Your fleet running reports

[Delphi]

928 is getting a ceramic coat tomorrow.

Noticed the passenger seat would move backwards, but not forwards so I ordered a new switch. Problem was how to move the seat forward to reveal the rear seat bolts. No problem - Porsche have thought of that and provided a 5mm allen bolt that you can use to manually wind the seat back and forth. Unfortunately, Porsche also dictated that the gears that this bolt operates should be made of cheese and I ended up with a small pile of white plastic gear teeth on the carpet. Luckily, the wires on the motor that controls forward and back motion are just accessible, so I swapped them around and could then move the seat forward by pressing the 'back' button.

928 electric seats are very heavy, but I managed to get it out of the car and get the switch swapped without too much difficulty. Got it back in the car, all worked fine (forward, back, height up and down). Decided to try the recline (on the other switch), no dice. Fuck. Ordered another switch (same part number), took the seat back out and when I came to fit the switch I noticed that one of the connectors was different. Ended up fitting a custom connector to splice the end of the old switch onto the new switch and everything worked.

[mik]

Luckily, the wires on the motor that controls forward and back motion are just accessible, so I swapped them around and could then move the seat forward by pressing the 'back' button.

It's so obvious when you read it, but......

[Sundayjumper]

Ooh. The Car Scanner app supports CarPlay. This could be quite cool (for tragic geeks).

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[mik]

Ooh. The Car Scanner app supports CarPlay. This could be quite cool (for tragic geeks).


IMG_4664.jpeg

Ooh - can it show your "dashboard" charts on-screen for live in-car viewing?

[Sundayjumper]

CarPlay is basically phone screen mirroring with knobs on, so I would assume so. I'll try it out later. I'm really meant to be working today, not playing with cars The only thing that might be a downer is if there's a lot of lag from dongle to phone to screen.

[Jobbo]

That could be useful. Normally I just remove apps from Carplay which don't seem to be that useful in a car (Zoom FFS? Brave browser?) But that one does seem very relevant.

[mik]

Evora aircon has been getting decidedly "weaker" each year. I assume the original owner (who had it for 2 years) never had it regassed, and I haven't had it redone in the 9 years I have owned it, so it would appear the strict practice of running it for 20+ minutes at least once a month - year round - in order to keep the seals healthy may indeed have been beneficial

Phoned a mobile dude late morning today, and he was able to fit me in this evening!

Decided that I'd best check where the fill point was before he arrived, and discovered it resides behind the offside front arch liner. In between meetings I decided to jack up that corner and get the wheel off so there was no panic about him missing the jacking pad, and to give him a head start on the job.

Turned up - young bloke. I explained where the access to the fill point was. He nodded slowly and asked me to open the bonnet.

I explained there wasn't a bonnet, only an access hatch, and it didn't give access to the fill point. At which point it clicked with him!

He looked a bit uncertain about removing the wheel arch liner - not helped by the fact that I realised two of the rivets holding on the "mud flap" had rusted to nothing, so the area looked a bit more "fragile" than it should (I have aftermarket stainless mudflap brackets as the oem parts are dogshit, but I assume the rivets used to fit them were not stainless).

I suggested the guy start with mrs mik's E-Tron whilst I move the arch liner on the Evora to provide access. (No current issues with the E-Tron hvac, but it's 4.5years old now and with a 10% discount if you are doing 2 or more cars at the same location -it seemed sensible)

Air coming out of the vents after coolant refresh tested at 6.1 DegC.

I had to drill out the remains of the 2 dead mudflap bracket rivets (what a pain when you are lying down drilling sideways) and pop new ones in.

Went for a short drive and ooooh mama - what a difference!

[Sundayjumper]

Ooh - can it show your "dashboard" charts on-screen for live in-car viewing?

Turns out it’s quite basic - just a straight list of parameters, although there’s lots of them available. I picked a basic list to fit on one page:

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[Beany]

Evora aircon has been getting decidedly "weaker" each year. I assume the original owner (who had it for 2 years) never had it regassed, and I haven't had it redone in the 9 years I have owned it, so it would appear the strict practice of running it for 20+ minutes at least once a month - year round - in order to keep the seals healthy may indeed have been beneficial

I just have the climate control set to 21/AUTO with AC.

It dehumidifies in the months where it's not expressly cooling, and it guarantees the seals won't dry out. It'll still condition the air even if you have the heaters on - really helps in the wetter months when you get in the car in the rain with a soaked jacket etc as the windows don't steam up anything like as much.

[mik]

I just have the climate control set to 21/AUTO with AC.

Fair point - in cars with climate I do the same.

Evora has standard heater controls (fan speed, how hot, direction) plus aircon. Hence it doesnt make sense to have a/c on all the time. I do also use it to dry the air when needed though.

Picture of a library

[Jobbo]

Even without climate control I’ve always used air-con all the time. Turn the heat setting to where you want it, sorted.

[Mito Man]

Same. Even in dumb cars the AC never works continuously. It's cycling on and off.

[mik]

I quite often like windows-down to hear the en-jim. a/c on with windows down feels as silly as central-heating on and windows open at home.

[Sundayjumper]

Speaking of dumb, the 360 doesn't have an "AC" button to turn it on, it has a "STOP" button to turn it off. Which doesn't just turn the AC off, it turns the heat off too. The fan speed control still works but it just blows ambient air regardless of the heater setting.

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[Sundayjumper]

And I'm now obsessed with CarPlay, so I have a single-DIN unit on the way to put in the stooopid-ac car this weekend.

[Beany]

I mean, that's just what you get for buying some shonky italian shitbox, innit? With or without Carplay!

Also, having the windows open with AC is something I've been doing the last few days on occasion. You still get cold air in the face, but you also get to hear yourself bouncing off the rev limiter in tunnels.

Just don't over think it. The difference in power/economy is minimal in GwareddsRealWorldTM.

[Jobbo]

I have the air-con on with the roof off. Did in my previous mk1 MX5s too. It’s nice to have cool air blown at you on a hot day. It really doesn’t make any noticeable difference to your fuel economy even on a low powered car like those.

CarPlay is brilliant and I wouldn’t have a car without it now (Jimny excepted because I tend to use an iPad with Ordnance Survey maps in that). Glad I don’t have as many cars as Steve to try to fit it to

[Sundayjumper]

I’m down to seven. You can’t be far behind these days ?

[Jobbo]

6 including the stepdaughter's Mini which doesn't have an MOT. All but the Mini and Jimny have Carplay built in though. You have more of a challenge to add it to your varied garage.

[Sundayjumper]

Ah, I see ! The i3 already has it factory fitted, and I've just done the Disco. 360 & 996 both take traditional single-DIN units, I have one on the way, I can buy another if it works well. The MINI doesn't have a nice solution. It doesn't have the factory nav screen, there are complete speedo & screen units available but they look a bit nasty and all seem to be in kph. And on the Aston I'm not even sure it's possible, it's from that era of cars not having straightforward DIN openings any more, but also only having a very basic low res screen. If there's some bespoke solution I'll bet it's £££££s just because it's a piddling market.

Which just leaves The Compact, another single-DIN, but as it's an EXTREME RACE CAR it has no radio at the moment and I've no intention of adding one !