Your fleet running reports

[Mito Man]

I’d still buy the £400 socket set. Brake even after the first time. See what I did there

I saw a short on this cowboy garage that charged $8000 for pads and discs on a Hellcat. Then they tried to justify the cost. Half of it was for the pretty ordinary steel discs and pads (don’t believe they paid $4000 for them) and then they justified the $4000 of labour as being $300 for the tech, $300 for the shop as profit and the rest as running costs and taxes

[mik]

Modern cars are (I suspect intentionally) difficult to work on. Apparently, many manufacturers are fitting security bolts to things like brake calipers so you need a custom socket set at £400 to be able to do them. Why let customers DIY their brakes for £100 when you can bend them over to the tune of £700 for the same job.

Like the 7-point specialist socket I had* to buy to remove the E-Tron front calipers?



* I realised after purchasing that I could have removed the conventional hex caliper carrier bolts, and removed the caliper still-attached to those, but
A. That was a little more fiddly
2. I’d bought the specialist tool, so sure as fuck I was going to use the bastard

[scotta]

I’d still buy the £400 socket set. Brakeeven after the first time. See what I did there

I saw a short on this cowboy garage that charged $8000 for pads and discs on a Hellcat. Then they tried to justify the cost. Half of it was for the pretty ordinary steel discs and pads (don’t believe they paid $4000 for them) and then they justified the $4000 of labour as being $300 for the tech, $300 for the shop as profit and the rest as running costs and taxes

Following The Script...

See what I did there...

[Rich B]

i did a small but very effective job today to neaten up the van. The side bars are just powder coated metal, and when chipped they rust - badly! On the drivers side there was a patch that had spread and was making the whole van look tatty.





Thankfully brand new bars are only £150 delivered so not really worth even trying to repair the old ones. They arrived last week and i’ve just been out to fit them. Luckily i got ones with the exact same fittings as the old ones so i didn’t bother replacing the bracketry which was fine, and aside from one bolt that put up a fight, it was pretty easy and only took about 45 mins.





Massive difference imo.

i have a couple of other bits to do on the van, then it’s onto the Lotus - it needs checking over again after the winter and the decat going back on. It’s a nice day for it!

[Alex88]

Puma ST, reasonably quick, decently practical and easily delivered 46mpg on the way home

Looks great! How are you finding it?

[jamcg]

Puma ST, reasonably quick, decently practical and easily delivered 46mpg on the way home

Looks great! How are you finding it?

Brilliant. Manages the slow stuff around town really well, average mpg really not far away from the old 1l focus. The ride is firm without being overly crashy, and when you get to faster stuff the engine has masses of low down torque, great for motorways and revs keenly if you push it, and it makes quite a nice deep bassy sound for a 3 pot. Seats in this one are Recaro rather than the later Ford performance ones- they’re snug but comfortable

Interior is night and day difference from the post facelift st line hire car I had, every issue I had is something that has come from the facelift. My armrest position is better, physical hvac controls, nothing buried 6 clicks deep on a touchscreen

[Mito Man]

6 Series rear caliper seized on a few days ago

It was properly clamped on, had to hit it for 10 mins with a mallet for it to finally release.
Then had to use an air hammer to extract the piston. But I got to try out the new sandblaster and it came out very nice

After paint and a new piston

Pleased with that, all the text and engraving is still visible on the caliper. Whenever I’ve bought a refurb unit from Pagid they must have been extremely corroded before refinishing as you couldn’t see any text and they had all the sharp edges missing.

[integrale_evo]

The two I bought for the back of the mito a few weeks ago, one looked brand new, the other looked like they must have dragged the castings up off the titanic

[Rich B]

Rat look 320d (it cleans up ok, but it’s got battle scars everywhere!) MOT - flying colours. It’s about 30 miles off the 100k milestone but It still drives beautifully - i think
it was about 40-50k when we bought it 8-9 years ago?

It’s only done 3k miles this year as the van has taken over the family duties, my wife works from home and we walk the boy to and from school.

To be honest, a diesel estate is pretty much the opposite of what we need from the 3rd car, but i can’t see us getting rid of it until it either breaks or Sam turns 17 and we need a car for him to learn in.

[Matty]

But I got to try out the new sandblaster and it came out very nice

I was genuinely suprised how cheap these things were - I was about to reply that surely it's cheaper to pay someone to do it for you....but £100?

[Mito Man]

But I got to try out the new sandblaster and it came out very nice

I was genuinely suprised how cheap these things were - I was about to reply that surely it's cheaper to pay someone to do it for you....but £100?

Double that in my case, the £100 ones are tiny and I need to refurb a lot of my suspension components bit by bit so made sense to go bigger. Don't know what someone would charge but prices are silly here. Can't even find a reasonably priced place to skim the disc on the seized corner.