The new news 24 thread

[Zelandeth]

As SiC said.  Also if there's something degraded to the point that it's pinholed like that (which given where it is seems more likely than physical damage), it's very likely that it will just find the next weakest point in the rad and go there in a few minutes to couple of hundred miles.  At the very least I'd want to pull the radiator out and give it a proper inspection - but most likely it's going to be new rad time.  To be fair, plastic tanked rad it's probably just time anyway given they just don't seem to last forever.  Eventually the core to end tank seals will let go.  If you're lucky just by weeping slowly - or if you're not having one of the tanks just separate themselves from the core all at once.  Thus far that's only happened to me once, but it had left me with an inherent distrust for the damned things.  Looks like the core there is aluminium as well, so you can't even braze it up like on a proper brass and copper rad.

[Sunny Jim]

@SiC @lesapandre @Zelandeth Thanks all. That's three people whose advice I trust telling me I need a new rad. 👍

[stuboy]

Recon these like snake oil ..

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285205775971?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=xoNf9V7pTIC&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=OBg5xkCOSsy&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

[SiC]

44 minutes ago, stuboy said:

Recon these like snake oil ..

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/285205775971?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=xoNf9V7pTIC&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=OBg5xkCOSsy&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

On a naturally aspirated petrol? Yes. 

[HMC]

Im going around in probably the uk’s dirtiest quattorporte. Because IMO lots are trinkets that get brought out at the weekend and kept nice. Not this one 😂

[HMC]

3 hours ago, Sunny Jim said:

Source of the latest coolant leak on the hearse discovered when I removed the fans.

What are the thoughts on attempting a bodge with this?

Let's zoom in

For some reason that phrase makes me immediately think of 

[comfortablynumb]

But what's the point in having a car if you're not going to use it @HMC? I've always said that the day one of mine stops doing what I need it to, it's leaving. That's probably why the range rover of too many wheels looks like a shed, constantly 😁

[Yoss]

5 hours ago, Sunny Jim said:

Source of the latest coolant leak on the hearse discovered when I removed the fans.

What are the thoughts on attempting a bodge with this?

Let's zoom in

I bodged my Triumph radiator with this about three years ago. Still holding fine. 

[comfortablynumb]

How difficult would it be to fit a low coolant warning light to the system @Sunny Jim?

If it does catastrophically fail, you've got a bit more warning. Or will that cost the same as another rad?

[Zelandeth]

1 hour ago, Yoss said:

I bodged my Triumph radiator with this about three years ago. Still holding fine. 

Big difference there is that I imagine a Triumph would have a proper brass/copper radiator core rather than aluminium.  

Getting stuff to stick properly to aluminium is a pain in the behind comparatively.

[SiC]

I've been trying to use the Z4 a bit more recently with the nice weather. At the moment the annual mileage looks to be at 3.5k and would be almost the lowest in it's history. Can't be having that! MOT is up in early June so some time left to rack some more on. 

I'm always find it outstanding how economical this thing is for a 6cyl. Admittedly this is from a mostly motorway journey but it's still better than my wife got from her MX5 MK3. 

For £1200/£1600 (purchase price/what this car owes me) I honestly can't think of a much better value convertible at the moment. Comfortable, nice 6cyl engine sounds, drives well, frugal with fuel, modern mod cons like cruise/air con/electric hood/etc and 178bhp gives reasonable performance. While I love my Spitfire, even a cheap tatty one is like nearly twice the amount and definitely not twice as good! I think about changing to something else but I struggle to justify changing the thing. 

Since going through the intake air leaks and replacing the MAF last year, the EML has stayed off. Likewise replacing the thermostat has cleared the other code it had. Plugging it in earlier and doing a quick scan had it showing absolutely no codes stored. Quite remarkable!

The only thing that could well be an issue for an MOT is the right headlight. I think the back cover is missing and water has got in. Apart from fogging up the insides, the reflectors look to have lost some of the chrome. Usually I'd bung a second hand unit on but the pre-LCI (pre facelift) halogen lights are really expensive and rare. Only one on eBay for £400 - a third of what I paid to buy the car originally. 😳

Interestingly the Xenon headlights are cheaper (like £100 or so) as there is many more of them. Presumably because it was a popular option at the time.

[Joey spud]

As I had to move the hands on it I cleaned and polished my clock today.

[stuboy]

10 minutes ago, SiC said:

I've been trying to use the Z4 a bit more recently with the nice weather. At the moment the annual mileage looks to be at 3.5k and would be almost the lowest in it's history. Can't be having that! MOT is up in early June so some time left to rack some more on. 

I'm always find it outstanding how economical this thing is for a 6cyl. Admittedly this is from a mostly motorway journey but it's still better than my wife got from her MX5 MK3. 

For £1200/£1600 (purchase price/what this car owes me) I honestly can't think of a much better value convertible at the moment. Comfortable, nice 6cyl engine sounds, drives well, frugal with fuel, modern mod cons like cruise/air con/electric hood/etc and 178bhp gives reasonable performance. While I love my Spitfire, even a cheap tatty one is like nearly twice the amount and definitely not twice as good! I think about changing to something else but I struggle to justify changing the thing. 

Since going through the intake air leaks and replacing the MAF last year, the EML has stayed off. Likewise replacing the thermostat has cleared the other code it had. Plugging it in earlier and doing a quick scan had it showing absolutely no codes stored. Quite remarkable!

The only thing that could well be an issue for an MOT is the right headlight. I think the back cover is missing and water has got in. Apart from fogging up the insides, the reflectors look to have lost some of the chrome. Usually I'd bung a second hand unit on but the pre-LCI (pre facelift) halogen lights are really expensive and rare. Only one on eBay for £400 - a third of what I paid to buy the car originally. 😳

Interestingly the Xenon headlights are cheaper (like £100 or so) as there is many more of them. Presumably because it was a popular option at the time.

i found an z4 locally and said ill get that as my midlife crisis................. swmbo said your not............. she said no to an mx5 tooooo

[SiC]

5 minutes ago, stuboy said:

i found an z4 locally and said ill get that as my midlife crisis................. swmbo said your not............. she said no to an mx5 tooooo

Do it! YOLO and all that. Especially when younger and more mobile than say retirement when most people's mobility is much less than it was.

[wuvvum]

Mixed success on the fettling front this weekend.  The world's slowest eBay Speedpak finally arrived from China with the replacement reversing camera for the Ampera inside.  Fitting it to the car was a faff - I had to back it up onto the ramps and take the undertray off again, and even then I was working blind and doing everything by feel.  It would have been a lot easier to fit the camera before I put the bumper back on the car, but I got fed up with waiting.

It took a fair bit of adjustment to get the camera to show what's behind the car rather than just the inside of the bumper, so it had to come off several times, but it's more or less there now.

It's the first time the car has had a working camera in my ownership - the original packed up some time ago.  It doesn't really need it as it has parking sensors front & rear, but I don't like when things don't work.

The £9 "untested" BMW sat nav DVD drive I bought from eBay also arrived, and was fitted to the Rover to replace the one in the car which had sadly passed away.  The replacement fired up straight away and even had a map disc in it, albeit one from 2008.  I did the firmware update (the software disc was still in the glovebox) and stuck a newer map disc in and it works fine now.  Unfortunately the most recent disc I have was stuck in the old drive, so I spent a fun hour or so last night taking that completely  to bits so I could get the disc out.  Got there in the end though, and I now have working nav again for the first time since September.

I was planning on having another go at changing the front strut on the Eos this weekend, but my mojo was dashed when I noticed that the spring on the other side has also now gone ping.  Fucking ungrateful pile of crap.  I almost Cartakebacked it there and then, but I'm going to give it a couple of days and decide whether I can be arsed with it or not.  I did try sticking a scissor jack on the strut to see if that would persuade it out of the hub, which was something that had been suggested on one of the VW forums, but that didn't do any good - the top of the hub is at an angle to the strut so the jack just slides down and ends up pushing against the brake back plate, which is no use at all.

The other job I'd been hoping to get done was changing the diff oil on the Merc, but the 14mm Allen bit I'd ordered for the task hasn't turned up yet.  I'm sure I had a 14mm Allen key somewhere which I bought for undoing a sump plug years ago, but I can't find it anywhere. 

So that's another job for next weekend.  I spent the time I'd allocated to that job clearing out the Visa instead, in preparation for its departure to its new home on Saturday.

[SiC]

3 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

 

I was planning on having another go at changing the front strut on the Eos this weekend, but my mojo was dashed when I noticed that the spring on the other side has also now gone ping.  Fucking ungrateful pile of crap.  I almost Cartakebacked it there and then, but I'm going to give it a couple of days and decide whether I can be arsed with it or not.  I did try sticking a scissor jack on the strut to see if that would persuade it out of the hub, which was something that had been suggested on one of the VW forums, but that didn't do any good - the top of the hub is at an angle to the strut so the jack just slides down and ends up pushing against the brake back plate, which is no use at all.

Isn't the EOS a 2.0TFSI? If so @NorthernMonkey might need it for a parts car to fix his Golf GTI. (Albeit he might have just ordered everything needed already now)

[davehedgehog31]

Gave the ex @wesacosa XM a pretty thorough wash this afternoon. It really is a pretty straight old thing and it would definitely be worth getting the paint on the roof and bonnet sorted.

I gave the outside a really thorough going over and although I didn't have time to polish it I did quickly put some wax on just for protections sake.

Really delighted with the car, I've long fancied an XM and thankfully this isn't a case of "never meet your heroes", it's as good as I'd hoped and this particular example is a credit to it's previous owner.

[wesacosa]

13 minutes ago, davehedgehog31 said:

Gave the ex @wesacosa XM a pretty thorough wash this afternoon. It really is a pretty straight old thing and it would definitely be worth getting the paint on the roof and bonnet sorted.

I gave the outside a really thorough going over and although I didn't have time to polish it I did quickly put some wax on just for protections sake.

Really delighted with the car, I've long fancied an XM and thankfully this isn't a case of "never meet your heroes", it's as good as I'd hoped and this particular example is a credit to it's previous owner.

blimey its looking good. It does shine up well aside from the roof and bonnet as you say.  Did you change the passenger wing mirror to the ones without the scuffs I left in the boot?

I really did love the car when I got it, then hated it when I was doing the cambelt, thermostat and water pump, then loved it again after that but ashamed to say after the ulez came in and I couldn't really drive it I did neglect it a bit, although I did try and keep washing and waxing it but the paint seemed to fail overnight almost, not long after one of those Sahara sand storm dumps but not sure if that was coincidence or not 

Thrilled its getting some love now, cant be many diesel XMs out there that haven't hit 80k yet

I haven't forgotten I said I'd send you that stuff by e mail, will dig it out this week 

[Popsicle]

As the couriering Caddy is giving me grief with poor running, a crashy ride and shaking brakes, I decided to do what I'm sure a lot of shiters will understand, rearranging the Titanic's deckchairs and painting some wheels.

I picked these 16" wheels up about a year ago and have done bugger all with them, they are from a Yeti and the tyres were all around 12 years old with plenty of perishing. I had a set of decent Falken tyres in amongst many sets of wheels in the garage so had them fitted and just wanted to tidy the wheels up before fitting them to the van.

I rummaged around and found a decent set of kit to attack them with first.

Probably the worst wheel.

Gave them a quick sanding and slapped some Vactan on them, then went with 3 coats of primer, 3 coats of satin black and 3 coats of lacquer.

Not the best job in the world, but they don't look too bad for an afternoons work by a cack handed knob head.

I must admit I'm tempted to run them on the Passat, the alloys are pretty poor on it, but the tyres, while ditchfinders, all have plenty of tread left. They are pretty over sized for the van, current stuff is 195/65/15, these are 215/65/16, so around an 8% increase in circumference. I'm hoping for 200 less rpm at 70, thats the whole point of doing the swap really.

I've left them to go off over night and hopefully will get a chance to try them out tomorrow.

[Split_Pin]

10 hours ago, SiC said:

I've been trying to use the Z4 a bit more recently with the nice weather. At the moment the annual mileage looks to be at 3.5k and would be almost the lowest in it's history. Can't be having that! MOT is up in early June so some time left to rack some more on. 

I'm always find it outstanding how economical this thing is for a 6cyl. Admittedly this is from a mostly motorway journey but it's still better than my wife got from her MX5 MK3. 

For £1200/£1600 (purchase price/what this car owes me) I honestly can't think of a much better value convertible at the moment. Comfortable, nice 6cyl engine sounds, drives well, frugal with fuel, modern mod cons like cruise/air con/electric hood/etc and 178bhp gives reasonable performance. While I love my Spitfire, even a cheap tatty one is like nearly twice the amount and definitely not twice as good! I think about changing to something else but I struggle to justify changing the thing. 

Since going through the intake air leaks and replacing the MAF last year, the EML has stayed off. Likewise replacing the thermostat has cleared the other code it had. Plugging it in earlier and doing a quick scan had it showing absolutely no codes stored. Quite remarkable!

The only thing that could well be an issue for an MOT is the right headlight. I think the back cover is missing and water has got in. Apart from fogging up the insides, the reflectors look to have lost some of the chrome. Usually I'd bung a second hand unit on but the pre-LCI (pre facelift) halogen lights are really expensive and rare. Only one on eBay for £400 - a third of what I paid to buy the car originally. 😳

Interestingly the Xenon headlights are cheaper (like £100 or so) as there is many more of them. Presumably because it was a popular option at the time.

How on earth are you getting 40mpg 😳 is yours a 2.5 and a manual?

I get 25 from mine mixed, maybe 30 on a long run. I doubt the small increase in CC makes a difference although the auto probably has a lot to do with it.

I agree they are good value. I kept thinking of selling mine too but when they're working they are great. The only thing that annoys me at the moment is that the biggest breaker of them is based in Kent and refuses to post. I need a nicer condition front bumper.  He's breaking several nice silver M Sport models every month with cheap bumpers but I can't buy them!

[SiC]

59 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

How on earth are you getting 40mpg 😳 is yours a 2.5 and a manual?

2.2 manual. Probably helps also that the Z4 isn't that heavy as modern cars go either - 1325kg apparently. Still pretty respectable figures. 

Might ask my colleague later, with the low miler 325Ci manual, to see what he's getting. 

20-30mpg is generally what I get from my E90 N52 330i auto. With 35mpg+ on a good motorway run. 

[Split_Pin]

Mine sounds about right for mpg then. I don't mind, I was just initially surprised!

[wuvvum]

I used to get mid - high 30s from my 2.5 Z4 on a steady run.

[SiC]

Mine is rarely below 30mpg even on short journeys. 

Tbh I think the 2.2/2.5/3.0 Z4 all have similar fuel consumption. Like a mpg or two less on each as the engine is larger. Given they're quite an old design, the M54 is pretty frugal on fuel. They also run happily off regular 95 octane petrol which makes a big difference to fuel costs (often a 10p/l difference).

My Boxster used to do high 20s/low 30s (did hit 38mpg on a long weekend of ~600 miles with the roof up once) but that was on Super Unleaded. You almost always get better economy on Super in any car from the lower ethanol content in it. 

[Supernaut]

21 hours ago, Sunny Jim said:

Source of the latest coolant leak on the hearse discovered when I removed the fans.

What are the thoughts on attempting a bodge with this?

Let's zoom in

My BMW's radiator did that (in two places) in the summer of 2022.

It got a new radiator.

 

I know that the high temperature warning light on it works, though.

 

 

In terms of mpgs of BMW sixes, my 2.5 M52 hooked up to a manual has seen a brim to brim 39mpg on the run down to Shitefest Wales, but is usually somewhere around 30mpg round the doors with my usual GLF driving style.

[Urko]

Uneventful disc and pad change on Ms Urko's Honda CRV.  Easy job, brake judder due to warped discs now gone.

Lidl Impact gun and Lidl 'drivers were great at removing the retaining screws even though they are apparently JIS and I only have Phillips and Pozi bits.

 

[Supernaut]

It saw the light of day properly for the first time in over 30 years less than a week ago.

It's a tractor now.

The clouds did as expected and I drove it back in low range 4WD churning through a fair bit of mud. Took it like a champ.

[SiC]

2 hours ago, Urko said:

Uneventful disc and pad change on Ms Urko's Honda CRV.  Easy job, brake judder due to warped discs now gone.

Lidl Impact gun and Lidl 'drivers were great at removing the retaining screws even though they are apparently JIS and I only have Phillips and Pozi bits.

 

I've got a bit of brake judder on my 330i after only changing the discs about 4k miles ago. Having a look at the manufacturer docs, they reckon it's rare to have warped discs develop normally and usually down to hub distortion. 

Looking at those hubs it makes me wonder if I didn't clean my hubs up well enough. 

[comfortablynumb]

56 minutes ago, Supernaut said:

It saw the light of day properly for the first time in over 30 years less than a week ago.

It's a tractor now.

The clouds did as expected and I drove it back in low range 4WD churning through a fair bit of mud. Took it like a champ.

Series landy doing what they were designed for.

Brilliant 👍 

[richardmorris]

Reasonable Cx review.