Gas Guzzling Money Pits
pointless expenses and cars
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Well the car got a completely clean bill of health (as you'd expect from a one year old car) apart from the two tyres, total damage came to £545 but £368 of that was tyres. Obviously cheaper tyres are available but (a) They carry those in stock as they're the same as the Focus RS uses (they're also a Ford franchised dealer) and (b) I've never understood putting cheap crappy tyres on nice cars since 100% of your contact to the road is through the tyres.

(They're Michelin Cup Sport 4S tyres, so pretty good rubber.)

Anyway, that should be it for twelve months.
8k miles on tyres! Good work! Were they blueing?
They still had tread left right across the tyres, but not much.

Attachment:
treaders.JPG
You need to pump your tyres up a bit by the look of it.
I'd recommend getting a car with TPMS in future.
I'm not sure tyre pressure will do much for tread depth.
Hearthly wrote:
I'm not sure tyre pressure will do much for tread depth.

Totes! Too hard it'll wear in the middle, too soft it'll wear the outsides although I suspect your edge wear is due to high speed cornering.
No ramp? Need to do welding under the car? Engine crane!
krazywookie wrote:
Hearthly wrote:
I'm not sure tyre pressure will do much for tread depth.

Totes! Too hard it'll wear in the middle, too soft it'll wear the outsides although I suspect your edge wear is due to high speed cornering.


Yes considering my penchant for 'enthusiastic' drives over the mountain (conditions and other traffic permitting), I'm actually pretty happy with 8000 miles.
Another service for the Yaris Hybrid this morning. 26,000 miles in 18 months so far, hasn’t skipped a beat but they’ve spotted a small oil leak on one of the engine covers, so that’ll be sorted under the warranty.

Plus they washed it too, which the other dealership didn’t at my last service.

The dealership had a nice looking Toyota Camry in, was quite a nice place to be inside!
I didn't even know that they still sold Camrys here.
markg wrote:
I didn't even know that they still sold Camrys here.

Apparently the new Camry replaced the Avensis in their model lineup as of April 2019.
MrsG decided that yesterday was a good day to write off her car so today we've been car shopping. Decided upon a mini SUV type of a thing, for practical reasons really. Went to Ford, VW, Renault, Hynundai, Kia, Citroen, Honda, Nissan, Seat, Mini and then saw this on a local forecourt and more than anything we saw in those places we both just fell for it for some reason:

Image

It's just the 2WD petrol one, we don't need a 4x4.

Thing is, it's a Fiat. I've had nothing to do with them for a long time but they always used to be a bit shit and these don't come anywhere near the top of reliability ratings. But I'm thinking that those ratings are all relative and most modern cars are all fairly reliable aren't they? Or is this a horrible mistake?
I bloody love that!
Hope MrsG was ok.
Thanks man, yeah she's fine, a bit shook up for a little while. It wasn't a high speed accident but the insurers didn't even look at it, didn't even have pictures, they just declared it a write off from the description.
That's awesome. You'll never have trouble finding that in a car park :D

Glad Mrs Mark is OK too.
It’ll be fine. I had a Fiat Bravo which was no bother.
Unless I'm meant to be looking at a car in the background, that's not a Fiat.
It’s a Fiat in the same way a Ferrari is a Fiat.

Maybe not quite the same way
Grim... wrote:
Unless I'm meant to be looking at a car in the background, that's not a Fiat.

It’s a Fiat 500 relative with a Jeep badge I think. Which gives some protection as Jeep Jeeps are typically shite.
Grim... wrote:
Unless I'm meant to be looking at a car in the background, that's not a Fiat.

It doesn't wear a Fiat badge but I think it has far more in common with Fiats than it does any other Jeep, their input seems to have been mostly cosmetic.
Grim... wrote:
Unless I'm meant to be looking at a car in the background, that's not a Fiat.


It’s a Fiat platform that was used for the 500L before the Jeep, and it uses Fiat engines.
It looks better as a Jeep though.
I’M A FIAT!

[KLEEK]Glad they’re ok, looked like a fair old whack the Jazz took. [/KLEEK]

What was the Jeep like to drive?
ApplePieOfDestiny wrote:
Grim... wrote:
Unless I'm meant to be looking at a car in the background, that's not a Fiat.

It’s a Fiat 500 relative with a Jeep badge I think. Which gives some protection as Jeep Jeeps are typically shite.

Yes, but (presumably) you get Jeep's customer service.

Jeep are okay, it's all much of a muchness. In the USA Land Rovers are considered hugely unreliable while - of course - the Jeep is widely loved.
It needs a confederate flag on the roof and racing numbers on the sides
I need to get her some Dixie Chicks CDs as a moving in present.
All that black plastic, though. I'm going to be buying trim restorer by the gallon.
markg wrote:
I need to get her some Dixie Chicks CDs as a moving in present.


Love Landslide by them :luv:
Just tell them you got it because of the Superbowl commercial

https://tvline.com/2020/02/02/bill-murr ... ideo-jeep/


Cocking bollock wank, looks like the starter in the Kia has given up the ghost. Awaiting quotes on the cost. Seeing as it's a little dinky car, they can probably borrow an electric motor from an old blender or something to replace it with.
Not covered by the 7 year warranty?
Alas, no. It's a grand 10 years old!
Hopefully not too costly a job then.
There were enough poo-poos from the forum to put me off the Leaf e-Tekna. Which I'm grateful for, as I think I'd been getting carried away with myself, and it's objectively a fuck load of money for a Leaf.

I then started looking at the BMW 330e hybrid, which looks lovely but ultimately more money than I can afford to spend on a car.

I think I basically need to wait until there are more electric cars on the used-car circuit. Paying too much of a premium at the moment.
And then there will be the anxiety of making sure the battery’s in good nick. I’m not looking forward to it, tbh
Just make sure you buy an EV with a Metallica power source, according to their press release :

"Smashing through the boundaries, Lunacy has found me, Cannot stop the battery
Pounding out aggression, Turns into obsession, Cannot kill the battery."
Mr Chonks wrote:
And then there will be the anxiety of making sure the battery’s in good nick. I’m not looking forward to it, tbh

The dashboard just tells you. It's a fuck of a lot easier than checking all of the stuff that might go wrong with an engine.
I got the engine back in and it works! There's a bit of teething, like one of the exhaust gaskets is not in properly and it now won't charge which is pretty annoying. Tbh that might be a wiring problem really, all the wiring is so rotten I'm fighting the urge to rip it all out and do my own. If I do take it out, the dash board and heater are coming with it because they're terrible and I hate them.
I assume you're talking about the Scimitar?
Grim... wrote:
I assume you're talking about the Scimitar?

Correct-o. A reasonable and safe assumption
No idea what make and model this is at Imagine thing for kids to paint
It was a Micra. That's about 4years of paint
It’s with a heavy heart that I’m having to give up on my beloved Seat Leon. She’s done me proud over the years but is letting me down more and more these days. At the point now that not only is she losing coolant through boiling out from reservoir there’s also no heat coming through the heater (last job I did was flushing the matrix which turned out was unblocked anyway).

Been out driving some dreadful examples of used cars this weekend as I need a replacement fast and the best by far that I found within my budget (£3k) is a 3 door Toyota Auris 1.6 VVT-i T3 (£2700) with only 22k! on the clock, so I get that next Saturday. Hardly earth shattering, I know but I just need something reliable for my longer daily commute.

Having a heater will be nice.
Zardoz wrote:
It’s with a heavy heart that I’m having to give up on my beloved Seat Leon. She’s done me proud over the years but is letting me down more and more these days. At the point now that not only is she losing coolant through boiling out from reservoir there’s also no heat coming through the heater (last job I did was flushing the matrix which turned out was unblocked anyway).

Been out driving some dreadful examples of used cars this weekend as I need a replacement fast and the best by far that I found within my budget (£3k) is a 3 door Toyota Auris 1.6 VVT-i T3 (£2700) with only 22k! on the clock, so I get that next Saturday. Hardly earth shattering, I know but I just need something reliable for my longer daily commute.

Having a heater will be nice.


Oh no, how many miles did you coaxe from the Leon in the end?

Will you be giving her a send off? Pushed burning into a canal like a Brexit Viking burial?
Zardoz wrote:
It’s with a heavy heart that I’m having to give up on my beloved Seat Leon. She’s done me proud over the years but is letting me down more and more these days. At the point now that not only is she losing coolant through boiling out from reservoir there’s also no heat coming through the heater (last job I did was flushing the matrix which turned out was unblocked anyway).

Been out driving some dreadful examples of used cars this weekend as I need a replacement fast and the best by far that I found within my budget (£3k) is a 3 door Toyota Auris 1.6 VVT-i T3 (£2700) with only 22k! on the clock, so I get that next Saturday. Hardly earth shattering, I know but I just need something reliable for my longer daily commute.

Having a heater will be nice.

Should be a decent motor. The Civic you went to look at yesterday was no good then?
144,000 miles, think I got it on 77,000?

I’m sad to see her go...
markg wrote:
The Civic you went to look at yesterday was no good then?

The one I mentioned ran poorly and had death trap brakes! Absolutely shocking. They had another that was same engine but much more miles, dead battery, boot full of twigs and a panoramic sunroof with broken blind mechanism... the Auris was tucked away at the other end and I only enquired about it as I was there. Felt solid to drive and was very tidy.
Oops I accidentally wiring.

I also cut most of the dash surround off with a grinder which was satisfying, should now have much better access to the Lucas parts that I'll need to periodically change.
Giphy "abstract expressionism":
https://media3.giphy.com/media/3ohzdStHItDWYIduMg/giphy-loop.mp4
I know some of you have a passing interest in F1, and this story is going viral today about a new piece of tech that Lewis Hamilton has been using this morning during the second day of pre-season testing. Basically, it appears that he can adjust the toe on his front tyres by pushing and pulling on his steering wheel. While braking for a corner, push the steering forward and the wheels go into toe-out configuration, keeping the car more stable during the corner. On corner exit while accelerating pull the steering wheel toward you and the wheels go into neutral toe, putting the entire tyre flat against the track.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/arti ... PCKC4.html
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