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Stanky's Car Fixing Thread - New Car Update 16/3


Stanky

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Oi Noi! MOT Phail!

 

Saab was in for its date with the man from the ministry today, the third in my ownership. Having breezed the last 2 tests with not a single advisory, and been given the once over by me the other evening to replace all the blown bulbs (just the sidelights this time) and general check over of other things I am actually capable of fixing myself it was put in for a test this morning and failed.

 

The area of concern was both rear suspension upper arms which had knackered bushes. I'm not that surprised tbh as its been increasingly clonky over the appalling roads of hampshire for a while now. The arms and bushes come a complete unit so should be able to be replaced relatively easily. I've asked the garage to price up 2 new quality replacement arms plus labour and waiting for a quote. I'm hesitantly optimistic about it being under £250 all in, plus the cost of the test.

 

I've got advisories for inner tyre wear on the rears, TBH I'm not surprised if the suspension arms are in a state and I intended to replace the wheels and tyres anyway for the posh newly powder coated 17" rimz that Dan sorted out for me before christmas. That'll be another £280 of expenditure but worth doing now I know it's got a years ticket on it, the main reason I've held off fitting the tyres up until now, as I was concerned that something catastrophic would befall the car and I'd have got 3000 miles use from £280 of tyres. As it stands, and barring other failures, I'll get 20k miles out of the new tyres and have 2 good (and 2 crap) spare wheels and tyres stashed in the garage for emergencies.

 

this does however delay the purchase of a 3rd car until maybe next month as I need to fund this little tranche of work first.

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So, turned out better than I'd hoped, parts, labour, test and VAT came to under £220 and the garage were very complimentary about the rest of the car, and said it belied its 15 years and 150k mileage. I've given the go-ahead for the work as they can get parts for about 40% of the best price I can get them for, and I specifically asked them to use decent bits because I don't want to have to have it done again in 12 months time.

 

Hey ho, its a good car and wife_Stanky is quite attached to it so its got another year of motoring for less than £20 a month.

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You know those days where you just want to punch yourself repeatedly in the face because you are a complete dinlo? yeah, that was me, today.

 

The garage had a few jobs lined up but said they;d try and fit the Saab in before the weekend, true to their word they called today having completed a KV6 cambelt job to say they'd get stuck in with the Saab and it'd be done by 5pm. Brilliant.

 

15 minutes later I got another call from the garage "err, where it the locking wheelnut key, we can't get the wheels off to do the suspension arm?"

 

FFFFFFFFFFFFFS "its about 2 miles as the crow flies from where you are, or 26 miles and an hour's driving from where I am right now, thats not very helpful is it?"

 

"No, I'm afraid not, drop it off over the weekend and we'll do it for you on tuesday"

 

Jesus wept, my brain is just mush. I cannot remember the smallest thing these days. Locking wheel nuts are also a complete PITA, who steals alloys these days? Enraged, I ordered a set of 4 standard wheels nuts, the locking ones can go into their box and stay there.

 

Saab is out of action over the weekend and the very helpful chap in the garage is probably fuming about yet another moronic customer who left the wheelnut key at home. I'm such an idiot all the time, it drives me mad.

 

Wait for the next update in 2 weeks time when some scrote has spotted I don;t have locking wheelnuts on the car and put it up on bricks and nicked the wheels.

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Saab is back with a fresh ticket on it. I'm £220 lighter for the test, parts and labour (plus a goodwill 'put the change in the tea and biscuits fund' to hopefully smooth over the locking wheelnut key episode) and the ride is substantially better.

 

The road I live down is in a hell of a state and the rear suspension used to bang about quite a bit as I drove slowly down it, serenity is now restored to driving. I'm very impressed about the difference.

 

2x Uniroyal RainExperts arrived at work today, I'll get them fitted to the current wheels at the weekend to replace the worn-on-inner-edge Dunlops. I'll probably swap the fronts to the back (they've done about 10k) and put these new ones on the front as it does more work. I'll have a full set of Uniroyals then too.

 

Hopefully another year of happy motoring ahead of me now. It's nice to have it back.

 

I sold the powder coated wheels yesterday for the price they cost me to get done. I wasn't confident that they wouldn't foul the arches or suspension, and wasn't prepared to buy £300 of rubber and £50 of fitting to discover that they didn't fit. £80 of 15" rubber on the original wheels does the job admirably, and I've got another £270 in the kitty for some other chod purchase.

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  • 7 months later...

Update time. No, its not interesting.

 

Driving home today the EML came on, much to my disappointment. The car kept driving fine, on arriving home I plugged in the knock-off Delphi scanner in and it came back with the slightly cryptic 'P1312 - Combustion Detection Implausible'

 

Hmmmm indeed.

 

Google reckons its one of a few things:

 

- spark plugs that aren't NGK PFR6T-10G plugs (correct, they are not. I can't remember what they are but they weren't as expensive as these are)

- Old Coil Packs (also possible)

- Sooty plugs (this seems unlikely)

- Broken Ionization module

 

I've replaced the ionization module before after something happened to it, several pages back. it was a secondhand one so might be that?

 

Can any of the Saab lickers on here suggest anything?

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Update time. No, its not interesting.

 

Driving home today the EML came on, much to my disappointment. The car kept driving fine, on arriving home I plugged in the knock-off Delphi scanner in and it came back with the slightly cryptic 'P1312 - Combustion Detection Implausible'

 

 

 

 

Doesnt this just mean that you havent used swan vestas matches when you tried to burn the ungrateful bastard

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Plausibility seem to be back as the EML has stayed off for a week now so not sure what it was about.

 

HOWEVER.

 

the steering has suddenly gone very odd on the Saab. Driving in to work this morning the steering kept going heavy momentarily mid-corner. Normally you can steer with one hand, its nice and light - however today it was like it was losing assistance for a split second before recovering. It was also reluctant to self-centre when rolling, so accelerating didn't make the wheels straighten up like usual.

 

I went and checked the tyre pressures which were both fine (31psi) and topped them up to 34psi since I was there anyway. No error codes present.

 

A bit of googling suggests a few things

 

1. snapped spring (entirely possible, they are 100k old now and this generation are well known for being hard on front springs)

2. steering UJ needs lubricating

3. PAS fluid is low (I'd expect it'd throw a notification for this, since it knows when both coolant and washer fluid are low)

4. rack is broken/dying/falling off

5. PAS pump is on its way out, possibly due to #3. Its not noisy.

6. some other suspension failure, as yet unknown.

 

It doesn't clonk over the the roads of south hampshire, known worldwide for hampshire county council's unwavering commitment to keeping them maintained exactly as they were in 1768. Its only started doing it today, and I can't see any puddles of fluids under where it was parked indicating something important has escaped.

 

I'll check the PAS fluid level in a bit, any other suggestions? If it needs new springs then he work is getting farmed out, spring compressors are firmly in the 'nope' category of vehicle maintenance as far as I'm concerned.

 

EDIT - been out to check, PAS fluid level is fine, halfway between E and F. No drips underneath. Same gap between tyre tread and lip of wheelarch both sides, suggesting the springs are fine (or both snapped at about the same point, which seems unlikely).

 

I can see the UJ of the steering column, though it'll be fun to get at as its down the back of the engine and turbo and things, so that's going to get some oiling at the weekend and see whats what after that.

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I gave the steering UJ a good greasing earlier and I watched as eldest_daughter_stanky turned the wheel from lock to lock to make sure it all worked into the joint properly. Took it out for a run and it was fine again with no sudden weighting up of the steering mid-corner which was positive.

 

later on this afternoon I took the Saab to go shopping and it did it again, just once though - slowing down and turning at ~10mph and it momentarily did it, almost like when you hit 'clean' tarmac after driving over something slippery. Its very odd.

 

While it was running I checked the voltage across the battery terminals in case that was low and causing weird behaviour as I did have a phantom 'headlight bulb out' warning earlier in the week too. Saabs seem hyper sensitive to these sorts of things, I wonder if the 4 year old ECP 'Lion' brand battery is a bit iffy? Its under heavier load this time of year as every journey involves headlights on, wipers, fan blower and all the other things needed in crappy weather and permanent dusk.

 

anyway, its booked in at the local Saab specialist on thursday so we'll see what he has to say about it. The intermittent nature is bugging me and leading me to think it might be a dying PAS pump. if the rack was buggered I'd have thought it would do it all the time? Likewise snapped springs.

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Yeah, not sure if they register fault codes or not? I'll try it on the delphi tomorrow and see what it says. Otherwise the mechanic's tech2 might suggest some more insightful faults.

 

Secondhand parts seem to start at about £40 which isn't criminal, not sure what fitting time is like. I'll consult WIS and see what it thinks so I can mentally prepare for the news and associated bill.

 

It gives me a chance to get the system flushed with fresh PAS fluid, presumably the stuff in there currently is original.

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Sounds like the pump to me too, I had one fail on a LR just the same. If it was the UJs you'd get a stiff bit (oh matron!) every 90degrees of turning the wheel, I had that too on the same car.

 

They are normally pretty easy to do & self bleeding. So it's probably as simple as fit the new one, fill it up. Turn the steering lock to lock several times on stands & top up the fluid.

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it seems to be 'better' now so I'm going to hold fire for now, until its reliably misbehaving there isn't much point getting it looked at. £50 for someone to tell me there is nothing wrong with it isn't a particularly wise investment. I'll keep a close eye on it, it can be booked in with a couple of days notice if the issue returns.

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A quick check could be to take the PS belt off & turn the pump by hand. The one I had that failed like that was a bearing & you could feel it'd gone rough.

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Steering symptoms read like the pump drivebelt is slipping.

 

The fault code: "implausible" is commonly reported when the controller receives signals which make no sense.

Nonsense signals can occur in any electronic system due to glitches, transients and other random events in the universe, poor connections + vibration for example.

 

Resilient software notes these events but ignores them. You should too.

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In between meeting Jim Bell of this parish, the Saab has been seen to by a certified competent person in the shape of the local Saab specialist indie man. He had a good look at the steering, pump, belt and UJ and after a bit of poking reckoned what I felt was the early signs of the UJ dying.

 

He reckoned that it was stiff on one plane (though harder to tell due to my greasing of it last weekend) and thats what caused it to fail to self-centre and feel a bit odd. He said that it was a bit of a known 'thing' with this generation of 9-3 and it was doing well to have only just started to happen at 160k miles.

 

I asked what the next thing was, he suggested that it felt fine to him having taken it on a test drive and the greasing will have helped no end. Its not going to get better, but not in need of replacement yet. He said to keep an eye on it and give it a bit of grease every so often and it could easily last another few years before wanting replacing. The bad news is that it will want replacing and its a complete unit so is the thick end of £300 plus fitting so glad we kicked that can down the road. £300 buys an awful lot of grease.

 

Also only got charged £25 for the inspection and whatnot (30 minutes labour) which seemed to be entirely reasonable for the peace of mind its given me. I'll keep an eye on it for now and see how we get on, and start squirreling some pennies away for what it does need more involved attention.

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  • 4 weeks later...

You know how it goes, you go out to take the kids to the park because you can't face them rampaging about inside any longer, you mooch down the road and notice some random bits of paper on the parcel shelf of an otherwise nondescript vehicle, so you wander over to see what it might be...

 

Yeah, its a for sale sign, printed and bunged in a plastic wallet. hmmm. step back and examine the vehicle in question...

 

Ultimate white goods motoring. Like if you gave a gifted 6 year old a crayon and piece of paper and asked them to draw a bland hatchback. Brilliant. Lets have a closer look shall we?

 

post-5525-0-66574700-1549833400_thumb.jpg

 

Thats right, a 2004 Daewoo Lacetti. You know when a luxury manufacturer gets panned for using parts bin things, like stalks from a golf fitted to a maserati? Imagine if you made the entire car from things you pinched from GM's parts bin. this would be it.

 

Anyway, it was advertised for £750, has done 41k miles and has ticket to the end of the year. Its got a 1.6 litre engine and an autobox. The engine is the same (I think) as a contemporary Astra? GM Family 1 engine built under licence in Korea?

 

Anyway, went home to tell the wife, we've been sort of looking for a focus-sized replacement for the Yaris that Jim Bell now has, and this seems to fit the bill.

 

We went out today and checked it out for space (it needs to fit 2 adults, a 9 year old and (critically) a 9 month old baby with all the associated paraphenalia. An equivalent year Focus or Astra within 25 miles were at least a grand, and thats for a leggy one with a worrying MOT history. Having confirmed various baby seats and bases do indeed fit, and that you can actually get the buggy in the boot and some shopping or whatever, I took it for a test drive. It drives alright, though the 'service' that the current owner paid for last November along with the MOT clearly did not include either oil (black, below 'low' on the dipstick) or coolant (none in the expansion tank, though no sign of HGF and both top and bottom hoses got warm after the test drive so fingers crossed).

 

We shook on £700 on the basis it is due a cambelt based on age, though its only done 11k since its last one in 2013. The guy reckoned he'd had it done and has gone to find the paperwork to support this. Its got full service history up to 2013 and based on my under-bonnet findings may not have been serviced since. I'll give it a seeing to once its ours tomorrow and top the oil and coolant up, drive it about a bit then change the oil properly, along with filters and whatnot.

 

Inside its alright, very clean and tidy with such luxuries (LX, you know) as a CD player and electric windows, plus AC which I'm not sure if it works. The only thing he knew for sure didn't work was the digital clock which keeps resetting itself to 4.21 for reasons unknown. I might see if I can fix this, the display is fine but the 'brains' are a bit wonky it seems.

 

So, an vehicle. with which to get from A to B. lets see how we get on.

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I'd be interested in your driving impressions. 

 

initial impressions from a 3 mile test drive are that the autobox is significantly less smooth than the AW55 in the Saab, but goes up and down the ratios as you'd expect. It pulled fine to 50mph and stopped fine too. I aim to get it insured and taxed today and maybe take it out for a bit of a run this evening once I've slopped some coolant and oil in to at least bring them up to where they should be.

 

I forgot to say it has 4 tyres that were fitted for the MOT last year, they aren't what I'd have chosen but seem alright and have about 7.995mm tread left so its one less thing to worry about/expense at least for now.

 

updates to follow.

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