SierraMikeHotel

Looking at this question from another point of view... I once owned a Volvo S40 (saloon).  I bloody loved it - brilliant car - but totally pointless from a load-lugging point of view, which makes you wonder why it had the Volvo badge on.  I still hope to own a Volvo V40 2.0T one day.

While I owned it I was asked to move a wheelbarrow and I had the embarrassment of borrowing my then-girlfriend's Fiesta to do so.

Just showed this to Mrs H because the familiarity amused me and she said, "I think I called you a wanker, didn't I?"

YES.
 
Ahem. Play it cool.
 
Yes please!

I do like a tautology.

Amusingly this isn't new. The CX Series 2 managed to combine the hard-to-read dipstick markers with an electric level gauge. This gives you a choice between a physical uncertainty as to whether the oil is actually present (especially after an oil change), or an electrical uncertainty. 

I've finally bought my own clippers, and with a bit of assistance from Mrs Egg no longer need to make banter in the barbers or chat about holidays with hairdressers. Ideal. Social interaction is way overrated.

Southern Water are digging up the road directly in front of my drive tomorrow. I won't need to use the car but I also don't want it hit by flying bits of tarmac so I've parked it round the corner.

Every time I go into the kitchen I get a sudden burst of adrenaline when I can't see the car outside the window and think it's been stolen.

I think I might need to leave a Post-It on the blind so I don't have a heart attack when I open it in the morning.

Southern Water are digging up the road directly in front of my drive tomorrow. I won't need to use the car but I also don't want it hit by flying bits of tarmac so I've parked it round the corner.

Every time I go into the kitchen I get a sudden burst of adrenaline when I can't see the car outside the window and think it's been stolen.

I think I might need to leave a Post-It on the blind so I don't have a heart attack when I open it in the morning.

Southern Water are digging up the road directly in front of my drive tomorrow. I won't need to use the car but I also don't want it hit by flying bits of tarmac so I've parked it round the corner.

Every time I go into the kitchen I get a sudden burst of adrenaline when I can't see the car outside the window and think it's been stolen.

I think I might need to leave a Post-It on the blind so I don't have a heart attack when I open it in the morning.

Southern Water are digging up the road directly in front of my drive tomorrow. I won't need to use the car but I also don't want it hit by flying bits of tarmac so I've parked it round the corner.

Every time I go into the kitchen I get a sudden burst of adrenaline when I can't see the car outside the window and think it's been stolen.

I think I might need to leave a Post-It on the blind so I don't have a heart attack when I open it in the morning.

Southern Water are digging up the road directly in front of my drive tomorrow. I won't need to use the car but I also don't want it hit by flying bits of tarmac so I've parked it round the corner.

Every time I go into the kitchen I get a sudden burst of adrenaline when I can't see the car outside the window and think it's been stolen.

I think I might need to leave a Post-It on the blind so I don't have a heart attack when I open it in the morning.

So as you would probably expect, I have spent a significant percentage of today poking around my new* Mercedes.  Had a quick rifle through the paperwork that came with it first thing this morning - there was no V5C but there was an ancient new keeper's section in there - I took it to the post office to see if I could use it to tax the car, but they said it was too old, so I've attached it to a V62 and sent that off instead.  It appears the Merc was originally a Spanish car (there's a driver's handbook in Spanish) and arrived in the UK in 2000.  So it's only* had to endure 20 years of British weather, which might explain why it's still more or less car shaped. 
I went out to where I'd dumped it on the car park after unloading it in the pitch dark last night, to find that I had actually managed to get it more or less into a parking space, which was good.  First task was to give the interior a quick wipe down with some, er, interior wipes, as the seat vinyl and the gearknob had got a bit of mould on them where the car had been standing.  The interior needs a bloody good clean but isn't actually in that bad a condition.  And look - genuine Mercedes floor mats!

 
Then it was time to try and fire it up.  The battery that was on the car was completely dead, but fortunately the big battery I use for jump starting fitted OK, despite the terminals being the other way around.  It's a physically smaller battery but is only 5 AH and 30 CCA down on the battery that was on there, so I thought it'd do the job OK.  And it did - the car took a while to get started, but that was largely due to the fact that it has an old-style starter motor which disengages as soon as the motor tries to fire - if I'd been able to just keep cranking it it'd've got going a lot quicker.  Once it eventually fired up it ran quite happily.  The controls are quite old school - you turn the ignition on with the key, but starting is done via the large round knob below the fuel gauge - pull it out half way to operate the glow plugs, then all the way out to engage the starter.  To turn the engine off you push it all the way in.  In a similar way to the old Saab reverse gear interlock, it won't let you turn the ignition off at the key until the knob is pushed in.

 
I had a play with the electrics, and the only thing I've found so far that doesn't work is the fuel gauge.  Actually that's a lie, it only has one working reversing light.  The wipers initially weren't working but that turned out to just be the fuse - the blades were utterly shagged though so I went to Roys of Wroxham and shelled out £2.99 for a pair of refills, and they work fine now, although they don't self park (a trait shared with the other 1972 cars in my fleet, the 164 and the Renault 6).  Headights, indicators and horn are all present and correct, and the heater seems fairly decent for a car of this age, although as is often the case with diesels it takes a little while to warm up.  A quick check of the battery with the multimeter showed 14v at fast idle, so the alternator is working fine.  I haven't yet worked out how to wash the windscreen however, and I have no idea if the heated rear window works as it was that windy today there was no chance of anything misting up.  It also has power steering (which works now I've put some fluid in it) and central locking, which were a surprise - I didn't think these taxi-spec Mercs were thus equpipped.  The central locking does appear to have a slight vacuum leak as it doesn't work after the car has been left overnight.
Opening the boot revealed a full set of genuine wheel trims.  And some mould.

The dangly wires are for the speakers which have been fitted to the parcel shelf for some long-dead in car entertainment.  The car now has its blanking plate back in its rightful place, which is much better.

 
In what seems to be a fairly common issue with German cars of the 1970s, the accelerator pedal is missing - only the metal bar is left.  I might have to do something about that as from my experience with old BMWs, driving using just the bar can get a bit awkward after a while.  It has the usual Merc foot-operated parking brake, which I haven't been brave enough to try yet.

 
This is where the magic happens - 2.2 litres and 64bhp of OM615 goodness.

It's the oldest diesel I've owned by several years, and it shows it in things like the amount of glowplug time it needs before it'll fire up, but it sounds OK and it isn't comically unrefined.  The throttle linkage is a bit stiff so that'll need lubing up at some point, but that's not a massive issue.  It gets up to temperature OK and it doesn't seem to smoke excessively.  There's an idle speed control knob on the dash, which is cool - last vehicle I had with one of those was an Isuzu Trooper.
Bodywork wise it has some issues, as I expected.  The rear edge of the roof looked completely rotten in the eBay pics, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it is in fact surface rust under peeling paint.

I think it's had a respray at some stage - the paint code under the bonnet indicates it should be a pale beige.  I quite like the metallic green though.
The bonnet paintwork needs some attention as well, but apart from one spot the panel itself is in quite good condition.

There's some grot on the small scuttle panels next to the vents, but I don't think they should be too huge a challenge to sort.  The most unsightly bit of the car is this bit on the offside rear wing:

That's going to need some tlc at some point fairly soon.  Underneath has some grot, but it's far from the most rotten car I've owned - in fact it's probably not even the most rotten car I own now...  All the important structural bits (suspension mountings etc) seem to be sound enough.
In fact the only thing that's really preventing it from being drivable on the road at the moment are the brakes - they work after a fashion, but the pedal is very soft and they stick on quite badly (I suspect knackered flexis as they seem to free themselves off after a while).  So that's top of the list to sort when I get the time to start working on it.
I spent a couple of hours in the howling wind making room to get it on the drive.  This involved emptying the boxes of crap out of the garage, extricating the Spacy and the Mobylette and then the Innocenti (which fired straight up despite not having been touched for at least three months, although it did have a flat tyre) and the boat, which had been hanging from the wall on its side for a couple of years but went onto its trailer easily enough.  Then I drove the 164 round to the garage and backed it in (a bit of a tight fit as it's 15'6" long and so is the garage).  I was able to get most of the other crap back in around it - only the boat and the Spacy are having to live outside for the time being.  I've stuck the Innocenti on the car park for now - having it in sight might encourage me to actually get it back on the road.  Then I drove the Merc up the road from the car park and manoeuvred it into the drive - my first "proper" drive in it (driving it onto the trailer yesterday doesn't really count) - I even got into second gear!  The gearbox seems much more pleasant to use than later Merc manuals I've experienced.
Here it is in its new home.


And so to bed.

Southern Water are digging up the road directly in front of my drive tomorrow. I won't need to use the car but I also don't want it hit by flying bits of tarmac so I've parked it round the corner.

Every time I go into the kitchen I get a sudden burst of adrenaline when I can't see the car outside the window and think it's been stolen.

I think I might need to leave a Post-It on the blind so I don't have a heart attack when I open it in the morning.

Little bit different from being completely ignored by a passing Met unit while beating the shit out of a malfunctioning BX alarm
 
 

Little bit different from being completely ignored by a passing Met unit while beating the shit out of a malfunctioning BX alarm
 
 

Little bit different from being completely ignored by a passing Met unit while beating the shit out of a malfunctioning BX alarm
 
 

Little bit different from being completely ignored by a passing Met unit while beating the shit out of a malfunctioning BX alarm
 
 

A car I was passenger in, towing a car transporter trailer many years ago was stopped for that exact reason.  I spoke with the copper briefly and he mentioned that he stops just about anyone towing a car transporter or plant trailer, and his hit-rate for finding stolen ones was remarkably high.
A bit like back in the 90's when an officer who used to frequent the 24hr fuel station I worked in commented that he pulled over every single 'scrote XR3i/RS turbo and Arstra GTE, as his hit rate for finding stolen ones was well over half of them.  He only left them alone once he recognised a driver in the car.  Some owners were twats about it, but the vast majority were pleased, as it meant there was a fighting chance that if their car was stolen, it would be stopped.

Truly epic levels of man maths right there!

Today I installed new windscreen wipers on the front of my wife's company car, a 2017 Mercedes C-class.
Windscreen wipers!  Christ, that's literally the first thing I learned to do on a car.  I used to do them for my mum on her Pug 309 before I learned to drive; probably before I'd finished primary school even.  Not hard, I hear you say.
Two minute job, sez I.  Be back in five, put the kettle on.
First you have to get the wipers to the vertical position or you can't raise them off the screen because they're hidden under the trailing edge of the bonnet.  That's a pedestrian safety feature so no arguments from me, that's all good.  Apparently there's a "wiper service" button hidden somewhere around the car but I'm fucked if I could find it so I used the older technique of turning the wipers on then whipping the key out of the ignition at the right moment.
OK.  Check the instructions on the box containing the new wipers (they're Bosch and not cheap so I do have an expectation of something useful).  Nope; just a line drawing of a windscreen wiper (so, a line) and an arrow next to it.
I look closely, puzzle, think, manipulate the thing any which way I can think of and there's not a millimetre of movement or give.  It's like the fuckers were built into the car - except for the small problem that they're worn out and need replacing.
Finally, to my intense embarrassment, I sit in the car, get my phone out and start searching YouTube.
Finally I find my answer.  You have to tilt the wipers to a certain point, which will allow you to move a slider, which is of course stuck because it lives on the front of the car and therefore gets very dirty.  When you have managed to move the slider (which is especially difficult on the passenger side, because the wiper has a big suspension system so when you pull it you're just pulling the suspension and not the slider itself) the old wiper pops off.
Is this any better than the system on my 2007 Merc, where it's totally obvious to any idiot how they come apart?  Does it improve the performance of the wipers?  Does it bollocks.  It just makes some designer look clever and makes the job harder for a poor schmuck owner like me.

Today I installed new windscreen wipers on the front of my wife's company car, a 2017 Mercedes C-class.
Windscreen wipers!  Christ, that's literally the first thing I learned to do on a car.  I used to do them for my mum on her Pug 309 before I learned to drive; probably before I'd finished primary school even.  Not hard, I hear you say.
Two minute job, sez I.  Be back in five, put the kettle on.
First you have to get the wipers to the vertical position or you can't raise them off the screen because they're hidden under the trailing edge of the bonnet.  That's a pedestrian safety feature so no arguments from me, that's all good.  Apparently there's a "wiper service" button hidden somewhere around the car but I'm fucked if I could find it so I used the older technique of turning the wipers on then whipping the key out of the ignition at the right moment.
OK.  Check the instructions on the box containing the new wipers (they're Bosch and not cheap so I do have an expectation of something useful).  Nope; just a line drawing of a windscreen wiper (so, a line) and an arrow next to it.
I look closely, puzzle, think, manipulate the thing any which way I can think of and there's not a millimetre of movement or give.  It's like the fuckers were built into the car - except for the small problem that they're worn out and need replacing.
Finally, to my intense embarrassment, I sit in the car, get my phone out and start searching YouTube.
Finally I find my answer.  You have to tilt the wipers to a certain point, which will allow you to move a slider, which is of course stuck because it lives on the front of the car and therefore gets very dirty.  When you have managed to move the slider (which is especially difficult on the passenger side, because the wiper has a big suspension system so when you pull it you're just pulling the suspension and not the slider itself) the old wiper pops off.
Is this any better than the system on my 2007 Merc, where it's totally obvious to any idiot how they come apart?  Does it improve the performance of the wipers?  Does it bollocks.  It just makes some designer look clever and makes the job harder for a poor schmuck owner like me.

Today I installed new windscreen wipers on the front of my wife's company car, a 2017 Mercedes C-class.
Windscreen wipers!  Christ, that's literally the first thing I learned to do on a car.  I used to do them for my mum on her Pug 309 before I learned to drive; probably before I'd finished primary school even.  Not hard, I hear you say.
Two minute job, sez I.  Be back in five, put the kettle on.
First you have to get the wipers to the vertical position or you can't raise them off the screen because they're hidden under the trailing edge of the bonnet.  That's a pedestrian safety feature so no arguments from me, that's all good.  Apparently there's a "wiper service" button hidden somewhere around the car but I'm fucked if I could find it so I used the older technique of turning the wipers on then whipping the key out of the ignition at the right moment.
OK.  Check the instructions on the box containing the new wipers (they're Bosch and not cheap so I do have an expectation of something useful).  Nope; just a line drawing of a windscreen wiper (so, a line) and an arrow next to it.
I look closely, puzzle, think, manipulate the thing any which way I can think of and there's not a millimetre of movement or give.  It's like the fuckers were built into the car - except for the small problem that they're worn out and need replacing.
Finally, to my intense embarrassment, I sit in the car, get my phone out and start searching YouTube.
Finally I find my answer.  You have to tilt the wipers to a certain point, which will allow you to move a slider, which is of course stuck because it lives on the front of the car and therefore gets very dirty.  When you have managed to move the slider (which is especially difficult on the passenger side, because the wiper has a big suspension system so when you pull it you're just pulling the suspension and not the slider itself) the old wiper pops off.
Is this any better than the system on my 2007 Merc, where it's totally obvious to any idiot how they come apart?  Does it improve the performance of the wipers?  Does it bollocks.  It just makes some designer look clever and makes the job harder for a poor schmuck owner like me.

Why do they make it so difficult? On a Citroen C4 that came out in 2004, to get the wipers into service mode (as they sit under the bonnet when parked like on the Merc) turn off the ignition and then switch on the wipers in the next 30 seconds. The wipers go vertical and it's easy to change the blades, all cars should be like this. Also turning the ignition off on this while wipers are running, wipers park!

Today I installed new windscreen wipers on the front of my wife's company car, a 2017 Mercedes C-class.
Windscreen wipers!  Christ, that's literally the first thing I learned to do on a car.  I used to do them for my mum on her Pug 309 before I learned to drive; probably before I'd finished primary school even.  Not hard, I hear you say.
Two minute job, sez I.  Be back in five, put the kettle on.
First you have to get the wipers to the vertical position or you can't raise them off the screen because they're hidden under the trailing edge of the bonnet.  That's a pedestrian safety feature so no arguments from me, that's all good.  Apparently there's a "wiper service" button hidden somewhere around the car but I'm fucked if I could find it so I used the older technique of turning the wipers on then whipping the key out of the ignition at the right moment.
OK.  Check the instructions on the box containing the new wipers (they're Bosch and not cheap so I do have an expectation of something useful).  Nope; just a line drawing of a windscreen wiper (so, a line) and an arrow next to it.
I look closely, puzzle, think, manipulate the thing any which way I can think of and there's not a millimetre of movement or give.  It's like the fuckers were built into the car - except for the small problem that they're worn out and need replacing.
Finally, to my intense embarrassment, I sit in the car, get my phone out and start searching YouTube.
Finally I find my answer.  You have to tilt the wipers to a certain point, which will allow you to move a slider, which is of course stuck because it lives on the front of the car and therefore gets very dirty.  When you have managed to move the slider (which is especially difficult on the passenger side, because the wiper has a big suspension system so when you pull it you're just pulling the suspension and not the slider itself) the old wiper pops off.
Is this any better than the system on my 2007 Merc, where it's totally obvious to any idiot how they come apart?  Does it improve the performance of the wipers?  Does it bollocks.  It just makes some designer look clever and makes the job harder for a poor schmuck owner like me.

Today I installed new windscreen wipers on the front of my wife's company car, a 2017 Mercedes C-class.
Windscreen wipers!  Christ, that's literally the first thing I learned to do on a car.  I used to do them for my mum on her Pug 309 before I learned to drive; probably before I'd finished primary school even.  Not hard, I hear you say.
Two minute job, sez I.  Be back in five, put the kettle on.
First you have to get the wipers to the vertical position or you can't raise them off the screen because they're hidden under the trailing edge of the bonnet.  That's a pedestrian safety feature so no arguments from me, that's all good.  Apparently there's a "wiper service" button hidden somewhere around the car but I'm fucked if I could find it so I used the older technique of turning the wipers on then whipping the key out of the ignition at the right moment.
OK.  Check the instructions on the box containing the new wipers (they're Bosch and not cheap so I do have an expectation of something useful).  Nope; just a line drawing of a windscreen wiper (so, a line) and an arrow next to it.
I look closely, puzzle, think, manipulate the thing any which way I can think of and there's not a millimetre of movement or give.  It's like the fuckers were built into the car - except for the small problem that they're worn out and need replacing.
Finally, to my intense embarrassment, I sit in the car, get my phone out and start searching YouTube.
Finally I find my answer.  You have to tilt the wipers to a certain point, which will allow you to move a slider, which is of course stuck because it lives on the front of the car and therefore gets very dirty.  When you have managed to move the slider (which is especially difficult on the passenger side, because the wiper has a big suspension system so when you pull it you're just pulling the suspension and not the slider itself) the old wiper pops off.
Is this any better than the system on my 2007 Merc, where it's totally obvious to any idiot how they come apart?  Does it improve the performance of the wipers?  Does it bollocks.  It just makes some designer look clever and makes the job harder for a poor schmuck owner like me.