Your fleet running reports

[simon_g]

A clean MOT pass for the nearly 20 year old Stepwagon. And the front suspension advisories from the last two have gone away with no action from me The best kind of MOT day.

And thought I may as well save myself a delivery fee on some solar panels:

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[Delphi]

928 passed its final MOT with flying colours. Not a single advisory.

[PaulJ]

Well done that car/man!

[Sundayjumper]

Not mine; BiL's wife's MINI. 2017 Cooper 1.5 petrol, just under 70k miles. Rough idling. Dealer says VANOS fault and it'll be £2,670.40 to strip it down and confirm

Googling backs up the filter bolt being likely, and other possibilities too, including needing new camshafts

They can afford it fortunately, and like the peace of mind having the main dealer do it. But still. MINI's aren't cheap to run are they ??

[Mito Man]

I don’t know if it’s just because they’re popular so there’s millions of them about but they do seem to have a lot expensive issues.

[Alex88]

Same Mini as ours, and we also had a rough idle problem. Was a surprisingly cheap fix - PCV diaphragm/PCV hose for about £20/£30 or so. I think I also replaced the purge valve. That solved the bad idle.

It was everything else I had done that was expensive!

[Gavster]

I've been enjoying the mechanics 'rate the car brand' series on Instagram and BMW/Mini don't score very well.

[KiwiDave]

86 went in for service last week. Nothing to report other than low rear brake pads and looking at needing two rear tires soon. Will probably swap all four for Michelin PS5 as even though they're not worn down, the tires are getting on in age.

It also had the aircon looked at, which turns out was completely empty. The UV dye that had put in it before was nowhere to be seen (either because the gas had long gone, or because the dye only shows up for so long) so they've re-gassed it and I'll take it to them for the WOF (Warrant of Fitness, our MOT) in November and see if they can spot where the leak is.

Car also behaved suitably irresponsibly the weekend prior on some repeated runs up and down a long gravel driveway to a farmhouse. Pseudo hillclimb basically - was there helping a mate get his 86 track car dialed in a bit. I really would love to do a season of rallying...

[Delphi]

Changed the diff oil in the 928 yesterday. I'd been getting a slight moan at anything over 50mph and rear wheel bearings are absolutely solid plus, directional changes made no difference to the noise. Looking at the oil I drained out, it could well have been the oil it left the factory with. There were no shavings or filings on the magnets, so I'm guessing there's nothing seriously wrong. It doesn't help that Porsche don't have an official schedule for changing diff oil. I'll keep an eye (and an ear) on it over the next few weeks.

[mik]

Small detail added to the Caterham

How you doing with it another month in?

(And does nobody do e-start videos any more? )

[speedingfine]

Small detail added to the Caterham

How you doing with it another month in?

(And does nobody do e-start videos any more? )

I'm sure it's got a diff, you really want to do a donut video if you've got a 7

[John]

Small detail added to the Caterham

How you doing with it another month in?

(And does nobody do e-start videos any more? )

Ah yes e-start, totally forgot about that

Loving the Caterham and it's nice to have a car again that you just want to take out for a drive. On Monday I did 58 miles around the Peak District and last week headed out to the Lincolnshire wolds. It does seem to be spray tar and chippings on the road season though and let motorists flatten it, bastards

I know I've mentioned it before but out of the silly and unusual cars I've owned the Caterham gets the most attention by far, people seem to love it

[Jimexpl]

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The Berlingo decided it wanted one fewer cylinders today as my engineer came to work and has lost all compression on one. You roll the dice with these puretech engines and despite giving this one a major service and belt change as soon as I bought it, we still have a dead van 15,000 miles later (now on about 110k).
Need to decide whether I go through the hassle of buying a used engine and sell it as a running vehicle or sell as is.
Sad really. It used to drive well, the petrol was ideal for central London use (no diesel parking surcharges) without the hassle of my engineer needing to frequently charge when he lives 45 miles away.

VW Caddy Maxi Hybrids are reasonable value at the moment, and seem to be in stock, so I'll probably get one on a two year lease on Monday.

[Jobbo]

I have no idea what engine that would have - still my default assumption would be a non-turbo 1.9 diesel

[V8Granite]

I'm sure there was quite a selection of petrol Kangoos for sale at one point converted to LPG.

It looks a fair bit smaller than what you have though.

Dave!

[Beany]

Ahem, haven't used the car for a couple of weeks, and behold, the battery is shagged.

Jump start (from a Nissan Cube of all things) got it running but the battery just ain't taking a charge properly. Pretty sure the alternator is OK (no reason to suspect it at least) but the battery was changed a few years before I got the car, so if it's been lightly used all that time (and I've been lightly using it too) then not a shock that the batterys ability to hold a charge has decided to leave the chat. Obviously being parked on the street means no trickle charge options.

Let it idle with a few blips every so often for 30 mins after the jump, then took it for a run around the block, and voltage fluctuations were making the traction control module unhappy (flashing lights) as the voltage when from 11 to 14v when booting it, when it should be around 13-14 when running, always. That's basically the death knell for a battery on a BMW of this generation.

£120 on Tayna for a Bosch S5 AGM battery should sort it out. AGM should be a bit better at handling lighter use, although not a magic bullet - I'll just have to use the car more.

Got a fancy Clarke reconditioning battery charger so I'll probably see if that helps it, but if it's overly sulphated then it's just fucked - my neighbour might have a use for it though, so if it can be brought back to being vaguely useful as a power source (but not trusted to run a car) then I'll let him have it. He has a tweeked V70R he's bringing back to life soon, so it might be useful as a standby battery or something while he works on that (and lets me hand him tools and drink his coffee)

So that was a fun Saturday morning.

[MikeHunt]

Had the Z4 mapped and the OPF removed. 431bhp and 633Nm, which feels about right for what I wanted mechanical sympathy to the gearbox and clutch rather than chasing numbers.

The OPF removal hasn’t made it massively louder, just deeper and more sporty, with a few more pops on the overrun, very much OEM+ rather than antisocial. The extra power doesn’t massively change the character of the car, at normal speeds it still feels very factory, but foot down towards the redline and theres noticeably more urgency. The dyno backs that up too, with peak power moving from around 500rpm to just shy of 6k.

Basically the car BMW would have built if they had been allowed to finish the job without the rulebook getting in the way.

[jamcg]

Back from our trip to Dorset from our home in Teesside. Had a couple of strategic £30 travelodge rooms booked to break up the drive there and back, with the wife not driving. My car has the earlier, tighter recaro seats rather than the more armchair like Ford performance seats, but I find them really comfortable, even as a bigger bloke- they were a dream, no aches or pains at all

Travelled a total of 814 miles, with an overall average of 41.2mpg

[Matty]

Had the Z4 mapped and the OPF removed. 431bhp and 633Nm, which feels about right for what I wanted mechanical sympathy to the gearbox and clutch rather than chasing numbers.

Is that up from 360ish? It's a decent bump. Out of interest, did you feel it was lacking before, or is this just the fact the gains Vs cost means its rude not to?

[Sundayjumper]

118d headlight. There’s a spot on the top edge where it’s clear water collects & sits. I reckon that’s where it’s getting in. And judging by the state of this LED module, it’s been doing it quite a while.

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I’ve cleaned it up & drizzled a whole load of super glue along the top where the black & clear bits join. Fingers crossed that does the trick.