Kompressed Kommunications

[Talbot]

2 hours ago, chaseracer said:

The wooden ditchfinders on the back will have to go... the tail stepped out twice today, which was er... invigorating...

You utter hooligan!  Not once in the 7000 miles I drove that car did the arse end ever step out.  And yes, I did try a few times.  If you do it under power the Mercedes triangle of boring flashes on the dash and kills the power.

There is a little trick to turning the TC fully off, at which point you can go for full-on knobhead tail-hanging-out antics.  I've genuinely never done this, but kinda wish I'd tried now.

Are you sure it wasn't just the TC shutting you down?  It can feel very odd.

[hairnet]

12 minutes ago, Talbot said:

 you can go for full-on knobhead 

*sits on hands

 

[Ghosty]

Don't blame you, cars like this need decent tyres. The reason I put four premiums on the IS was it doing a 180 in a Tesco car park at 10mph with no warning, on four year old Autogreens.

[chaseracer]

2x Goodyear EfficientGrips ordered on Blackcircles, to be fitted at my trusty local ATS tomorrow morning.  

The current rears are also 2019-dated and are beginning to crack, so it's time.

[hairnet]

so its not girth or heft causing issues

[chaseracer]

Not since losing two stone, no... 😎👍

[hairnet]

you dont take your lunch with you now?

[Volksy]

My C180K Auto does between 42 - 46mpg on a motorway run. Averaged 43mpg to and from Shitefest. 

Most I had was a long non-stop run to Berkshire from Yorkshire at 46mpg. 

Gets better MPGs if I don't use cruise. 

I've new tyres all round, Michelins on the back, and Goodyears on the front. Would have stuck with Michelins all round (as was the originals) but no stock at the time I replaced the fronts. 

Mine is on the 15' wheels and standard suspension, so it's comfortable, but certainly doesn't encourage spirited driving in any sense of the word. 

[chaseracer]

Newcastle-under-Lyme and central Brummagem yesterday: 112 miles, 42mpg.

Popped a dipped-beam bulb in the longer Queensway tunnel - not too fiddly to replace, even with my fat sausage fingers.

I really like this car!

[hairnet]

*hears deutschland uber alles faintly being strangled by a madman from cannock

 

[chaseracer]

Started with the Autoglym headlight kit this afternoon, but got rained off.  Halfway through the first one, but the difference is already clear*.

*sorry...

[hairnet]

lingo is thinking yay a pos worse than me

 

[chaseracer]

The Autoglym kit has worked well.  Both headlights are like new.

[chaseracer]

Head not in the game work wise this afternoon, so I took an hour off to attack the Mercedes with a vacuum cleaner.  Much better.

[hairnet]

23 hours ago, chaseracer said:

 so I took an hour off to attack the Mercedes with a vacuum cleaner.  Much better.

who are you and why have you turned into beko

 

[chaseracer]

The day before we left for the 2CV 24-hour, the very excellent mobile mechanic Paul at Warner Auto Services* replaced the condenser and made the aircon work again. 

Otherwise, it's performing well as 'an car'.  We're up to 2000 miles now.

* 07725 318757. Based in Burntwood, Staffs.  Highly recommended.

[bezzabsa]

On 7/25/2023 at 10:46 AM, Volksy said:

Gets better MPGs if I don't use cruise. 

we proved this on the M6 from Brum to Glasgow in an 11litre Scania, with cc 9mpg ,using ya foot 11mpg

[New POD]

8 hours ago, bezzabsa said:

we proved this on the M6 from Brum to Glasgow in an 11litre Scania, with cc 9mpg ,using ya foot 11mpg

I wonder why? Cruise on the omega learnt how you normally accelerate, so if you had 70 mph on it, on the motorway, and had to brake. And then pressed resume at say 40 mph, mine would kick down 2 gears and seemingly apply sports mode. Whereas on a motorway, without cruise, I'd accelerate gently, avoiding it going into kick down mode, and consuming less (I assume) 

[chaseracer]

I use the cruise on the Mercedes fairly often, mainly because it's operated by a simple and intuitive stalk control.  

The all-singing/all-dancing radar adaptive cruise on the Lexus needed a weird sequence of button pushes in two separate areas and was therefore mostly ignored.

[Floatylight]

4 hours ago, chaseracer said:

I use the cruise on the Mercedes fairly often, mainly because it's operated by a simple and intuitive stalk control.  

The all-singing/all-dancing radar adaptive cruise on the Lexus needed a weird sequence of button pushes in two separate areas and was therefore mostly ignored.

Have you checked if it applies the brakes like mine does?

[chaseracer]

1 hour ago, Floatylight said:

Have you checked if it applies the brakes like mine does?

No, but I will 👍

[Talbot]

2 hours ago, Floatylight said:

Have you checked if it applies the brakes like mine does?

It doesn't.

This is the earlier type of cruise which has cruise and Limit drive on the little stalk above the indicators/wipers.  It can only affect engine power.  It is, however, intelligent enough to know how hard you are accelerating when you press "resume", so if you are very gently accelerating, it will maintain that.  Give it a bootfull and then hit resume and it will keep that power level until you're at speed.

Often cruise control is less economic than using your foot, as in most cases many people will allow speed to drop a little while climbing a hill, and similarly allow it to ramp up a bit on the way down.  This is more economic than what the cruise will do, which is apply as much power as needed to maintain speed up a hill, and then drop it to zero when going down the other side (and in an auto, can change down to try to prevent you going over the chosen speed).

Also, people can "feather" the accelerator, accepting a couple of MPH loss for a fair reduction in power input.  Cruise doesn't do that, it just tries to maintain speed regardless.

In theory, on a straight level road there would be no difference.  But roads aren't like that.

[chaseracer]

MOT pass this morning, with only a couple of advisories.  HUZZAH, etc.

Will keep an ear on that grumbly bearing...

[hairnet]

3 hours ago, chaseracer said:

MOT pass this morning, with only a couple of advisories.  HUZZAH, etc.

Will keep an ear on that grumbly bear

thats jo sat in the back when youre driving

[Talbot]

Blimey.  +12.5k miles between the two owners over the last year, and I wasn't really using it for about 3 months of that.

[chaseracer]

It's certainly racking up the miles.  A service is planned very soon.

[chaseracer]

On 24/07/2023 at 19:28, chaseracer said:

2x Goodyear EfficientGrips ordered on Blackcircles, to be fitted at my trusty local ATS tomorrow morning.  

The current rears are also 2019-dated and are beginning to crack, so it's time.

It had two more on the front in late November.

[chaseracer]

On 03/09/2023 at 21:17, chaseracer said:

The day before we left for the 2CV 24-hour, the very excellent mobile mechanic Paul at Warner Auto Services* replaced the condenser and made the aircon work again. 

Otherwise, it's performing well as 'an car'.  We're up to 2000 miles now.

* 07725 318757. Based in Burntwood, Staffs.  Highly recommended.

Got Paul back yesterday to do the 'big service' at just over 175000 miles, so that's damn nearly 8000 in six months.  

He also gave it a good general looking-at following the MOT advisories a couple of weeks ago.  It needs new rear springs, bushes all round, brake flexi hoses and brake pipes.  Sounds a lot, but they would seem (apart from the front arms) to be those fitted at the factory 19 years ago, so I'm not complaining.  The rear axle and fuel tank need to be dropped for the brake lines, so they'll all be done at the same time.

Still enjoying the car!