Be Excellent To Each Other

The thing is Mimi I'm not sure what more I could reasonably ask for, at the end of the day it's a ten year old car that has had two 'car' issues since I bought it and one 'other' issue. (I know it sounds like a catalogue of disasters from this thread, but you can actually distil it down to three distinct issues.)

The main 'car' issue was it going into limp mode and admittedly this was a pretty serious one, but it was diagnosed and fixed at the dealer's expense (under 'warranty'), and he gave me a courtesy car for a couple of weeks whilst waiting for the required part to come from Germany. I'd say he didn't have any change out of £1000 overall for that.

The 'other' issue was the Dension aftermarket audio/bluetooth kit being fitted incorrectly, (so it would never remember where it was up to on the hard drive after having been turned off), which was corrected by the guy who installed it at no expense to me, and since then it's been fine.

The remaining 'car' issue is the Parktronic, and yes I've lost count of how many times it's been back for diagnostics and supposed fixes, but at the same time there's never been any quibbling about it being taken back for a further effort to be made. I suppose I could try to insist that he stop sending it to the local specialist place, and instead send it to the main Mercedes dealership and tell them to fix the Parktronic. I imagine the labour bills alone for that could get pretty eye-watering which is perhaps why it's not been done already. (They have replaced three sensors, which cost £100 each, and there's all the time that they've spent on it as well.)

On balance I'm genuinely not that bothered by the whole affair, the dealer I drop the Merc off at is very close to where I work, and they take care of getting it to wherever it needs to go and then back to the dealer for me to collect after work, and they always give it a wash too, which is nice.

The people at the dealership are all very pleasant, we're on first name terms with each other and always have a friendly natter.

I dunno, it's one of those situations that doesn't seem worth getting arsey over, I've had a verbal assurance that they'll continue to work on the Parktronic once the 'warranty' expires (which is now actually, come to think about it, as I got the car on 23rd February), so as long as they honour that I'm content enough to continue as is.

As it stands I have a car that's fully operational apart from a temperamental Parktronic system, when you buy a ten year old car for £10.5K that cost £50K when new, I think it's important to have realistic expectations about things not being entirely perfect - which is where I'm at with it.

That surprises me, dude. I'd be the same if it was a £3K car, but if I'd spent £10K on a car, regardless of how much it was new, I'd expect it to work properly. Parkign sensors are probably quite useful on a car that size, so it's not as if they're a luxury IMO.

Well they are making ongoing efforts to fix the Parktronic so it's not like I can accuse them of trying to wash their hands of it or ignoring the problem, if they refused to make any further efforts to remedy the issue then I suppose things would become rather less friendly.

The Parktronic was an option on the CLS, which is pretty shit considering that the 'cheapest' one was about £45K and it's the size of a small planet, so definitely useful but not standard as you'd expect! Typical German car manufacturer tightarse shenanigans with the extras.

EDIT - Oh yes, the passenger side heated wing mirror stopped heating, they replaced that. So that's four things overall.

Merc is in again today for another Parktronic attempt.

Maybe the three millionth try is the charm!

Rather annoyingly though it means I'll be collecting the car from the centre of Douglas on a roads-closed day as it's a Classic TT race day today, which then means I'll have to crawl down the prom for about 40 minutes as that's the only road that's open up to the north of the island.

Ordinarily I'd be parked at the far end of the prom which is ideal as I can walk quicker than the traffic will be moving.

My DIY door seal replacement appears to be successful.

Next job: Rear wash wiper jet.

Upon collecting the car yesterday after work I was informed that the chap had spent nearly all day on it and the final conclusion is that there's a little rubber seal inset on one of the sensors that's deteriorated and is allowing the sensor to move a bit in its mounting, causing false readings, the system thinks it's errored, and then it intermittently and randomly shuts itself down.

They have ordered one of these seals and when it arrives they'll get it fitted, it'll be a front bumper-off job.

Also, I was told that if this doesn't fix it, the guy is completely out of ideas. Apparently my car is proving to be one of the most troublesome Parktronic issues he's ever worked on - mostly because the car doesn't think there's anything wrong at all, it isn't logging any actual failures or faults for him to pull out of the system with the STAR diagnostics, which is odd because ordinarily I am told that that they have error and fault codes for absolutely everything and thus would always log a fault of some description.

Maybe the fault logging system is broken. Get him to replace that while he's there.

The Parktronic control module says it is feeling fine, but then again, how would it know? Who polices the police?

Was your reply " "?

Well I'll wait until this seal is fitted, and then if the Parktronic is still not working properly, there will be a further conversation to have.

I guess at that point we'd be into the territory of me saying they'll have to just send it to the main Mercedes dealer with an instruction to fix the Parktronic.

I'm willing to put money on the fact that this won't fix it.

Frankly, if after all this time, your mechanic is only now looking at the mechanical holding mechanism for this, I would be very concerned about the ability of him to perform any safety critical work.

Computer says no

You should buy a Rover. It'll have a not broken exhaust tomorrow. £1,100.

I'll take that bet.

crikey. Police impound £250k Lamborghiniylowpolkadotbikini. That's a Rover 25 for every day of the year, £250k.

"He is not believed to be the owner of the car."

Ouch.

I had my car dump all of its coolant the other day. Dropped it off at the garage expecting big money problems and was told it was the temp gauge that was fitted incorrectly at another garage last year and had worked loose.

£28 to diagnose and refit (Phew)

Oh, that's interesting. There's a guy that lives on my road that has a car that looks identical to that, plus two other supercar things, and they make such a roar as they drive up and down. He seems to go in loops so goes riaring up the road, then comes up the same road in the same direction. The thing is, thus road has speed bumps, so he has to pull up tight before the next loud stretch. I can't stand that guy. I would like to just imagine it is him, for a while.

Him at number 15, or further down at 69?

The guy at 15 sounds mean

How's the Parktronic?

Garage just rang me up, booked in for next Tuesday for THE BIG FINAL PUSH to bestow upon my Merc fully operational Parktronic.

I am not massively confident that the proposed solution will do the job, but we'll see....

Is the proposed solution to hire a small person to sit on the rear bumper and go "beep beep beep" ever more frantically as you back into a wall?

Should have bought a Rover 25.

Rover 100 is what you want, they're four times better.

Renewed my car tax last night. After much thought, I decided to take the hit and go for the monthly direct debit option rather than pay the whole lot in one go. Around another tenner on the tax, but that's compensated by the convenience of having a smaller amount trickle out each month. Anyone else do this? Or are you all driving super-efficient cars that are excluded from VED entirely?

I pay monthly, even though I could probably pony up the cash if I needed to. Young me would have torn your arm off for a chance to pay it monthly.

Aye, makes it so much easier. It's also on this car that I finally got tax, MOT, and insurance spread across the year.

I pay monthly. £140 is a fair chunk if you don't *have* to pay in one go. See also: Insurance

I much prefer to do it once per year.

Well, you are married now.

And it... costs slightly less?

Not sure I can extend the metaphor, but I applaud your refrain from 'title'.

Mine is £20 so I do it in one go. Annoyingly my motorbike is about £80 so that's gone monthly.

Plastic primer, colour matched paint and lacquer ordered to have a crack at my bare bumper valances.

Wheel paint for Mrs Z's flakey alloys too. I'll try and remember to take pics before and after.

Title

My VED on the Leaf is (obviously) £0.00 per year.

So it baffles me that DVLA sent me a reminder through the post and made me go on their website to renew it.

I know why they do it, but it's costing them money. Alan Sugar would be most disappointed.

Are those dog guards that clip on to rear headrests ok? I want to pile stuff up to the ceiling of the car.

Which ones clip onto the rear headrests? They're usually fitted behind backseat with extending poles for get the right height.

Makes sure it's got an MOT and insurance, doesn't it?

Oh god I'm seriously looking at CLKs.

Look at this on eBay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/162134687348

Should do the job.

Make sure it has Parktronic.

Just don't pile anything heavy behind it, or if you do don't crash because then it'll remove your head with the force of a thousand elephants.

There are inertial dampeners in the rear seats

Cisgendered Lesbian Kits

Close. Coupé Leicht Kompakt.

Yeah, but I meant specifically sending it through the post. I originally taxed it online with my e-mail address, so why not send the renewal to that and not cost themselves postage money?

Mine is 0 now. But I always paid the full amount for the year - more cost is more cost. Honestly, millenials, crazy kids, etc. etc. In unrelated news, I hope to retire before I'm 50.