Car Maintenance

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Just a heads up for anyone with a car with a turbo that they are driving more gently due to winter weather and/or less frequently due to home working. I was having to do this I had an issue with my car last week (engine management light, vehicle lacking oomph) and long story short it was the turbo actuator seizing up. My excellent mechanic loosened it up for free while burning his hand on the hot engine. No love is as strong as your love for your first honest mechanic!

He says they have been seeing a lot of this with the pandemic as cars are used less and this particular part can seize up. Advice is to make sure that once a week you activate the turbo in your car (e.g. hit 2,500 revs by driving in a lower than normal gear, say 2nd instead of 3rd), preferably on an uphill where this is easy and safe to do. This will help prevent the part from seizing up. It's a £250 fix for a replacement but if you have a disreputable mechanic they can easily charge you over £1,000, and from checking forums, this is a pretty regular occurrence.

If you are commuting via motorway etc it's unlikely you'll encounter this issue.

 

[dullonien]

I've been reaserching lately why we're not all driving hydrogen cars like we were told we would be 20 years ago. This video popped up on my feed, which despite being made by a tech channel is probably the best and most rounded answer + a good look at what the future holds for Hydrogen power.

I think the conclusion that the future includes both hydrogen and electric vehicles is a sensible one. And the ideal scenario of turning excess electricity into compressed hydrogen is a great one imo.

 

[ncurd]

Some twat clipped my driver side wing mirror boxing day (parked side of road, plenty of room for fire engine to get by unless someone else parked like a dick whilst it was left), cosmetic damage to the LED and the housing bought OEM parts myself and just manged to replace with some youtube help in less than an hour. Cost me £72.21 in parts but at least there was no labour cost.

Kinda wish they'd done more damage so I had a reason to get the fucker on his insurance with the dash cam.

 

[dullonien]

Kinda wish they'd done more damage so I had a reason to get the fucker on his insurance with the dash cam.

Don't underestimate the imact of making a claim on your insurance premium though. I believe that even protected no-claims only applies to the insurance company you're with at that time, so would have to declare claim when shopping for future deals.

Probably need quite a few hundred pounds of damage to make it worth a claim.

 

[ncurd]

Don't underestimate the imact of making a claim on your insurance premium though. I believe that even protected no-claims only applies to the insurance company you're with at that time, so would have to declare claim when shopping for future deals.

Probably need quite a few hundred pounds of damage to make it worth a claim.

Aye that's one of the reasons I didn't bother. Had that before, we have something like 18 years no claims and our insurance went up because one person went in the back of wife once for a few years as we had made a claim within 3 years.

 

[dullonien]

Aye that's one of the reasons I didn't bother. Had that before, we have something like 18 years no claims and our insurance went up because one person went in the back of wife once for a few years as we had made a claim within 3 years.

Yeah, petsonally think it's unfair. Only accidents that's your fault should affect your premium imo. Gov should put more legislation in place to protect innocent road users.

 

[dullonien]

Haven't updated this thread in a while, but still been tinkering with bits and pieces.

I've been having some issues with the DSC (dynamic stability control) again recently, the light was flashing and causing the car to judder when turning right. Been running with DSC turned off for a few weeks, but not ideal as chances are the ABS wasn't active either.

Some tests showed some abnomalies with the rear left wheel speed sensor (spikes in wheel speed when viewing thr live data), so ordered a replacement. Couldn't find any Bosch or ATE in stock anywhere in the UK, so had to order from Germany. There were cheap aftermarket sensors available on ebay, but sensors like that tend to be rubbish and don't last...

Got to replacing it today. The old one had obvious wear to the tip which is the reason for the faults. The sesor shouldn't actually touch the reluctor ring, so likelihood is there's some rust that's deformed the reluctor ring from behind. This will need looking at sometime, but involves removing the hub, disc backplate etc. For now I've spaced the new sensor about 1mm further out with a washer to hopefully stop it from wearing, but I'll have to check in a few days if that's ok. It all works as it should for now though, so happy enough.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Ford Fiesta fans on why they love their cars

As Ford announces the end of the Fiesta, keen fans sing its praises and mourn its loss.

www.bbc.co.uk

RIP. Was my first car as well.