Gas Guzzling Money Pits
pointless expenses and cars
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DavPaz wrote:
When I got home, I flipped the transponder out of my broken key with a screwdriver and stuck it in the new one with blu tack. It worked fine.

I did almost the same, but taped the transponder just below the ignition instead.
Blank space where the rev counter should be. How much did they save there?
Grim... wrote:
DavPaz wrote:
When I got home, I flipped the transponder out of my broken key with a screwdriver and stuck it in the new one with blu tack. It worked fine.

I did almost the same, but taped the transponder just below the ignition instead.

Ah, genius.
Lonewolves wrote:
Sir Taxalot wrote:
It seems like a long time since I've seen a key with the remote bits on a separate fob. How quaint.

2002 represent. I don't even have air con.

My Celica key doesn't even have a fob - it's literally just the key ;)

(I have a separate fob for my aftermarket alarm)
GazChap wrote:
Lonewolves wrote:
Sir Taxalot wrote:
It seems like a long time since I've seen a key with the remote bits on a separate fob. How quaint.

2002 represent. I don't even have air con.

My Celica key doesn't even have a fob - it's literally just the key ;)

(I have a separate fob for my aftermarket alarm)

Separate fob eh? That's almost how this discussion began (see pic above).
My window washer low fluid level warning light came on this morning.
I looked at my tires, they seem like they're still pumped up. Annual maintenance check over.

Although actually Mimi's been dropping hints that I should give it the annual wash.
A man comes around MrsA's work and for £15 he washes the outside and vacuums and cleans and polishes the inside. Superb it is.
MaliA wrote:
A man comes around MrsA's work and for £15 he washes the outside and vacuums and cleans and polishes the inside. Superb it is.

*Looks at post*

*looks at picture above*

*looks at post*

It's time.
MaliA wrote:
A man comes around MrsA's work and for £15 he washes the outside and vacuums and cleans and polishes the inside. Superb it is.

I get that for a tenner. Thought the north was meant to be cheap?
MaliA wrote:
Lonewolves wrote:
Sir Taxalot wrote:
It seems like a long time since I've seen a key with the remote bits on a separate fob. How quaint.

2002 represent. I don't even have air con.

No fob.
No air con.
Manual windows.
Code for the radio cassette player on the dashboard due to a faulty earth resetting the ECU every so often.

2006 represent!

Fob.
Air con.
CD Player (until I took it out and replaced it, anyway).
Rev counter.
Everything working except for the window washers being blocked, which I refuse to fix.

1999 represent!
Lonewolves wrote:
MaliA wrote:
A man comes around MrsA's work and for £15 he washes the outside and vacuums and cleans and polishes the inside. Superb it is.

I get that for a tenner. Thought the north was meant to be cheap?


Noted. Her housekeeping monies have been docked accordingly.
Lonewolves wrote:
Separate fob eh? That's almost how this discussion began (see pic above).

Yeah, but my point was that my car didn't even come with a fob :P

You people with your fancypants factory installed alarms/central locking :P
The old Falcon ('95, baby) had broken central locking. Turning the key (no remote, , no fob) in the lock would just result in the nerrrerr-nerrrerr-nerrrerr noise as the car locked then unlock then locked then unlocked itself again. Song just left it unlocked wherever it was parked.

I was actually a bit sad to see it go, crappy as it was, it had character.
GazChap wrote:
Lonewolves wrote:
Separate fob eh? That's almost how this discussion began (see pic above).

Yeah, but my point was that my car didn't even come with a fob :P

You people with your fancypants factory installed alarms/central locking :P

Remind us what your other car is again?
Just fitted my sweet wind deflectors.

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Daddy-mobile is almost complete. Just need a Mickey Mouse for the aerial and a "Dad's Taxi" sticker.
Ours needs quite an extensive valet. Gotta be said, Mini must have used really good paint on our car because it pretty much gets pooed on all year by our local seagull clan.
I have looked up wind deflectors and am now aware that they are a thing.
Mr Russell wrote:
I have looked up wind deflectors and am now aware that they are a thing.

All the barry boys have them. Can't remember if Z has or not.
Lonewolves wrote:
Mr Russell wrote:
I have looked up wind deflectors and am now aware that they are a thing.

All the barry boys have them. Can't remember if Z has or not.

Looking at the picture a few pages back.... no.

He's not street enough
DavPaz wrote:
Lonewolves wrote:
Mr Russell wrote:
I have looked up wind deflectors and am now aware that they are a thing.

All the barry boys have them. Can't remember if Z has or not.

Looking at the picture a few pages back.... no.

He's not street enough


Holla
Lonewolves wrote:
Mr Russell wrote:
I have looked up wind deflectors and am now aware that they are a thing.

All the barry boys have them. Can't remember if Z has or not.

No, going for stripped back, minimal look.
You got your tow loop attached yet, Rice boy?
My car came with three working transponder keys.
Zardoz wrote:
Lonewolves wrote:
Mr Russell wrote:
I have looked up wind deflectors and am now aware that they are a thing.

All the barry boys have them. Can't remember if Z has or not.

No, going for stripped back, minimal look.
You got your tow loop attached yet, Rice boy?

Racism much? Nah, I like to be OEM+. Getting a new gearknob and surround as it's scratched to fuck (presumably by wedding rings). Got a new Pioneer bluetooth radio to put in, want to get official Type R mats, rebadge the rear as the Type R logo is not in a great state and that's about it.

Then it'll be new tyres as it's got some gash budget jobbies on at the moment.
Lonewolves wrote:
Getting a new gearknob and surround as it's scratched to fuck (presumably by wedding rings).


Those selfish married pricks. Scratching up your shit before it was your shit.

Down with matrimony!

I'm going to go and find you a new one on Google...
Well, they were mostly penises. Don't Google them.

Anyway, found you this
Lonewolves wrote:
Zardoz wrote:
Lonewolves wrote:
Mr Russell wrote:
I have looked up wind deflectors and am now aware that they are a thing.

All the barry boys have them. Can't remember if Z has or not.

No, going for stripped back, minimal look.
You got your tow loop attached yet, Rice boy?

Racism much? Nah, I like to be OEM+. Getting a new gearknob and surround as it's scratched to fuck (presumably by wedding rings). Got a new Pioneer bluetooth radio to put in, want to get official Type R mats, rebadge the rear as the Type R logo is not in a great state and that's about it.

Then it'll be new tyres as it's got some gash budget jobbies on at the moment.

Blimey, yeah, get some decent tyres on!

OEM+, does that mean you'll be taking the stainless steel exhaust off or leaving it on, Baz? ;)
Mimi wrote:
Well, they were mostly penises. Don't Google them.

Anyway, found you this

YHEAEAA
Zardoz wrote:
Lonewolves wrote:
Zardoz wrote:
Lonewolves wrote:
Mr Russell wrote:
I have looked up wind deflectors and am now aware that they are a thing.

All the barry boys have them. Can't remember if Z has or not.

No, going for stripped back, minimal look.
You got your tow loop attached yet, Rice boy?

Racism much? Nah, I like to be OEM+. Getting a new gearknob and surround as it's scratched to fuck (presumably by wedding rings). Got a new Pioneer bluetooth radio to put in, want to get official Type R mats, rebadge the rear as the Type R logo is not in a great state and that's about it.

Then it'll be new tyres as it's got some gash budget jobbies on at the moment.

Blimey, yeah, get some decent tyres on!

OEM+, does that mean you'll be taking the stainless steel exhaust off or leaving it on, Baz? ;)

I'll leave it on. It was a plus considering the OEM exhausts rot to fuck. Although with the cat error code maybe not…
Is it a cat back that's on? Or is the whole exhaust system new? Might be still covered by warranty?
Zardoz wrote:
Is it a cat back that's on? Or is the whole exhaust system new? Might be still covered by warranty?

I'll see what the knob heads say first. It might just be a sensor. I have the exhaust warranty so will check it out in due course.
The outer 'skin' of my backbox is largely non existent. It's part of the original exhaust system and still working though which isn't bad for a 13 year old car close to 100k.

I'll get a new one when it falls off.
Zardoz wrote:
The outer 'skin' of my backbox is largely non existent.


Zardoz wrote:
It's part of the original exhaust system and still working


Zardoz wrote:
isn't bad for a 13 year old


Zardoz wrote:
I'll get a new one when it falls off.


TITLE MULTIBALL
You've got a twisted imagination.
Zardoz wrote:
You've got a twisted imagination.

Is the title of the review of your sex tape.
Zardoz wrote:
You've got a twisted imagination.

Coming from you, that's quite the honour.

And yes, I know.
My Dension 500S BT is now working properly, which is to say, not very well.

Went back to the auto-electrical place on Wednesday, the guy apologised and said he'd wired it up to what he thought was constant power but actually wasn't, something about how my car maintains the electrics for a couple of minutes after the key is removed I believe. He said he's wired it straight to the fuse box now. Took him another half day, after the full day that the original installation took. (He's sited the unit inside the dashboard somewhere so he has to dismantle quite a lot of the car.)

Anyway, I bought a 250GB hard drive off Amazon for cheap, loaded it up with ALL THE MUSIC and lashed it up to the Dension. It does now remember where it's up to from turning the car off to turning it on again, but this has brought up some remarkable shortcomings with the UI and generally how it interfaces with a large collection of MP3s.

In short, none of the options such as ARTIST/ALBUM/SONGS/FILES or anything else really work worth shit, for example, even in basic 'FILES' mode you have to drill down to the folder you want using just two fucking buttons on the head unit (track back and forward for moving through menu items, and a long press on the same buttons to move 'in' or 'out' of the menu hierarchy or select an option at the bottom of it), which would be OK if it actually went to the next folder when it gets to the end of the one it's on, but no, it just goes back to the start of the folder, which necessitates clunking around in the horrible UI again to choose another, which isn't good when you're, y'know, driving over the mountain at 80mph.

ARTISTS is crap because it pulls back every artist from every MP3 tag on the entire drive, so of course with all the compilation albums on there your list of artists is massive, and it only loads in 30 items at a time which you have to scroll through, and then there's a pause when it loads in the next 30.

ALBUMS/SONGS have similar issues, and again it only loads in 30 items at a time which you have to scroll through, and then there's a pause when it loads in the next 30.

I appreciate that pretty much all of this is down to how it's basically an emulated CD changer, so for example the FILES crappiness is because the head unit thinks it's playing CD1 in the changer, it thinks CDs 2-5 are empty, and CD6 is where the Dension hacks in its menu and settings, so when 'CD1' finishes (i.e. a folder on the hard drive') it thinks there are no other CDs in the changer so it goes back to the start of 'CD1' (i.e. the same fucking folder again).

The 30 items at a time is a Mercedes limitation as well, the Dension instructions make explicit reference to this, I guess there's a limit to how much hackery they can do to get it working.

In the end the only option I could find that worked acceptably was to do a one-folder deep collection of albums on the hard drive (i.e. one folder per album on the root of the drive, nothing nested), and then just use the Dension's PLAY ALL option which does then indeed appear to start right at the start, and move through the folders on the drive in order. I've had to be very careful though to only put stuff on there that I'll want to listen to at any time, as in PLAY ALL there's no way to do folder selection, it's just track backwards or forwards.

I've got the S7 bluetoothed up to it, that works alright and maintains all the proper Mercedes controls like the steering wheel buttons, and there's a decent mic been fitted as part of the Dension installation. It also mutes the music and pauses it whilst you're on a call, then resumes the music correctly when the call ends, stuff like that.

Overall it works, but it's so hobbled by the limitations of having to work within a semi-hacked Mercedes eco-system that has no idea whatsoever what USB is, that the PLAY ALL solution will have to do. (For example, when you're playing an MP3 DVD from the Mercedes' own standard head unit, you can get a proper folder list and scroll through it with the cursor keys on the head unit, but because the Dension is an emulated CD changer, there's no concept of a folder list on a CD, so you lose the nice folder list and instead have to use the horrible system with the two buttons that they've come up with.)

In summary, would definitely not recommend to anyone else, at over £500 including installation, pretty wanky. On one level I'm very impressed they've made something that works at all, but the compromises in usability mean it's just not worth it IMO.

Still, it's in now, so whatever.
Went past the 100,000 mile mark in my Leon this morning. Here's to the next 100,000!
Zardoz wrote:
Went past the 100,000 mile mark in my Leon this morning. Here's to the next 100,000!

You won't keep it that long!

I've got my Type R back now. I'm glad because they gave me a Suzuki Wagon R as a courtesy car. I thought it was going to topple over every time I took a corner faster than 10mph.

They can't do anything about the cat efficiency reading apparently. It's because it's an aftermarket exhaust with a sports cat. They did offer to remove the bulb (not joking). :roll:
Lonewolves wrote:
They did offer to remove the bulb (not joking). :roll:


Image
Probably full exhaust system then if the cats been upgraded. Was that light on when you test drove it then?

I still like my car and I know where I'm up to with maintenance on things. Might not see it roll over the 200,000 mile mark but I'll be happy to run it for a few more years yet and make the odd change to it along the way.
Zardoz wrote:
Probably full exhaust system then if the cats been upgraded. Was that light on when you test drove it then?

Yeah it's a full exhaust system. No, the light only came on halfway home. The garage say it didn't come on at all while they had it. Maybe it only happens when it's driven enthusiastically. ;)
Um, tough shit, right? How is it not under warrantee?
Right? It might be aftermarket, but they sold it with it on!
That's very strange about the CEL with an aftermarket exhaust. Usually within a few hours the ECU will make adjustments for it and in theory the light should go out. I remember with my Tiburon whenever I made changes to the engine (of which I made many) I used to have to disconnect the battery, stomp on the brake pedal to discharge the system of power and then reconnect the battery and go out and drive it like a bellend for about 30 mins so the ECU could make adjustments.

Your aftermarket exhaust should take the standard sensors from your car and tbh this shouldn't be happening. Well, not unless the exhaust was some cheap affair or wasn't designed specifically for your car.
Cras wrote:
Right? It might be aftermarket, but they sold it with it on!

I know. I'm tempted to get a second opinion.
Image
Myp's exhaust, yesterday
Look, Troops!

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