Car D.I.Y.

[Fastpedaller]

Driveshaft be changed..

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It was a bit awkward getting the gearbox side out due to.the engine mount being in the way but I got there.

Didn't replace the oil seals due to the Honda Parts department being rubbish. I did mark it with the drift but fingers crossed it's okay. If it does weep it's only three bolts (and wheel nuts) to get get to it.

Of course now I've fitted it, I've seen loads of bad reviews for the driveshaft supplier, but hopefully they're from people running exotic limit pushing set ups in performance cars.... Not Honda Jazz

If the new one is better quality than the old then that's good. Whatever, it's better than a broken one.
We bought a brand new, pre-registered Fiat Grande Punto in 2009. In hot weather there was a 'tap-tap-tap' sound which seemed to be under the dash. I made the 'management decision' which SWMBO agreed with ....... If we take it to the dealer they'll remove the dash, break things and we'll have a lot more rattles. When the first MOT was due at year 3, they found a small amount of play in the anti-roll bar links but only advised. i decided to change them anyway and the noise we'd had from day 1 wasn't there any more. So the replacements were better than the original ones. At year 7 we traded the Fiat in and bought a Ford (we should never have strayed from Ford )

 

[Drago]

Don't want to dip your headlights when driving towards me?
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Then gaze upon my works ye mighty and despair!
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Phone the insurers this morning. The good news is Ailing Fux don't want any extra premium. Yippee.

Bad news is it needs noting on the policy and that's incurred a £30 admin charge for 2 or 3 minutes work by their call hamdler - that makes their labour rate about £900 an hour!

So either way they bend you over and pull your pants down. How nice of them.

 

[lazybloke]

Son arrived home with a car on a trailer yesterday. It belonged to a mate but the car, an Audi A3 S Line is knackered. He had a thought of doing it up and selling for a grand.

Let's say I was not pleased. Where are you keeping it then ? He didn't know. So much for doing a mate a favour and taking the car from his back yard.

I said aren't you better scrapping it for a couple of hundred. Anyway on further investigation the car has its own swimming pool and eco system. He decided to scrap it. I said the alloys and tyres look OK. So he got £200 to scrap it and kept the wheels which will clean up and sell for a fair few hundred with good tyres. Far more profit and less time.

You've just given me an insight into the experiences of my parents when I was a teenager and had TWO rusting wrecks cluttering the front garden.

 

[dicko]

This cold snap we are experiencing has led to Police warning drivers about warming your car up on the drive unattended. Insurance companies are warning on the radio that if you do warm up unattended then you invalidate your cover. We no longer need to do this as we are retired but several in our street start ‘em up and go back indoors.
One advantage to EV owners who program a warming period.

 

[Fastpedaller]

This cold snap we are experiencing has led to Police warning drivers about warming your car up on the drive unattended. Insurance companies are warning on the radio that if you do warm up unattended then you invalidate your cover. We no longer need to do this as we are retired but several in our street start ‘em up and go back indoors.
One advantage to EV owners who program a warming period.

My wife does this, but she uses the other set of keys to lock the car after she comes indoors. As it's not an automatic and it's on our drive I don't think it's breaking any rules or insurance conditions. Unless, the insurance co (in the even of theft) disregards the fact the car is locked.

It's like insurance companies have this 'rule' that house windows must be locked ....If the house is burgled I can understand no cover if the windows have been left open, but with double-glazed units the burglar can't open the window even if it's unlocked unless he breaks the glass, in which case it makes no sense.

 

[Fastpedaller]

What has any of that got to do with me?

It's 'part of the job', like when I was told by my BIL that he'd been 'held up' by a cyclist as if I could do anything about it
As he is about 5stone overweight I told him that he should be using a bike himself so he could appreciate that a car trying to overtake a bike on a bend isn't good (yes, that's what he was trying to do ). He did buy a bike (but it was EV) - maybe if he disconnected the battery he could get his weight down quicker.

 

[november4]

In Canada used to use remote starter, or sump plugs - like a kettle lead hanging from front that kept oil warm from element in sump. Needed that if car parked outside.

 

[CXRAndy]

My wife does this, but she uses the other set of keys to lock the car after she comes indoors. As it's not an automatic and it's on our drive I don't think it's breaking any rules or insurance conditions. Unless, the insurance co (in the even of theft) disregards the fact the car is locked.

It's like insurance companies have this 'rule' that house windows must be locked ....If the house is burgled I can understand no cover if the windows have been left open, but with double-glazed units the burglar can't open the window even if it's unlocked unless he breaks the glass, in which case it makes no sense.

Yes the insurance will likely refuse to pay out for you have left a car unattended with keys in it. A quick punch with a sharp object on the driver's door window and thief will be in and gone in seconds.

My neighbour had his car stolen by leaving the keys on the driver's seat whilst he walked up a drive to a house to drop off a letter, by the time he turned around the vehicle was gone. Extremely bad timing and luck to have a scrote in close proximity. Then again this government and previous one have opened the flood gates to lawlessness

 

[CXRAndy]

It's 'part of the job', like when I was told by my BIL that he'd been 'held up' by a cyclist as if I could do anything about it
As he is about 5stone overweight I told him that he should be using a bike himself so he could appreciate that a car trying to overtake a bike on a bend isn't good (yes, that's what he was trying to do ). He did buy a bike (but it was EV) - maybe if he disconnected the battery he could get his weight down quicker.

Using an ebike is an excellent way of maintaining your effort in Z2 far burning zone.

Re overtaking a cyclist on a bend is dick head move unless you can clearly see around the bend

 

[Fastpedaller]

Yes the insurance will likely refuse to pay out for you have left a car unattended with keys in it. A quick punch with a sharp object on the driver's door window and thief will be in and gone in seconds.

My neighbour had his car stolen by leaving the keys on the driver's seat whilst he walked up a drive to a house to drop off a letter, by the time he turned around the vehicle was gone. Extremely bad timing and luck to have a scrote in close proximity. Then again this government and previous one have opened the flood gates to lawlessness

I guess it depends to a large extent on the neighbourhood (although there is rural crime ie farm equipment theft) local to us. I left the door keys in the front door all night once , but nobody came in. Our daughter left her door keys (including car keys) in her front door when she was living on the outskirts of Cambridge - she found them the next morning but it (understandably) scared her and she's never done it since.

 

[raleighnut]

I guess it depends to a large extent on the neighbourhood (although there is rural crime ie farm equipment theft) local to us. I left the door keys in the front door all night once , but nobody came in. Our daughter left her door keys (including car keys) in her front door when she was living on the outskirts of Cambridge - she found them the next morning but it (understandably) scared her and she's never done it since.

Maz accused me of nicking a tenner once, I opened the front door to let one of the cats out and there's a ten pound note laying on the doormat outside

 

[fossyant]

Phone the insurers this morning. The good news is Ailing Fux don't want any extra premium. Yippee.

Bad news is it needs noting on the policy and that's incurred a £30 admin charge for 2 or 3 minutes work by their call hamdler - that makes their labour rate about £900 an hour!

So either way they bend you over and pull your pants down. How nice of them.

Don't go burning any camper's tents down with them, they won't be happy ! LOL.

 

[Drago]

Don't go burning any camper's tents down with them, they won't be happy ! LOL.

I shall be very careful. I don't want to accidentally trigger a nuclear war.

 

[Bristolian]

Several months ago I had an unfortunate experience that damaged the near side of the front bumper - no, I'm not going to admit to how I did it, just accept it was my fault, no-one else was involved and the car remained driveable but cosmetically an eye sore. I purchased a used bumper from a reputable breaker and that has sat in my back garden ever since awaiting a suitable time to fit it to the car. That day happened to be Tuesday so I put the replacement bumper into the back of the car and headed off to my friendly, tame mechanic's garage so we could fit it. For various reasons we didn't get started until about 4:30pm but we did watch a how-to video on YouTube in the meantime so had an idea of what to do.

Removing the old bumper starts with removal of the two front wheel arch liners; then it's simply a matter of undoing bolts, nuts and torx screws and removing those annoying panel clips that expand when you press a hard centre into them (dunno what they're called). There are several bolts cunningly hidden behind bits of flexible rubber trim That just leaves the exterior air temperature sensor to extract from its little hidey hole on the near side and a multi-pin connector to unplug on the drivers side. So far so good and only 30 minutes gone

Comparing the back of the old bumper with the "new" one reveals that a lot of parts have to be transposed from one to the other. Hmmm, coffee time. Most of the parts are fitted to the bumper using a multitude of press-fit clips but there are several rivets and small torx screws thrown in for good measure. Figuring out the correct sequence for removing these parts takes a bit of thought and discussion but we finally hit on a plan that seems to work and eventually we have two bare bumper skins, a pile of assorted bits that need fitting and several clear plastic bags with the nuts, bolts and other sundry fixings to do the fixing. At this point we are about two hours into the job and thinking the worst is over. Coffee time again

As it says in all the best workshop manuals "reassembly is simply the reverse of disassembly" - yeah, right! I thought getting all the press fit clips undone was hard but getting it all back together was even harder. Aligning everything so we could be sure all the clips were in place was a challenge as the bumper skin is really very floppy and we're being ultra careful not to damage it. Starting in the centre and working our way out towards the sides we eventually get everything in place, new rivets inserted and screws done up and it's all looking good. Well, except for the near side collision pressure sensor which got damaged in the original impact but had gone unnoticed until then. A replacement which will get fitted as and when arrived earlier today. After about three and a half hours of fairly continual work in a very cold (despite there being four space heaters on the go) workshop we are ready to offer up the "new" bonnet to the front of the car. Time for coffee break number three before we do that

It's finally plain sailing but we are resisting the urge to rush and get the job finished as now is not the time to forget something or mess up. The new bonnet is on the car and bolted up in about twenty minutes, after which we spend another ten adjusting the fit between the bumper and the wings and bonnet. At the end of four hours we are finished and the car is back looking good All that's needed now is a wash and polish to see how close the paint on the new bumper matches the rest of the car. At first glance it is close enough but we are in a workshop with rather poor lighting so it needs to be checked out in daylight, which I did yesterday and, whilst it's not a perfect match, it's close enough for me If SWMBO decides I can't live with the slight mis-match then I know a man who is pretty good with a spray gun

Right now I'm just happy the job's done but a couple of things have been learned; firstly, I'm really glad I didn't try to do the job on my own; secondly, my mate is an absolute flippin' star and finally, the person/team that designed such a complex bumper assembly needs shooting - very slowly

Sorry for the long winded post

 

[Tom B]

A few months ago I was leaving the local German Supermarket and the driver in front slapped it in reverse and reversed into me. He was jolly apologetic and weighed in with £300. I was planning on putting a replacement bumper on at some point.

I think you have convinced me otherwise and I'll just live with the scuffs.