Car Talk

[Paul]

When I bought the CRV many,  many, many years ago it has a spare set of OE alloys in the boot with Avon winter tyres, plus a full set of unmounted mud pluggers (a bit of a jest that, as although it's all wheel drive it's no real off road vehicle.) Come October of the first year of ownership I duly swapped to the winter tyres and found little if any difference to the Dueller HT all season tyres that were previously fitted. They quickly came back off, and along with the mud pluggers went on ebay and fetched a pretty penny. 

When I bought the new car I asked the dealer about winter tyres and after he stopped laughing he told me not to bother. Not least that as a new set of AMG IV 19s would set you back in excess of five and a half grand it would mean having the tyres mounted and demounted every season he also suggested that a decent all season tyre will perform just as well in wet conditions as a rain tyre, in fact the all seasons Kumho's I use on the Merc are A rated for wet grip, which is better than the Continental Winter Contacts that MB recommend which are only C rated for wet grip he suggested that it was all a bit of a con. 

If snow is a concern then snow socks is the way forward. 

 

[BroadAmbition]

Moving one of my toys back home earlier today

Griff

 

[grendel]

surely that number plate wouldnt be allowed now FFS

[BroadAmbition]

It meant nowt in the early 80’s when I put it on. Nowadays of course it’s kinda cool 

Griff

[FairTmiddlin]

And I reckon that it is worth a pretty penny too!

To someone known as T, as it spells out FFS IT'S T

 

[BroadAmbition]

That’s a very good point. I never thought of that. 
 

Now all I have to do is find a wealthy  ‘T’.  Tyson Fury perhaps?

Griff

[grendel]

you should keep it Charlie, T for Trouble or T'Griff

[BroadAmbition]

There I am only a few days ago driving in Trevor and I get a warning light followed by the computer dash display telling me that the drivers door is open - It most definitely is not, I reckon I would have known / noticed such an issue.  Pulled up.  Open / closed all doors.  Lock and unlock via remote on the key, the drivers and passengers doors both won't lock and the horn sounds to tell me there is a door open - No there isn't.  The load area is however locked - Strange.

Youtube - Yep - there it is.  Apparently these latest model of Transits have an Achilles heel.  The wiring loom between the A frame and the drivers door has as habit of fracturing some of the wires.  It' a common fault and a right awkward job to rectify.

Normally this would have been proper frustrating as Trevor is employed along with myself at least 6 x days a week apart from Sundays when of course repair / service garages are quite rightly shut.

So, the fault has arrived an an opportune time.  Most if not all garages should be shut whilst the country is in this partial lockdown, I gave up car mechanics an age ago.  I have time on my hands so I will give it a go

I have it stripped down ready as of yesterday.  Today I will peel back the flexible rubber protector, identify at least one broken wire, solder a repair, then put the lot back together.  What will be proper awkward is if I have more than one broken wire as they are not colour coded.  That will be a headache 

Griff

 

 

[JanetAnne]

11 minutes ago, BroadAmbition said:

There I am only a few days ago driving in Trevor and I get a warning light followed by the computer dash display telling me that the drivers door is open - It most definitely is not, I reckon I would have known / noticed such an issue.  Pulled up.  Open / closed all doors.  Lock and unlock via remote on the key, the drivers and passengers doors both won't lock and the horn sounds to tell me there is a door open - No there isn't.  The load area is however locked - Strange.

Youtube - Yep - there it is.  Apparently these latest model of Transits have an Achilles heel.  The wiring loom between the A frame and the drivers door has as habit of fracturing some of the wires.  It' a common fault and a right awkward job to rectify.

Normally this would have been proper frustrating as Trevor is employed along with myself at least 6 x days a week apart from Sundays when of course repair / service garages are quite rightly shut.

So, the fault has arrived an an opportune time.  Most if not all garages should be shut whilst the country is in this partial lockdown, I gave up car mechanics an age ago.  I have time on my hands so I will give it a go

I have it stripped down ready as of yesterday.  Today I will peel back the flexible rubber protector, identify at least one broken wire, solder a repair, then put the lot back together.  What will be proper awkward is if I have more than one broken wire as they are not colour coded.  That will be a headache 

Griff

 

 

If you can replace part of the length of the broken wire, soldering in at each end, you won't have an inflexible repair right where you need it to be able to flex...

[BroadAmbition]

Yeah, I kinda worked that one out too.  Thanks for the advice all the same - Shows you are paying attention 

Griff

[BroadAmbition]

Here's the 'Bugler'.  I will check the rest of them of course

Griff

 

[Paul]

The Merc is very similar with many of the wires just white. They no longer carry operating voltage to a device but can bus signals to the control unit which operates that device. So the rear lights for example have just three wires, two thin white and one thick red. The red carries permanent 12v and the two white wires carry command signals from the rear Signal Acquisition Module. The rear light cluster is a sealed unit controled by something akin to, as far as I can work out a raspberry pi.

Whilst rewiring the caravan to the modern 13 pin plug recently I noticed the nearside rear fog light is not working so I plugged the diagnostic machine in and checked the rear SAM and lo and behold there's a fault code - Rear Left Fog Lamp Not Coding, or some such. The problem is that as a sealed unit MB want to replace the whole thing so I have three options.

Let the main dealer replace it a several hundred pounds, 

Send it to a company in wales who will repair it for £40 plus carriage but be without the car for a week or so

Live with it, as it is nearside and so not an MOT issue. 

It does make me wonder why a couple of lads with a soldering iron and a multimeter on a sheep farm in the Brecons can repair this thing when one of the worlds largest, and arguably most technologically advanced motor manufacturers can't.

[BroadAmbition]

There were 3 x more cables getting ready to let go.  In my previous photo you can see the band of cloth tape, the cables fracture right next to the tapes edge or shoulder.  Simple modification here is to remove the tape altogether thereby extending the length that the cable can flex when the door is open / closed.  Anyroadup now to try and put the whole lot back together and then test before I put the inner door panel back on

Griff

[BroadAmbition]

Success.  All done and operational once more

Griff

[ExSurveyor]

4 minutes ago, BroadAmbition said:

Success.  All done and operational once more

Griff

Griff, set up a garage on your drive, they are allowed to stay open.

[keifsmate]

Paul said: It does make me wonder why a couple of lads with a soldering iron and a multimeter on a sheep farm in the Brecons can repair this thing when one of the worlds largest, and arguably most technologically advanced motor manufacturers can't.

The manufacturer no doubt can, but is happier to rip you off for a further £160.

Early '90s I had a 316 Auto BMW Local BMW agent wanted £63 for a set of 5 ignition leads for it. Dealer wasn't impressed when I told him I had recently paid £17 for 5 leads for an Ambassador especially when I told him his leads were not 3 times better!

Chatted with a friend about the problem, he said leave it with me, I know a Bosch dealer (OEM for BMW leads). A week later I had 5 leads and 4 plugs for the Beemer for £25!!

[BroadAmbition]

What to do today?

Trevor - Having researched the relevant quantities on line I will be administering 115ml of ZX1 to the gearbox, this will entail crawling underneath on our block paving but so what, the wx up here is glorious for a change.  20ml to the power steering reservoir and 90ml into the diesel tank.  I treated the engine oil back in August when he arrived.  Then it will be a hand polish of the exterior paintwork including door reveals, glass polish inside and out.  I valeted the cab yesterday.  After that lot it will be emptying, cleaning and sorting out the load area.  I will go on line to find a full set of led lamp replacements including super bright reversing lamps

Griff

[grendel]

well at least you have the kit car, you could strip that down and rebuild it if you ran out of anything else to do.

[BroadAmbition]

well at least you have the kit car, you could strip that down and rebuild it if you ran out of anything else to do.

Nice thought but not possible.  The Dutton Phaeton S3 is not at my location, it's at a mates garage workshop in long term storage about 4 x miles away.  Hardly necessary travel and certainly does not come under 'Essential travel for food / medicine / vital work not possible from home'

Griff

[grendel]

thats a big shame.

[grendel]

at least you will have a good excuse to get it back and into your garage as soon as we are allowed to, ready for the next lockdown episode.

[BroadAmbition]

Slow day yesterday.  Got the ZX1 administered just fine, well sort of fine, it took me well over an hour to find the syringe and flexi tube in my tip of a garage.

Polishing was a disaster.  My chosen car polish is 'Mer'  it is well out of date and I soon realised that it was only fit for the wheelie bin where it now resides.  So, Bro' gave me some Maguires car polish as he said he couldn't get on with it, neither could I. It was proper hard work polishing it off, so hard in fact that some of the residue is still on just the one panel that I tried it on.  I'm now going to have to wash that panel off to get the residue off.

Online - Amazon, a new bottle of Mer should be arriving today - hopefully - bearing in mind the current CV issue.  Although everyday I'm seeing deliveries from Amazon in our manor.  So before that arrives I will get set too and empty the cargo area and give that a clean and sort out

Looking at upgrading all Trevor's lights to LED Autobulbsdirect are a good online site for this kind of thing (Used them before now)  but it will cost a fair few quid and seeing as I'm not earning for the foreseeable that may have to wait

Other news - I have successfully removed Mcafee entirely from this new pc and installed Bitdefender as I have a yearly account with them.  Also now got a free trial using a VPN that too from bitdefender

MrsG is concentrating on interior spring cleaning and also the garden, but we are both attending to our tasks slow time as we have to get through three weeks of this at least

Today as a treat I will get to drive Trevor to a neighbouring village to collect a couple of field shot rabbits.  We won't actually meet up of course, he will leave them at the end of his drive for me to collect.  Rabbit casserole here we come - a treat with red wine to wash it down

Griff

 

[ExSurveyor]

Griff,

Garage next on the list ?

I have done two out of three sheds working on the marathon not a sprint principle.

[BroadAmbition]

The garage is on the list yes, but it isn't next.

I'll have to take a few deep breaths and gird my loins first.  It certainly won't be just a one day job

Tbh - It will probably be last on the list

Griff

[ZimbiIV]

Well my list of jobs to be done is finished!

The list that is, it got too long and went through the shredder.

I feel a whole better now that's done.

paul

Ps if Jill begs for a pen and paper don't give her any.

She's trying to write another list.