Be Excellent To Each Other

We banned him.

4 reelz?

Yeah. By his request, so he could avoid being tempted to log back in and argue about stuff, and obviously with the offer to unban on request.

Petrol is pricey, innit.

I filled up once every two or three weeks, at the same place each time. Paid 7p more a litre this time!

No idea, I'm diesel now. Hypothetically, if I ever get this car.

The new Porsche SUVs are the best cars they've ever made.

/CaveyBait

What a snowflake needing such special treatment. Just have some self-restraint, man!

Probably for the best. I had to put him on ignore so I wasn't tempted to argue with him anymore. It's a shame as I get on with him well IRL.

I'm going on holiday on Friday and I've got to try and fit a windbreaker in the car to take with us.

Of course, it won't fit as the poles are quite long. Do you reckon it would be safe enough if I tie it to the roof rails on the Nissan Qashqai? We haven't got a roof box or anything that fancy, it's just the standard rails that are fixed on the car. We've only got to travel about 250 miles.

Can you lash it to one of the roof rails with cable ties? Bring a knife to get it off with, obviously.

It would be fine, why wouldn't it? Unless you were planning on lashing it to the roof rails erected.

Ace! I was going to use cable ties... Might have to get some more tomorrow though. I do have rope but my knot tying skills are a bit ropey.

Reef knot at both ends.

Left over right, right over left. Easy.

Zip tie it.

My new Skoda salesperson sent me an email with a link to a video of her sat in front of a superb letting me know my car was built last week and is now on its way over (well, "is waiting", but that was two days ago, by now it should be sitting on the beach in Dover trying to not be set on fire by Theresa May).

Everyone I've shown it to thinks it's a great touch, I think it's a tacky gimmick, but hey, my car is built and they've let me know, so yay!

Helen got an email from her land rover salesperson saying "ring me to come and have a look at your lovely new car and arrange a handover!", but they immediately fucked off on holiday for a week so that's nice, and today some valve caps arrived in the post.

I dunno if that's like a mafia thing, or if we wait long enough eventually we'll have all the bits, or what.

It doesn't actually matter that she's buggered off, bar the principle, as Helen posted the mx5's v5c to update the address literally 2 hours before the email arrived.

Have you accidentally signed up to a PieceWorks car, and you'll get it in 7,000 installments, each with a fascinating magazine, at just £5.99 per edition?

We built a car showroom for "premium brand" cars recently, it's multi franchise so the one-up-manship is ridiculous. A feature light above one of the car display areas costs more than a new Hyundai, and you could buy an Audi R8 for the price of one of the manufacturers branded furniture.

One of the fancy brands is sending over its new 4x4, allegedly. It comes with an optional picnic basket for £20k - again, allegedly.

Naturally, once it's full of fancy cars I'll go back up and have a look.

The tape/aux thing works a treat, by the way! I'm not sure the sound quantity is affected by it anymore than it is by the tinny little door speakers, anyway.

I have the Octavia finally! It still needs some things doing but he'd rather I have it as with the bank holiday and the bereavement I wouldn't have it until late next week, so he's going to call me when the parts arrive and I'll go back with it.

Gosh it's slow, even compared with the Bora.

Wait, what?

Garage man died.

And you tried to buy his car that he no longer needs

Oh yeah! I thought it was someone from his family or something.

Finally sold the Clio cup spoiler I bought five years ago and never resprayed and fitted.

The Post Office and Parcel Force have managed to lose it between them.

Was it insured?

Yes, but it's still annoying.

Easy thing to lose I imagine.

I know I'm used to faster cars and have never really driven a turbo diesel before, but are they meant to struggle on the motorway at 80mph? There's a slight incline between J25 and J26 on the M1 and with my foot down I slowed from 80 to 70.

Is this normal or does it sound like some kind of turbo issue? No way does it feel like 110bhp. More like 70.

My 2ltr turbo diesel is fine at 80 even uphill. Is the turbo working?

No, that’s not right. First off, what trim level do you have?
If it’s a Elegance or L&K it will be the 110bhp engine. Classic or Ambiente will be the 90bhp TDI or a non turbo SDI.
Either way, both should happily cruise at 80 up a slight hill.

Sounds like you could have a boost leak, or sticking vanes on the turbo, faulty N75 valve or a faulty MAF all of which will cause a lack of power.
Reading fault codes will point you in the right direction.

I had a 110bhp Octavia and you should feel a nice big shove of torque if you accelerate to about 1900rpm in second and it shouldn’t feel slow.

Yeah it's the Elegance 110PS version. It's just slow slow slow.

I'll call the garage on Tuesday. Jesus Christ I am not doing well with cars.

I'd also recommend registering on briskoda.net
There's plenty of very knowledgeable people on there, and you might find someone nearby with a code reader that can see if any faults are being logged.

They aren't rocket fast, but they have a big old fashioned TDI surge as the boost comes in and shouldn't feel at all sluggish.

It reminds me of my 1 litre Renault 5.

Sounds like you’ve lost all boost. I’ve been in an SDI and that was sloooooow.

Yeah my dad had a 2001 SDI Classic and said it was very slow. He's now got an 08 plate TDI and says it's a lot faster.

I'll be happy if this is the case as it's too slow for me right now. Like getting up to 40 on my road takes effort.

As mentioned already it shouldn’t feel like that at all Myp. Doesn’t exactly sound like the sticky vanes problem I had as my car would boost happily until it was under heavy load in third then it would trigger limp mode. Get the garage to look into it mate. Hopefully something easy to remedy.

Other common things with these TDi’s are blocked EGR valves and sticking actuator arms.

It's amazing how much the service at a car dealer improves when you're arriving to check over a car and sign the finance, not just make it you're interested.

Half an hour early and I'm being plied with not just tea but loads of free cake.

If only it was my car not Helen's, and we could have it today -they want to inspect the mx5 and hand over tomorrow or Friday for some reason.

My sister's octavia TDI decided to drop a piece of turbo vane into the cat, for some reason. But I'm pretty certain you'd know if that had happened.

Meanwhile, sitting here I get a call from Skoda saying mine's finally reached the port at Embden after being built two weeks ago, so still another 3-4 weeks. Having to drag a car from Solihull to droitwich is apparently a much simpler proposition than from Czech. Who knew!

The Outback failed quite significantly when I took it in for an MOT yesterday, waiting on a quote to get it fixed. (New exhaust, cv joint, anti-roll bar bushing, braking uneven) It's one of those questions of do I pay to get it fixed, or buy something else, i'm leaning towards paying as long as it isn't stupid expensive (i'm hoping for under £700), as better the devil you know! Myp's recent run of bad luck is testament to that.

I was very surprised it passed last year, as I knew it was a bit fucked back then.

Can't really afford to get a new car right this second, so fingers crossed it won't be too expensive.

Did you take your car back to the garage, Myp?

Not yet. I need to ring him today as he's waiting for some parts to fix the door and locking etc. No point taking it in twice.

Yeah, so the Subaru is dead, was going to cost way too much to fix!

The hunt is on for something else...

Oh god

Yeah, not brilliant timing, that's for sure!

Paraphrasing!

"here's your Disco Sport isn't it pretty?!"

"Why is the bonnet covered in scratches? ... Why is everything above the waist covered in scratches, now I look at it? Did someone not use a clean microfibre cloth for the final dust down?"

"Shit, sorry. We'll get that sorted on Monday. Meanwhile, here's how you lift the third row seats in the boot..."

"We ordered a 5 seat, not a 7 seat"

"Fuck"

We weren't bigger dicks about it than they were to us - at no point did they apologise, or accept that their line that a 5 seat auto petrol can't be ordered without the 1800 quid heavy-tow pack is garbage, despite that the salesperson configured it up like that right there on their internal system in front of us in march - eventually reluctantly settling for a rubber boot liner being chucked in.

And actually now I write it down, this goes some way to explaining why the dealer contribution had mysteriously gone up a grand since we last spoke and how it was so easy to get the part ex upped by 15%.

Which is all very lovely, obviously, because this car needs to last a loooong time.

Well, this is exciting, I've put the Outback up on ebay for £1 with no reserve, for spares or repair with a pic of the MOT failure sheet.
Currently it is £156, with 93 views and 19 watchers. Any guesses on where it will end up? One in good condition is worth around £1500ish, mine is very much not in good condition, even without the MOT failure. Fully working I think I could get £1k for it.

I'm going to say it will end at £428.94. The auction has 7 days left to run.

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