What have you done to your car today?

I got my Renault serviced and it came back with the USB/AUX ports for the stereo not working.

A "coincidence" apparently.

My fault for buying a Renault, clearly.
 
I did do it myself, first time I've done an oil change! :p

I spilled a load of dirty oil in the alternator when I took the oil filter housing off... Derp. :D

Err, will that be OK or...?
 
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Oil change and filter here as well - a 30 min job took over an hour - I hate engine under trays

Good job I have an inspection pit in my garage.

Dave
 
I hate them too, if nothing else they make it hard to see if something is leaking, and heaven forbid you drop something on top of it!

My car is supposed to have one, but, well, it doesn't. :p
 
I am so very jealous of that E30 :(

Do you want to swap? My car is newer and has all the clutch fluid still in it. ;)
 
Last week I had a bit of an impulse buy on ebay. £300 got me this:

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Yes, a boring old Astra! Reason for buying it is that my other Astra is becoming very expensive to run. Doing 20k miles a year in something that does 20mpg and keeping on top of the repairs while using it daily was becoming an issue. So I have this now to use while my other Astra is off the road for some TLC, and I can take my time with things and do it properly.

I bought it cheap as it was sold as spares/repairs as it cut out when hot, very common issues on these being the ECU, it's bolted to the inlet manifold so all the heat and vibration seems to kill them over time. Got a replacement ECU with the immobiliser chips etc for £60 and it runs well now.

So yesterday I have it some much TLC, timing belt, water pump, thermostat, full service including air filter, plugs, fuel filter, oil & filter and replaced the wipers with bosch aero blades.

Wasn't too bad really, surprisingly lacking in oil leaks for a Vauxhall :p
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One thermostat nicely stuck open
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It went straight through the MOT with one advisory on a tyre perishing and slight play in a track rod, both of which I will sort.

It's surprisingly OK to drive. It makes a nice change from rock hard suspension, a loud 3" exhaust system and a heavy clutch. A friend of mine has some Vauxhall alloys so I'll swap them for the horrible steel wheels. Other than that it's a cheap and cheerful car to get me to work and back.
 
Can't really argue at that price. Cheap to buy, cheap to fix. Sure you could have got something nicer for a few hundred quid, but it would probably cost more to maintain as well.

Must feel a bit slow though, does that badge on the back say 1.6? :p
 
Possibly could have got something nicer, but I know these cars inside out and have plenty of spare parts already.

Yeah it's a 1.6, a massive 84bhp! It's not actually as slow as I was expecting. My other Astra is 354bhp so a bit of a difference :D But it's the difference of nearly an extra 200 miles to a tank, so it'll pretty much pay for itself in not all that long.
 
Looks like I need a resistor kit for the LED indicators. Weirdly they work fine with the hazard lights (which is all I tested with at first) but left or right indication causes them to flash really quickly.
 
Soldered in some plugs for the electric windows so now I can unplug them when I removed the doors (this is a more common occurrence than it should be).
 
Charged the battery, inflated the tires and coded the windows and sunroof to open and close off the key.

Needs new tires and an oil change soon and still have boxes of stuff to fit in the garage.

Will probably end up buying a new car soon as the itch for something half decent again is coming back!
 
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