Off-road spec Porsche Cayenne S 957
Discussion
This purchase wasn't really planned. I'd got rid of my Audi Allroad as it needed money spending for the MOT (4x tyres, headlight, windscreen and other stuff). I'd not been using it much as I don't need a car that often now I walk to work. With that gone I'm using my Boxster whenever I need a car, it's been fine but it comes up short if I need to do a tip run or something, it also has tyres not suited to winter driving.
A PHer emailed me to see if I was interested in his 957 after I'd mentioned on the forum I'd bought a few ropey 955's previously. He'd taken it to a Porsche specialist that had looked over it and had quoted him just shy of 4k for work it needed, the main things being the starter motor, prop bearing, brakes all around and a blowing flexi on the downpipe. He offered it to me at a great price and I'm a sucker for buying a cheap car with problems.
The work needed doesn't sound like much but if you know Cayenne's, they aren't easy jobs. The front subframe needs to come out for the exhaust and to get at the starter motor requires removing the inlet manifold and all the water pipes. Both jobs involve plenty of swearing.
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The car is a Cayenne S with the n/a 4.8 V8. It's a 2008 with 136k on the clock, 2 previous owners, FSH done by specialists. It came with 2 keys and a folder full of receipts. It's been well maintained with plenty of spicy invoices to show for it. It's been a London car so it has a fair few battle scars. The pictures probably make the bodywork look a bit tidier than it is up close.
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The spec is interesting, some cool options but also missing things I'd consider basic. It was apparently a demo car, it's got the off-road package which consists of a thicker sump guard, underbody protection, sill guards and the party piece is an electrically locking rear diff. That option is very rare on a 957. It's also got a motorised electric folding tow bar, electric boot, Bose, extended leather, air suspension, cruise control, front and rear parking sensors. Some good options there.
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There are some options missing on this car that are so common it's harder to find a Cayenne without them than with them, auto switching headlights, multifunction steering wheel and Xenon headlights spring to mind. The worst though is it's got no heated seats, I didn't even know that was an optional extra, every Cayenne I've seen has them.
It's got 18" wheels and the tyres are Yokohama Geolander which are slightly oversized. Since it's got the right bits for actually going off road it would be sacrilege not to let it loose on the mountains near me. I've got a mate that takes his Defender off road and know a few other boys that also do it so I plan to tag along and see if it's decent. I'm looking forward to that.
The MOT runs out in a few days and I'll need to do the downpipe and maybe the brakes before I can get a fresh ticket on it, I'm busy at the moment so it probably won't be until January.
I'm quite excited about this car, it's lovely to drive on road (thought the tyres might ruin it) and should be fun off road. The only question left is how long will it be before filling it up with fuel takes the gloss off?!
So to sum up, I got rid of my Audi to save money and have ended up with a car that's got more issues to address for an MOT and that will cost me twice as much to run.
A PHer emailed me to see if I was interested in his 957 after I'd mentioned on the forum I'd bought a few ropey 955's previously. He'd taken it to a Porsche specialist that had looked over it and had quoted him just shy of 4k for work it needed, the main things being the starter motor, prop bearing, brakes all around and a blowing flexi on the downpipe. He offered it to me at a great price and I'm a sucker for buying a cheap car with problems.
The work needed doesn't sound like much but if you know Cayenne's, they aren't easy jobs. The front subframe needs to come out for the exhaust and to get at the starter motor requires removing the inlet manifold and all the water pipes. Both jobs involve plenty of swearing.
PC151021PC151022PC151019PC151020The car is a Cayenne S with the n/a 4.8 V8. It's a 2008 with 136k on the clock, 2 previous owners, FSH done by specialists. It came with 2 keys and a folder full of receipts. It's been well maintained with plenty of spicy invoices to show for it. It's been a London car so it has a fair few battle scars. The pictures probably make the bodywork look a bit tidier than it is up close.
PC151023The spec is interesting, some cool options but also missing things I'd consider basic. It was apparently a demo car, it's got the off-road package which consists of a thicker sump guard, underbody protection, sill guards and the party piece is an electrically locking rear diff. That option is very rare on a 957. It's also got a motorised electric folding tow bar, electric boot, Bose, extended leather, air suspension, cruise control, front and rear parking sensors. Some good options there.
PC151030PC151029There are some options missing on this car that are so common it's harder to find a Cayenne without them than with them, auto switching headlights, multifunction steering wheel and Xenon headlights spring to mind. The worst though is it's got no heated seats, I didn't even know that was an optional extra, every Cayenne I've seen has them.
It's got 18" wheels and the tyres are Yokohama Geolander which are slightly oversized. Since it's got the right bits for actually going off road it would be sacrilege not to let it loose on the mountains near me. I've got a mate that takes his Defender off road and know a few other boys that also do it so I plan to tag along and see if it's decent. I'm looking forward to that.
The MOT runs out in a few days and I'll need to do the downpipe and maybe the brakes before I can get a fresh ticket on it, I'm busy at the moment so it probably won't be until January.
I'm quite excited about this car, it's lovely to drive on road (thought the tyres might ruin it) and should be fun off road. The only question left is how long will it be before filling it up with fuel takes the gloss off?!
So to sum up, I got rid of my Audi to save money and have ended up with a car that's got more issues to address for an MOT and that will cost me twice as much to run. Edited by Escy on Wednesday 15th December 14:51
Edited by Escy on Wednesday 15th December 14:54
Yeah, fancy my chances of running it cheaply, other than the MPG and road tax, got to suck those up. I forgot to mention the price in the first post. It was 3k which is very cheap for 957. I took it for an MOT a week after I bought it, it passed to my surprise and I've just been driving it since as I didn't have any spare time to get stuck into it. This video is basically a walk around from when I bought it so the initial post as a video.
Last week was the first chance I had to work on it. Had been looking forward to seeing some of the off-road package differences under this. These are the sill protectors (usually plastic).
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I've not seen these plastic covers on the suspension arms before, I assume these are also part of the off-road package. There's also a steel sump guard and the locking rear diff which is the main thing
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That's the 4.8 litre heart. It's not fast but it's not slow either, it's 390bhp but it feels like it comes on cam half way through the rev range. I didn't expect that the first time I put my foot down.
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Jobs needing doing were replace the starter motor, replace the thermostat, maybe prop bearing and exhaust if I had time. I took the inlet manifold off, to get access to the starter. This really wasn't that hard and didn't take too long. You can see the starter is buried under all the direct injection pipes.
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Evidence of the coolant leak that's been killing the starter motor.
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Build up of antifreeze scum, this has been leaking coolant a long time. There is a knock sensor somewhere under there.
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That's under the starter motor, breaking it up to vacuum it out.
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Replacement starter motor. Pattern part, £125 which is cheap. Wasn't brave enough to even try Porsche for a price.
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Water pump off, the thermostat is behind it, it sits in a plastic tube, bit of a crap design I think.
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This is the thermostat housing, you can see it's clearly where my coolant leak was.
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I bought a few bits from Porsche, they've got an updated part number for the thermostat housing, they also have a special lubricant for the seals.
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That's the engine back together. Wasn't that difficult of a job to do.
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I decided to sort out the downpipe and prop bearing while it was in the garage and I was waiting for parts to do the engine. There's a few ways to sort out the prop, one is to cut out the existing rubber and cable tie hose all around it. It's a bit of nasty fix, didn't want to do that. The next easiest is a different style bearing that you can fit without removing the prop (like they did on Wheeler Dealers). These are about £300. Other option is an aftermarket prop shaft, these are about £225. You can get an aftermarket replacement bearing for £40 but it's a ball ache to fit it. Cheap and ball ache is the way I went.
The prop is difficult to remove from the rear diff flange, they get rusted in place and there isn't a good place to give them a clout to help them out. Rather than break the prop I decided I'd try and change the bearing with it hanging down under the car. First thing is to remove the cover for the CV joint.
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Then there is a brass circlip that holds the front section of the prop into the CV joint, you need to open that and knock it out, easy job if you have 3 hands but frustrating with 2, took me a while. I marked the splines so it would be in the right position when I put it back together as they are balanced. Changing the bearing was difficult, my hydraulic puller wasn't up to it, ended up having to cut it off. All in all took me a few hours to do, if you were paying a garage to do it would probably be cheaper going for the easy £300 option.
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The downpipe initially looked easy to sort out, bolts had rusted away and it was blowing at the flange. As I took the exhaust off, the weight of the cat ripped the flexi in 2 places. I ended up with this left.
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It's the difficult bank, you can't see half the bolts for the downpipe, to get it off means dropping the subframe, I didn't fancy that much, would be loads of work. I had a look through my box of random exhaust bits and found this lot, a V-band flange and a flexi.
P3041232 by Thomas Prosser, on Flickr
The hardest part was welding the flange to the downpipe, I had to weld it on the inside as there is no space around the outside. It looks worse than it is, the flange was slightly larger than the pipe so the weld isn't intruding into the diameter of the pipe that much like it looks in the photo.
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I decided to cut the flange off the main cat pipe and weld the flexi straight onto it. I got mega lucky and tacked up where I thought it should all be (no measuring) and offered it up and it was perfect first go, right angle, right length, that never happens.
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I'm happy with the end result, considering the nightmare I thought it was going to be when the flexi fell apart. I think Porsche should have done it like this from the factory. The original flanges are annoying as you can't get to one of the bolts easily, it's not a good design and using crap fixings that rust away doesn't help things.
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Nine excellence quoted 4k to fix the issues, I've done all of them except an A/C re-gas (it seems alright) and changing the discs and pads all around (parts can be had for £250 but they aren't needed yet). The obviously quote using genuine parts but I spent £80 at Porsche for bits, £30 for a thermostat, £125 for a starter motor, £15 for a replacement locking wheel nut key, £40 for the prop bearing, £40 for a fresh MOT. It's all sorted, not issues left I'm aware of now. It owes me £3330 all in and took a couple of days to fix it all. Better than I dared hope when I went to collect it. I'm really pleased with it.
As I don't have loads of money in it and it's already got plenty of wounds on it I'm not going to be precious with it, I plan to have a proper crack at taking it off-road so that will be the next update. It's rare to see a Cayenne actually off-road. I've never done off-roading before, I wonder if I'll get into it?
This update as a video.
P2271197I've not seen these plastic covers on the suspension arms before, I assume these are also part of the off-road package. There's also a steel sump guard and the locking rear diff which is the main thing
P2271198That's the 4.8 litre heart. It's not fast but it's not slow either, it's 390bhp but it feels like it comes on cam half way through the rev range. I didn't expect that the first time I put my foot down.
P2271199Jobs needing doing were replace the starter motor, replace the thermostat, maybe prop bearing and exhaust if I had time. I took the inlet manifold off, to get access to the starter. This really wasn't that hard and didn't take too long. You can see the starter is buried under all the direct injection pipes.
P2271200Evidence of the coolant leak that's been killing the starter motor.
P2271201Build up of antifreeze scum, this has been leaking coolant a long time. There is a knock sensor somewhere under there.
P2271202That's under the starter motor, breaking it up to vacuum it out.
P2271205Replacement starter motor. Pattern part, £125 which is cheap. Wasn't brave enough to even try Porsche for a price.
P2281212Water pump off, the thermostat is behind it, it sits in a plastic tube, bit of a crap design I think.
P2271209This is the thermostat housing, you can see it's clearly where my coolant leak was.
P2271210I bought a few bits from Porsche, they've got an updated part number for the thermostat housing, they also have a special lubricant for the seals.
P3021220That's the engine back together. Wasn't that difficult of a job to do.
P3021222I decided to sort out the downpipe and prop bearing while it was in the garage and I was waiting for parts to do the engine. There's a few ways to sort out the prop, one is to cut out the existing rubber and cable tie hose all around it. It's a bit of nasty fix, didn't want to do that. The next easiest is a different style bearing that you can fit without removing the prop (like they did on Wheeler Dealers). These are about £300. Other option is an aftermarket prop shaft, these are about £225. You can get an aftermarket replacement bearing for £40 but it's a ball ache to fit it. Cheap and ball ache is the way I went.
The prop is difficult to remove from the rear diff flange, they get rusted in place and there isn't a good place to give them a clout to help them out. Rather than break the prop I decided I'd try and change the bearing with it hanging down under the car. First thing is to remove the cover for the CV joint.
P3021224Then there is a brass circlip that holds the front section of the prop into the CV joint, you need to open that and knock it out, easy job if you have 3 hands but frustrating with 2, took me a while. I marked the splines so it would be in the right position when I put it back together as they are balanced. Changing the bearing was difficult, my hydraulic puller wasn't up to it, ended up having to cut it off. All in all took me a few hours to do, if you were paying a garage to do it would probably be cheaper going for the easy £300 option.
P3021226The downpipe initially looked easy to sort out, bolts had rusted away and it was blowing at the flange. As I took the exhaust off, the weight of the cat ripped the flexi in 2 places. I ended up with this left.
P3041231It's the difficult bank, you can't see half the bolts for the downpipe, to get it off means dropping the subframe, I didn't fancy that much, would be loads of work. I had a look through my box of random exhaust bits and found this lot, a V-band flange and a flexi.
P3041232 by Thomas Prosser, on FlickrThe hardest part was welding the flange to the downpipe, I had to weld it on the inside as there is no space around the outside. It looks worse than it is, the flange was slightly larger than the pipe so the weld isn't intruding into the diameter of the pipe that much like it looks in the photo.
P3051233I decided to cut the flange off the main cat pipe and weld the flexi straight onto it. I got mega lucky and tacked up where I thought it should all be (no measuring) and offered it up and it was perfect first go, right angle, right length, that never happens.
P3051236I'm happy with the end result, considering the nightmare I thought it was going to be when the flexi fell apart. I think Porsche should have done it like this from the factory. The original flanges are annoying as you can't get to one of the bolts easily, it's not a good design and using crap fixings that rust away doesn't help things.
P3051239Nine excellence quoted 4k to fix the issues, I've done all of them except an A/C re-gas (it seems alright) and changing the discs and pads all around (parts can be had for £250 but they aren't needed yet). The obviously quote using genuine parts but I spent £80 at Porsche for bits, £30 for a thermostat, £125 for a starter motor, £15 for a replacement locking wheel nut key, £40 for the prop bearing, £40 for a fresh MOT. It's all sorted, not issues left I'm aware of now. It owes me £3330 all in and took a couple of days to fix it all. Better than I dared hope when I went to collect it. I'm really pleased with it.
As I don't have loads of money in it and it's already got plenty of wounds on it I'm not going to be precious with it, I plan to have a proper crack at taking it off-road so that will be the next update. It's rare to see a Cayenne actually off-road. I've never done off-roading before, I wonder if I'll get into it?
This update as a video.
Thanks. They do drive better on the road with larger wheels, I think 20" is probably the sweet spot for the road but not for off-road. Talking of wheels, I probably need to pick up a spare alloy with the same diameter tyre before I think of going off-road. Don't want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with a tyre gel to rescue me.
braddo said:
Great job 
How did the intake ports and valves look?
Some Cayennes did OK on a couple of offroad races
The valves looked way better than I was expecting, some build up of carbon but not large big chunks. I assume it's been cleaned previously as it's done 135k miles. I have walnut blast media in the garage to clean then up but didn't think it was worth doing.How did the intake ports and valves look?
Some Cayennes did OK on a couple of offroad races
Poppopbangbang, your Cayenne looks great. Is it on air or steel springs? Standard height or lifted? If I get the off-roading bug I'll start getting some of the off roading goodies, have seen there is a decent aftermarket options for the Touareg/Cayenne in the US. Do you take a full size spare wheel when you go offroad?
whytheory said:
Looks really smart for what I assume isn't a huge amount of money, the facelift cars have aged so much better for a few detail changes.
Even for a Porsche I can't believe what wasn't standard fit on one of these!
They are still the same these days, my mate is ordering a Taycan and electric folding mirrors are an optional extra. Even for a Porsche I can't believe what wasn't standard fit on one of these!
I've got the factory folding tow bar, it worked when I bought it, went to open it recently and nothing happened. I had some towing planned so needed to look into it. The light on the switch was flashing red. I tried to connect to it with PIWIS, the module for the tow bar was greyed out. I tried with VCDS and that connected fine, not sure why PIWIS couldn't, I find it rubbish. There were no fault codes, I could run an initialisation where it would deploy and retract the tow bar, it would do that fine then register a fault code, 02588 - swiveling trailer hitch, no or incorrect basic setting/adaption. I've not got to the bottom of this yet, I couldn't find the code to get past the security access to run an adaption. Luckily, I can run the tow bar deploy output on VCDS and it would swing it out.
I don't think this tow bar has ever been used. The electrics are tucked up under where the tow bar lives, you swing this down by hand, mine was rusted solid, with the help of a crow bar I managed to snap the pivot.
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To sort this out meant taking the bumper off, removing the tow bar and holding it on it's side so I could get a drill on it. These tow bars are very heavy, I think 50+kg so I used my engine hoist to hold it.
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Where the bolt had snapped, I drilled it out, put a thread in it, then drilled out the thread in the sleeve that's supposed to move freely, then put a bolt through it. It worked perfectly.
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Then I put it to the test. Collecting a spicy S2000. If I want a car collected I usually pay someone to collect it for me but with the price of fuel going up and I think there are generally less people transporting cars these days, prices have got a bit strong, I was looking at £350 plus. I can hire a trailer for £45 for a day so thought it's time to make the Cayenne earn it's keep.
On a trip to London last weekend it managed 23mpg which wasn't too bad considering the tyres and it being loaded up. Today, with the trailer on the back it did 20mpg, with the car on the trailer it did 18mpg. I was happy enough with that, could have got better if I'd tried. The Cayenne took it in it's stride, I don't think I used more than a 3rd of the throttle the whole trip, I only really noticed the car on the back when braking. Near my house there is a big hill, there was bumper to bumper traffic, I was stuck in it for ages, moving tiny amounts each time. I was grateful for an auto, I remember a situation like that would hammer the clutch when my dad was towing a caravan when I was a kid. I bet the transmission fluid was getting hot, it would have been taking a beating with all that weight on the back. You could hear the strain but the car handled it fine. I'm really impressed with this big old bus.
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I don't think this tow bar has ever been used. The electrics are tucked up under where the tow bar lives, you swing this down by hand, mine was rusted solid, with the help of a crow bar I managed to snap the pivot.
P3271251P3271250To sort this out meant taking the bumper off, removing the tow bar and holding it on it's side so I could get a drill on it. These tow bars are very heavy, I think 50+kg so I used my engine hoist to hold it.
P3271249Where the bolt had snapped, I drilled it out, put a thread in it, then drilled out the thread in the sleeve that's supposed to move freely, then put a bolt through it. It worked perfectly.
P3271252Then I put it to the test. Collecting a spicy S2000. If I want a car collected I usually pay someone to collect it for me but with the price of fuel going up and I think there are generally less people transporting cars these days, prices have got a bit strong, I was looking at £350 plus. I can hire a trailer for £45 for a day so thought it's time to make the Cayenne earn it's keep.
On a trip to London last weekend it managed 23mpg which wasn't too bad considering the tyres and it being loaded up. Today, with the trailer on the back it did 20mpg, with the car on the trailer it did 18mpg. I was happy enough with that, could have got better if I'd tried. The Cayenne took it in it's stride, I don't think I used more than a 3rd of the throttle the whole trip, I only really noticed the car on the back when braking. Near my house there is a big hill, there was bumper to bumper traffic, I was stuck in it for ages, moving tiny amounts each time. I was grateful for an auto, I remember a situation like that would hammer the clutch when my dad was towing a caravan when I was a kid. I bet the transmission fluid was getting hot, it would have been taking a beating with all that weight on the back. You could hear the strain but the car handled it fine. I'm really impressed with this big old bus.
P3291254P3291253P3291255braddo said:
Am enjoying reading these updates and your ability to fix things.
What's the story with the S2000? A bit of track day fun or is something more competitive in mind?
Thanks, it's all gone better than I expected. I couldn't believe it passed the MOT first time, he must have just missed the blowing exhaust. The last job left to do on the list is the brakes. Did you ever tow with it?What's the story with the S2000? A bit of track day fun or is something more competitive in mind?
I mainly bought the S2000 as it was a bargain, it was a speculative eBay bid that came off. I'm planning to do a few track days just to see what it's all about but I'm going to need to move it on at some point as I don't have the space to keep a car that's not road legal. It's a proper bit of kit, slick tyres, certified multi point cage, brutal LSD with low ratio final drive, AP Racing brakes, coilovers, etc. I bet it's going to be brilliant fun.
I wanted to add Bluetooth music streaming. I was looking around on the internet but it wasn't very clear how best to go about it. You've got a load of options that were for up to 2006 Cayenne's, which plug into the fibre optics. Then there were a load of options for 2009 on Cayennes. My car is a 2008 with a PCM 3.0. I bought a cheap Bluetooth module that plugs in, £15 off Ali Express, thought it was worth a go. It's an adapter harness but it didn't look like things would match up. I popped out the plug for the Bluetooth module and put it into my plug, then wired up the 12v and ground for it into my harness.
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Once connected up it turns out I couldn't find the source for it, I didn't have an AUX option. Some Cayenne's have the iPod and USB connections under the arm rest, mine didn't which means my AUX output needed to be coded in.
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Looking on my PIWIS, I couldn't code it myself. I needed to get a code. Tried to call the dealer but they didn't really know what I was asking for. The cheapest place I could find online was Auto SVS, worked out about £60. https://autosvs.com/product/car-manufacturer/porsc...
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Put the code in and it worked. I now have AUX as a selectable source.
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It works fine but it's not exactly brilliant integration. No text on the screen to say what it playing and I can't change track on the headunit. Maybe that would be better with a more expensive module or maybe it's a limitation of the how the input works. It's not the end of the world, at least it works and now I can keep it gangsta in my German.
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Posting the link to a YouTube video, mainly for people who find this on a google search, it's not entertaining but hopefully informative if you are wanting to do the same.
https://youtu.be/2Khl2-N9aAg
P4011256Once connected up it turns out I couldn't find the source for it, I didn't have an AUX option. Some Cayenne's have the iPod and USB connections under the arm rest, mine didn't which means my AUX output needed to be coded in.
PXL_20220401_101825463.MPLooking on my PIWIS, I couldn't code it myself. I needed to get a code. Tried to call the dealer but they didn't really know what I was asking for. The cheapest place I could find online was Auto SVS, worked out about £60. https://autosvs.com/product/car-manufacturer/porsc...
PXL_20220401_101902692Put the code in and it worked. I now have AUX as a selectable source.
P4021263It works fine but it's not exactly brilliant integration. No text on the screen to say what it playing and I can't change track on the headunit. Maybe that would be better with a more expensive module or maybe it's a limitation of the how the input works. It's not the end of the world, at least it works and now I can keep it gangsta in my German.
P4021264Posting the link to a YouTube video, mainly for people who find this on a google search, it's not entertaining but hopefully informative if you are wanting to do the same.
https://youtu.be/2Khl2-N9aAg
Geekman said:
Great thread - very much my kind of car and it looks like you got a great deal. I'm not sure if you have Instagram, but there's loads of US based guys publishing their Cayenne off road builds on there if you need some inspiration.
Thanks. I'm in a Vag Off-Road Facebook group, it's mainly Touareg's but there's a few monster Cayenne's in there, mainly in the US. It seems like it's a very capable platform with a few mods. I'm looking forward to trying out mine. C70R said:
You probably shouldn't have expected to have any control or information from your Bluetooth. It's effectively a 'dumb' connection, and the car/headunit doesn't know any different than there's something connected to the aux.
I was half hoping because it's using an input called USB / ipod it would be a bit more capable. I'm just glad I can play music on it. I've been doing more towing, helped to finish up the brakes, the pad warning came on the dash recently.
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I bought front and rear discs, pads and wear sensors. Went for the cheapest I saw, got them off ebay and they worked out 230 with a discount code. I was happy when they turned up, made by Borg and Beck which is a brand I've heard of and they have a coating on them so hopefully the middle of the discs don't go rusty. Better quality stuff then I expected to arrive.
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The old ones were well worn, this is the front, the rears were worse. All looks good though, pads worn evenly. Everything came apart ok.
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Insurance is due, managed to find it for 365 ( 500 excess) with Adrian Flux. All the company's that quoted cheap ( 365 was the lowest) on Confused.com had a huge excess, the cheapest 5 were 1000 (plus a 250 voluntary excess on the quote). Wonder if that's to do with the type of car (old but parts are expensive), or if they are changing their business model? Not noticed this before with other cars.
PXL_20220423_122556234.MPI bought front and rear discs, pads and wear sensors. Went for the cheapest I saw, got them off ebay and they worked out 230 with a discount code. I was happy when they turned up, made by Borg and Beck which is a brand I've heard of and they have a coating on them so hopefully the middle of the discs don't go rusty. Better quality stuff then I expected to arrive.
P5281356The old ones were well worn, this is the front, the rears were worse. All looks good though, pads worn evenly. Everything came apart ok.
P5281357P5281358Insurance is due, managed to find it for 365 ( 500 excess) with Adrian Flux. All the company's that quoted cheap ( 365 was the lowest) on Confused.com had a huge excess, the cheapest 5 were 1000 (plus a 250 voluntary excess on the quote). Wonder if that's to do with the type of car (old but parts are expensive), or if they are changing their business model? Not noticed this before with other cars.
I changed the brakes and didn't drive the car for a week. When I did, there was an awful judder when on the brakes, it shook the whole car. Coming from the front left. I removed the disc to make sure the disc was sitting flush on the hub, it was. The disc did slightly rub the pads at one point when turning the wheel. I'd assume a warped disc usually but this one is brand new.
I did have an issue when changing the brakes on that side, I was using a 4x4 specific trolley jack but it's a bit old and the chassis has bent, the car is too close to the wall in my garage so the jack needs to be under it at an angle, the car fell off it and it landed on the disc on that side (was the old disc still fitted). It had me wondering if maybe there was some damage to the hub and bearing. Changed out the wheel bearing which was a bit of a beast to do, it's larger than the wheel bearing tool kit I have. I've got arms like Popeye now, It took a lot of brute force.
I've since got rid of that dodgy jack and bought an airbag one now. It felt exactly the same on the new hub and bearing so it had to be the disc. It'd been over a month since I'd ordered them and the seller ignored me (that's ebay for you). I purchased a matching one off another supplier. Fitted it and it's fine so I had a bad disc straight out of the box. Not great, never had that before. If the car hadn't fallen off the jack I'd have known straight away but it put some doubt in my mind. I guess the lesson is I should have spent more on better discs to start with. Will avoid Borg and Beck from now on. You can see the top of the disc looks different to the rest.
PXL_20220616_211935799.MP
I did have an issue when changing the brakes on that side, I was using a 4x4 specific trolley jack but it's a bit old and the chassis has bent, the car is too close to the wall in my garage so the jack needs to be under it at an angle, the car fell off it and it landed on the disc on that side (was the old disc still fitted). It had me wondering if maybe there was some damage to the hub and bearing. Changed out the wheel bearing which was a bit of a beast to do, it's larger than the wheel bearing tool kit I have. I've got arms like Popeye now, It took a lot of brute force.
I've since got rid of that dodgy jack and bought an airbag one now. It felt exactly the same on the new hub and bearing so it had to be the disc. It'd been over a month since I'd ordered them and the seller ignored me (that's ebay for you). I purchased a matching one off another supplier. Fitted it and it's fine so I had a bad disc straight out of the box. Not great, never had that before. If the car hadn't fallen off the jack I'd have known straight away but it put some doubt in my mind. I guess the lesson is I should have spent more on better discs to start with. Will avoid Borg and Beck from now on. You can see the top of the disc looks different to the rest.
PXL_20220616_211935799.MPThey ride so much better on air suspension. The damping is adjustable and the changes do make a difference. I'd say its what makes them feel like a car more than a traditional 4x4. Also, if you did venture off road you have more ground clearance/wading depth as it can be raised up higher.
It does add extra potential bork factor though, if you want a cheap beater not having it might be preferable.
It does add extra potential bork factor though, if you want a cheap beater not having it might be preferable.
The big dog is putting in some graft. It's a great tow car, effortless.
P7291313
P7291312
Was looking at the trip computer, over the last 1500 miles it's averaged 13.7mpg which is pretty spiteful.
PXL_20220729_122639809.MP
P7291313P7291312Was looking at the trip computer, over the last 1500 miles it's averaged 13.7mpg which is pretty spiteful.
PXL_20220729_122639809.MPbraddo said:
On the bolded bit, only in comfort mode I'd say. I'm not sure if PASM + air suspension is needed feel the full effects, but air suspension does give a wide window of ride/stiffness. Sport button + sport air setting (and Porsche-spec road tyres) make these cars very stiff; keep the revs in the 4-6k range and for a big SUV they are shockingly quick down a twisty country lane.
Now, how often a driver wants to do that is another matter.
For me it wasn't often, mostly on little errands while on holiday when the car isn't full of passengers.
Totally agree. I've driven a 955 turbo on 20's, the lower profile tyres and thicker ARB's make it drive like a car, I was very impressed. The tyres make the big difference but even with the big AT tyres on mine it's not that bad.Now, how often a driver wants to do that is another matter.
For me it wasn't often, mostly on little errands while on holiday when the car isn't full of passengers.Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff