New car ???

So me being me i had to start taking the new car apart, just to see how it fits together and to fix the things that other people hadn't. A quick 30 minute job was to hoik the battery and the battery tray out and scoop up all the decaying matter hidden underneath, the bunged up drain holes cause wet footwells in the front a common problem on this model of Passat according to the good old t'internet. (no pics as i forgot my camera but there was a good compost pit going on as the drain holes were well and truly bunged up)

The next task was the pollen filter, now this car has supposedly been serviced relatively recently, spot the old and the new....

does this look like and newish filter to you??

Still have to say that i'm pretty chuffed with it so far, quite a quantum leap forward for me so the following things that most other car owners take for granted are real luxuries: a CD player with four speakers! windows that go up and down ....electrically too. Getting used to a manual gearbox again is the thing but a few forgotten clutch dips soon gets you focused again.
and the name the i finally came up with a name,... how's Pasta Wagon.... purely because i can drop an 's' rearrange the letters of Passat and make a real word. the rear hatch will soon to be showing this title, and don't think that i wont do it, cos i will. Watch out for the official naming ceremony soon.

The end is nigh

Finally managed to find a suitable Passat for sale, right spec, right age, right location, right price, right condition and the right colour, had the usual faffing about in the beginning as the seller raised the price after my first test drive but it all worked out in the end and i paid what was first being asked. Had it independently tested before i decided just to ease my mind a little.

So as seen on I&I TFW is being superseded, well I simply don't have time for the old beast anymore and i feel the need for a slightly more secure mobile tin can to provide transport for the family.

Had TFW since october 2007 and it has only let us down once but that was due to frozen fuel and not the car itself, so doesn't really count does it.
It lugged pretty much the entire contents of our flat bar the bed and sofa when we moved without complaint and has chugged Maud to nursery through the snow on numerous occasions. I'll miss it. It's not advertised for sale yet though but when it is i expect a deluge of interested buyers will jam the phone lines....maybe.
One good thing is that although it's a much newer car the insurance will be less,... the reason i suspect is a near halving of engine capacity, goodbye the pull stumps of the ground barrel chested 3 litre diesel, hello puny asthmatic 1.6 litre petrol.

There is no honour among thieves anymore

Can't say that i'm really that surprised, but then again i am in some way.

I'm very much the ultimate sceptic when it comes to other people and society in general, i adhere to the school of thought that...

'If you want a job done properly, do it yourself.'

obviously this has it natural boundaries, i not going to start doing my own brain surgery but basically i don't trust anybody apart from my immediate family and friends, I'd deliver my own post if i could.

And what brings on this rant, well let me tell you a story:

I'm currently looking for a 'new' car (new to me) so i'm scanning the second hand adverts online. I find just the car i want and not too far away, the advert has just come online and i am the first to ring about it. I have a chat with the seller about the car and he seems OK, I explain, (shall we just call him Mr. Idiot from here on in?) that i'll be there as soon as i can as i have to pick up from nursery blah, blah, blah and he is fine with this. Mr. Idiot isn't home until after 4 anyway so i arrange to see the car at 7:30.

So am i surprised to get a phone call from Mr. Idiot a couple of hours later saying the car is sold so i needn't bother coming over, erm.... yes i am.

Mr. Idiot proceeds to tell me that someone came with cash, (i'm assuming a second hand car trader, we are talking kr 100 000 here!) and took the car away there and then..... yeah and so?? He thinks this is OK?? Is it just me or have i missed out the moment in time when general courtesy and keeping your word was officially abolished?

In my mind, and this is probably where things need adjusting i guess, I phoned first, ergo, i have first dibs, end of. If this other guy was so eager then Mr. Idiot had a sale regardless of whether i buy the car after viewing it or not, he could have honoured our verbal agreement.

I did really want this car but i'm not going to tell him that i'll take it over the phone, without a test drive and a general inspection?, do i just have to trust what he says in the ad? Do i tell him i want it on the phone and then go to see it and decide i don't, then i become Mr. Idiot.

Bah - whatever, i'm claiming the moral high ground but i have no car, who's the schmuck here?

This shit depresses me - meh - the car i'm not so bothered about, another will come along (hopefully) but this kind of crap i can do without, buying a car might have to become an 'if you can't beat them join them' situation, and so society continues to slide down the slippery slope and i'm a part of.

*EDIT* having read this again i'm fully aware that this is nothing new, people don't give a monkeys about other people all the time, and has been this way since the start of time, still frustrating tho.

Re-sprung

Ahh. TFW, we were reunited and were happy until i realised that the MOT had run out and i had to get on with putting the new springs and dampers on. This was a whole days work, including i might add a 3 bus journey to, and a 3 bus journey from the mercedes tool hire shop, might have been shorter but i was working sans fitting instructions, and i faffed around a bit making a few stoopid errors on the way - the manuals say leave it to the dealerships - meh.

Glad i chose to hire 'the right tools for the job' have i been here before??
Wanna guess how much energy is stored in these springs when they are compressed like this, no me neither but a whole LOT i can be sure of that.

The grenade, ready to take your head off.
Lucky they were already broken, made them easier to wiggle out.

 

 

Grenade armed and ready to chuck in the car.

 

Wonder why these didn't pass inspection, I can't see anything wrong with them. :-/

 

Lower, sleeker, faster, cooler

It was a hard days work made more complicated by the fact of having to work through a matchbox sized hold to disconnect the hydraulics from the dampers... grrrrrr.

Before and after
Like the title says lower, sleeker, faster, cooler, TFW dropped a whole 3cm

The man from NAF he said yes :-)



Sadly for TFW it's days are probably numbered as my first choice of transport, circumstances, well no the weather and -14 temperatures, gave it a dose of the no go.
Don't get me wrong TFW itself was fine but the biodiesel that should have been flowing through its pipes went a bit solid, my fault really, normal diesel would have been OK. So it got left in the shed 120km from home where it left us stranded, to thaw out. Bah.

So what am i looking at to replace it, nothing new, obviously, besides the cost prohibiting it - i like older cars. £35000 for a new basic VW Passat estate anybody?? erm No.

Still ain't going to be cheap, for a 2001 VW Passat estate 1.6 i'll need the thick end of £8000, (yes that is eight thousand) how the hell do people afford cars in this country?? Ugggghhh.

These Boots Are Made for Walkin'

Hei o hupp,

gone just like that, well probably not just like that but gone it is.
TFW has been stolen!

Having your car disappear is one of those super self doubt, double take experiences.
you think 'I did park it here...right?'
[your mind flashes back through the memory of doing just that a a few hours before.]

You then turn around scanning the nearby area, in my case the garage under the building, just in case you'd foolishly parked it somewhere else.

Nope it's gone
[mind plays through scene of parking car in parking space again just to firm up and confirm the reality]
no can't see it here.
[stare at empty space where you now know you parked it]
Hmmm... no it really isn't there.
[brain finally gives in and accepts the facts as presented]

so i now have a large Fat Wagon sized hole in my parking space
I also have a Fat Wagon sized hole in my heart. This car is (was) great.

Practical to the end too as it seems the 'person' or 'people' responsible also loaded up a couple of mopeds into the back of TFW on their way out, cheeky eh.



Bumhats!

Hopefully it won't be the last i see of TFW. It's probably worth more in parts than it is whole, but i'm hoping they'll take pity on the old thing and leave it somewhere it can be found.
Oslo plod have been informed and i expect they have a squad of men working on the case as we speak :-\
If it turns up all fine and dandy if not, ah well there are plenty more cars in the sea eh. come to think of it thats exactly where mine could be.

FAIL !

well no great surprise but a complete jolly pain in the backside anyway, TFW failed it's MOT.
Not quite as bad as i was expecting but a god days work for me to fix or a big sack of money to get somebody else to do it.
Failure points
Broken coil springs in the suspension front AND rear
leaking rear shock absorber.
engine oil leak.
wrongly adjusted headlights.

biggest job is the springs and shock absorber as this being a MB it isn't just any old suspension system but the rear is hydraulically self leveling. I need a few hours trouble shooting before i decide whether it is worth fixing or not.
The dilemma is that a car with no MOT is worth, well not much really, 400 quid maybe or i can send it to the scrap man and get 250. If i fix it up at a cost of 400 quid or so i may be able to get 1500, but it'll need a couple of days work and i don't really have time for that right now. On top of this the Austin's MOT expires at the end of September and with all the goings on in the summer there just wasn't time to get it tested. So i can't move the Austin out and TFW into the workshop either. Bumhats!

The tester ummed and argghed and then said 'Fail.'

It's still running as sweet as a nut though, never missed a beat the year in my ownership not bad for 850 quid.