What have you done to your car today?

Replaced Final Stage Resistor also known as 'Hedgehog' in the 330. My mate who works for Sytner actually did it for me and although I fancied having a go at myself, I knew that I would have either

A. Broken something as I'm a ham fisted git

B. Broken something in fury in frustration of the job.
 
Did the same in my Golf, Voxination. It looks so much better and the interior bulbs are actually useful now in the dark.
 
Cut out an airbag and a seat belt pretensioner connector and soldered the wires to rid my dash of a flashing air bag warning light. Also fitted a new speed sensor to the gearbox and filled it with fresh gearbox oil at the same time.
 
One is 5L and the other is 4L?
I bought three of the 4L, which was all they had left in Stafford.

Sometimes these oils don't meet Ford's own spec, but I'm happy to change the oil more frequently rather than pay three times as much.

Actually I may go back and pick up some part-synth, oil doesn't go off.
 
mattyprice4004 said:
A massive shock that a 155k spring and a £40 cheap lower arm have failed? Hardly, look at the Mondeo stats. Same issue :)
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To be fair, he may be referencing the point where you said that the previous owner had spent a considerable amount of money maintaining this car, rendering any possible issues moot...for the time being.

However, I will agree that such items can fail at short notice; as a spring breaking is pretty much impossible to predict :p Didn't it drive differently with a broken spring though? :confused:
 
bitslice said:
One is 5L and the other is 4L?
I bought three of the 4L, which was all they had left in Stafford.

Sometimes these oils don't meet Ford's own spec, but I'm happy to change the oil more frequently rather than pay three times as much.

Actually I may go back and pick up some part-synth, oil doesn't go off.
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Gribs said:
One of them is on offer?
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tigerstyle said:
Is that a loaded question?
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Serious question, why does one cost 3 times more than the other?
 
Matt82 said:
Serious question, why does one cost 3 times more than the other?
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You mean why is one on a 70% off offer and the other isn't?
What would your bazillion mile Golf get treated to come a change?
Now I'm not saying this is the best oil ever, But I'd rather change it twice as soon with this than a more expensive oil, 'prolly.
 
tigerstyle said:
You mean why is one on a 70% off offer and the other isn't?
What would your bazillion mile Golf get treated to come a change?
Now I'm not saying this is the best oil ever, But I'd rather change it twice as soon with this than a more expensive oil, 'prolly.
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I think the thinking is it's better to change better oil less often than crappy oil more often.

I don't see OEM Spec oil or similar from places like EuroCarParts as expensive, Castrol Edge 5w-40 is RRP'd at £55 for my car but ECP always have a deal on it for £33. That every six months is somewhat extreme compared to most cars but it's still quite cheap in the overall costs to run a car.

Looking on ECP theres's 4L of 5W-30 Magnatec for £20, with the constant offers you're looking at under £15, plus a £5 filter that's a bargain.
 
tigerstyle said:
You mean why is one on a 70% off offer and the other isn't?
What would your bazillion mile Golf get treated to come a change?
Now I'm not saying this is the best oil ever, But I'd rather change it twice as soon with this than a more expensive oil, 'prolly.
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Well, the brozillion mile Golf does have some relevance to this.

Ive tried just about every type of oil going from ECP own brand special off 25L drum upto Mobil1 and Shell Helix, basically whatever is on special offer. I used to buy oil in 25L drums because with two cars going through so many miles i was doing changes pretty regularly.

The only one oil i have ever actually noticed ill-effect or poor performance was ECP's TripleQX brand stuff where after c.3k miles turbo lag would increase noticably and fuel consumption would increase noticably too because you spent more time with your foot on the floor.

It wasnt a one off because i had a 25L drum of it! I honestly thought the turbo was dying but then changed the oil at about Christmas time to Mobil1 and the car flew again, in only changed that recently and after 9k miles the engine/turbo was working absolutely fine.

So due to the experience with super cheap TripleQX, Im much more wary of using a cheap oil.
 
They sell 25L drums of that for £33-£36

When you have to change it at 3k-4k, its not the additional cost that matters because its so damn cheap, but its the time and effort!
 
A good oil will last a full oil change duration, I run my S2000 on the standard 9000mile drains and not seen anything to worry about in the used oil samples. This is driven hard including track days.

Changing more often with a poor oil makes no real sense as it doesn't reduce the cost of ownership and wastes time. If it can't protect your oil from day one then it's irrelevant if you change it sooner.

One key driver for short drains was old carb engines and fuel dilution thinning out the oil, modern engines have much better fuel management systems so no longer a problem.
 
-westy- said:
To be fair, he may be referencing the point where you said that the previous owner had spent a considerable amount of money maintaining this car, rendering any possible issues moot...for the time being.

However, I will agree that such items can fail at short notice; as a spring breaking is pretty much impossible to predict :p Didn't it drive differently with a broken spring though? :confused:
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He spent a daft amount of money on the car, but cut a few corners. For example, he had a fairly good quote for the lower arms and associated bushes (similar setup to the E46 AFAIK) however chose to buy the cheapest items on eBay. The good quote was around £400 all in, he bought £130 parts and spent £120 on fitting so only saved £150. Now they're knackered again, lord knows low long behind the passenger side will be.

The brilliant thing is he had the suspension springs done too... all but the driver's side which has now snapped. That's right, 3 springs.

:rolleyes:
 
If youre on a budget, why not learn how to do these things yourself?

you cna spend the money on better components, you wont have to spend out on labour/garages and youll be more likely to have a more reliable car
 
Put a coat of wax on the big ugly 4007 yesterday just before it chucked it down with rain for the first time in weeks. Planned on grabbing Collinite 476 but picked up a tin of Simoniz Original Wax as it was handy and available at my local Halfrauds.

What a difference, I'm no expert but the finish the Simoniz gives is deep and glossy, you can definitely feel there is a protective layer of wax on there and the rain simply beaded off as soon as it hit the car. Downside was I didn't appreciate how much of a nightmare to buff to a shine this stuff is if you leave it too long. Definitely a 'one panel at a time' wax. But chuffed with the result. :)
 
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