OV9

Good cars. I had the GTi (although it was far from being one) and it drove well, was well screwed together and was 100% reliable. Can't go wrong there for a daily driver.

integrale_evo wrote: Sun Jan 27, 2019 6:42 pm Polo 1.4

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts re acc pedal lag compared to a 330

I've had a Pure Audio Highway 600 lying around since May last year (and some 15mm spacers for the rear) - opportunities to fit being slim on the ground these days.

Anyway, the wife buggered off with the little maniac for the day so I took to fitting it. It went as laboriously as expected. Rather than fit (as recommended) to the windscreen I wanted to fit the main antenna to the rear side windows, as it's more discreet. First test was to see if the supplied cabling would be long enough to run it from there to the centre console, where there's an Aux In and 12v supply. I reckoned it would just about work.

So I set to on what I thought would be the most difficult bit (it absolutely fvcking was) which was to get the cabling across from the outer side to the centre console. First thought was to run under the front of the rear bench and then under the carpeting an up inside the console. 14yrs of shit under that rear bench, including a toy car, a lollipop stick, two American coins that had been rolled flat and oval in one of those arcade machines, £1 (old), 1€ and 20p. Oh and a random flashing red/purple LED "thing".



Anyway, that was a total non-starter as, try as I might, I could not get the fecking carpet to lift near the tunnel. So to plan B, which was to head to the B-pillar and then straight across under the seat. Passenger seat out, whole centre console out, tried to get under the carpet again, but even though the floor lifted, the tunnel carpet was stuck solid. Bastard. So I had to take the less than satisfactory approach of running the cabling above the carpet, but under the seat runners. There's nothing to keep the cable to the carpet, so if you wind the seat all the way forward, and then back it will catch the cabling, which is annoying, despite the fact that this will never happen in reality. At least it looked fairly tidy inside the console:



The rear was much more straightforward. Popped the trims off around the bottom of the door opening and simply ran it inside that up the side of the rear seat and up inside the c-pillar trim tot he top of the rear side window (you can't see that well from this photo as the light had started to go.



It's annoyingly obvious (I hate anything that looks non-standard), and I wish I'd blacked out the bright white markings on it at least, but nevermind. You can't see it much from inside due to the rear sunblind kit I have at least. I'll keep the control unit in the centre console as well, out of the way.

It all works fairly well from a quick initial test. Biggest p1sser by far though is that I didn't think at all about disconnecting the seat when I took it out - I just did it. Hence now I have the airbag warning light on. I'll either pick up my brother-in-law's reader and see if I can clear it myself, or I'll pop to the Indy and ask them to clear it.

I might get round to fitting the spacers by Xmas next year

UPDATE

E53 X5 4.8is

I decided I was being lazy not fixing this, so I bought an alternator and fitted it myself. It's a straightforward job made difficult by how close the alternator is to the chassis rail. It was difficult to remove it and twice as difficult to reconnect the wiring and to get it back into the correct place and line the bolts up.



The battery that was fitted didn't seem to want to recharge either. It was a Yuasa silver, which Halfords now offer as their 'premium' range. The problem with them is they're a calcium cell and calcium cells don't like to be completely discharged. Doing so tends to make them scrap. I had it on charge for 3 days and the charger didn't seem able to get it going so I bit the bullet and spent the money on a Bosch AGM battery. The car doesn't need an AGM but from past experience of X5s, they have a lot of systems that rely on a solid battery voltage, so I decided the investment was worth it. It turned up and I fitted it. On an E53 it's hidden in a recess under the boot floor, under the airsuspension tank which is under the space-saver (if the car has one).



As luck would have it the Yuasa then started to take some charge, so after 4 days my smart charger had managed to coax it back into life. Having a large spare battery is useful so it's not the end of the world.

With the new alternator and battery fitted all of the faults the car had displayed before it died on my drive home, were suddenly fixed. It had reported ABS failure, transmission fault, check engine, air suspension inoperative, the stereo and nav had failed and other random glitches. With the voltage restored the faults all cleared as I'd hoped they would.

I then set to restoring the rear lights. I tried every kind of chemical means I could think of to remove the paint including old-fashioned brake cleaner. Some of them worked to a degree but the going was very slow and messy. In the end I settled on the following technique:

- Soaking in brake fluid and using a razor blade to scrape the paint off.



- Wet sanding with various grades of paper on a rotary sander



- Cutting compound on a rotary polisher



- And polishing with plastic polish



It was tedious, laborious stuff but the finished article made the effort worthwhile as they look so much better. Now the lights aren't grey the grey of the car is starting to pop more too and the colour is really growing on me.





Today it's gone to Olly at Owen garages for an oil service and a stamp in the book.

Very impressed with the transformation on the lights, Ste - top work!

Oddness this morning. Was waiting for the car to warm up and demist, so I gave it a couple of prods of the throttle to get the engine working - nothing silly, just wee blips up to 2k.

Which it then carried on doing itself. I gave it a bit more to 'push' past where it was revving to, and it would return to a blip idle.

Turned off, turned on. Problem gone.

How bizarre.

Might just be cold, low battery, etc or something equally stupid but I'll keep an eye out for other strange behaviour.

Could be a dirty (sticking) throttle body...

Simon wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 6:47 pm Could be a dirty (sticking) throttle body...

I'd expect that to hold constant revs though - this felt more like the anti-stall (if you pull away from idle etc) but with higher revs

Although if it were based some kind of predetermined load setup, with no load/clutch I suppose it could get to 2krpm on a blip...

....anyway, it's not recurred since, no fault codes, nothing - so I'm going to take JLs advice:



And just leave it.

Anyway, got a couple of sidelights (muppet LED jobs from Halfrauds) for the MOT, which I sort of remembered was actually due a couple of weeks ago. Oopsy.

Handbrake needs some adjustment too but I might just leave that to the local (to the office - they do a few of our works cars) garage to do, seeing as my brother still has both of our trolley jacks, so it's not like I can do the adjustment meself

No other knocks, bangs or clunks so - tempting fate - this might be the first MOT I've done in a few years that won't cost me £400+

Beany wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 7:54 pm

Simon wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 6:47 pm Could be a dirty (sticking) throttle body...

I'd expect that to hold constant revs though - this felt more like the anti-stall (if you pull away from idle etc) but with higher revs

Watch the Top Gear Africa Special where Clarkson has a 530i Touring.

NotoriousREV wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 8:09 pm Watch...Top Gear.

No.

(I assume sticky TPS caused a similar issue)

Beany wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 8:58 pm

NotoriousREV wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 8:09 pm Watch...Top Gear.

No.

(I assume sticky TPS caused a similar issue)

Not sure if it was sticky but I think it stopped doing it after he hit the throttle body with a rock.

Powaaaaaar

NotoriousREV wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 9:00 pm

Beany wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 8:58 pm

NotoriousREV wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 8:09 pm Watch...Top Gear.

No.

(I assume sticky TPS caused a similar issue)

Not sure if it was sticky but I think it stopped doing it after he hit the throttle body with a rock.

I don't have a rock. Will a copper faced hammer do?

Beany wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 10:12 pm

NotoriousREV wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 9:00 pm

Beany wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 8:58 pm

No.

(I assume sticky TPS caused a similar issue)

Not sure if it was sticky but I think it stopped doing it after he hit the throttle body with a rock.

I don't have a rock. Will a copper faced hammer do?

No. It has to be an African rock.

Beany wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 7:54 pmI'm going to take JLs advice

I don't even remember providing any

JLv3.0 wrote: Tue Jan 29, 2019 7:47 am

Beany wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 7:54 pmI'm going to take JLs advice

I don't even remember providing any

and it can’t be a boost leak?!

JLv3.0 wrote: Tue Jan 29, 2019 7:47 am

Beany wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 7:54 pmI'm going to take JLs advice

I don't even remember providing any

You're constantly telling me not to overthink things and just enjoy it.

So that's what I'm doing. See rabbithole, take a left rather than pile down it (which is genuinely good advice for anxiety, too).

If it's going to be a problem, it'll make itself known more than once. Then I can do the whole Alice thing...

Bloody hell - that's it exactly! Especially the anxiety battle. I've never been so proud

Rich B wrote: Tue Jan 29, 2019 9:08 am

JLv3.0 wrote: Tue Jan 29, 2019 7:47 am

Beany wrote: Mon Jan 28, 2019 7:54 pmI'm going to take JLs advice

I don't even remember providing any

and it can’t be a boost leak?!

Not in this case

JLv3.0 wrote: Tue Jan 29, 2019 9:19 am Bloody hell - that's it exactly! Especially the anxiety battle. I've never been so proud

The silly thing is that I excluded cars from this as they are a hobby/bit of fun and I kind of enjoy going down that troubleshooting rabbithole (whoda thunk it?)

Tricky habit to get out of, that one.