Your fleet running reports

[Beany]

Been feeling like trash the last couple of days with a stomach bug, which has now mostly left me alone, but apparently I'm fucking exhausted from it based on how long it took me to wash the car and bang a layer of AutoGlym ceramic spray stuff on it. A fucking hour. Just a lot of sitting down and catching my breath.

I'm out of shape but I'm not that out of shape FFS.

Anyway, it's done a nice job of giving it some gloss, although literally within minutes the car is covered in pollen and toot from the trees and dust from the neighbours renovation work.

Primarily hoping it means i can get away with a quick jetwash for a few weeks rather than having to scrub all the bloody sap and honeydew or whatever off it. Fuckin' trees.

Car definitely wants a good paint correction and has a couple of wee scratches here and there - nothing that can't be polished out) but other than the ding added by some stupid cunt in a volvo parked next to it today who drove off sharpish when I tried to get his attention - fucking bell - it's really very straight.

(there's more than one image there, click through 'em like instagram)

[Gavin]

Visited my Parents who are at the other end of the M90 and A9 plus a wee cross country shlep at the end.

205 miles there, 205 back.

The Audi got 43.5 MPG on the way up and 39ish on teh way back, despite it being down hill. That is more that the diesel Merc ever got. I didn't buy it for economy (obviously) but it is an astonishig figure and my average in the 3k miles or so is 35ish.

Wheels are getting powder coated next week, so goodbye scruffy diamond cut, hello dark grey!

Mini is gong in to teh body shop to get the dent sorted on Friday.

[Sundayjumper]

Pollen filter and brake fluid if the idrive requests it.

I put a new pollen filter in when we got it last July. Brake fluid though, good point. I’ll put that on the list.

MOT passed flying as expected. Quite surprised to see we’ve done nearly 6000 miles in under 11 months of ownership. The only expense has been a set of tyres. It’s a good little car.

[Beany]

Lets try this in the appropriate thread this time

Got a piccy of it that seems to show off the red in the paint a bit.



(yes it is on a hill, no the sunset wasn't that orangey/pinky in real life)

[JonMad]

Proper

[tim]

They really are a fine looking thing.

[Mito Man]

Yep, they look great. All went downhill from there.

[Beany]

Looks good from afar, but far from good looking - every panel has a scratch or a chip, but other than the (known) front end probably being easier to blow over and blend than individually fix - which having looked it quite closely today, I tend to agree with - the rest I reckon will come out with a bit of judicious use of compound and polish and a DA.

I might need some external help with the (small) ding that's now in the door, as I understand that while PDR gear is cheap, it's not terribly intuitive - but I can sort that once the paint is showing it's age a bit. No point going bonkers though, no matter where I park I'm in the fallout area for a big sappy tree so respectably presentable up close is the goal, no more than that - it would be a waste of time.

For a car that spent twenty years in London it's otherwise not bad at all in that respect.

And yeah, I remember being all "eeew" at the front end of the car back in the day, but it's grown on me over the years, and compared to what BMW are dry-retching out at the moment, it's positively clean and handsome design wise.

[Rich B]

It’s a car, don’t worry about the wear and tear - trying to keep slightly older cars 100% perfect is a fools game.

No one else looks at it and sees anything other than a cool car Beany!

[Beany]

Yeah, but I see it, and I'm the only person who actually matters. I thought we agreed on this years ago?

My faux narcissism aside, It *does* need a bit of work on the paint though for some of the worst bits, but as you note (and as I said!) chasing perfection is stupid.

There's a chip on the wing that's down to the metal that will want dealing with before it gets proper nasty, the rest is 'panel at a time, scratch at a time' type stuff.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Yeah, but I see it, and I'm the only person who actually matters. I thought we agreed on this years ago?

My faux narcissism aside, It *does* need a bit of work on the paint though for some of the worst bits, but as you note (and as I said!) chasing perfection is stupid.

There's a chip on the wing that's down to the metal that will want dealing with before it gets proper nasty, the rest is 'panel at a time, scratch at a time' type stuff.

What Rich said. I keep on top of mine, but I'm not going to machine polish it again. Pointless. It still looks great from 10yds away so that'll do. And even the few chips that are down to the metal aren't rusting/spreading so I've given up worrying about them as well

[Sundayjumper]

Looking good Beany

Like others said - don’t fret too much. I find keeping the interior clean & tidy gives me probably more “peace” as that’s what you sit in & see while you’re actually driving it. Windows & mirrors & fresh wiper blades.

And in a clear case of “noticing cars that you’re thinking of” I’ve seen a blue one around here a few times recently getting used for the school run.

[Beany]

Looking good Beany

Like others said - don’t fret too much. I find keeping the interior clean & tidy gives me probably more “peace” as that’s what you sit in & see while you’re actually driving it. Windows & mirrors & fresh wiper blades.

And in a clear case of “noticing cars that you’re thinking of” I’ve seen a blue one around here a few times recently getting used for the school run.

That montego blue they come in is pretty fucking striking and really shows the shape off, doesn't it?



Also, as for the interior clean and tidy....

suspiciousmonkey-small.jpeg (19.43 KiB) Viewed 345 times

[Beany]

Also, remember the neighbour who's contractor dug up the street and cut off my internet for a week?

....Yeah, guess who's got an SDS drill and is drilling dozens of holes up on the 1st floor, and guess exactly where all that dust is blowing in big, thick clouds rather than being collected by a vacuum dust bag or owt?

So yeah, no point going overboard

[V8Granite]

Random almighty misfire on the Clio.

It’s very French.

I also have a small exhaust leak, traced it to where the centre box hits the odd speed bump as it’s rather low.

Still loving it!!!

Dave!

[Beany]

Also, remember the neighbour who's contractor dug up the street and cut off my internet for a week?

....Yeah, guess who's got an SDS drill and is drilling dozens of holes up on the 1st floor, and guess exactly where all that dust is blowing in big, thick clouds rather than being collected by a vacuum dust bag or owt?

So yeah, no point going overboard

Figured it was a decent excuse to test whether the fancy pants ceramic spray thing would help with this. Last time it happened, I had to spend about eight quid at the jetwash as I had to go over the car twice with the horrid foam brush to get the clagged up dust off the paint.

Before:




Four mins of jetwash time (three mins use), a quick run over with the cheap drying towel - not a claggy streak in sight, only about five minutes in total, and...

After:




Obviously driving down to the jetwash the day after I'd washed it is a bit extreme, but useful to know that if the dust (and pollen) come down again, and my neighbour has his jetwash out, I can bribe him with beer to give the car a quick splash and it'll be decent. And the £14 bottle of spray stuff has saved me some £5 in jetwash time, and a lot of cursing.

So that's handy.

Been a while since I've had a car that had a decently slick finish to it, really does make these things easier.

[Sundayjumper]

The sun was shining and the car looked nice so I took a photo.

IMG_4421.jpeg (124.12 KiB) Viewed 241 times

Then I got started on the rear suspension. Hands up who here did something really stupid this afternoon and had to use a Hi-Lift jack to recover their sports car ?

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I had set the QuickJack, lifted the car just enough to get the rear wheels off, then hit the down button instead of up and dropped it almost onto the ground. D’oh. Because of the geometry of the jack it won’t lift any real load from “zero”. The jack was covering the jacking points and the undertray covers everything else so I had to lift from above with a strap onto the rear crossmember. Only a short way, until the jack had some leverage. Sketchy. But it worked.

And then I could get on with the actual job.

The rear suspension is almost identical to the front, but now with driveshafts & handbrake calipers to get in the way. Drop links sort of OK. Offside ARB bush quite bad though with a good mm of free movement. The only advisory on last year’s MOT was the nearside shock top bush. And yeah, fair point:

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25 years, 80k miles and it’s quite close to the engine so probably not really surprising. With everything dismantled it was a good time to stop and have dinner. I’ll finish off tomorrow.

[Beany]

Then I got started on the rear suspension. Hands up who here did something really stupid this afternoon and had to use a Hi-Lift jack to recover their sports car ?

I think you can say with some confidence that today, you were likely the only person on earth who did something like that.

[integrale_evo]

Dodged the rain on a couple of evenings last night and attempted to give the Alfa a little polish.

Spent the weekend at a proper car show down at goodwood, where I felt rather out of place given some of the crazy builds other people had taken. Still enjoyed it even if most of the people there were too young to know what an alfasud is

[Rich B]

Partial success on the elise exhaust fix today. the hanger had broken meaning the back box was drooping on one side. it was sitting against the exhaust opening and vibrating on the top of the rear diffuser.

i found a suitable bracket to fix it and put it on today. The exhaust is now nicely supported and sits nicely vertically in the exhaust opening… unfortunately the broken section of the old hanger is (unsurprisingly) exactly where the bracket really needs to sit, so the exhaust isn’t central horizontally in the opening.



i need to grind it off and re-adjust it really, but i CBA until
i get round to replacing the rear diffuser with a less “sticky outy” one.

However, it has in the meantime removed (one) vibration so i’m relatively pleased. i may have one more fiddle with it on saturday just in case i can get it better.