inconsistant

In mid September 1993 I bought my first car, a low mileage, one elderly owner from new and only ever used to pop down the shops once a week for years 1977 Mini Clubman Estate from Tolworth for £700 and drove it back the 30 odd miles to home in NE Kent along the southern bit of the M25. That wasn't it though. A few days later, after a quick check over by the local garage I popped as many of my personal belongings as I could fit into it, strapped my bike to the roof and headed north to start a course at University. In Aberdeen.

^^^ No likey, no lighty!

This. We all know what's supposed to go there between the wing and the headlights, you can't fool us that it was meant to be like that and you didn't have a last minute change of plan for the headlights/indicators when you'd already made the tooling for the bodywork.

We spent most of the 4 years of Mini ownership wondering what the arrow in the fuel gauge was there for, and finally worked it out about a month before we got rid of it. Fortunately both cars now are the drivers side, and yes both are opposite side to the exhaust pipe.

Great stuff! Ive struggled with decent chod spotting in Switzerland, but then our visits have always been to the rural alps rather than city streets. Usually loads of Justys and the odd 4wd Corollas and Golfs. They have very strict regulations on cars once they’re more than a few years old so its no surprise to see all your chods are in great condition and being used. Its very rare, probably impossible to run an old banger in Switzerland.

Crikey. That's some challenging reading.

I can't understand how, despite logging on to Autoshite every day to have a look for exciting new stuff I keep missing awesome threads like this one, and GarethJ's Celica thread until they are several weeks old and several pages long. I think I have to accept that I'm struggling with the new Autoshite layout. Anyway, nice job Egg & Rob. Brown over brown shows you made all the right life choices. The exterior brown and the interior brown don't really complaint each other to my (brown) eye, but I think it's all the better for it.

Another update to add that we made it back home from Scotch hols after doing a total of 1778.1 miles in 2 weeks, taking the mileage over 215,000. I was going to take a photo of the front showing the coating of millions of dead bugs and beasties covering it but my other half cleaned the car before I got a chance. I think she may have bonded with it, as she never, ever cleans our cars. The car didn’t let us down, but there's now a blot on it’s record, and it was the A/C . On the last day our journey south from Glasgow was 8 hours on a rather hot day, about 33C outside. I’ve already mentioned the fan sticking on as a known problem when we bought it, but usually only happens if you turn the A/C on with the Auto button, or one of the 3 below it to direct air to top middle or feet. If we use the window desist button or press A/C on and then turn up the fan it's OK. Even if it does stick on full blast after about 15 mins it becomes turn-offable again. I accidentally pressed the auto button as we left Glasgow and the fan started on full power. It stayed on full power (and therefore full noise too) until about Cambridge, 6 hours later. That’s a lot of noise. Unfortunately things got worse after we stopped at Scotch Corner to swap drivers when the fan, still at full power, gradually started increasing the temperature until it was blowing hot air at full blast. So we had several hours of hot noisy driving with all 4 windows down to try to keep cool, which wasn’t the most relaxing journey. Things randomly started working again after Cambridge, we had fan control and cool air again, but the journey was quite unpleasant and uncomfortable indeed. It could be the car naturally objecting to being driven away from its' natural habitat, but I'm assuming it's the control panel that's faulty so I’ve found a replacement A/C front panel on ebay for £20 with the same combo of option button on as ours, my thinking is that if it was the A/C mechanical bits it wouldn’t have started working again, so I’m hoping it’s the control panel. And if it isn’t then it shouldn’t be too much time and money wasted swapping the new one in. If anyone has any other thoughts I'm all ears.

Ive never liked any of the Celicas ever and I’m not going to start liking them now just because you’ve bought one. Nice car well bought though, you’ve def. got a nose for the overlooked and underbudget.

My razor broke and now the blades won't stay on. It's a grin rather than a grump because it's my Gillette Sensor razor that I bought in 1992 and it's more worn out than broken. I've been buying Sensor Excel blades for years because they stopped doing Sensor blades it's that out of date. I've upgraded to a Mach 3 razor so now I've got an unopened pack of 10 Sensor Excel blades that cost £12 and four other unused blades (see below) any one want them for £10 posted? Send me a message if interested.

Matching dust caps.. (I’m not admitting to collection Scalextric MG Maestros again, I’m sure I’ve already done that in another thread)

Thanks for posting Vulg, I've seen the fat cars before but didn't know the artist and hadn't seen the other stuff.

Thanks for the window tip, didn't work but I've noticed the rubber on the top corner of the window has folded in on itself and is stopping the window from shutting completely so I think it will need a bit of fiddling with when we get home. Anyway, another geographical update... the Dark Beastie made it even further north, to this gorgeous bit of north east Scotland, so that's just over 850 miles since leaving home. Time for some economy calculations: we managed 700 miles on a tank of diesel. The in-car trip computer said we'd averaged 54mpg over a tank full which I thought was a bit chinny-reckon so working out miles from brim to brim I made it 45mpg exactly. That’s quite a big difference, not just a bit of manufacturers optimism, more like blatant lying, naughty Volvo. But 45mpg is still pretty good though for a big heavy car full of people and spare pants and buckets and spades and whisky and stuff and only about 2-3 mpg less than the v40 which would do about 47-48mpg over that sort of journey so I’m still pretty impressed. When we were driving in torrential rain from Edinburgh to Aberdeen I was in the passenger seat barefoot and noticed that the passenger footwell was quite wet. I had a feel and a sniff of fingers and it smelled of coolant so I was a bit anxious that it was coolant leaking and we were going to break down in really awful weather so I kept one eye on the map and one eye on the engine temperature. It was fine so the next morning I bought some coolant anticipating needing to top it up but it was still the same level as when we left. I assume then that the stormy weather was finding it’s way in somehow and because the carpets still had a bit of dried coolant from previous leaks the wet carpets still smelled a bit of it. So a nice relief but should probably look to see where it might be coming in (maybe the scuttle panel, or through the pollen filter and dripping from there?) and seal it before the winter. Time to give the car a rest before the return journey and enjoy the awesome beaches and peace & quiet you only find on the edge of a continent.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MG-Maestro-2-0-efi/123866908957?hash=item1cd70b091d:g:SBcAAOSwLkFdKzQg £2500