LabRat

Heard back from the dealers- the gearbox is fucking fucked M8. They're ordering another box and fitting it once it's here, looking at 3-6 weeks on back order. Fortunately it's all being done under warranty. Then I think it's being sold off before it borks itself again. He's happier with the Laguna.

Yeah, that was my thought at first. Looking closer at it before it went back to the dealers, we're not sure if the recon powershift has shit itself. It seems to act up as it switches gear spools and either stutters/hiccups or looses drive and revs right up before finding a gear (with an almighty bang). The box was reconditioned by Ford and has only done 2k since being fitted. I think Dad will be parting company with it regardless once it's back, he's far happier with the Laguna. To be fair, its a bloody good looking thing for £2k!

We said the same, but Ford's "Master Technician" is adamant that the job was done correctly and that something else is the problem. It's a bloody lovely car, when it all works. There was mutterings about the high pressure fuel pump possibly breaking down, at 54k...

Father_LabRat has been fighting with his Ford Kuga for the last few months. It's a 2014 TDCI AWD 140 powershift, which in a shocking move no-one saw shat out the gearbox. Spend £4500 on a recon box through Ford 2 months ago, had it serviced and the timing belt changed last week at £600. On Monday it starts stuttering when accelerating, which got so bad it was visibly bouncing the car yesterday and throwing transmission faults/limp mode. Ford have predictably said that there's nothing wrong with the recon box and it must be something else, so we'll keep it in and do some investigation, but it could be 2-3 weeks before it gets sorted as the code reader isn't showing anything wrong (Lincolnshire, so no rush for anything here!) He's at his wits end with the damn thing, so did the AS approved option- bought another car. A 2011 Renault Laguna 3 coupe dynamique with the 2.0 DCI 150 engine. 1 giffer owner, 95k miles and full Renault service history for the princely sum of £2000. It's fucking immaculate and drives perfect, even the sat nav still works! (For now, he's well aware of Renault's electrical gremlins) Comes to something when it feels less likely to bankrupt him than the bloody Kuga!

Went to go visiting relatives in the fiat yesterday, first time it's moved for a week or so (we tend to use the Ignis for local stuff) and found this: Some useless fuckwit courier decided to try and swing their van round in a parking spot just big enough to fit a Suzuki Ignis. No note or anything, one of the neighbours spotted them turning and didn't think to the firm or reg numbers. Could be any one of 4/5 different ones that have been this way over Christmas. How the fuck they thought a full size van would fit here, Christ knows! Looks like I'm phoning around body shops/chips away places to sort the scratches and dents out. Fuck knows how much a wheel arch trim will be, thankfully the alloy and tyre are alright. Fucking lovely.

It's been 3 days of hell, but we've finally moved into to our new house. Managed to bag a 70 plate transit from hertz for the move, which was nice. Even nicer was the half tank of diesel in it, so it didn't need filling afterwards! Best bit after years of fighting with dickhead neighbors for parking? Off-road parking! And the 8 bottles of ale and a welcome card from the new landlord are a nice touch too. Even George seems happier (excuse the ratty old settee- it keeps him off the decent one for now! (Going when I can afford a couple of decent armchairs that fit the feel of the place)

On a road trip from Oldham to Skegness to visit the parents. The weapon of choice for a 130 mile run? 2 people, a basset hound and a weekend worth of luggage, with room to spare surprisingly. Though may the Gods have mercy on my spine, cos the suspension certainly won't!

It thrums along merrily upto about 55mph, then the hybrid battery loses charge and the torque drops of sharply. It does seem quite reliant on the generator to give it that bit of extra shove, considering the battery is the size of a couple of AA's! To be brutally honest, I found it a lot less refined than the old 1.2 fire, but I did get 65mpg out of according to the trip computer and it's only done 3000 miles (all of them as a courtesy car, which probably doesn't help!) Finally got the key sorted on the 500x, which is nice. The multiair mapping update is even nicer- smoothed out the turbo response in sport mode so it's less laggy at low revs.

The 500x is back at Fiat for a new key coding in. In the meantime, all 6'2 20 stone of fat lad here is riding around in this mean machine as a courtesy car It's a 1.0 3 cylinder firefly mild hybrid... 3 cylinders, 70bhp and a 0.1kwh battery/motor in the gearbox apparently. Sweet enough to drive round town, but a blast back to Oldham from Rochdale down the a627m has it struggling. Still. Could be worse, the dealers also cover MG, so it could've been an mg3...

After all the fuck about with our landlord selling the house out from under us, we've finally been accepted on another house, subject to appropriate references. (That won't be a problem!) The relief is almost bloody palpable! In car news, the 500x is going back to Fiat on Thursday for a new key coding in under warranty (had to wait a month for the key to be shipped from Italy). The Ignis is still being boringly reliable in the way small Suzuki's are.

Currently, there isn't much in Oldham for rent that will take pets as well, but that's what we're looking to do whilst we try and get a deposit together for either a mortgage or a better rented place. Tbh, I'll be shocked if it sells anytime soon given the current interest rate hike and the area it's in. (It's gone downhill massively in the last year or so) It's doable with a bit of time and plenty of effort, just fucking irritating that the first actual contact we've had with the owner was when he turned up with an estate agent to get a valuation. We currently rent through a 1 man band agency, who did inform us of the visit, but forgot to mention why.

To be blunt, it's a shit situation. The owner has offered to sell the house to us at his full asking price of £150k... Probably didn't help my case when I told him politely to jog on- this house is in desperate need of a full renovation, including boiler replacement and gutters/fascias. Also its in the shit end of Oldham. But mainly, I can't afford it, because the twat put the rent up last Christmas and that's taking all our free cash which would go towards a mortgage deposit.

Oh the joys of private renting. The owner of our current house has died and left it to her grandson, who has now decided that he wants a nicer house and is going to sell both ours and his current houses to fund this. So, this means that we're looking at probably being served our 2 months notice around Christmas if he can't get an investor lined up to take it on. Of course, because we have a dog, no fucker else around here will take us on- he's a 9 year old basset hound and there's no way in hell I'm giving him up- it wouldn't be fair on him or Mrs Labrats mental health. (She's already suffering insomnia and stress at the thought of giving him up and we only found out 2 days ago) I know that it's our fault for not saving a deposit on a mortgage, etc. But at the time, we couldn't afford to and now were trapped by the fucking cost of renting. Still. There's always a tent in a layby I suppose.

Spotted on our chalet site in Chapel St Leonard's Lincolnshire. A 1946 Austin 10 in full oily rag resto condition, apparently it's a daily driver through summer!

Had to take my car back to the dealers for some warrant/recall work- failed engine mount, faulty keyfob and a software update, on a 2016 plate car. This is my courtesy car for the next few days... Feel like I should grow a manbun and get a job cutting hair, but at least it isn't pink! It's supposedly a mild hybrid, but I've not seen anything other than a flashing light when braking. Reckons I'm getting 48mpg round the doors though.

the very definition of a lazy spot- belongs to a Punch and Judy professor doing a performance for the kids at work. Brush painted magnolia for bonus shite points!

Came home from work early yesterday with a blinding migraine, woke up this morning coughing and feeling grim, so did a COVID test to cover my arse and it's positive... Fucking lovely. On the plus side, at least I won't have to fill the car this week!

Had to go to the Post Office delivery depot in Oldham this morning, cos it's Mrs Labrat's 40th today and the postie missed us with one of her presents. The weapon of choice for such a trip? First time I've driven it without Mrs Labrat present (it's still very much her baby) so I took the opportunity to give it a good hoon to see what I thought... It's bloody hilarious- thrives on revs and handles like a go cart, there's something refreshingly old school about it too, despite the tablet in the dash. It's a basic 1.2 16v dualjet job, but goes far better than you would think. I've not laughed like that driving a smol car in a long time. Best bit? Even taking into account a the possibility of a slightly optimistic fuel computer, the Mrs has ran this for 2 weeks so far off a single fill up so it can't be too far wrong... I'm reckoning somewhere around the 40-41mpg round the doors. Mad little thing does closer to 60mpg on a motorway run. TL:DR Fat bloke drives smol japanese car and grins like an idiot.

Unfortunately a rover box won't fit as Saic modified the subframe, starter position and gearbox mounts cos they couldn't get the rights to the PG1 box. The box in an mg6 is a Chinese copy of a 5 speed Toyota box from the 80's, made out of finest chinesium by Shanghai Automotive Gearworks. It usually shits out 3rd gear first and the rest follow suit shortly afterwards... Or if you're really unlucky the synchros go first, then it strips gears. Not helped by the fact that there was a quality control* issue at Longbridge resulting in a lot of them not being filled with oil at assembly. The gearbox is the sole reason that the engine was detuned from 180hp to 160hp- it stripped the cogs for fun at full power. One enterprising (read fucking insane) individual converted his 6 to automatic from a donor ZT, but it takes some pretty impressive bodgery to get the ECU to talk Chinese. Theres a NOS box on the bay for £500 for the terminally brave, or you could play gearbox roulette on the scrap market... Otherwise AliExpress and searching for Roewe 550 will be your only option. Suffice to say, I got pissed off with the constant repairs on mine and bought a nice, reliable Fiat instead!

It was indeed, we took a punt on it- "how bad can it be with 8 months test?" Turns out the answer is grim. Very fucking grim indeed. But it's got her about, which has been the main thing... I'd be tempted to keep it for work, if it was just scruffy, but I can't justify spending the money it needs to get it through a test... Noticed both rear tires are going bald on the inside edge, so something's not well at the back either.

There isn't a thread cos it was bought as a £400 stop gap shed to get her to work and back whilst we sorted the Ssangyong out. Its suffering with rusty rear sills, giffer spray paint on one rear door and a crease in the sill on the passenger side, work gearbox mount, 2 duff lambda sensors, worn clutch and possibly a gearbox idler gear judging by the whine, broken drivers side spring thanks to Oldham's wonderful road network, worn wishbone bushes on both sides and not a straight panel on it... Oh and the Comms 2000 unit is fucked, so the indicators don't self cancel and the fog lights have been bodged into a switch on the dash (rear only, the previous owner couldn't be arsed wiring the front up) It also has a sellotaped key that works the central locking when it can be arsed, and a lovely* stench of fag smoke from the previous owner smoking roll ups in there, along with the foam collapsing in the drivers seat so absolutely no support at all. Still, cartakeback are giving us £450 for it, so it's been 4 months of essentially free motoring for her.

Made it back from darkest Bradford with Mrs_LabRat's new steed, she's still grinning and to be fair it's an absolute hoot to drive for a modern. I want to meet the brave person who shelled out for a towbar on an Ignis, then never bothered to use it... (Apparently it'll tow a tonne, presumably slowly with a lot of noise) The shed of a C4 is going for scrap tomorrow, after a closer look it's really not worth saving- needs way too much work to justify keeping and I wouldn't want to sell it on in the state it's in!

Yeah, the bump was a sub 3mph shunt. The odd thing is, the code is for a communication loss with the rear, but the damage was drivers side front. It was crash repaired by Gemini in Denton, they tried to get the light out and their gear wouldn't even talk to the bloody car! Its all witchcraft and magick to me at the best of times! I'm hopeful with the Ignis- it's only done 30k and full Suzuki service history, so that's a good start!

Ssangyong reckoned that they'd checked the whole system, but it kept throwing a lost communication fault code. I reckon it'll be coming to an auction soon- CoPart have taken it as a trade looking at the invoice. Be a good car if someone can get that damn light out and recondition the back axle.

Rest now, good and faithful servant...