Stanky's Car Fixing Thread - Fixing the worlds most reliable car 10/4

[beko1987]

Yea that was me! You can still see the paint on the road even now, glistening away in the sun!

 

If it's passed the pressure wash test then just leave it, it's good enough!

[Landy Mann]

Potato cam picture but remember 'There is nothing you can't to in a Daewoo'.

[Stanky]

Sick rimz m8.

Sick as in, "likely to give you some sort of disease". For some reason the wheels in the Saab have always been brake dust magnets, it is impossible to keep them looking at all nice and I usually give up after cleaning the face of them and leave the recessed bits, which are a nasty orangey brown colour permanently. After a post in the ask a shiter corner, I got some magic cleaner gloop from ebay which had good reviews and this morning, to get away from the incessant whinging of my youngest child, I went out to try it out.

This is the stuff, its a PH Neutral bleeding cleaner apparently, just like Red7 or Trolls Breath. £7 for 500ml on ebay.

Here is a wheel. It is round and grubby

Removed, and inside shown for proof

I squirted the stuff on both sides, agitated it with a bottle brush and left it for 5 minutes like it said on the bottle of gloop. After 5 minutes I scrubbed it with the bottle brush again and then washed the stuff off with the hose. result?

Yeah, ummm its better but really not that great. I repeated the process three times then gave up. The inner edge of the wheel is a lot less grubby, but from the centreline out to the outer edge is still horrible and seemingly utterly caked on. Not sure what can be done here now - other than having them blasted clean and powder coated again which seems like a right old carry on for what is a cosmetic issue on a 15 year old, 160,000 mile car. As ever, one of those 'why fucking bother' moments.

Have I done it wrong? Or are they just beyond help?

 

[Stanky]

Not a lot to report on the Saab, it passed its MOT following a clean of one headlight lens and re-alignment of the beams in the week.

The garage noted that the front pads were getting low and wanted replacing and one of the dust covers on the TRE balljoin on the nearside was on its last legs. I got a set of Pagid pads at ECP today and it took me all of an hour to swap the new ones in, sat in the sunshine on the drive it was quite a nice job to do. I took it out for a short run to make sure they actually worked and it all seems to be in order, no squealing or judder and pull the car up alright. Thats the second set of pads I've fitted to it, the last set did about 50k miles I reckon, not too awful in a fairly heavy, automatic car. The old ones had more meat than I was expecting, I reckon they were down to about 4mm of material left. The new ones have about 10mm? Anyway, I suspect they'll outlast the car now, but its peace of mind.

I ordered some balljoint dust covers on friday and they should be here on monday. I weighed up putting a new TRE on, but the job looks to involve a lot of swearing to remove the old one, and potential fire and hammers and stuff, and would be guaranteed to need the tracking done afterwards too, so I'm cheaping out and just replacing the dust cover boot for now, so the tracking remains correct.

No pics because there wasn't a lot to see changing pads. Its all came apart OK, and went back together fine too.

[Sir Snipes]

The old rule of thumb for pads was when the friction material is the same depth as the backing metal then they're ready, so 4mm sounds about right. 

[Stanky]

The other item on the Saab MOT advisory list was the the nearside track rod end balljoint dust cover was damaged but not (yet) allowing ingress of dirt. The MOT chap reckoned it was easier to replace the entire TRE but this would require the tracking to be sorted at the same time, amplifying the cost. I reckoned I couldn't make the situation much worse by trying to replace just the dust cover, with the bonus that if I pulled the job off, the tracking should remain fine.

I ordered a bag of assorted sized dust covers as i wasn't sure what I needed for this job, and a mixed bag of 2 covers plus spring clips was the same price as 3 individual ones. It arrived in the week and today I set to replacing the damaged one

Car parked and steering turned to full right lock to allow better access. Jacked it up and put an axle stand under the chassis rail then whipped the wheel off

Here's the offending item. Looks ok to me?

As suspected, the track rod threaded section looks pretty crusty. Crusty enough that getting it to come off would likely have been a right old carry on. Underneath the hub is a 18mm nut, I got a socket and long bar on it and with a bit of effort it came off. I walloped the end of the threaded section with a hammer to pop it out the top. et voila

Easy enough so far. With it out of the hole there is loads of articulation. I carefully removed the bottom clip with a screwdriver, then ran a stanley blade round the top where the boot attaches to the lipped section of the TRE and slid the old one off

As you can see, it is indeed ripped a bit where the rubber has gotten old. How the tester managed to spot this goodness knows but there. With the boot removed we can see the crusty TRE and greasy balljoint (fnarr etc)

There is a lipped section on the top of the TRE which the clip holds the boot onto, round the split section this was a bit cruddy and rusty so I cleaned it up with a screwdriver and stanley blade. Next up was to add more grease into the balljoint. I just used regular multi-purpose stuff and wiggled the threaded end around to work it into the joint

Next was to break open the bumper bonus bag of balljoint boots

And measure up the old one against the new ones to work out which one I should use

Medium it is then! You can see the clips in the left of this pic. This is where the fun began. There are 2 clips, a big on that clips the boot to the lip on the top edge of the TRE (the bit I cleaned up earlier) and then a much smaller one that fits to the top of the boot to stop grease squeeezing out the top of the boot when you tighten it all up. The clips are identical sizes, regardless of which boot you use. They are also incredibly stiff and virtually impossible to get over the boot in situ, especially with greasy hands. I tried using a set of tongs to stretch one out and was going great until I applied too much POWER and bent the clip and wrecked it. With a massive amount of luck, the next one stretched just enough to wiggle it over the boot, and I used two screwdrivers to lever it off the tongs and into place. Incredibly I didn't rip the boot doing this. Here it is in place

The smaller one was slightly less of a faff, as you can slide the clip on and lever it into place on the top edge of the boot with screwdrivers. Again, I managed this without ripping the boot by pure luck. Here is is fully fitted. Is there a special tool you're supposed to use for this? The clips are sort of like the double rings you get on keyrings? Its like you need to apply outward force evenly all round the inside of the clip? But its a right twat to do with tongs and screwdrivers.

All that was left then was to refit the TRE into the hub and do up the nylock nut. This introduced more fun as with a socket on the nut, the balljoint just spun in the socket, unlike when I removed it. Eventually I realised the threaded section has a square end, so you can put an 8mm spanner on that to hold the threaded section still while you use an 18mm spanner to do up the nylock nut. Its fiddly but we got there in the end

Job done. I took it for a run to make sure it seemed OK and there were no horrible noises or stiffness in the steering so I hope thats sorted it? Worst case scenario it falls apart and I have to cave in and do the entire TRE and have it re-tracked. I was going to do both boots, including the offside but after the carry-on with the clips I CBA. I suspect its not far behind this one but the MOT man didn't mention it so maybe something for next year?

The only thing I noticed while I was in there was that the boot on the bottom of the droplink has ripped, quite obviously. There isn't any grease in here and it looks like a nylon inner so I guess its sort of ok? Its clearly been like that for a while and if it was a problem it'd have been picked up on the MOT I'd have thought?

Anyway, hopefully interesting reading?

 

 

[Stanky]

For those not yet quite asleep the Daewoo is providing sterling transportation for the family and various things too awkwardly shaped to go into the Saab. I fitted an aux-in cable to the head unit the other week so we can wire our phones in, this was relatively painless to do and nothing snapped off. Fuel economy isn't that good, probably on par with the Saab at about 32mpg average but my commute is about 60% crawling in traffic which ruins any hint of economy that the motorway bit gives you. It'll zoom along at 70mph on the motorway though the ratios of the autobox aren't that well suited to the engine - there is a vast chasm between 3rd and 4th which rather stunts progress. 0-60 is supposed to be about 13 seconds but it feels a lot longer than that.

The paint repair is holding up well, the white has gone a bit yellowy somehow but its completely rust free which is the main thing.

Its done about 2k miles with us now, including a couple of runs up to south west london to let it stretch its legs a bit and nothing untoward has come up yet. I just got round to ordering 5l of JWS 3309 compliant ATF and will flush the gearbox. I think I can probably do 2 partial refills with that amount, making the mix in it about 75% new ATF which hopefully will make the gearbox a bit less lazy - though I don't expect miracles. Mostly its just more peace of mind. I've never changed ATF before so we'll see how that goes. I think I might measure the dipstick and mark it with a sharpie at the cold, engine off level and refill it to about there before restarting - I know how sensitive these can be so the amount drained and added has to be right. Its got a drain hole so Pela shouldn't be needed, I need to have a look at refilling it so i know how to do that, but should* be relatively straightforward.

Updates to follow on ATF change. otherwise its mostly OK. I might give it another service soon to see if the new oil has washed out any gunky muck. I need to see what leftover oil I have to refill it though.

Top Trumps ratings:

Top Speed 4/10
Acceleration 4/10
Handling 3/10
Reliability 10/10
Sex Appeal 2/10

Verdict, not bad. I can't get the front tyres to screech round roundabouts, but mostly because all it really wants to do round corners is change gear.

[Stanky]

Having got up at 6.30 this morning to take my youngest to swimming classes then dispatched the shopping and home by 11am, the sun came out and I thought it'd be a good time to tackle the ATF change. A 5 litre bottle of JWS3309 compliant ATF arrived with me earlier in the week so while the kids played/napped I broke out my long suffering Rolson 1/4" socket set and started dismantling the front of the car.

GM saw fit to equip the Lacetti with an AW LE81-40 4-speed automatic gearbox which is a bit clunky compared with the AW55 in the Saab, however it has a massive saving grace - it is fitted with both a drain plug and a dipstick, making home ATF changes a viable possibility for even a hamfisted cretin like me. To begin with, there is a large plastic undertray which covers the underside of the automatic gearbox. Its held in with 2 metal screws with 7mm heads, that screw into the trailing edge of the fron bumper. Then there are 4 plastic screws which go into sort of rawlplug things which push open as you screw the screws in? they probably have a name, the idea is you poke the rawlplug thing in, then do up the screw and it pushes 4 wings out so they stay in place. Amazingly, these all came out relatively easily and while the metal screws were rusty, they were far from past it.

this is the cover I was removing. it didn't put up too much of a fight and all this was do-able without ramps or trolley jacks which made it all a great deal easier. So with this removed, the underside of the automatic gearbox was visible/accessible

the black bit is the removable sump pan. The filter lives under here, but I'm not going to touch that today, mostly because I am having huge difficulty finding someone to sell me a new one. Anyway. round the side is a 14mm hex head nut - the drain plug. Before I undid the plug, I pulled the dipstick and carefully marked the atf level with the engine off. It has notches for 'cold' 'warm' and '80c' but all are only able to be measured with the engine running. As I;d be starting it from cold I wanted to make sure I was putting the right amount of new ATF in. I used a sharpie to draw a line across the level, about 4mm above the '80c' line

Just visible in this pic. Next, I got my 1/2" ratchet and a 14mm impact socket because my 'normal' sockets are 12-sided and I don't want to round it off. I neednt have worried, it wasn't done up very tight and soon the old ATF was flowing into my manky oil change washing up bowl

I left it to drain for 15 minutes while I went and got the new ATF and a big syringe and some clear tubing. ATF from a reputable* brand

By this point the old ATF had finished draining and was just dripping. I did the drain plug back up (without dropping it into the washing up bowl of manky ATF, a personal first) and removed the bowl. I think its safe to say it was due some fresh ATF, wouldn't you agree?

It didn't smell burnt, but I'm 95% sure its original. probably about due. I took this away and decanted it into my manky engine oil container to be taken to the dump in due course. The manual reckons the whole system holds about 5.6 litres of ATF, but you could only expect to get about 2.2 litres out of the sump as the rest lives in the torque converter. I reckon about 2 litres came out so thats about right.

next up, refilling. I have a load of 60ml syringes for getting engine oil out of lawnmowers, so used the same method to get new ATF into the gearbox via the dipstick hole. Its not too bad a job, the hole is probably about 1.2cm wide at the top, it might be quicker to use a small funnel and a length of hose but I'd be in big trouble if I used the kitchen funnels so opted to syringe it in instead

lovely red fresh ATF. it took about 20 minutes syringing it out of the bottle and into the gearbox 60ml at a time, but we get there in the end. I reckoned it was about 35 syringes full to get back to the sharpie mark, but enabled me to be really precise about the level, which I'd have struggled with if I was just glugging it in via a funnel

with the level back where I started at, I replaced the dipstick, painted some copper grease onto the metal screws and reassembled the undertray bits. Looking at the super-precise level marks on the ATF bottle, I used about 2.3 litres of ATF which seems about right. With it all back together I took the car for a bit of a drive and it seems to be improved - the gearchange is less jerky and it seems to be quieter. I ran through all the ratios while i was out on my drive and it seems good for now. I plan to give it a couple of weeks of driving about then repeat the process, equating to about 75-80% fresh ATF in the box. Beyond that I'm chasing diminishing returns, and more importantly i'll need more ATF, a repeat of today's experience should pretty much finish off the remainder of the bottle I have.

All in all it was pretty painless, the gearchange is never going to be brilliant - its a bit of a slow old hector at the best of times but hopefully its a job that won't need looking at for a good while now. I'd recommend the syringe method, it takes a while but you can be really precise with the amount you're putting back in. Once I've done round 2 I'll have sorted basically all the issues I knew about when we bought the car back in the winter. Its not a bad car really.

[New POD]

Got to do the omega soon.  Did yours have an internal filter. ,? 

[SiC]

Not sure I've got the patience to fill a gearbox at 60ml a time! I just bought two cheap 2l clear plastic measuring jugs from Tesco. Old stuff measured it off and levels written down from decanting from the oil catch tray/Pela. Then filling up I measured up in the new jug with the written down values, usually at 1.5l intervals (less likely to spill everywhere when not full to brim). 

[Stanky]

20 hours ago, New POD said:

Got to do the omega soon.  Did yours have an internal filter. ,? 

It does, its a pancake filter and lives directly behind the sump plate. Replacement looks easy as it just pushes onto the intake pipe for the internal pump, however two things thwart me. 1. I can't seem to find anyone who sells filters for AW LE81-40 gearbags and 2. I think you need either a gasket or gasket paste when refitting the sump pan which I don't have, so it can wait for now. Maybe in the future?

10 hours ago, SiC said:

Not sure I've got the patience to fill a gearbox at 60ml a time! I just bought two cheap 2l clear plastic measuring jugs from Tesco. Old stuff measured it off and levels written down from decanting from the oil catch tray/Pela. Then filling up I measured up in the new jug with the written down values, usually at 1.5l intervals (less likely to spill everywhere when not full to brim). 

It was a bit tedious I admit, and yeah, a big jug with 100ml measures on the side would probably work fine - it'd need to be 2.5 litres though, and you'd have to drain directly into it. The skuddy washing up bowl I used to catch the old ATF in already had a few hundred ml of old engine oil and crud in, making precise measurements after decanting it between containers hard. It doesn't matter much with engine oil, but I'm a bit more cautious with ATF as there is a lot less tolerance I understand? You could probably do it more easily with a funnel and tube and lob 1.8 litres in then just syringe the last few hundred ml in, but hey, the sun was shining and I wasn't being harrassed by the kids so I took my time.

[SiC]

Carb cleaner/brake cleaner/old petrol swished around in the bottom of the bowl and then pour into old engine oil container that has a funnel in. Clears out the old oil in the tray pretty effectively.

[Eyersey1234]

Nice looking Daewoo there OP. 

[Stanky]

So, how many miles/amount of time do we all think will be adequate to mix the old and new ATF up before I drop the contents of the sump again for round 2? I've probably put 25 miles on it, mixture of crawling through traffic and motorway running totalling about 3 hours driving since last weekend.

Will that be enough or should i leave it a few more weeks of normal use to allow them to mix up properly?

[SiC]

I reckon that is more than enough. Quite a lot of oil gets pumped around the gearbox in a short time. It's what cools the box, lubricates it, actuates the internal clutches and allows the torque converter to work. So an awful lot of sloshing about goes on. 

[Stanky]

Thanks, I'll have a look at it a bit later on once the sun has moved round a bit and the car is in the shade

[Stanky]

just finished round 2 of this which took hardly any time at all. undertray removed quickly and easily, undid the sump plug again and let it drain while i got the other bits I needed from the garage. The ATF that came out was still quite dark, but this did at least confirm that the old and new had mixed well which is what I was aiming for. It still looked like gravy though.

I followed advice and used a small funnel and short section of clear silicone hose to get the new ATF into the 'box which made it heaps easier, I reckon I've changed about 4.5 litres in total, based on whats left in the bottle, so the contents of the entire transmission are now about 70% fresh ATF. I'll probably try to do a drain and refill of the ATF every other service from now on and see how we go. I'll take it out later when i go shopping and see how it behaves. hopefully that'll prolong the life of the box significantly if I stick to this.

 

[Stanky]

I changed the oil and filter in theis again today as it wasn't raining, its a lovely easy job which can be done with the car on the floor now I'm less portly - I cna slide under far enough to undo the sump plug and the filter can be unscrewed from the top while the sump drains into a washing up bowl.

While it was finishing draining, I took the time to make sure all 4 spark plugs were done up tight in their respective holes. They were, but as recent events have shown, worth doing just in case one is loose and blows out fucking miles away, yeah?

[Stanky]

To close the Saab chapter, it ended on a sour note.

My brother and I took it to Germany, to a music festival near Hannover. It made it to within a mile of the campsite before blowing out a spark plug, snapping the coil pack that sits atop it in half, and breaking the electrode off the end of the plug too. I used my rusty A-level German to beg a local garage for a suitable plug and use of one of their sockets, extension bars and ratchets which allowed us to remove the old plug, fit the secondhand plug we'd been given and re-seat the coil pack. through a massive amount of luck, the cil pack continued to work bespite being in two pieces, it bolts into the head and with the bolt in place, the two parts were clamped together enough for it to continue to function.

However, the new plug only went in about 3 rotations before hitting resistance, presumably as the old plug came out/rattled about it destroyed the threads in the head. Since we were back in business, and it wasn't far to limp to the campsite, we left it like that and drove to the carpark very slowly. There was an electrode end in the engine somewhere, and the new plug was only barely held in so it was very slow and careful. objective #1 was to get to the festival. we made it. Just.

Once we were in and set up, I called the breakdown people and explained what had happened, and that while I was currently mobile, I had serious concerns about the viability of driving the saab in its present state 600 miles at Autobahn speeds home to Blighty. They were surprisingly understanding considering I had paid just £29.10 for my breakdown cover. I patiently explained that I wanted nothing done yet, as I was at a music festival that I had paid to get to and was going to enjoy, but that on the monday we'd need to have a bit of a think about getting it looked at. I pushed to get them to flatbed it back home, but they insisted I get a local garage to diagnose the issue first. They called the ADAC that day and we got it onto a flatbed and delivered to the garage that had lent me the plug and socket earlier, dropping off the key. by this point it was saturday morning and they were closed for the weekend.

Monday came along, following a frankly excellent festival, and the breakdown people had laid us on a taxi to Hannover airport (125 Euro), 2x flights with British Airways to Heathrow (£480 each) and a hire car at heathrow for 24 hours (£58) to get us back to fareham via Ipswich to take my brother home. They called me later tat day to say the garage reckoned they could put in a new plug, and a new coil pack but that it'd cost me 580 Euro plus 19% VAT - so lets say £650. I patiently explained to them that:

1. its a half hour job to do the work described
2. I had serious doubts about whacking a new plug into a mangled head and driving it hundreds of miles home

I asked if the work would include a helicoil, as that would make the costs slightly more understandable and give me peace of mind that it'd hold up to the journey. The herbert on the phone didn't know, but said they'd ask the german branch and get back to me. I asked about the feasibility of getting it returned to the UK on a low-loader and they said that due to the book price (£330) of the car vs the repatriation cost (£980) they weren't going to be able to do that.

24 hours later they called back to say that the work quoted would not include a helicoil, to which I suggested that the quoted price for £50 in parts and half an hours labour was on the high side. To which they responded that they couldn't comment or vouch for the quality of the repairs. Not exactly confidence inspiring. I pushed for the repatriation, having checked with my local Saab specialist who reckoned that he could put a helicoil in for £80 - £100 if it was at his workshop. they said that their policy was that if the costs of repatriation exceed the book price of the vehicle they will not do it. At all. Ever.

Sadly this only left option C. Scrap it. I had no confidence that I'd not blow it out again, even more seriously, 50-100 miles into the journey and have to scrap it anyway after spending twice the value of the car on iffy repairs with no comeback. I already knew the water pump was leaking, the steering column was worn and needed replacing due to stiffness in one plane of movement in the UJ, and that there was a rogue spark plug electrode in there somewhere, plus being 65k overdue a turbo failure. Sadly head overruled heart on this and I had to tell them I couldn't justify the cost, despite their willingness to fly me BACK to Hannover, and taxi me to the garage FOC.

I looked at shiply quotes to get the car repatriated and the cheapest was over £900, again, just not viable. Another member on here suggested if I could get it to him in France then he could fix it and take me to it FOC which was very kind, but the quotes to get it there were even more than they were to get it back home to Fareham.

I've filled out the form, sent a copy of my passport and the V5c to them and hope to get some kind of notification from the DVLA before long that its either scrapped or permanently exported or whatever, and get a VED refund. A sad end to a good car.

So moral of the story is that £29.10 cover is not all bad, I cost the underwriters over £1100 and they got me home to my timescale, and in relative comfort. However, I expect that most shitey cars will suffer the same as mine, so don't expect to get your car back if you break down out of visual range of the UK.

[Eyersey1234]

Sorry to hear about the Saab. 

[Vantman]

Sad days Stanky,it done you well though.

[DVee8]

Wow Stanky that's some story.So whats next for you?

[Stanky]

For now, we're a one-car household. With the upcoming need to move out of our rented home and in with the in-laws cars are sadly somewhere down in the lower third of the 'things we need to spend money on' list.

At some point I aim to replace it with a Lexus LS430, but that'll be later in the year or early next at a guess. For now the Daewoo is providing sterling service.

Its something I never thought would happen, I used to service it religiously, the plugs had only done about 15k miles and were definitely done up tight when installed. Its such a bizarre thing to have happened. The worst part was that had it happened on the way to work it'd have been a £100 job to fix and been back on the road within 48 hours. As it was, its game over.

[mrbenn]

Sorry to hear about the Saab, doesn't sound like you had any option.

Must admit I'm reluctant to take my old Focus abroad. Knowing that a breakdown would see me returning to the UK without the car concerns me.

[Stanky]

Spurred on by Wuvvum's 0-60 timings on his Diesel Rover, I decided to have a crack with a GPS app and some foot-to-the-floor action in the Daewoo. The book 0-60 time is 12.5 seconds, but it feels like a lot longer than this. The acceleration from 0-30 is fairly swift, but above that it seems to take aeons to get to 70mph. The engine is relatively willing, being a 1598cc 16v GM Family 1, but its somewhat* blunted by one of Aisin Warners less 'dynamic' automatic gearbags. An AW81-40LE to be precise. 4 forward speeds, none of which are particularly close to one another. 

It had the fluid changed by my fat hands not long ago, so its probably as good as it possibly can be.

Anyway, I planned to give it some beans down a motorway sliproad, right up until I remembered the M27 is now almost all 50 limit with average speed cameras as they upgrading* it to smart* motorway, with a completion date some time in the mid 2070s. Mostly its used to store excess cones right now.

With this plan thwarted I took a detour through a business park which is dead at the weekends. I stopped in a layby, turned the app on and with a clear, flat straight road in front of me, booted it. My daughter looked mildly terrified as we roared down the road, the gearbox holding gears right through to the 6000rpm redline in 1st and 2nd and allowing us to hit 60 with road to spare. We screeched round the corner and pulled into an office car park and consulted the app. Astonishingly we'd hit 63mph, and dispatched the 0-60 sprint in bang on 12.5 seconds. I'm sure there is some wiggle in the accuracy of the app, but it does go to prove that the car is actually in good shape and can be booted if required.

day-to-day, slurring through the gears though its more like 22 seconds as the box like to shift up at about 3000rpm, before the torque comes in, and there is a vast chasm between 3rd and 4th, which engages at about 45mph in normal driving. 

I suspect this is the first time the engine has ever gone over 4000rpm in 15 years and 44,000 miles! 

[paulplom]

How does the app start? do you have to press a button when you mash the accelerator? or is it automatic?

[Stanky]

I downloaded 'Drag Race' app from the Google Play store which you start when you get in the car and it just runs by itself. It knows when you are stationary and then measures the 0-70mph in 10mph increments (0-10mph in under 2 seconds!) then tells you to stop and it'll start over.

Basically you turn it on, leave it alone until you're done doing burnouts and it'll tell you your best result. No need to fiddle with the phone while actually driving. Would probably work on a push bike too?

[Stanky]

Doing a bit of casual googling this afternoon and stumbled across this faithful* replica* of the iconic 1971 Ford Mustang 'Eleanor'. Based on the equally iconic 2004 Daewoo Lacetti. I present to you Eleanotti:

https://www.motoroids.com/news/modified-chevrolet-optra-mimics-ford-mustang-eleanor/

https://www.cartoq.com/10-replica-cars-on-indian-roads-part-ii/

Good god almighty, this a dismal job. The article though has several amusing quotes

" the Daewoo Lacetti in international markets, was a dud seller in India, and an unremarkable car out-and-out "

And from another site

" This modified Chevrolet Optra mimics the Eleanor so well that it takes us more than a second look to register that something is amiss here!" - You need to go to Specsavers, before you seriously injure yourself.

Anyway, I'm off to get a tin of Isopon and a rattle can of christmas silver glitter paint. If you want me I'll be in the garage.

[Stanky]

Today is the start of a new chapter in my vehicle ownership - a Roffle Win Mercedes.

This was brought down to the headquarters of the Stanky Consortium by the East Anglia Syndicate motor pool boss, aka my brother, who helpfully lives 10 minutes walk from @DialATune who was roffling it. As Dialatune is a top bloke, it had 3/4 of a tank of unleaded in so all we needed to do was sort insurance - helpfully I'd not got around to cancelling the Saab policy yet so that was switched over - and then sort out the change of owner and tax when it arrived. It came down last night, and behaved itself impeccably on the way down - 170 miles.

Today I got a chance to take it out for a drive and am very impressed with it. Its comfortable, adequately fast, quiet and capacious. Here it is basking in the year-round* sunshine we get here on the south coast

As you can see, from 10' its a cracker, getting up a bit closer and there are a few cosmetic issues that I knew about. The drivers door is a bit crispy at the bottom rear corner

but this patch is smaller than I expected - probably about 4" square? I'll have a look at this in due course - I'm slightly concerned attacking it with a wire wheel in the angry grinder may cause it to fall off entirely so i may have to have a bit of a think before using the heavy weaponry on it. The arches are a bit bubbly but not broken through the paint yet. I may see about giving these a seeing to with the grinder, vactan, primer, topcoat and lacquer method that I've used before on the Celica and Daewoo to moderately good effect.

The tyres are a who's-who of quality chinese brands. 2 Jinyus, a Rapid and a Westlake. To be fair all have decent tread left on them but we'll have to see how it copes with a wet roundabout in due course. Its been a long while since I last drive a RWD car! I might have to see about some new boots but we'll see.

The glovebox revealed a 5cd autochanger and a paperback HBOL

And a fully stamped service history

I'm slightly perpexed that the reg in the front of the service book is different to whats on the car? so this might be FSH from another car. anyway, the coolant and oil are up to the correct levels, the oil is a bit black but not tarry so I'll probably give it a change of oil and oil filter after payday for good measure.

The inside is luxuriously appointed in MB Tex (I don't think its real leather), lovely and clean with some impressively realistic faux wood in the centre console. The gearshift is very good - I;d heard that MB manual boxes weren't much cop, but this is lovely and slick. It took me a whole to work out that to get reverse you needed to lift the gearstick and move to far left and down but we got there in the end. The rear has good space and cup holders - vital for children on long journeys

The boot is massive, it hasn't got a luggage cover (if anyone has one for a C-Class 2000-2007 let me know) and the little net things are broken on both sides but its not a problem. Investigation of the wheel well uncovered a decent original full size steel spare, a set of regular wheelnuts and the locking wheelnut key - the locking ones will be getting taken off toute suite - and a barely used towbar

RESULT! I checked and all the mounting gubbinz is under the rear bumper so thats a billy bonus. I don't actually have a trailer, but thats not the point.

The run down has given it a good workout, the trip computer reckoned on an average of 40 to the gallon at motorway speeds in 6th and there is still 1/3rd of a tank of pez left in it.

The 'hand' brake setup is a new one on me. The brake is applied with a 4th pedal to the left of the clutch, and released with a hand pull to the right of my right knee. on the flat this is fine, but I may have some fun* doing a hill start the first few times! Clutch is good, decent bite and about mid-way up the pedal travel so no concerns with that. The only other thing that will want a look I suspect is drop links. The suspension is very clonky down my road, which is a bastard of a patchwork of shit repairs over original 1960s surfacing. It is bad in every car I've driven down it, but the merc is quite bangy so might want to budget for some droplinks or bushes or something come MOT time in February.

I'm taking it on the motorway tomorrow to go up to Queen Elizabeth Country Park with my eldest so we'll see how we get on. I'll give it an oil change to begin with then see where we go.

Overall an excellent car, astonishing considering it cost me the princely sum of £19 and 190 miles into ownership there is STILL 1/3rd of a tank in it.

Oh, and I got my tax refund through for the Saab earlier today too so thats a nice rebate as well, so that can go towards some service bits on the mercedes. Watch this space for more updates

[DialATune]

Yes, the guy I bought it off said he'd had the original number plate off and got the dvla to dig out a new one because the first one spelled out his and his mrs' names. Awwww bless!