Your fleet running reports

[Mito Man]

Always tough selling a BBW!

[speedingfine]

Had taken the day off today to take the Caterham for some fettling at my Preferred Specialist. Either so I could sell it, or so I could take it on some road trips and fall in luurve again. Dog shit and vomit in the dog's crate when we got up this morning soon put paid to that though, thanks Sadie

[Foz]

335d Tourer MOT Yesterday, 55k its done now, no advisories....

Its MOT only expired in September

[mik]

Big towel in car.

Dog in car.

Sorted

[speedingfine]

Big towel in car.

Dog in car.

Sorted

I gave that a millisecond of consideration earlier

If I took the seat out I could hose it out if the worse happened. Not sure the mechanic would relish working on it after witnessing that though We'd be heading back on the train though and cleaning that up could be a much worse prospect

[Sundayjumper]

I finally had a look at The Compact today. Last used for the Popham grass autotest back in September, when it ran absolutely fine, at some point after that it changed its mind. The temp gauge would go right to the max as soon as the ignition was turned on, the engine would spin over normally but wouldn’t fire.

I thought the temp gauge thing was a hint, but unplugging both temp sensors made no difference - if it was one of those then unpluggging should leave the gauge at zero.

Next I rewired the OBC port (an old “I’ll get around to it” job) but couldn’t read the ECU. Things started pointing to an ECU problem

The ECU lives in a compartment in the bulkhead on the passenger side. They sometimes have a tendency to get flooded. So I opened it up and although not actually wet in there it did feel a bit damp. ECU removed and placed on radiator. In the house. Not the car.

Then for fun I opened up the ECU and found clumps of dead spiders inside !!!

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Having now debugged the ECU I’ll leave it overnight and see if it’ll work. The internet seems to think they’re fairly resilient and can often survive being flooded and then dried out.

[John]

They aren't dead, just resting. Sleep well.

[integrale_evo]

Today I discovered an e36 compact / saloon / touring bonnet will fit inside an e36 compact.

Just.

Not sure you’d even get one in a touring without stripping out some of the interior panelling.

[Sundayjumper]

The 7 is off to WBAC on Friday. I’m genuinely sad to see it go.
...
The WBAC quote is £8240 and it feels like that’s not a million miles from what I’d end up getting privately.

Well that was a waste of everyone's time. The guy even started the conversation by saying "you've probably heard bad rumours about us, but they're not true".

It seems the website valuation assumes a 10yo / 128k mile car is in mint showroom condition. After pointing out some stone chips, a couple of light scuffs on the bumper and a 1" kerb mark on one wheel he said he had to phone his manager and came back with an offer of £7048. I said "no thank you" and left. I was expecting some kind of haggling and figured if I cleared £8k it'd just about be OK. But another grand off that ? Nope.

Trying to take some kind of positive from this - I'm glad I tried it so that I have first hand experience of www.webuyanycar.com. I confidently rank www.webuyanycar.com alongside stereotype double glazing salespeople.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Always go in the dark. And preferably when it's raining.

We used one of the rivals who knocked a bit off our 120d because it didn't have a stamp for every 12mo in the service book. He wasn't having any of it that it was on CBS and so was serviced when the car wanted.

Worth giving Evans Halshaw a try?

[Sundayjumper]

Worth giving Evans Halshaw a try?

I just tried their website and it came up with "up to £7,432", plus I'd have to take it to Enfield which is over an hour each way so the same or possibly worse depending how they haggle. At least WBAC was local so I only wasted about 40 mins today.

I'm going to have to deal with the public, aren't I ?

[V8Granite]

Worth giving Evans Halshaw a try?

I just tried their website and it came up with "up to £7,432", plus I'd have to take it to Enfield which is over an hour each way so the same or possibly worse depending how they haggle. At least WBAC was local so I only wasted about 40 mins today.

I'm going to have to deal with the public, aren't I ?

Is your 740D a manual V12 with cheeky badging ?

Dave!

[Sundayjumper]

For £40k I’m sure it could be

[V8Granite]

Any stone chips and it’s worthless though.

I’ll send “my man” to look it over.

Dave!

[KevH18]

EOTR - Mazda 6 2.2 sport

Following two years of unbridled joy... Nah I won't bother.

Was a decent car for the two years I had it. Unfortunately bought it about two months before the first lockdown so didn't really get the use I thought I'd get out of it. Only completed 3 journeys over 150miles each way in it and mostly used in town and it would occasionally tell me it wasn't happy with being used in such a way!

Going to a mate of my brother who'll be using it for longer journeys so will hopefully go on a while past its current 157,500 miles. Bought for £1420, sold for £1500 after reversing into a bollard this morning . Yes, it has parking sensors. No, I wasn't listening to them.

Quick review - fairly comfortable, solid, relatively quick cars.

[DeskJockey]

Which generation was it?

[KevH18]

GH hatch - 62 plate just before the new model.

[DeskJockey]

Used to have a TS2 estate with the 2.2 derv (09). Was an excellent family car and did us 40k+ nearly trouble free miles. Not the most exciting car, but hard to fault.

[KevH18]

It'll probably be the first car where I'll be sad to see it go actually. The others have been falling to bits and were very happy to let them go! Felt like I haven't had the best use out of it but things like the heated seats and Bose stereo have been nice to use.

[Sundayjumper]

740d listed on ebay. Within half an hour I have a demand for my phone number from ebay user "bradford-car-recovery".

You shouldn't stereotype but...... that seems to tick all the boxes of the kind of person I was expecting.