Category Archives: Cars

Stuff about the cars

Cars

First Fill Up

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I’ve just filled up the car for the first time since changing jobs. Looking at the usage aside from the trip to Abingdon on Friday it has been three weeks of commuting every day, and the usual mix of local running around for domestic duties like shopping, Church and so on. When I was working for SSE, the similar mix of commuting and local domestic duties required a fill up every week. (Also worth considering that with the current price of fuel around here, a fill up usually costs over £40.) So looking at the result of the move in purely fuel costs, I’ve saved about two-thirds.

Of course, if you bear in mind that the new journey is only a tenth of the distance from home than SSE, you realise that the car is running considerably less efficiently than before, and this is reflected in the MPG figures that I got over the last three weeks. Usually, during the winter months with the winter blend diesel and colder temperatures the Golf does between 46 and 48 miles per gallon (it rises to between 48 and 50 miles per gallon in the summer), however over the past three weeks the Golf averaged 38 miles per gallon. It is worth bearing in mind when looking at that figure that it is still better than the Focus ever managed on the trips down to SSE, where it averaged around 34 miles per gallon…

Cars, MobLog

That Sinking Feeling…

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It was all going so well. Although I’d spent about twenty minutes sat in the queues in Wokingham to get across the level crossing, I’d had no problems retrieving the money I’d contributed to the SSE Sharesave scheme over the years from the branch of Halifax in town. Whilst it wasn’t anything like the amount that would have come back in shares based on the current price, it was still a nice sum.

Going back down towards the office, there was what looked like two muddy tracks on the road coming out of a building site, but I didn’t pay much attention to it. I pulled into the car park, and then reversing into the space the steering felt a bit heavy. I got out to a really audible hissing noise, and the front wing of the car slowly sinking…

Space Saver Spare

Anyway, it was tipping down with rain, and since I didn’t much fancy struggling with the weedy little tools in the wet, and after the quick work they made of it last time, I took the easy way out and made use of my rarely used AA membership, and got a patrolman – complete with big beefy jack – to change over to the space-saver spare.

Thankfully, the patrolman appeared in what turned out to be one of the few dry periods in the afternoon. As before, he had a full sized trolley jack, and made quick work of getting the tyre off, the only point of difficulty being the traditional struggle to shift the machine tightened wheel nuts. When the AA man got the tyre off, we had a look around it to see where the hole was – and at first site, it seemed absolutely fine. After a closer look the AA man spotted a small split in the tread, but no sign of the cause. I had a quick look around the car park, but there was nothing obvious, so whatever had caused the puncture must have dropped off pretty quickly. Annoyingly it wasn’t a puncture in the old tyres on the back either, but in one of the two new tyres I bought just before Christmas – I’d got just three months use out of it! Anyway, I put in a call to Ridgeway and ordered in a replacement. Slightly amusingly, after forgetting to note down the tyre details before phoning them last time, I made sure I had all the tyre details, however I needn’t have bothered as Ridgeway had kept a note of them from last time! Hopefully with the relatively new tyre on the passenger side at the front, there won’t be an issue with uneven tyre wear. My experience with the first set of front tyres on the Golf is that the drivers side seemed to have worn a bit quicker than the passenger side anyway, possibly something to do with having most of the weight on that side of the car most of the time I guess. The new tyre will be in by tomorrow lunchtime, so I’ve been allowed to leave work early tomorrow afternoon to get it fitted. I guess I should be more careful of what is in mud on the road in future too!

Cars

Fixed Under Warranty

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The Volkswagen dealer fixed the problem with the indicator light under warranty today. When I collected the car at lunchtime (sadly not cleaned this time) the service assistant said that it was pretty unlikely to have been a bulb, but they had to let me know that it could be a chargeable item if it was. In this case they replaced the whole indicator module.

Now the only mystery to solve is quite how the radio keeps retuning itself to 210FM whenever the car goes in to the dealer. Do they have a deal with the radio station or something? 😉

Cars

Keeping the Lights On

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So yesterday, after having the car for over a year, I got my first experience of changing a headlamp bulb on my VW Golf. Now if this sounds like I’m getting a little overexcited about a simple bulb change, you might like to read back over the hassle I have with our Ford Focus, particularly the eye-watering £60 for the dealer to fit the passenger side bulb.

Anyway, I’m pleased to report that the change for the Golf was simple enough that I did it in the car park of Halfords, with no need for tools screwdrivers or anything. The back of the headlamp unit is a screw cover, then the bulb itself is in a socket mounted in a plastic holder that again screws off. The holder can only go back in the correct way up, and again it all just screws back together. This was a breeze compared to the metal clips and plastic flip up cover effort on the Focus. In fact it even takes the same type of bulb as the Focus which makes life easier.

Having said that, whilst I was there, I did a light check, and spotted that the wing mirror indicator on the passenger side was not as bright as on the drivers side, indeed it seemed that some of the LED’s where flickering off on some occasions. Looking through the manual there was nothing about these bulbs, and nothing about how to change them, so today I gave the VW dealer a call. The diagnosis over the phone was that from the symptoms it could be a ‘fault with the board’, in which case it’s a warranty repair. Otherwise, if it’s that the bulb is going, then it’s £18+VAT to replace it – somewhat less painful than the headlight replacement over at Ford it has to be said. They were able to take the car in on Saturday to sort it out too.

Cars, MobLog

The Golf Wants Servicing Again

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Needs a Service Again

Whilst my experience with the Golf has been a lot less annoying than the Focus, with an engine that doesn’t misfire, works absolutely fine on the regular fuel, and a windscreen that can survive a stone chip without cracking, there is one thing that is starting to get annoying, the variable service intervals.

The theory is great – the car with it’s specially developped oil needs an oil change less frequently, so on board sensors will monitor your usage and driving style, and also the oil quality, and then at some point between 9000 and 20,000 miles will request a service. It is beneficial for people who use the car for primarily long trips, rather than lots of short hops that don’t give the car a chance to warm up, so sounds ideal for someone like me whose main use is for trips to work, 44 miles away. However the practice is a bit different. The car has just announced that it needs a service in 1200 miles, with the mileage on about 25,000. Not too bad until you realise that this is the third time it has done so. The first time the garage just reset the indicator, but right on cue, at the minimum interval level, it came on again – when they did the first service and reset it, and here we are after the minimum mileage again, with it asking for a service. Incidentally, after the mileage, it then gives you a number of days before the next service – in this case 238 – 8 months time!

My assumption is that when I phone the dealer tomorrow, they’ll just ask me to bring it in, and they’ll reset the interval again, the assumption being that it is a problem with a sensor. The question that bothers me is what if it isn’t a sensor, and this is just a symptom of something bigger? (Of course maybe that is because I watched a documentary about the Columbia crash yesterday, where they did exactly the same thing – assumed that an unexpected reported fault was a faulty sensor….)

Update: Chatting to a friend who owns a Seat with the same engine today, he said his service indicator does exactly the same, and his dealer has just told him to ignore it and bring it in on a regular fixed length service interval!