Owning a Cerb.. 12 weeks in

[ginkent]

Thought I'd pay a visit and pass along my brief experience so far of owning a Cerb.
I was looking for a Cerbera via this thread: http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

and while I did buy the 1st one I saw, it wasn't the only one I saw.

It's no VW Golf Diesel: I have owned a few sporty cars in my time, mainly pre-kids. But I actually sent my daily driver old Golf TDI off to the scrapyard and traded up to a Cerb. You won't be surprised to hear me say it's a tad "sportier".

S6 or V8: I ummed and erred for ages. The advice here was spot on. Buy a good condition well looked after one, regardless. So I did. I got myself a '99 Cooper Green S6.

I spent a little more than I planned, so i vowed I would just enjoy it rather then spend needlessly on it.
yeah, that didn't work out quite to plan.

First off, the car came with a standard rear box. The noise was underwhelming.
So now it has an ACT rear set of pipes, and it is like night & day.

Then I got curious about the ECU, so I hooked up with Oliver from here and got myself a dedicated screen permanently wired in.

I had had an inspection done before I bought the car, so thought I'd tackle some of those items. I knew the clutch would need doing soon, but I assumed it would last until next Springs service.

So while it was in having the exhaust put on, they replaced the reverse light switch and a CV joint. And cleaned up & waxoyled the chassis. It wasn't a body off job, but they had long hoses and got at most parts i think.
They also swapped out the plugs, leads and ignition pack. That solved the misfire on 6 it had been experiencing.

Then i got the car back, gave it good old hammering for a couple of hundred miles, then the clutch grenaded. I lost 5th gear completely, reverse you could only get with engine off, and the other gears were crunching.

So off it went to the garage. I opted for a Helix clutch. A lightweight flywheel, a new slave and while they were there a high torque starter motor.

The car was there for over 2 weeks, as they had trouble with fitting the clutch.
so during the downtime they painted the callipers red. why not I thought

so i made the most of the time by re-painting my garage floor and waterproofing my garage. And finding a private plate. Its V.. WOW

I've had the car back now for a couple of weeks - and it is epic. The only other thing i did was to put a shiny new badge on the boot.

I do have 1 niggling thing though. I'm sure there is a long list of design flaws, but top of my list?
I do like to wash it and keep it clean. But there are always water marks that run down the boot from the rear number plate. No matter how many times you wipe away those water runs, it comes back.
So after being annoyed one day I set about finding why. And its to do with the huge cavity space behind the rear number plate. It fills up with water, then sloshes around and dribbles down the shiny paintwork. So now part of my washing routine is to remove the rear plate.

so 12 weeks in summary: love it. love the noise, love the scary acceleration. I have yet to take it out in the wet. I'm always looking at the weather app on my phone seeing what the week ahead is like.

and while I have definitely hidden my wallet from myself.. i can't stop looking at new sets of wheels.. hmmm

Edited by ginkent on Friday 16th September 16:54

[ginkent]

ukkid35 said:

Do you have any more details on the Clutch and Gearbox failure, as it sounds like several things happened there, and they may not even be related.

The gearbox is fine. It was just the clutch. When i bought the car there was a noise coming from the release bearing - everytime you pressed the clutch in there was a faint whirring noise.
Then one day I couldn't select reverse, not without seriously crunching the gears.

When it was dismantled, i was told it had lost a lot of its fingers, and shrapnel had pitted the flywheel.

ukkid35 said:

There were some well publicised issues with Helix clutch fitment sometime ago, doesn't sound like they've been resolved.

I'm still not sure if I made the right choice. I purposely avoided the AP clutch for all the reasons we know. The Helix looked appealing as it could be rebuilt, and I figured it couldn't be worse than the AP.

I'm still not sure what I've been left with. The clutch fitting work was carried out by my local independent - I trust these guys, I've used them for years, but they could not get this clutch to fit. Helix eventually agreed to take it back and bench test it - they asked for the flywheel too. Helix then reported that one of the springs was bent, and this could only have been done through fitting it incorrectly. To Helixs credit, they repaired it and sent it back out in 24hrs without charge.
As far as I know, my independent and Helix are still arguing over who is going to pick up the bill for all the extra hours of labour messing around trying to fit this clutch. My independent point towards a precedent last year when Helix had a bad batch (caused by an in-experienced trainee), where they actually agreed to compensate the garages for lost labour.

So what i've been left with is a clutch that works, however there is a terrible judder, most noticable in 1st or Reverse, and to counteract the judder you need to raise the revs to at least 1100.

I'm told this judder is normal and the clutch is bedding in. Give it 500 miles I was told. it's now been 250 miles, it is a little better to be honest - you used to feel the judder when changing down through the gears, but now it is barely noticeable.
I have no choice really but to get to 500 miles as quick as I can, then see where I stand.

but all in all, not a good experience. And all this kept the car off the road for a few weeks.

[ginkent]

Byker28i said:

My issue with the helix clutch was around my flywheel. I had a different one to later cars...
Loving the clutch though. Lighter in use.

re my reply above.. did you experience this judder I have?

[ginkent]

Englishman said:

I've toyed with replacing the standard rear box on my S6 with either ACT or Powers tail boxes but never got around to it. Don't suppose you have before and after sound clips?

Actually I did make a recording before, but i deleted it as it sounded so average, more like a family saloon.

What I will say though is, the standard rear box is seriously underwhelming. If, like me, your expectation of a TVR is that it should be noisy, even on tickover, then the standard rear box is a serious let down.

The ACT pipes on the other hand are borderline "too much". I like to warm the car up before using it, but I do cringe leaving it in on the drive for 10mins - and wouldn't start it before 9am at the weekend

Would I go back? hell no. The pipes are physically bigger, so they look better. It sounds great on tick over with a bub-bub-bub girgling noise. The pops and bangs sweet spot is between 2-3k rpm and is constant.

I can see how they maybe aren't for everyone, but for me, it's what a stereotypical TVR is supposed to sound like.
I've left my cats in, but I've heard that decatting increases the noise not on tickover but when your dump your foot down. I haven't opted for this (yet)

If you're ever in my neighbourhood (East Kent), swing by and have a listen. You have a tuscan too right- Does that have all the drama of pops & bangs?

Edited by ginkent on Tuesday 20th September 09:25

[ginkent]

aide said:

I had clutch judder a while ago.
This solved the problem
May be of some help..

thanks, tried that (a number of times over the last few days), but hasn't made a difference.

Should I keep trying it each time i'm out do you think?
or just persevere and see what happens? it's done 300 miles of A/B roads so far on this clutch/flywheel?

Could the juddering be caused by fitting incorrectly - a part of me regrets not just taking it to a main dealer to be done. I assumed a clutch was a consumable and any garage should be able to do it.