OV9

How wide are the ickle ones ? My first car was a 2CV, standard tyres were 125. I upgraded them to a whopping 135. You may well laugh, but as a % that's a big difference.

MOT time for the Cayenne today (295/35/21 FWIW). It's been off the road for almost a year due to reasons* and although I've tried to air it regularly I discovered this morning that the nearside corner of the boot is very damp. Nothing in the spare wheel well though so probably not the rear light leaking. And it doesn't have a sunroof so it's not that either. Odd.


* mostly laziness, and lack of actual need to get it sorted, and buying various other stuff was a lot more exciting than fixing what I already had

@integrale_evo at first so thought you had extremely shiney shoes on - then looked closer and realised they are trainers - change of colour looked like a reflection!

Sundayjumper wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 10:32 am MOT time for the Cayenne today...

FAIL !!!

Knackered propshaft centre bearing. I knew it was occasionally knocking a bit and I have actually got a replacement in stock already. I've just not got around to it as it's an absolute arse of a job crawling around under the car.

That's my Saturday sorted out then

From memory the metro ones are massive 155 65 13, x5 are 315 35 20

integrale_evo wrote: Sun Mar 26, 2023 10:32 pm The alpina B7 is a thing isn’t it? And the other three letters aren’t horrible. Might actually be worth a few quid if you can be bothered.

"B7" is also the code for the 2004-2007 Audi A4 & the 2011-2015 VW Passat. So I've taken a chance and it's now up for sale. If it sells and covers the £80 retention plus some petrol money on top I'll be happy.

A busy day at work was punctuated by a 'car alarm activated' alert on the tesla app. Mangaged to get to the multi-storey about 20 minutes later to discover someone had driven across the front right of my car as they turned too tightly out of their parking space. Fortunately left details so insurance will sort out the dented wing and scratched/bent bumper. It still drives but a pain in the arse nontheless.

What's interesting is how much you get out of insurance for this stuff. Appointment at the body shop, car collected and taken there, rental car delivered to your door (of equivalent type). No wonder insurance is expensive!

I’m on a frikkin’ roll ! Cayenne up in the air and old propshaft off in 45 mins This, according to the internet, is a massive job that takes hours. The bearing is totally shot. Perfectly fair to fail the MOT for that.


Big shout out to my impact drivers here. The little Sealey one is a new addition to my fleet and it’s brill. Compact and easy to handle. It wouldn’t touch the big bolts either end of the prop but on all the brackets etc. it buzzed them off no problem. It seems to spin much faster than the DeWalt.

I need to do the prob locating bush on the x5, just the little one in the end where is sits on the transfer box output.

Access is good, I’m just too lazy and the weather’s miserable here

Weather was horrendous here yesterday, decent today but the ground is pretty wet. I have a soggy bottom.

As for lazy - I’ll have to check when I bought the new prop, but it must be 18+ months ago

Edit - that was easier than I expected. It was 7th March 2021. Over two years ago.

Explosive Newt wrote: Sat Apr 01, 2023 10:59 am A busy day at work was punctuated by a 'car alarm activated' alert on the tesla app. Mangaged to get to the multi-storey about 20 minutes later to discover someone had driven across the front right of my car as they turned too tightly out of their parking space. Fortunately left details so insurance will sort out the dented wing and scratched/bent bumper. It still drives but a pain in the arse nontheless.

What's interesting is how much you get out of insurance for this stuff. Appointment at the body shop, car collected and taken there, rental car delivered to your door (of equivalent type). No wonder insurance is expensive!

That's a bummer but at least they left their details.

Doesn't Tesla have that thing where it uses the external cameras to record incidents like this?

Sort of an ownership anniversary this month
Fabia - 4 years
Yeti - 8 1/2 years
Swift - 2 1/2 years

Must be the longest I've ever gone not changing a car.

Can anyone recommend an online number plate place? Plates on the Galaxy are looking distinctly tired and the rear one is curving out.

DeskJockey wrote: Sat Apr 01, 2023 3:41 pm Can anyone recommend an online number plate place? Plates on the Galaxy are looking distinctly tired and the rear one is curving out.

I bought plates from these folk recently:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/353664601207


The manufacturer's name is nice and discrete. They don't come with screws / sticky pads so order those separately.

I went to my favourite shop yesterday - Machine Mart - and upgraded my tools a bit.

Bought these suckers for dealing with rusted up/rounded bolts



And this air ratchet in 3/8" and 1/4" sizes



Out on a training ride this morning, but hoping to finally get the rear disks and pads done on the Mondeo this afternoon with the aid of these.

Still not had word from the supplying dealer that they have arranged for the VW dealer in my village to do the Haldex service, another email or phone call on it's way!

Car makes a really weird creak, not quite a knock, from the front, usually under mid acceleration and often on a corner. I believe MQB platforms often do but keen to have someone who know have a go and reassure me it is nothing else.

The ditchfinder tyres do no have rim protectors they are so cheap so at least two of the mint alloys now have wee scuffs on the outside of the rim.

Catch for the passenger side lock for rear seats is stuck in the red/up position despite the seat being locked so will need to get them to look at that too.

Still like the car overall and the shape really works very well for a mid size estate.

Sundayjumper wrote: Sat Apr 01, 2023 4:38 pm

DeskJockey wrote: Sat Apr 01, 2023 3:41 pm Can anyone recommend an online number plate place? Plates on the Galaxy are looking distinctly tired and the rear one is curving out.

I bought plates from these folk recently:

The manufacturer's name is nice and discrete. They don't come with screws / sticky pads so order those separately.

Not running 3D gel hex plates?

DeskJockey wrote: Sat Apr 01, 2023 3:41 pm Can anyone recommend an online number plate place? Plates on the Galaxy are looking distinctly tired and the rear one is curving out.

Similar to this, does anybody have any experience / links to replace old dealer branded plates ? Want to tidy up an old Volvo as the plates are milky and cracked but don't want shiny new non logo'd stuff

Matty wrote: Sun Apr 02, 2023 11:37 am Not running 3D gel hex plates?

I'm not classy enough for that, it's only an old Bentley, not a Rolls Royce !!

A fun day autosoloing at Dalton Barracks, Abingdon.
23rd out of 37th (or out of 40 if you count withdraws). 5th in class. Normally I'd like to finish in the top half but not to worry.
Fairly fine margins though - 44s average per run. If I were 1.5s on average faster, per run, I'd have finished 12th overall and got a trophy for 3rd in class.

Simon wrote: Sat Apr 01, 2023 2:54 pm

Explosive Newt wrote: Sat Apr 01, 2023 10:59 am A busy day at work was punctuated by a 'car alarm activated' alert on the tesla app. Mangaged to get to the multi-storey about 20 minutes later to discover someone had driven across the front right of my car as they turned too tightly out of their parking space. Fortunately left details so insurance will sort out the dented wing and scratched/bent bumper. It still drives but a pain in the arse nontheless.

What's interesting is how much you get out of insurance for this stuff. Appointment at the body shop, car collected and taken there, rental car delivered to your door (of equivalent type). No wonder insurance is expensive!

That's a bummer but at least they left their details.

Doesn't Tesla have that thing where it uses the external cameras to record incidents like this?

They do and it did. The cameras are constantly running and if the alarm is triggered it will save the 2 minutes before and 1 minute after the alarm going off. You can download to a USB stick plugged into the glovebox. Would have been useful if there had been any contest over fault but as she already admitted, it's fortunately not necessary.