Discussion
What an outstanding read, thanks for your service! 
I’d love one of these, easily the best looking R8 gen for me.
Unfortunately, no amount of man-maths or thinkery is going to get a buggy or car seat to fit into one of these so I’ll just have to live my dream through this thread for the time being!
Keep up the awesome work!
I’d love one of these, easily the best looking R8 gen for me.
Unfortunately, no amount of man-maths or thinkery is going to get a buggy or car seat to fit into one of these so I’ll just have to live my dream through this thread for the time being!
Keep up the awesome work!
TR4man said:
Really pleased I followed the recommendation on Brad’s thread.
Enjoyed reading this from start to finish whilst having my morning cuppa.
You have a wonderful writing style, please keep the updates coming.
What that guy said! Really enjoyed reading this, amazing car and trips! Pleased I’m now following this for future updates. Enjoyed reading this from start to finish whilst having my morning cuppa.
You have a wonderful writing style, please keep the updates coming.
Thanks very much for all the kind words 
There's not too much to report on the poor old Audi. The last few weeks have seen it develop into a home for wayward spiders, with every possible orifice sprouting a spiders web! We've decided that the next batch of "Audi on a mountain" pics will be in Switzerland so I'm busy planning how to hit as many passes as I can, whilst also keeping the ballast happy with stops in Alsace, the Italiany Swiss lakes and Champagne.
Having a whole bunch of people check in here and then seeing DRZ's beautiful McLaren GT get it's black wheels changed to silver-grey has inspired me to finally get rid of the hateful carbon wrap on my wheels. I've got it booked into a wheel place locally on Saturday morning to take a look and see where we are. I can see a bit of kerb rash on the little bit uncovered during the recent tyre change so...
I've also ordered a set of replacement wing mirror cases in real (!) carbon fibre. I was thinking of removing the existing wrap but I still have to remove the units to do that and it sounds like hard work. And I actually do like the little bit of carbon to match the side blade which takes away from the general blackness of it. Plus, you know....SHINY!
it's a meaningful amount of weight up high so the CoG will be improved. The cases are shared with another Audi coupe - all the "nice TT m8" jokes are finally coming up trumps with a cheap (ish) price on aftermarket units. In 4-6 weeks we'll see how successful I am at replacing them myself. And then how much replacement mirror glass costs. 
Which just leaves the grill to sort.
All the 2nd hand ones are scabby / broken / pickup only in Manchester / sold as a job lot of 2 (??!?) and new ones are running at £600+ from EU (which will mean VAT and duties on the way in). I think I'll keep an ebay alert active and try to wait this one out.
And finally I found out you can disable the tire pressure warning system via a re-code and removing fuse D2. I confirmed I'm missing D2 so that's where our issues are. My worry with turning it back on myself is someone turned it off because it was f
ked, but it could just be because it was on non-standard wheels at some point. More thinking required on this one too - maybe I get it MOTed at Audi before the trip and get it done there....
There's not too much to report on the poor old Audi. The last few weeks have seen it develop into a home for wayward spiders, with every possible orifice sprouting a spiders web! We've decided that the next batch of "Audi on a mountain" pics will be in Switzerland so I'm busy planning how to hit as many passes as I can, whilst also keeping the ballast happy with stops in Alsace, the Italiany Swiss lakes and Champagne.
Having a whole bunch of people check in here and then seeing DRZ's beautiful McLaren GT get it's black wheels changed to silver-grey has inspired me to finally get rid of the hateful carbon wrap on my wheels. I've got it booked into a wheel place locally on Saturday morning to take a look and see where we are. I can see a bit of kerb rash on the little bit uncovered during the recent tyre change so...
I've also ordered a set of replacement wing mirror cases in real (!) carbon fibre. I was thinking of removing the existing wrap but I still have to remove the units to do that and it sounds like hard work. And I actually do like the little bit of carbon to match the side blade which takes away from the general blackness of it. Plus, you know....
it's a meaningful amount of weight up high so the CoG will be improved. The cases are shared with another Audi coupe - all the "nice TT m8" jokes are finally coming up trumps with a cheap (ish) price on aftermarket units. In 4-6 weeks we'll see how successful I am at replacing them myself. And then how much replacement mirror glass costs. Which just leaves the grill to sort.
All the 2nd hand ones are scabby / broken / pickup only in Manchester / sold as a job lot of 2 (??!?) and new ones are running at £600+ from EU (which will mean VAT and duties on the way in). I think I'll keep an ebay alert active and try to wait this one out.And finally I found out you can disable the tire pressure warning system via a re-code and removing fuse D2. I confirmed I'm missing D2 so that's where our issues are. My worry with turning it back on myself is someone turned it off because it was f
ked, but it could just be because it was on non-standard wheels at some point. More thinking required on this one too - maybe I get it MOTed at Audi before the trip and get it done there....We began step one of the de-carbonification process today - took it round to a local wheel shop for a look. He said to remove the wrap it'll need to be dipped to remove the glue etc. so basically a full refurb. It's booked in on the 28th and I'll be going with BMW Ferric Grey II which the wheel guys said was a great choice, both for looks and for ease of maintenance due to it's ubiquity. Can't wait!
Getting out of the yard was super tight and I made a massive mare of the right angle turn with 100 people watching. Stalled a few times and came within a bee's dick of scraping the rear up the wall - the sight in the rear view mirror of it looking like it's already touching will haunt me in my dreams. Sports car ownership isn't all mountain passes and super models, ya know!
We also booked the Eurotunnel today for our trip to Switzerland in October.
#fatshaming
Getting out of the yard was super tight and I made a massive mare of the right angle turn with 100 people watching. Stalled a few times and came within a bee's dick of scraping the rear up the wall - the sight in the rear view mirror of it looking like it's already touching will haunt me in my dreams. Sports car ownership isn't all mountain passes and super models, ya know!
We also booked the Eurotunnel today for our trip to Switzerland in October.
#fatshaming
I went and picked the car up on Friday at 16:50 after they'd already locked everything up. They seemed happy to open it back up and drag it out and all the staff came out to oooh and ah at the new wheels and ask a bunch of questions which was cool. We love it!
The car is sadly super dirty from sitting in a workshop for a week and I feel bad to wash it with the current drought so it's staying filth for now.... It's not like it's the first time!
The car is sadly super dirty from sitting in a workshop for a week and I feel bad to wash it with the current drought so it's staying filth for now.... It's not like it's the first time!
Changing the wing mirrors went as well as it probably could have. I didn't break the glass or scratch the paint, the aluminium Allen bolt was only a little rounded out and I only broke one little plastic clippy electrical gubbins retainer doodad. Auto electrical plugs are my least favourite thing.
And the 1000s of nesting spiders didn't kill me.
Everything seemed to fit pretty well and they look a hell of a lot better than they did before . The mirrors still mirror and the indicators continue to indicate.
Doing a spot of automotive archeology on the old mirrors and I started to pull off the wrap to find that they look like carbon fibre under the carbon fibre wrap? Don't tell me I've bought after market carbon to replace genuine carbon?!
Closer inspection revealed that they were plastic with what looked like a strange weave pattern painted on. My best guess is that previous guy bought the cheapest "carbon" mirrors from eBay, saw they were st but fitted them anyway and then had them wrapped later. I judge you, previous guy. 
And the 1000s of nesting spiders didn't kill me.
Everything seemed to fit pretty well and they look a hell of a lot better than they did before . The mirrors still mirror and the indicators continue to indicate.
Doing a spot of automotive archeology on the old mirrors and I started to pull off the wrap to find that they look like carbon fibre under the carbon fibre wrap? Don't tell me I've bought after market carbon to replace genuine carbon?!
Closer inspection revealed that they were plastic with what looked like a strange weave pattern painted on. My best guess is that previous guy bought the cheapest "carbon" mirrors from eBay, saw they were s
t but fitted them anyway and then had them wrapped later. I judge you, previous guy. seefarr said:
Bingo, I was unaware that was a thing but you're 100% there. That would explain why it's got the OEM moldings on it but they look like they've come out of a really old mould.
I had some done on interior parts on my Exige. Some turned out well but others less so. The hallmark of an experienced dipper versus inexperienced I think. 
Out laws weekend up in Norfolk again. I managed to sneak off for a drive on the MiL's birthday morning on some random Audi sized B roads. Not sure if I had great luck or what but I only had to make one overtake the whole time. The Audi always manages to shrug off pitted, lumpy, gnarly roads with astonishing ease.
And I'll never tire of the charge from the top of 2nd into 3rd!
We had a couple of people come up to chat about the car over the weekend - it seemed like more than usual. I don't know if the shiny wheels make the car seem more "friendly" but to me they look so much better. Especially with the rest of car caked in crud!
We had a play with a gorgeous blue Mustang on the way home too - two V8s are always better than one.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/ipj3cQRz55rTF5CL8
And I'll never tire of the charge from the top of 2nd into 3rd!
We had a couple of people come up to chat about the car over the weekend - it seemed like more than usual. I don't know if the shiny wheels make the car seem more "friendly" but to me they look so much better. Especially with the rest of car caked in crud!
We had a play with a gorgeous blue Mustang on the way home too - two V8s are always better than one.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/ipj3cQRz55rTF5CL8
We were up last weekend in North Yorkshire for a friend's birthday so here's an Audi on a mountain moor:
We had a fabulous drive even with the sheep dodging, lumpy tarmac, cattle grid, suicidal rabbits, single track road Britishness of the whole thing. The purple (heather, gorse?) was strong too.
Then an easy 5 hour drive straight to Heathrow and out to NYE for a week's work.
I've spent my entire time with the car convinced the front grill was a fake carbon replica and I've no idea why I didn't twig that if everything else was wrapped, it might be too. I figured this out last week too so I've contacted a wrap place to unwrap it.
We had a fabulous drive even with the sheep dodging, lumpy tarmac, cattle grid, suicidal rabbits, single track road Britishness of the whole thing.
The purple (heather, gorse?) was strong too.Then an easy 5 hour drive straight to Heathrow and out to NYE for a week's work.
I've spent my entire time with the car convinced the front grill was a fake carbon replica and I've no idea why I didn't twig that if everything else was wrapped, it might be too. I figured this out last week too so I've contacted a wrap place to unwrap it.
Switzerland trip! It's currently 25c in Swiss but will be down to maximums of 10c so let's pray it doesn't snow up high...
Friday night was a drive down to Folkestone.
Overnight in a Premier Inn and a walk to the closest decent looking pub. Sadly they weren't doing food and we were too lazy to walk another 20 mins somewhere else so we improvised a nutritious meal of our own representing all the required food groups.
Up early and some of us had had too much rosé, by making friends with the landlady and getting poured extra larges. I volunteered and drove up to the first booths for Eurotunnel where I promptly kerbed my nice freshly painted wheels. Cosmic.
We ended up in the middle of an Aston Martin owners club trip. I loved the fact that their cars were all so shiny whilst my darling wife had detailed the Audi by driving it through a field at Mudathon.
And then today is an easy drive on the lovely motorways across France to Strasbourg. Easy, unless you lose the toll ticket behind the seat. Like a tt.
Friday night was a drive down to Folkestone.
Overnight in a Premier Inn and a walk to the closest decent looking pub. Sadly they weren't doing food and we were too lazy to walk another 20 mins somewhere else so we improvised a nutritious meal of our own representing all the required food groups.
Up early and some of us had had too much rosé, by making friends with the landlady and getting poured extra larges. I volunteered and drove up to the first booths for Eurotunnel where I promptly kerbed my nice freshly painted wheels. Cosmic.
We ended up in the middle of an Aston Martin owners club trip. I loved the fact that their cars were all so shiny whilst my darling wife had detailed the Audi by driving it through a field at Mudathon.
And then today is an easy drive on the lovely motorways across France to Strasbourg. Easy, unless you lose the toll ticket behind the seat. Like a t
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