Be Excellent To Each Other

I had a good look at one of these close up yesterday as there was one in a public car park, pretty much identical to the one in the pics above (same colour but with different alloys).

They're not really all that to look at, and the C-Class itself is very much a mid-sized saloon proposition, kind of like a 3 series I suppose. (The C-Class being one of the lower end Mercedes offerings, of course.)

Now that I'm noticing the car itself there are loads of 2008-2014 C-Classes around the place, but only a handful of the AMG variant.

I'd love to take a drive in one, but it's not the sort of thing that'll tend to just turn up at a local garage. We do have a couple of those 'car sourcing' companies locally, who work on the basis that they'll source the car and bring it over, with no obligation to buy, so that might be an option.

New wishbone bushes* and wheel alignment tomorrow. Going to shave even more seconds off my work run!

*Same as what is on Audi TT! Cor!

PARKTRONIC NEWS (the last proposed 'fix' did of course not fix it, BTW) - viewtopic.php?p=921465#p921465

So this morning I was up at one of our data centres doing data centre shit. This particular data centre is very close to the car specialist who's allegedly had the Merc loads of times for days on end, so once I'd finished doing the data centre shit, I drove over to the specialist, parked up, walked into his workshop and introduced myself.

The chap was most friendly and forthcoming, and he is indeed very familiar with my car, but it appears that there has been a slight, ahem, 'disconnect' between what the dealer has been telling me the specialist chap has been up to, on how many occasions, and for how long, and what he's actually been up to, on how many occasions, and for how long.

TL:DR version is he's only ever had the car for an hour or two at a time (and certainly never for a day), and what he's basically been doing is diagnosing as best he can in the time he's had, telling the dealer what they need to do to fix it, but the dealer hasn't been doing a very good job of it. He quite openly said this will be because the dealer is trying to save money by getting his workshop guys to do it, as he's quite expensive.

One very interesting snippet of information is that it looks to him like the car has had a bit of respray work done front and rear at some point, not for anything serious more a sort of 'scuff or nudge' than an actual banging into anything else, but when the bumpers have been put back on and the sensors remounted and whatnot - it's not been done 100% right which is why the Parktronic is misfiring all the time. He said it's basically a good system but very sensitive to not being set up completely correctly.

I literally just asked him 'So can you fix it then?' and he was like 'yeah no problem', they (the dealer) just need to get it booked in with him for a full day instead of an ad hoc hour or two when he's got a small amount of time free (he's generally booked up 2-3 weeks in advance), he'll get both bumpers off so he can get to everything easily, properly sort out what needs doing and what bits need replacing, and then they'll need to be ordered, and once the bits arrive he'll need the car back for another day or maybe half day to get the work done, and that'll be it.

I thanked him for his time and said goodbye, returned to town and presented myself at the dealers and gave them an abridged version of the tale, but left in the key point that I'd spoken to the specialist myself and he'd said quite clearly he needs a proper chunk of time with the car to fix it, and that's the only barrier to the job getting done once and for all.

The chap at the dealer said he'd get back to me ASAP, and sure enough within an hour he'd called me back, and the Merc is now booked in for a full day with the specialist on the 24th October.

So it looks like there may yet be a working Parktronic at the end of the tunnel.

It's like one of those multipart questlines in WoW that just seems to go on FOREVER.

I am in Vegas with a convertible V8 Mustang.

The trip out to the Grand Canyon will be nice, once I've got over just how terrifying driving on American roads is.

Audi TT wishbone bushes have made my car really awesome.

We saw a really smart sporty Merc yesterday. It was a bright yellowy orange and The Boy was super excited at seeing 'Bumblebee'.

I was most impressed by the snazzy indicators, a row of orange lights that progressively lit up sideways rather than a simple on/off flashing.




Sweet.... I really like the look of that new Mustang. Perhaps when the kids have grown up a bit more and Lady T is back at work I can schedule in a mid-life crisis and one of those would fit the bill nicely.

Which aspect of American roads are terrifying? I didn't think driving in the states was all that bad, really.

Seen those on some new Audi's too.

There are all kind of funky light situations on cars now, with the above, and also variable intensity brake lights depending on how hard you brake. I believe some cars will also flash both indicators if you do a full in emergency stop.

However, I'm not a big fan of led daylight running lights which are on all the time in the headlights of lots of new cars. Quite like the fact they dim when you indicate, but other than that I think they look poorly implemented on most cars.

My Citroen C5 was doing that the best part of a decade ago. I was overtaking 'enthusiastically' towards a 40 limit (or as enthusiastically as the thing could manage), and some pretty extravagant braking was required to get back down towards 40 as I hit the 40 sign. So much so that the car thought I was doing an emergency stop and put the hazards on.

On a wider note, fucking dreadful car. Leaked like a bastard and about a million things went wrong with it.

(Note C5, not the C6, which I had some years later.)

Yeah, the Mondeo did that... Nine years ago? I forgot when I had it.

It also set them off if you lost it well enough.

I pushed this to something of an extreme today and not even deliberately either, I was late getting home last night so didn't stop to put diesel in when really I should have done, (I was on a promise to quest in WoW with Mrs H and Jnr), as the light had been on for a day and a half already and it had been nagging me on the display about RESERVE FUEL.

Then I had to set off early this morning and had forgotten that the petrol station doesn't open until 7am, so it was shut, and I had to get to work, so with an indicated range of 12 miles, I set off on a 16 mile journey to Douglas, the first four miles of which are up onto the mountain road.

By the time I got to the end of the climb my range was reported as 0 miles (!), when I had 12 miles left to go (!!). It stubbornly stayed at 0 miles for a bit, and then begrudgingly changed to 4 miles where it pretty much stayed for the rest of the journey, it did go up to 8 miles at one point but literally just pressing the accelerator a bit to maintain decent forward momentum would cause that to drop down in real time in front of my eyes. The last leg of the journey is the easiest fuel wise, so once I got to the beginning of the drop into the outskirts of Douglas I felt fairly comfortable I'd make it.

Needless to say I stopped at the first garage I came to, and managed to get 79.1 litres into an 80 litre tank

I don't intend to get that close to the wire again.

Is it actually damaging to an engine any more to get down to the fumes like that? I remember hearing once that all the sediment and bits in the bottom of the tank are more likely to settle there and get sucked up as the tank gets dry, but writing it out now it sounds like rubbish.

Is it actually damaging to an engine any more to get down to the fumes like that? I remember hearing once that all the sediment and bits in the bottom of the tank are more likely to settle there and get sucked up as the tank gets dry, but writing it out now it sounds like rubbish.

Not sure, I know it used to be

Where do you think the fuel pumps from?

The petrol station.

It's bad for the engine to run dry, but as long as there's enough to keep the fuel flowing properly, it makes little difference. You can tell when there's not enough anyway, as the car will start to lurch quite alarmingly.

It is rubbish. The fuel pumps from the bottom of the tank (which, when you think about it, is obvious).


Only in that it stops - it's not going to damage the engine in any way.

Also, engines have fuel filters to get rid of the muck and sediment.

... most of it, anyway.

Another urban myth dispelled

It now appears that both of my Skoda's are affected by the VW emissions issue

When this first hit the news I went on the Skoda website and entered both car VIN numbers and it said there was no issue.

Now they written to me twice (the fist letter was unopened as I thought it was just Spam about new car models etc) saying I have 189 engines and that they are working on something and will be in touch soon.

Not sure what the fix is or how I'm affected really. I have no issues with the cars, but did read in the US that they are tipping billions into this buying back the cars and also paying compensation. For the UK there appears to be nothing.

Don't feel I need compensation for the cars as they are fine, however I'm not sure if the value is affected? We are expecting kid number 2 next year so maybe a chance I will want to trade my wife's estate in against a people carrier.

Anyone have any ideas what the situation is with this?

Not a clue, my car is effected too

I'd definitely get one with fewer engines next.

I wouldn't bother.

There is no downside to not having it done - you won't be paying higher road tax, or have reliability issues, and if you later change your mind you can always opt back in.
If you do get it done, some people are reporting reduced performance and/or economy so you may suffer, and you can't roll it back.

On the 1.6 it's a software update and a little plastic filter in the air intake. For the others it's just a software fix.

You car has already been devalued by this, but VW aren't going to pay any compensation.

A piece of plasterboard fell out the back of a skip lorry yesterday and hit my bumper putting a scratch and a little hole in it, I stopped and watched the lorry driver put his brakes on, think better of it and drive off. Needless to say I executed a perfect J-turn and chased the fucker down (with pregnant wife in car, not amused) and he pulled over, got out admitted guilt and apologised. So we got home, phoned the skip company (Ramsay skip hire) to get them to sort it on their insurance. First they said they could look at it for us to see if we were telling the truth and I'm like nah bro, call your insurance and sort it. He then tells me I'm lying, I can fuck off and hangs up on me. Didn't really know what to do at that point so called the cops, in hindsight this is probably not something they deal with but at the time I thought someone damaged my property then told me to fuck off, it seemed policey. Unbelievably they suggested that a pregnant woman should go alone to the companies workshop, a skip hire company let's not forget it's not like they're a bodyshop or anything, and ask them to repair the damage... seriously. Since then we've called our insurance company who seem to be telling us that we'll probably have to pay for it anyway.

tl:dr if you damage someones car you can tell them to do one and there's apparently nothing they can do about it.

This can't be right can it?

I don't suppose there were any independent witnesses?

you know what the fedex guy was right behind me, I'll try and snag him to get his number

Fuckers. Hope you manage to get hold of the witness.

Seen this sort of thing with skip lorries loads of times. It's like they think it's not their fault when there's shit falling off everywhere because it was someone else who overloaded the skip.

Just heard from a different department at the insurance company saying they can pursue legal action so we've emailed (E-Mailed/electronic mailed/e-mailed/e'mailed) the pictures of the damage and where the board hit the road and so on to them. here's hoping...

It's absolutely something the police should deal with. Not only did the skip lorry driver fail to stop at the scene of an accident, but he failed to secure his load properly.

Law talking guy to the rescue!

Sue them. That is all.







Mind you, sounds like your insurance company is doing something about it now otherwise it'd be reet easy to pursue a small claim for the vehicle repairs.

Also: Hire a skip from them and shit in it.

The irony here being that I just had to drive home from my local bike repair shop, with my bike in the boot of the Leaf completely unsecured and with the boot half open, as I could not manhandle the damn thing in the boot (God knows how I did it before to drive it there) and I couldn't leave the bike there, nor the car. Hnngh.

Front passenger seat reclined all the way back, rear seats down and you can fit a tandem in a ka.

If you cannot remove wheels the loosen stem and turn handlebars ninety degrees

That is not irony

It's 10,000 spoons.

This is the winning solution. We're just waiting now to hear back from insurance, this better not put my premiums up! They really are a bunch of arse holes though and I feel better now other people have said it.

Gah, returned to my car in the NSC car park after badminton this evening and my rear passenger side tyre was as flat as a pancake.

Fortunately the chaps hadn't yet departed in their cars and one of them had some tyre weld. I have neither a spare tyre or tyre weld because that's how I roll*, but I do have an air compressor.

With the tyre weld and air compressor combo we got the tyre reinflated and a quick drive around the car park suggested it might hold alright for the 15 mile drive home, which indeed it did. (I kept my speed to a maximum of 50mph.)

So that'll be a trip to the tyre fitting place in the morning, and of course the tyre is fucked now as you can't repair them once they've had the gunk put in. In fact it'll probably be two new tyres as you're supposed to have matching tread on both sides I believe. And that's if they even have them in stock as the Merc uses a pretty unusual size and the speed rating is high.

How long can you drive on a tyre that's been repaired with tyre weld? Internet opinion seems to offer up everything from 'Oh yeah it'll be fine for the life of the tyre I've done it loads of times' to 'ZOMG EMERGENCY MEASURE ONLY GET THE TYRE CHANGED BEFORE YOUR CAR EXPLODES'.

I'm not sure what the damage to the tyre actually is, we had a look over what we could see with our phone torches (it was dark) but couldn't see anything obvious, I guess it will become clear at the tyre fitting place.

I think tyres aren't going to be cheap for this car though. Pffft.

* Deffo going to start keeping a can of tyre weld in the car, that shit is awesome.

If it doesn't go down I can't think of a reason not to drive on it forever. I certainly did a few thousand miles on the stuff back in the nineties.

Hate to break it to you dude, but this is the Internet too.

You're not *on* the internet, you *are* the internet.

... man.

If it's done fifteen, it'll probably do thirty. When it's done thirty, it'll probably do one hundred. Once it's done that, it'll probably do three hundred. After three hundred, you'll have forgotten.

£200 for a tyre!

And it won't be here until Tuesday.

The man said it 'should' be OK to drive the car around in the meantime but to 'keep an eye on the tyre'. It's got me into work alright at least. Limiting my speed to 55-60mph.

Can be got a bit cheaper online but for the convenience of having it fitted by the shop at the end of the lane I'll just pay the £200.

Amusingly as well as all the usual tyre gubbins, you know like 275/35 R18 these tyres also have an 'MO' on them, which is some sort of Mercedes profile. Opinion is divided on how desirable they are, but it makes sense to match the new tyre with the one on the other side I suppose.

Imagine the man who sells tyres telling you you need new tyres

You're not replacing the pair? Ok

Surprised he didn't insist on 2.

Fucking hell, 200 quid each?!

Will he fill them with air free or is that extra?