephone inside is illegal to use now and you can't get sat nav updates for it anymore.
Etc

[DeskJockey]

Pre heat? Diesel heaters? Small car and a car port = clear car with no global warming impact. I hope you all feel guilty for our 1.5deg limit increase this year.

Zoe could do the remote scheduling until 3G was switched off. App no longer connects to the car. Not a massive issue, can set it in the car obviously and it is parked right by the front door. Even so, it is annoying as it removes a useful feature.

More annoyingly it also means no sat nav updates or live traffic data.

This is a concern for me with modern, electronic-heavy features on cars now. How many of these will start to become increasingly redundant as tech is turned off or not supported, killing off core functionality and impacting resale?

I agree. Would be useful if there was a legal requirement stating that all the connected car stuff must be supported for at least a decade, including being able to change modems to maintain connectivity. Not like you've got much choice to avoid cars stuffed full of tech.

[Sundayjumper]

This is a concern for me with modern, electronic-heavy features on cars now. How many of these will start to become increasingly redundant as tech is turned off or not supported, killing off core functionality and impacting resale?

All of them.

I also have two "smart" TVs here that are no longer very smart, and the internet radio on my hifi doesn't work because the underlying service (vTuner) now wants $7 pa subscription for the previously free access that was part of the reason for buying it in the first place. For some reason all types of terrestrial broadcast reception are dire where we live, so satellite or internet are the only reliable way of getting anything.

[Jobbo]

I'm sure my Audi must have some sort of supplemental diesel heater because it blows warm air way quicker than it should from the coolant temperature gauge. No way of setting it to pre-heat via the app though. I have found that parking it under cover means the screens and windows don't freeze up overnight even when the temp is down to -5C as it was last night. That's in the arch to our rear drive which used to be the garage but is open front and back now, not in an enclosed space.

[Sundayjumper]

Probably an electrical heating element in the heater. Even my MINI had that. It was only on the diesel models mind.

e.g.:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/315410743650

[Jobbo]

Probably an electrical heating element in the heater. Even my MINI had that. It was only on the diesel models mind.

Ah, never encountered that but quite possibly. It seems an obvious way for a diesel to give heat to the cabin a bit more quickly.

ETA: and now I know what I'm googling I found out straight away that it does. Not all diesel A6s have it as standard though; Audi are clearly cheapskates.

[Sundayjumper]

Phone holder added to the Disco. Model-specific bracket that clips quite nicely onto the dash/vent. I don’t like stuff stuck to the screen and I certainly don’t want to be drilling holes or glueing things to the car. MagSafe attachment to the phone. I think this is the neatest solution I’m going to find. I’ll need to run a power cable to it of course, but my phone seems to have quite decent battery life so unless it’s a really long journey I’ll probably be OK.

And it’s not particularly for navigation anyway, it’s for keeping the diagnostics app running the whole time ready to clear all the errors as they come up

IMG_3411.jpeg (138.34 KiB) Viewed 3253 times

[16vCento]

You can get adapters to make the infotainment system accept android auto/carplay for about 400 quid, I nearly got one for the Jag but didn't want to ruin the audio quality, which I could see happening using a pass through.

[GG.]

Have been meaning to get an apple carplay upgrade to the system in the 991 but haven't got around to it. It involves opening up the NAV unit and adding in a new module so a bit scary...

[Simon]

Phone holder added to the Disco. Model-specific bracket that clips quite nicely onto the dash/vent. I don’t like stuff stuck to the screen and I certainly don’t want to be drilling holes or glueing things to the car. MagSafe attachment to the phone. I think this is the neatest solution I’m going to find. I’ll need to run a power cable to it of course, but my phone seems to have quite decent battery life so unless it’s a really long journey I’ll probably be OK.

And it’s not particularly for navigation anyway, it’s for keeping the diagnostics app running the whole time ready to clear all the errors as they come up


IMG_3411.jpeg

Oooh, that's neat. Do they do one for the C Class?

[Ascender]

Good old frameless doors and cold weather.... driver's side window has cracked along the top edge. Let's see how good Autoglass are for the Highlands....

[mik]

Good old frameless doors and cold weather.... driver's side window has cracked along the top edge. Let's see how good Autoglass are for the Highlands....

Ouch.

Gummi-Pflege on the seal prevents this, or even a wipe on the seal with a clear silicone shoe-shine. This kinda thing....