What have you done to your car today?

Pigeon_Killer said:
Washed my car then removed a few bird etchings. Car got dive bombed during the hot weather a few weeks ago and I only noticed when I finished work.

Got around 25 etchings of various sizes to remove so whipped out the hairdryer and made a start.

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Some would say karma considering your name :cry:

Never had an issue with bird poop etching on previous cars however my Golf seems prone to them even if I clean it off quickly.

I didn’t have much luck with the hair dryer method so I decided to hand polish with Megs UC and it removed them with ease.
 
woppy101 said:
No I couldn’t do it myself as the unit needs coded to the immobiliser, seems to be safe against clocking as he had a few units all with different mileages and he did tell me he could add miles to a unit so it’s the same mileage as the one that comes out but can’t reduce a units mileage
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they can they just use a box to wind the mileage on past 999999, people do advertise it but takes about three weeks so not much call, never had it done but had a customer who has. personally i always feel its not just the clocks that do the mileage but the car wear and tear etc.
rather have a high mileage well looked after vehicle than a low mileage ragged one :)
 
With the BMW clusters it's a similar kind of story - as long as the cluster has a lower mileage than the car that it's going in to it's fine. Mostly. I think it works but shows a red tamper dot to indicate a VIN mismatch. The only way to do it properly for BMWs is to have an EEPROM flasher, read the chip, zero out the mileage and VIN and then flash it back. Then when you put the cluster into another car it syncs up with that car's mileage and the current car's VIN is then registered to the the cluster. At least it's easier for VWs :)

Was looking at getting the full digital cluster for my F30 but it's about £850 which is insane. I'd love it, but can't justify that.
 
Nothing (I was going to clean it, but beer happened :p)

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Maybe tomorrow.
 
LizardKing said:
Tein coilover ready to go back on now minus the oil rust protection layer :D 18months old at the time so out of warranty but Tein kindly sorted it with some persuasion, i dont like to quote the sales of goods act but having it fail with less than 3k miles was a bit of a bug bear. but credit due, they sorted it and turned it round really quick, bonus points for there uk warehouse being on my doorstep.
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Sadly they will likely go again, Tein are cheap crap especially at the lower end.
 
ChrisD. said:
Sadly they will likely go again, Tein are cheap crap especially at the lower end.
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Very true, my last set died the same way but they were at least a few years older! unfortunately OEM's went the way of the dodo, so its either Tein, BC's or China specials for my car so rather limited on choice.
i tell a lie you can also get KW's from the US but for a car that does so few miles i doubt the mrs would be best pleased!
 
I've seen people running coilover covers which are relatively inexpensive. Would need to be removed for MOT but could prolong their life with a spray of ACF-50 or alike underneath.
 
Not what I've done as such, but I had my front bumper sorted. A problem that I caused myself during a front parking sensor retrofit where my bumper fell over, but it looks good now.

Before:

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And after:

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Shame about the rain, but it does look pretty good. Sorted some scuffs out that were all down the side of the bumper too. I just need to put the bumper bolts back in and the kidney grilles back in but I can't be bothered to do that when the ground is damp.
 
Seeing as I ran over an object and fired it down the car, taking out a decent chunk of paint down to the primer, booking it in for repair ASAP. I decided to DIY some front arch guards from some rallyflapz.

How they started.

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After some cutting, slicing and fitting.

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Ewww rusty screw, Hammerite on order.

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Turned out much better than I was expecting, with having to have a more aggressive offset wheel in the future to fit K Sport 8 pot calipers this should hopefully also prove to be a good little bit of protection. Without going the whole rally mudflap hog.
 
Jester* said:
MPS boys all rave about them. Not a bad word said, whats the beef? Drop me a PM if you want.
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I don't know who MPS guys are, but I know plenty of motorsport garages that tune and race cars, all they have to say is bad things about them. From memory they come from the same factory like D2 etc.
 
ChrisD. said:
I don't know who MPS guys are, but I know plenty of motorsport garages that tune and race cars, all they have to say is bad things about them. From memory they come from the same factory like D2 etc.
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Sorry, Mazda 3 MPS guys. Interesting, yea they do come from the same place as the D2.
 
Replaced rear handbrake shoes, rear brake discs and the pads. I had a squealing from the handbrake that I couldn't get rid of even after cleaning everything up and checking everything out but when I did that I noticed that the handbrake shoes and the inside of the discs were quite scored. No idea how that happened or what the previous owner did to cause it. For those who aren't familiar with BMW mechanical handbrakes, they have a hybrid disc/drum setup for the rears so the normal rear brakes are standard calipers, discs and pads but there are handbrake shoes inside the disc - the handbrake lever makes the handbrake shoes expand against the inside of the disc to hold the car.

I'd never done handbrake shoes before but I know people say how the springs can be a pain in the rear to get in but I struggled more with taking the old ones out. When it came to the new ones I just used mole grips to grab one end and pull it in place and it made things pretty easy.

Was a bit of a shame to replace the discs which were clearly still relatively new, but you could see that the inside of them where the handbrake shoes grip against were quite knackered:

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So far so good, no more noises (yet). Although the car was very gradually rolling back on a slope at first but after using the handbrake a few times that seems to have stopped. Will keep an eye on that. Maybe the coating on the inside of the disc just needed to wear a bit or maybe I'll still need to adjust the handbrake cable one or two clicks but at least that's really minor stuff.
 
Attempted to use some tyre weld on a punctured tyre, didn't want to work. RAC came out within a couple of hours and used some sort of tyre plug puncture repair on it which worked a treat.

I will be buying a spare wheel tomorrow!
 
Cleaned the car, but my wheel paint has problems.

I bought her a year ago and the wheel spray job was a tyre on spray.

Brake dust was eating into it, so I have them a good polish and covered then with Gtechniq C5.

It lasted very well for a year, but it started again, so I gave them another polish. All nice and shiney, coated up with C5 and lovely.

A few weeks on, the brake dust has stuck to the wheels on the fronts. I managed to clean it off mostly, with some wheel cleaner, but now they are all dull, rough and rubbish looking. The rears are shiny and smooth still!

Have I managed to do both rears well and both fronts bad, or can the paint just get to a point where it's no good anymore?

I probably have enough C5 to do the front again, but is it worth it?

I did the same process this time, as 1 year ago.
 
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