What have you done to your car today?

Wanna sigh? I sighed, please sigh too.

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Washed my car a couple of days ago because it was incredibly filthy from a 700 mile trip last week thanks to the salt etc on the roads. It was so bad that I realised I couldn’t really see anything much through my side windows and even opening/closing my boot resulted in dirt and grime all over my hands.

Much better now except today I noticed a little bit of condensation inside the rear light clusters. Seems to be a fairly common thing on these cars so my first thought was to buy a new pair of seals. For whatever reason they seem to be about £16 each and eventually seem to go again anyway so I read of a ghetto DIY fix involving covering the entire seal in PTFE tape.

With the wife’s assistance both seals are wrapped in PTFE (I think it’s impossible to do it solo) and after using a hairdryer to dry the condensation inside the lights, it’s all back together. No issues yet but time will tell.
 
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As an update to my rear ender, my car's now at the bodyshop having 2k worth of work done (under insurance thankfully). Hoping to pick it up on Saturday.
In the mean time, the shop have loaned me a 2010 Suzuki Swift 1.2. What an utterly hilarious car this is. I've never had so much fun in something so slow. It's great :D
Makes all the noise at 30mph and goes round roundabouts like a go-kart. Was fully expecting to hate it, boy was I wrong.
 
Much better now except today I noticed a little bit of condensation inside the rear light clusters.
aren't most light clusters not sealed, to allow hot air to get out, so, with our cold spell, you do naturally get some condensation, after use, but it burns off as they are subsequently used;
released the halogen bulb caps off of the back of my misted headlights, in little used car, so that moisture might escape better, in warmer days earlier this week,
meantime I was fixing washer jets - gunked up my eurocarparts triple x screen wash breaking down in cold.
 
The front lights aren’t sealed but the rears have a rubber seal between cluster and the bulb holder section. I suppose there could be a breather hole somewhere but I couldn’t find it. But there must be something as when the bulbs heat up and cool down the air inside will of course expand and contract.

This was a fair bit of condensation though, a fair few water droplets in there and I have seen pics of some people’s lights with a lot more water in them too. Just thought for the 20 mins it cost me that it was worth trying to prevent.

On the subject of the Euro Car Parts screen wash, what mix do you use? There’s no instructions on there so I took a gamble with a 50/50 mix for my wife’s car but on a couple of days last week no screen wash came out despite the car having heated washer jets. I then emptied about a litre out and topped off with pure screen wash so that made it more like an 80/20 mix and still had the same problem on another day.
 
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On the subject of the Euro Car Parts screen wash, what mix do you use? There’s no instructions on there so I took a gamble with a 50/50 mix for my wife’s car but on a couple of days last week no screen wash came out despite the car having heated washer jets. I then emptied about a litre out and topped off with pure screen wash so that made it more like an 80/20 mix and still had the same problem on another day.
I'd used similar 80/20 on Euro's -15,
but, if its ethylene glycol based https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/ethylene-glycol-d_146.html
if I dilute it 80/20 would reduce 30% concentration to 7.5 which might give -3C, so probably explains why bottle had frozen. even 50:50 might be 'only' -6C
 
Job for mid Jan when time is free...

Thermostat + o-ring, coolant temp sensor switch, 2x coolant hose o-rings, 10 litres of coolant/water mix:
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4x new parking sensors because finally got round to sorting them after 6 years lol:
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Got the company Leon back today after having a 3/4 respray of the passenger side after this happened while driving along the M2 back in October.

I only had the rental for a week but happy to be giving it back. Fabia 1.0 MPI. The car was ok but while I don't subscribe to the idea that cars need to do 0-60 in 6 seconds flat to make them usable, the 1.0 3 cylinder NA engine was pretty horrid! Made the wifes 1.2 TSI Polo feel like a dream to drive despite only having another 10 bhp on paper. Other annoyances were the centre console being angled towards the passenger side. An obvious cost saving measure but why the hell do people accept that?! That alone would be reason enough for me not to buy one. Lane assist was also a pain in the rear. It switched itself on everytime I got in the car and everytime I drove on the country lanes to my in-laws it would screw up on the same corner trying to "assist" me into a ditch.
 
Lane assist was also a pain in the rear. It switched itself on everytime I got in the car and everytime I drove on the country lanes to my in-laws it would screw up on the same corner trying to "assist" me into a ditch.

Lol I had a Corsa rental which did that to me - twice, once in Spain.

Properly caught me out the first time it happened each time I had it, as I was suddenly being forced into the hedge/wall. I think you could permanently turn it off though, at least.
 
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