and today i have mostly been...

[Welly]

Great progress update thanks, can I borrow a piece of firewood please?

I've not seen a sand sub-base like that before, interesting the different methods used around the world; proving again it doesn't have to be done a certain way.

[Welly]

...getting bullied.

I mean 'little car' bullied.

I've been driving the Twingo for 2 weeks (more on this later) and the amount of road bullying I've experienced is shocking it's as if whoever comes up behind me is thinking "I must get past this car" and it escalates from there. Err, hello, I'm doing the same speed as the car in front of ME, WTF do you expect me to do?

Really, really odd.

In Volvo news I've had 2 x Front Wishbones fitted (again) which is all good....went to get it tracked at my favourite tracking emporium and one of the track rod ends won't budge and the nut on the end of the steering rod mushed up (or they mushed it up whatevs) so no tracking for me .

Dispatched from there I ordered a new 'nut' from the volvo dealer for the steering rod end whilst my friendly garage order a track rod end (£15.00). The single nut was £5.00 from Volvo inc postage....it turned up and was wrong, I got sent a ball joint nut, great.

I then managed to agree with the volvo dealer the actual nut I need (£6.00) which is now winging its way to me in the post to "possibly" turn up today or "maybe" Saturday meanwhile the mechanic is screamingly busy and is trying to 'fit me in' around other jobs during week days which will mean driving the car with tyre-scrubbing tracking and maybe not getting the work done anyway, need to pin him down to a proper booking which always seems to go tits up (he's quite cheap and very competent and has a constant stream of punters) i.e. he charged me £45.00 to fit two wishbones including battling with the undertray which I'd fashioned 'special' fixings for

[Doggy]

Know what you mean, I get 'old car' bullied quite a lot these days. I'd be surprised if you don't get that in the Volvo too.

Hope you get it sorted soon/painlessly.

[Welly]

I do get bullied along in the Volvo too, being as it's nearly 14 years old so a complete death trap in most motorists eyes.

Their bullying stops though when I poke the gas and 220 Swedish horses.....

[GingerMagic]

Funnily enough, I had no bullying issues in my old estate - and if someone was trying to prove themselves I simply put them in their place ( normally behind me.... )
However, since I now drive the Coupé - it seems a target for eejits on the road, and people parking really close to me..
Is it because it's an older car?
Is it because it's a sporty looking car?
Is it because people don't give a monkeys nowadays?

[Welly]

I'm sure it's to do with being judgemental and prejudice.

I'm not sure what people think of 406 coupe's nowadays? perhaps the Ford Capri of the 2000''s?

Renner Twingo = incompetent driver aboard.

Volvo S40 = I think it almost shrugs off its 'giffer' status but seems to be falling into the hands of savvy Asian buyers; kinda the 'Toyota Carina' of the 2010's...

Citroen C4 = skint and didn't know what else to buy/don't really care.

[trufflehunt]

No one ever bullied me in my dark green 406.
It always did have some 'battlescars', but whenever I'd drive down the 1.5 car width
rural rat-runs in my area, almost everyone would dive for the passing places.
The car looked a bit mean, so I guess that must have had something to do with it.

It's been a different story when I've taken the rolling project MX5 down the same roads.
Nobody ever gives way. I think it must be the 'hairdressers car' effect.

[steve_earwig]

I don't get bullied too much in the hairdressermobile, of course there are the usual "out of my way, can't you see my superior German car" cooking the back of my head with their illegal headlamps but often I get a lorry coming up 2m behind me in the slow lane (wife and fuel consumption issues) flashing their lights and blasting their horns. They realise they can overtake eventually One thing that did surprise me the other day, when I was taking my bro to the airport, was when I flashed a lorry to tell him his trailer was clear, he actually said thankyou. That's the first time in 14 years, I'd almost given up bothering.

[steve_earwig]

Busy busy busy?

Today I have mostly been... buying rubber. YoyoII has all season tyres (Michelin something-or-the-others) but they're getting close to the limit: for winters it's 4mm here, and these are 5mm front, 6mm rear, so I think it's likely the'd need replacing before the end of winter. Plus I wasn't particularly impressed with them in the white stuff anyway, they're not really snow tyres as they don't have any sipes. So I thought I'd get some proper winter tyres (before the rush), stick them on when things start to get proper cold, and then wear these ones out next year.

Roni in the spares shop (Goran's moved on, sadly) gave me a website to look at where I found Falkens for 106€ (Couldn't find anything about them), Uniroyals for 120€ (ditto, but they're crap, right?) and Vredesteins for 131€ (which have a bad rep and have already been superseded) but I wan't sure. "It's a shame they don't have any Savas, I was impressed with them on my Pug" said I to Roni. So he pulled up another website

Here they are



155€ a pop (ouch!) and already a year old (Bloody Croatia gets all the crap they can't sell elsewhere, including stuff going out of date ). At 17" they're massive, I could stand inside them, and (as the scales were up the shed for some reason) they weigh 12.2Kg each.

Roni also ordered me up some roof bars

for 900Kn odd (just over a ton) because I'm sick of asking Miloš or tying stuff straight on the roof. No idea of the make (Green Valley?) but the cheapest available that did the full 100Kg. Roni, Darko from the bodyshop next door and I had fun fitting them too..

And finally I get home at 6pm, got to the kitchen to feed the dogs and...

"FEED US FIRST!"

Counter top, front to back: Teenie Weenie Propeller Beanie ("Beano"), Teatime ("Big T") Charles ("Pudding") and Camilla ("Squirrel"). Floor back to front: Pickle ("Peanut"), Srećko ("Mr. Ming") and new addition Frankie ("Satan"). Yes, 7. We had 8 once...

[highlander]

I had a set of Uniroyal Rainsport 3 on the Coupe. Brilliantly grippy tyres, really good in the wet or the dry. Not even bad in the snow, but they're not snow tyres.

Thanks to a tracking issue, the fronts wore out in only a few thousand miles (down to the cords on the inside edge, but looked fine on the outside)... but I have no doubt they'd last well enough on a car with the tracking set up properly. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them as decent year-round tyres for locations that don't get enough snow to legally require winter tyres.

That's a lot of cats. Most we had at one time was three. It's amazing how well these normally-solitary hunters can get on together as a group, but there were plenty of spats between them. Are yours fairly civil to one another, or do you find yourself having to pry them apart on occasions?

[steve_earwig]

As much pact instinct as vampires... Very occasionally there's a bit of a ding dong, usually Teatime & Srečko playing "I'm Top Cat" but nothing serious. They all hate it when a new kitten appears but that only lasts a week or so. Frankie's a bit of a pest though, whoever I feed he rushes up and sticks his head in their bowl.

And this morning Pickle turned up covered in black goop, it smelled like she found the overflow from a septic tank (not sure how as we're all on main sewers here). Into the shower you go! She wasn't too distressed, a bit of paw waiving but no claws and we soon had the job done.

In other news, while I was lurking around the bodyshop (it must be a BMW, the badge on the boot says so but the front could be anything) an old mate of mine, Kruno who used to run the car spares and workshop I used to hang out in, pulled in with his uncle, driving his C-Class with its front stoved in. Seems he was pulling off the motorway when a deer ran out in front of him I've been told to watch out for them (particularly as nobody's insurance covers that sort of thing) but I'd not heard of it before this week, now that's 3 (the other 2 being t'wife's cousin and, oddly, her ex). I thought the wildlife only went nutty in the spring!

It's probably about time I posted some shed pictures, I have lots again. Maybe later...

[Doggy]

That's a shedload of cats you have there.

Perhaps they've hypnotised Steve and 'suggested' he builds them more palatial accommodations?

[steve_earwig]

I've been thinking about a cat flap for the batcave, however they had if for years as a play area/hunting ground/huge litter tray, so maybe I should control their use and not give them free access.

I've just taken those roof bars off, sprayed chain lube (sticky silicon grease) inside and put them back, 2 bleedin' hours it took

While I had the car in the yard I thought I'd check the tyre pressures (slightly low but it's turned cold). While I was blowing up one of the fronts I noticed a small chunk out of the tread - que? Put me specs on to check it and... they're perished. The date code says 2013 so that's 5 years old. Michelin, farewell forever!

[Welly]

Those tyres have a nice 'aggressive' tread pattern, perfect for Schnow.

To update the Volvo's suspension calamities (this has taken 2 weeks now)...

New wishbones on, all good, went for tracking, they said TRE seized so come back, mechanic had to cut through the TRE to get it off this was getting on for 6pm Weds night so 'we' wound on the new TRE as rough as we could and got the steering rod connected...all good yes?....NO.

5 metres down the road car went nuts: Bong!Anti-Skid Service Required and Bong! Anti-Skid Temporarily Off meanwhile the ABS pump was working overtime with the Traction Control light going mental shortly after the car kinda disabled all that stuff and all went quiet but the warning message persisted. The car 'knows' your steering input and talks to loads of other sensors to pass the time of day with them.

Now the steering wheel was way off centre due to the guesswork with the TRE position, so sensible me said to myself it must be that the car thinks I'm steering and losing control (car has a fancy traction and stability programme) so this should sort itself when I get the tracking done (booked for Saturday 08:00am).

Not so sensible me started googling the warning message for clues:

Internet said £1,200.00 dealer software blah blah
Internet said £1,000.00 disaster looming hope you can afford it
Internet said MOT FAILURE (mines due in December)

Went for tracking this morning at my favourite emporium of 'Hunters' tracking and started rambling on about calibrating the steering angle sensor and winding the steering wheel back first with the TRE thinking the car's not going to like it's new steering angle...WE'LL SORT IT Mr Welly don't worry..

Car tracked up lovely but the warning message persisted, the nice manager plugged a diagnostic pooter into the OBD port and 'bluetoothed' the menu's...25 errors came up relating to the ABS and steering position nonsense. He cleared all codes no trouble, I paid the £30.00 tracking fee and gave him a £5.00 note for helping with the codes (wish I Had more cash on me, felt a bit mean but he was well chuffed at my gesture).

Result now car is perfect! no errors and it tracks down the road lovely, these cars are MEGA fussy about tracking and feel horrid if its not perfectly aligned so I'm always happy to get it sorted.

[steve_earwig]

So all the codes were historical? Thank feck for that! The traction ecu must have seen the steering wheel pointing one way and the wheels pointing another and gone into meltdown. Bloody overcomplicated cars, dontchalovem?

I've been watching SMA on youtube for his diagnostic stuff, it's fascinating but underlines the fact that you'll not be getting anywhere without a cupboard full of diagnistic gizmos. Bring back carburettors!

In other news, the price of diesel here is now (slightly) more than the price of petrol (finally) and there's talk of banning diesels in 10 year's time. Not sure if that's just in cities or altogether tho.