Stanky's Car Fixing Thread - Tyre'd out 05/03

[Stanky]

For a while now the Dacia battery has been a bit crap, needing putting on the trickle charger about once a month. It does generally get used for local duties, doing 5-10 miles at a time, but gets longer runs fairly often. Now its getting colder, it seems to be worse so the trigger was pulled on a new battery from the excellent Tayna.co.uk.

As usual, it arrived within 48h. I trickle charged it overnight and fitted it this morning. I opted for a mid-price Yuasa ESB with more CCAs and Ah than what was on there currently. I came mildly unstuck when I realised that the new battery was about 40mm longer than the old one, and the battery tray has a weird plastic protrusion to hold the OEM battery in place

However 20 minutes with a hacksaw blade, stanley knife and a bit of sandpaper had that removed and sanded flat, and the new battery then fitted like a glove.

As usual, once the new battery was installed and the ignition put on, the dashboard lit up like Blackpool, but a short drive, turning the steering wheel lock-to-lock and confirming that the tyre pressures were OK had it settled down again. What was a little bit interesting* was all the errors it threw for things our base Sandero doesn't have. I got TPM, front radar, rear electric windows and something else warnings on first startup but these went away after I turned the ignition off then on again. 

Not radically interesting, but cost me less than half what Dacia wanted for a new battery of lesser spec. There seems to be a bit of internet noise about the longevity of the OEM batteries on Dacias, with lots crapping out with similar symptoms to mine at 3-4 years old, which ours is. I guess its one of the ways that Dacia can sell them so cheap and still make money on them but its a bit annoying. Anyway, the new battery should last another 5 years or so I hope.

One further annoyance is the SOS system, it began to flash up errors about a year ago intermittently, and has got worse and worse to the point its now on more than off. Apparently the system has its own battery in the dashboard somewhere which conks out after a while and throws the error. Alternatively it could be the GSM aerial being broken too. Anyway, I'll leave it for now but make sure it gets looked at when the car is in for its next service next summer. Dashboard warning lights bug the hell out of me, but my wife who is the primary driver isn't bothered by them at all - especially if its something like the SOS function which sh'd never use anyway so its not a big deal.

I'll keep the old battery as I have a 12v > 120w 3-pin plug inverter which might be handy in a power cut potentially. It'd keep a load of LED lights working for a few hours at least.

[mk2_craig]

3 hours ago, Stanky said:

There seems to be a bit of internet noise about the longevity of the OEM batteries on Dacias, with lots crapping out with similar symptoms to mine at 3-4 years old, which ours is. I guess its one of the ways that Dacia can sell them so cheap and still make money on them but its a bit annoying.

Certainly not limited to Dacia. Current shape Ford Focus, and especially the ST like mine, are also significantly prone to the same issue. 

[Stanky]

I've been living a charmed life since buying the Lexus about a year ago, but we all knew the dream would come to a crashing halt sooner or later didn't we? That something catastrophic would befall me and sour the ownership experience. Well, Last thursday was that day. Its taken me all weekend to come to terms with the scale of this disaster. Yes, I know what you're all thinking. Its a "Japanese car, they never go wrong!" and "Its a Lexus, the pinnacle of Japanese cars (which never go wrong)!" however it turns out we're all misinformed my the mainstream media, and bad things can, and do, happen.

Thats right, the worst has now come to pass.

I think we all need to accept that they really don't make cars like they used to. You'd not see this sort of shoddy attention to detail, and penny-pinching-at-the-expense-of-the-ownership experience with a REAL car made by a proper BRITISH company in the 1970s now would you? With a heavy heart, I pulled over on the side of the road, unscrewed the number plates, stuck a 'police aware' sticker from my confusingly large pile of emergency-service issue warning stickers and walked home in bare feet in the sleet. No sooner did I arrive at the end of my street, than did I see my wife hurling the last few worldly possessions out into the front garden from an upstairs window before yelling to me that I was a life failure with nothing to offer, that her affair partner had moved into the family home and had legally adopted my children and cat, that she had faked every orgasm she had ever had with me and that my penis was both smaller-then-average and mildly deformed.

My vision faded to greyscale and a man approached me introducing himself as Ken Loach, and that I was going to be the main character in his next film but that it was to be an unpaid role due to circumstances outside of his control. 

A single tear ran down my cheek, froze in slow motion and then the scene faded to black accompanied by the soundtrack of children laughing...

 

*ahem*

Sorry about that. Yeah so basically the Lexus has behaved impeccably for a year, literally nothing has gone wrong, everything still works as Lexus intended/it left the factory 15 years ago and it continues to be a warm, fast, comfortable place to be. Its getting a mixed 28mpg on local drives in winter (32mpg in the summer), does 37mpg on a run, has plenty of power to overtake dawdlers as demonstrated on the A32 last weekend when I blasted past a mk4 golf that had been lowered to such an extent it couldn't/wouldn't exceed 40mph. My kids choose it as the car to be driven around in and are still fascinated by all the toys it has. Its hands-down the best car I have ever owned. I really can't recommend these enough if this is what the ownership of an 'average' one of these is like. The plans for this year are to replace the spark plugs which are about due based on 60k interval, this is a slightly complicated job due to needing to take part of the inlet manifold off, but gives me a good opportunity to inspect the valves for carbon buildup since this is direct injection. Depending on the outcome of that I might get it booked in a specialist to have them walnut blasted if they need it (though apparently this is much more prevalent in the US and rarely seen here). The only other job that I'm considering is an ATF change which I will probably outsource. It'll want a service later in the spring but thats not hard or expensive. Otherwise it just does everything I want it to. If they had made the 2nd generation of IS with an estate body it would be a literal forever car. That said, I still can't see me replacing it with anything else for a long while, and I'll almost certainly get another Lexus after this. I'd love to have a go in a similar age CT which I think is basically a fancy Prius? I wonder if the quality engineering extends to the entry level models too?

 

[Stanky]

The front tyres on the Dacia had worn on the outer edges, assumed because the tracking was off. This had bugged me a bit, but on a recent long journey (its usually doing local trips) it did understeer quite a bit on a wet and greasy roundabout which has focused my mind on getting them fixed.

I fired up tyreleader and ordered a pair of Kumho Ecsta PS71s, I have a full set of these on my Lexus and have been very impressed with them. If they do the business on a 200bhp RWD car then they ought to be fine for a 90bhp FWD hatchback. Unfortunately, tyreleader emailed me back about 10 hours later to say they were out of stock and refunded me. So I went for the next best option, Kumho Ecowing ES31s. These are a bit cheaper, and less performant in the tests but still a solid midrange performer from what I could see. I placed an order for two of them.

As usual, they arrived within 24h and were date coded in week 48 of 2024 so nice and recent.

I called up the local tyre fitters who are happy to fit tyres that they don't supply (and do part worns too) and mooched over to them today. As usual they sorted it out there and then, swapping the tyres and putting in new valves and balancing them for me. Their prices have gone up a bit, but not outrageously and cost for tyres + fitting was comfortably cheaper than anything that any of the supply & fit places nearby could do so I'm happy with that.

The old ones were a bit more than just badly tracked I think though

This is the outer edge of the passenger side one, but the inner edge had worn the same, as had the inner edge on the drivers side. The middle of the tread was fine though, so I think that what has actually happened is that they have been run underinflated which has worn both shoulders. I'm usually pretty on it with tyre pressures so I suspect its prior to our ownership that the majority of the damage was done? Hard to know, I'll probably take it and get it tracked at another place before long just to make sure its not that as I don't want these tyres worn out in 20k miles time because of something totally avoidable.

On the drive home the new tyres seemed good. Granted it was a dry day  but they were definitely quieter than the old Hankooks. I'll need to drive them a bit to wear off the casting gloop but they seem to be decent. I'd definitely recommend Kumhos for most applications. I've used them quite a few times now and as a mid-range tyre they're totally adequate.

[Stanky]

Buoyed with the success of the tyres on the Dacia, I gave my youngest an impromptu lesson in car maintenance last night by showing her how to change the oil and filter on the Daihatsu. To her credit (she's 6) she was really enthusiastic and listened carefully to what I was telling her, then told wife_Stanky exactly what we had done, and why when we got back indoors.

So thats another job ticked off the list. Just the Lexus oil change & rear brake caliper strip and grease to do at the weekend then the fleet is fully up to date with scheduled maintenance.

On a bit of a tangent, where is 'safe' to buy spark plugs from these days? The Lexus will be due a set of plugs by the summer and since they are fancy-pants iridium jobbies at £25 a go I really don't want to buy some fakes. Also, the job is a bit of a chore as you need to remove the intake manifold to access one bank of the vee (though it does mean I can inspect for carbon buildup on the valves at the same time) so I really only want to do it once if possible. 

[Stanky]

Took advantage of the good weather and wife_Stanky and Kids_Stanky going out earlier to get in the garage again.

I changed the oil & oil filter in the Lexus, the oil filter housing came undone a lot easier this time around! I've done a bit over 8k miles in a year based on my servicing records. I also stripped and regreased the rear brakes to keep the sliders from seizing up. I'm into a rhythm of doing this every 6 months now as preventative maintenance, probably overkill but it only takes about an hour to do both sides and is basically free. Discs are fine, nice and clean and no lip to speak of, and the pads have plenty of life left.

I also took the Daihatsu out and gave it a thorough wash and wax while I waited for the Lexus oil to drain so thats another job done.

Next up will be changing the spark plugs and replacing the coolant later in the summer. I eyed up the access for the spark plugs, various Lexus forum posts say its a horrible job but doesn't look too bad to me. Yeah there is some stuff to remove to get access but its not that bad. I'll report back on that later. Coolant look easy, there is a drain tap in the radiator and another one in the block so shouldn't be hard to do that.