Your fleet running reports

[scotta]

Alpine...

Went to the detailer to get teh PPF re-applied on tuesday. He found multiple paintwork defects which after claying and machine polishing are actually under the laquer.

Bodyshop have picked it up from the detailers today to fix. Unsure if i mentioned but when they had it the last time they broke the keyless entry on the drivers door. I put it in to rentec who then discovered they had broken the connector and bodged it by fucking it full of glue. So that in turn broke the switch and bonded it to the door loom. So it needs a door loom and a new switch. Thats been quoted and paid for by the body shop for Rentec to fix. It WAS booked to go there on monday...But since its now going to be at the bodyshop thats not happening.

Its just one thing after another after another with this. The frustrating thing is that the only thing thats actually gone wrong with the car has been a VVT seal since i got it. The rest has been caused by incompetence.

That's really annoying. Sadly that sounds a lot like my experience years ago with Renault dealerships. It's a shame as having to deal with them is what puts me off having an A110. I had one behind me yesterday morning and still have such massive want for one though!

This time its nothing to do with renault or the dealerships. This is the approved bodyshop for repairs. Ive been dealing Directly with Alpine UK.

[Gavin]

Basic 60k service on the S5 this past week. new brake fluid, rear pads, oil filter, cabin filter etc. £540 odd.

At least it didn't need new tyres, as I have no doubt they will need all 4 doing at once!

Emily's Ka was in the week before for anew rad and oil sump, that was almost as much, in two weeks the Mini goes in for service and MOT.

Hopefully a cheap one!

[dan]

Discovered a crack in the gearbox case of the Elise. Unfortunately I can’t remove the gearbox on its own so set about removing the entire engine and gearbox on Friday, stripped the box, replaced the case and got it all back together and back in the car yesterday.


Happy with that.

[Rich B]

Discovered a crack in the gearbox case of the Elise. Unfortunately I can’t remove the gearbox on its own so set about removing the entire engine and gearbox on Friday, stripped the box, replaced the case and got it all back together and back in the car yesterday.


Happy with that.

Presumably it still has pristine bolts throughout, i always find you spend as long as the whole task should take on one or two of the items when dealing with crappy old parts!!

[dan]

Discovered a crack in the gearbox case of the Elise. Unfortunately I can’t remove the gearbox on its own so set about removing the entire engine and gearbox on Friday, stripped the box, replaced the case and got it all back together and back in the car yesterday.


Happy with that.

Presumably it still has pristine bolts throughout, i always find you spend as long as the whole task should take on one or two of the items when dealing with crappy old parts!!

That is the upside of it being virtually brand new, I had the gearbox in pieces 2.5hours after starting

[jamcg]

Is that a standard item or something you’ve lightened?

[dan]

Is that a standard item or something you’ve lightened?

Neither really, its a k20 gearbox case with a Samsonas straight cut dog engagement gear kit inside it, very far from standard.

[Ascender]

Obviously I left the search for winter tyres for the M3 too late as usual so had trouble tracking down stuff in the stock sizes, but managed to get some Michelin Alpin 5's which should be here this week. Bargain at about £400-each each

[jamcg]

One of the really great things about my brain is the ability to remember useless information and completely forget about really important stuff.

So I realised lastnight that my MOT was due to expire…. Today. Oops

Looked on kwikfit and they had a late appointment for a test, great stuff

Passed anyway, advisory for rear pads so will get them sorted. Just need to watch YouTube videos on how to do that with fords electric handbrake now

[JonMad]

Thanks for the reminder, I need to get the Yeti booked in for its MOT from next week.

[Beany]

200 miles in the Z4 Coupe on Monday, another 200 today (there and back, obviously), didn't miss a beat mechanically but it did do something silly with the wipers, which is apparently just a cleanup of contacts to fix so I'll see if I can get that sorted this weekend.

Otherwise, 31mpg door to door (mostly due to caning it off lots of roundabouts in Leeds and on the A43) seems not bad for a 265bhp 3.0 six pot with no turbos to help with part throttle torque etc.

[tim]

Jaguar XF S Portfolio 3.0D string-backed-driving-gloves edition

So 9,000 miles into XF ownership and I have the first real issue. Rear parking sensors/camera is now inop. You get the camera on ok, then after a few seconds the sensors emit a long beeep and the screen goes off with an error message. No error codes on the ECU.

There is a bit of a known issue with the boot wiring loom in these, which is a £95 replacement and 15 mins to swap, but this feels more like a bad sensor to me given the camera does work albeit briefly so not sure I want to spend the money on the off chance just yet.

Not the best weather/time of year to be grubbing around under the rear bumper to try and figure it out. I also discovered it sits (so nicely) too low for my low-profile jack to reach anywhere useful underneath and the jacking point is inside a cutout in the side skirt which will need some kind of adapter thingy to allow a trolley jack to attach so it without crushing it.

Still up to now it's been a magnificent wafty thing and at 40 mpg cheap enough to run.

[Mito Man]

XJ is the same with the jacking point. It’s a bit of a joke for a premium brand that Jaguar couldn’t be bothered to fit an actual jacking point and there’s just a cutout so you can jack on the sill. You just need a slotted jack pad adapter.

[integrale_evo]

Up has a clean new mot. I think only having a month on it was part of the reason it was cheap. Must have put a lot of people off. I knew the previous one had no advisories and it had only done a couple of thousand miles since.

Also now has rear arch liners. Didn’t get a chance to rustproof so just gave it a good clean out and fitted them. Will do it properly in the spring when it warms up a bit. Should keep the worst of the winter crap out anyway.

IMG_7689.jpeg (223.56 KiB) Viewed 44 times

Merc has had some annoying judder / noise under braking for a while. I’d had a quick look at the disks but couldn’t see anything obvious. Was confident it was them. They’re very cheap. First one I removed had some horrible pickup / corrosion on the back. I assume they’re the original 20 year old ones. Car had only done 35k when we got it and I haven’t changed them before.

Pretty straightforward, now much nicer to drive.

IMG_7690.jpeg (330.69 KiB) Viewed 44 times