What have you done to your car today?

[Phemo]

A small and perhaps useless change. Last year I retrofitted heated seats into my car - doing as good a job as I could to keep it as OEM as possible as I dislike aftermarket heated seats with the bodged in element and button - so I swapped out the original cloth seats out with BMW leather seats, ran the wires according to the BMW wiring diagrams, swapped the climate panel for one with heated seat buttons and coded it all. It's been working great but the job I did with the wires under the seats mildly irritated me:

The intention was always to sort it out properly when I got round to it but while attaching a missing piece of trim to the seats (another job I'd been meaning to do for over a year) and cleaning the carpet underneath I decided to sort it out. A bit of Tesa tape has it looking much better:

Now I can sleep better at night knowing that the cable ties are no more and that the wires nobody can see now look much neater.

 

[adam cool dude]

Took out my DS1.11 from the last track day as they were squealing like mad on the road and doing my head in even though the stopping power is mental. Went for some new Yellowstuff instead of DS2500 as they also squeal like mad and leave terrible pad deposits. Also the Yellowstuff were only £49 for a set should be fine for road use.

I am in the same situation. Carbotech XP10. Fantastic brake but sounding like a freight train coming up to the lights does become tiresome. Had my spare OEM discs skimmed and a set of yellow stuff for the road.

 

[mjt]

Any update on the i3?

Update: apparently the charging/not starting issue was due to a broken B+ battery cable on the 12v battery up front
(Slightly disappointed as I was secretly hoping it’d be a write-off so I could get myself an Audi S1 )

So I guess now I have to wait for the insurance assessor to come back so they can finally order the parts and fix the bloody thing. Can’t believe this whole process will have taken 5 weeks by the time it’s fixed..

 

[EddScott]

Having waited nearly 4 months for these to arrive, I don't fit in them.

To say I'm gutted is an understatement.

On the up side, I'm collecting freshly trimmed SR4 out of a DC5 next week.

 

[sparkymark75]

Anyone know if a slight misting of coolant around a thermostat housing would cause the expansion tank to need topping up every 1-2 weeks? Borrowed another car whilst mine is at the assessors and it’s losing coolant but that’s the only thing I can see. I can't see any drips which would make me think that the leak isn't severe enough to be the issue. What do we think?

Do you have a VAG group car? Coolant leaks on the EA888 engine are a common fault. My car is in today getting the thermostat housing and water pump replaced as I have a leak. Mine can't be big either as I topped up the coolant a few months ago when I got the warning on the dashboard and it hasn't lost much since but they only get worse. I've even read of people's ECU getting wiped out by the leak causing over £2k worth of damage!

There are no Audi dealerships near me so I took it to a local Seat garage, they wanted near £900. Managed to get it booked in with a local VAG independent who is doing it for £610 using Audi parts.

 

[jpaul]

Negative. Currently crying myself to sleep with a 3-cylinder 114i which stings of fags.

I thought these had the sound, anyway, of an inline 6 ? from videos.

Local car DIY shop told me there has been a nationwide shortage of filler during lock-down;
was after some David's Zinc primer , is there a good alternative ?

 

[ScoobyDoo69]

Having waited nearly 4 months for these to arrive, I don't fit in them.

To say I'm gutted is an understatement.

On the up side, I'm collecting freshly trimmed SR4 out of a DC5 next week.

Gutted.

This week I bought a Perrin strut brace that blatantly does not fit my car properly. How people are happy with the fit is beyond me.
Always annoying when you buy something that doesn't work out.

 

[EddScott]

Gutted.

Was looking forward to them turning up too. Tried altering the angle and height but the seat was pushing on my hips and made my legs go dead. Kicking myself a bit as I hovered over buying the Pole Positions which are a tad wider. Hoping the DC5 seats will be a decent compromise between comfort and the rally-esq look I had in mind.

 

[geekman]

Do you have a VAG group car? Coolant leaks on the EA888 engine are a common fault. My car is in today getting the thermostat housing and water pump replaced as I have a leak. Mine can't be big either as I topped up the coolant a few months ago when I got the warning on the dashboard and it hasn't lost much since but they only get worse. I've even read of people's ECU getting wiped out by the leak causing over £2k worth of damage!

There are no Audi dealerships near me so I took it to a local Seat garage, they wanted near £900. Managed to get it booked in with a local VAG independent who is doing it for £610 using Audi parts.

It’s a Chevrolet Aveo. It’s a family members car I’m using whilst mine is in the garage, so I thought it would be good to give it back to them with the issue fixed as a way to say thanks. Unlike yours, it has to be topped up once a week, so it’s clearly a fairly big leak which is why I’m not sure it’s the thermostat as that particular leak is barely visible.

 

[SarGara]

On the up side, I'm collecting freshly trimmed SR4 out of a DC5 next week.

How much was the retrim? I love the SR seats but I never see any come up for sale in a state that I'd be happy fitting, some of the bolsters are grim!

 

[Akagi]

I thought these had the sound, anyway, of an inline 6 ? from videos.

Local car DIY shop told me there has been a nationwide shortage of filler during lock-down;
was after some David's Zinc primer , is there a good alternative ?

They have the sound of half an inline 6. Or half a boxer 6.

I remember my old Polo sounded a little bit like an old porsche if i ragged it on certain narrow roads with flint walls on both sides.

 

[EddScott]

How much was the retrim? I love the SR seats but I never see any come up for sale in a state that I'd be happy fitting, some of the bolsters are grim!

I found a lad through Facebook. He's often on the Recaro group selling mainly Recaros. Send me a trust for his info. Fingers crossed they are OK.

 

[mjt]

They have the sound of half an inline 6. Or half a boxer 6.

I remember my old Polo sounded a little bit like an old porsche if i ragged it on certain narrow roads with flint walls on both sides.

Yeah the 3-cylinder sounds OK, but in a car as heavy as the F21 1-Series, it's awfully slow.
In something like a 6R Polo, it sounds great and is chuckable. Not so an underpowered F21

 

[Semple]

Had an interesting month.

Had a fuel injector go on my A3 a couple of weekends ago. Was going up some hills, and went to overtake some cyclists and foot down i felt the car struggle to give any power which was the first hint something was wrong, eventually next bend EML flashed up with a warning so pulled into the next layby. Some amber EML's can be reset by switching the car off/on, so figure i'd try that as we were a good 40 miles from home. Turned back round as it was mostly downhill from that point and made it about another 20 miles before the car gave up again, had to pull into an Asda, and a quick scan flagged up a fuel injector failure. Car was only able to limp along at about 10mph, so was a bit too dangerous to drive home so had to get it recovered by the RAC.

There was a business only round the corner from me that does testing and cleaning on injectors, so dropped off all 4 (for the cost of cleaning it was worthwhile doing the working 3 at the same time), had a phone call to say the piezo stack had failed in the injector that was having problems, so had that replaced and picked them up. A few days later when we had some drier weather, i fitted the 4 injectors back along with a new fuel filter. Took the car for a quick spin to make sure all was OK.

So all in it was about £140 to have all 4 cleaned and 1 repaired. Anyone who's had to have an injector replaced will know they can cost several hundred, upto nearly 1k if buying from a main dealer.

 

[Simon]

What engine?

 

[Semple]

EA189

 

[Simon]

Were you running it on supermarket diesel?

 

[Akagi]

Good result there, probably helped a great deal that you did most of the labour yourself, and walked in some injectors to a specialist, asked nicely, and took them away again when they were done.

 

[Raymond Lin]

I need to wash my car

 

[Akagi]

I need to wash my car

Looks like someone already did, with mud.