r.welfare

I spent a fair bit of back-to-back wheel time in both flavours of 1.4 petrol about 15 years ago (my wife had the 16v, my mother in law the OHV) and the old plodder was nicer in day to day driving. The 16v went well but only if you wound it right up; there was bugger-all low down torque. Do they have any obvious faults at this advanced age? I hardly see them day to day, but I assume that’s natural attrition at work.

Ah, memories. I learned to drive in my mum’s when they were new. Frisbee the rubber dash mat, it’s a pain in the arse sliding off in hard cornering.

I had a ‘78 Rekord that colour. Opel were turning out good looking designs back then.

Drop him an eBay message to say if it all falls through to let you know. Has worked for me in the past.

I’m no great mechanic but it was ok. The rearmost ones each side are the hardest as there’s not much clearance against the inner wings. There’s just a lot of engine in the bay. I changed a headlight at the same time and that was a faff. The engine note makes it all worthwhile

You can do them topside using a socket set with a universal joint if you take the airbox and battery out. You’ll still remove some of the skin off your knuckles though.

Good memory, same colour, I reckon that was a good 14 years ago! (EDIT: it was, bought Sep ‘05, sold Apr ‘06). It was a time of low scrap value so I paid Shadow money for it. Quite the sleeper with the Astra GTE engine. Got scrapped after I sold it.

On my slightly later one (59 plate), if you flick the wiper switch down a few seconds after removing the key, the wipers park in the vertical position. Worth a try?

I hope TEH SHADOW is back on form with another Suzuki Wagon R

Two MOT passes back to back this morning. Touran’s done nearly 20,000 miles since the last one - advisory for rear pads which are ‘in stock’. Then my brother’s new-to-him Subaru - thankfully pronounced solid underneath and advised on front discs and a couple of bushes. A slight blow from the Y pipe in front of the rear silencers nearly put the lambda over on the emissions test so need to see what can be done there.

Interesting, my 2009 Touran (164k miles) needs a minimum of 37mph to regen. Forum VAG 1.9TDI whisperer “bigfella2” suggests it’s not suited to the DPF, sounds like your later 2.0 is. One assumes the Fiat 1.9 is similar to the VW in this respect. Carry on!

These DPFs suck donkey dong don’t they. I had mine regened at the garage a few months back because it was saying it was full (40g of ash), not that I had noticed with any error messages (car was in for something else). Had the car back in the garage today for a general “software update” (first time I’ve ever had a car needing this) and they tell me another regen was required as the ash level was 38g. What! It’s only been 10k miles since the last forced one and 6.5k of those have been bombing round Europe in 10 weeks (not me!). In the meantime I’ve been noticing it’s been doing a regen in use every 500 miles or so which the garage think is too frequent. Could be my commute is too short (15 miles each way) but it gets a run to Birmingham and back (240 miles) at least once a month. Oh, and aftermarket DPFs are apparently all shite, the garage recommend ultrasonic cleaning the original. TL:DR keep up the good work, modern diesels are crap.

It’s now an Arnold Laver timber merchants...

I enjoy a fart as much as the next man.

The only thing that smells worse than new gearbox oil is used gearbox oil.