My car history (short and not very ph like)
Discussion
Hi everyone, new member so I though I would give a brief history of my short and fairly boring car history. I passed my test 2 years ago after never really having a need to drive, I learnt in a standard 1.2 clio, and passed 2nd time (all the best drivers do).
I was moving further away from work and my gf so was desperate for a new car. Working in insurance I had an idea of what would be a cheap first car to insure, I was looking for a 5 door hatchback ideally diesel due to my mileage. After spending what seemed like an age, I decided I wanted an Audi a3. I convinced my dad to come look at one with me, much to his despair. I am more than happy to admit now that it was a dog, 190k miles 1.9tdi cactus green.
He tried to convince me not to get it but fallen in love with it as it was my ticket to freedom. So a deal was done and the owner even gave me a tenner back for some diesel. I was on the road and pleased as punch.
after 3 or 4 months things started going wrong with it, a drive shaft fell off. So with no mechanical knowledge a set about fixing that. Shortly after that the car was over boosting and going into limp mode. A bit of reading up online I found it was likely to be caused by the variable turbo vanes sticking, this could be fixed with a good squirt of Mr Muscle oven cleaner.
So off came the egr and a length of pipe feed into the turbo with a good shot of oven cleaner. Left it for an hour and started her up..... No more limp mode and the turbo pulled better than ever.
Unfortunately she wasn't for this world much longer as on a trip back from Warwick back to Norwich an injector decided to stick up and smashed the valves up. So a 7 hour trip back home ensued changing recovery trucks 3 times, the missus was far from impressed and took to blaming me.
The Audi was sold as spares or repairs and from what I hear she is back on the road after have an engine transplant.
So I was left looking for a new car, unsure what to get I started searching but couldn't find anything I really liked... That was until a friend told me about a Mondeo St tdci with 68k miles and full history, that was being sold by his mate, after reading into them a bit more it started to make sense. Large Family car would suit perfectly for chucking the gear in for camping and it also had a little poke. I went and viewed it, and after a test drive I paid a deposit and picked it up a few weeks later. There were a few issues but I got it for a bargain price so I wasn't overly concerned. It smoked a little when pressing on, so the egr and intake manifold was cleaned out, egr blanked and a good dose of bg244 was added to the tank. I also fitted 4 new tyres as it was fitted with ditch finders, so I plumped for some michelin pilot sports and had the alignment set the same as the v6 model to stop the rear tyres scrubbing the inners.
After this was done I enjoyed the car for about 4 months before I started tweaking it, a decat was fitted and the alloys refurbished in smoked chrome. I also have some focus st225 calipers and discs to fit, along with eibach springs, fmic, exhaust and then a remap.
Problem is getting the time to do it all as working full time and studying a degree is leaving me with little to no spare time.
As I said not exactly exciting cars but I like them and I have learnt tons over the last few years. So much so that I'm now in charge of servicing the families cars and fixing most things that go wrong.
I was moving further away from work and my gf so was desperate for a new car. Working in insurance I had an idea of what would be a cheap first car to insure, I was looking for a 5 door hatchback ideally diesel due to my mileage. After spending what seemed like an age, I decided I wanted an Audi a3. I convinced my dad to come look at one with me, much to his despair. I am more than happy to admit now that it was a dog, 190k miles 1.9tdi cactus green.
He tried to convince me not to get it but fallen in love with it as it was my ticket to freedom. So a deal was done and the owner even gave me a tenner back for some diesel. I was on the road and pleased as punch.
after 3 or 4 months things started going wrong with it, a drive shaft fell off. So with no mechanical knowledge a set about fixing that. Shortly after that the car was over boosting and going into limp mode. A bit of reading up online I found it was likely to be caused by the variable turbo vanes sticking, this could be fixed with a good squirt of Mr Muscle oven cleaner.
So off came the egr and a length of pipe feed into the turbo with a good shot of oven cleaner. Left it for an hour and started her up..... No more limp mode and the turbo pulled better than ever.
Unfortunately she wasn't for this world much longer as on a trip back from Warwick back to Norwich an injector decided to stick up and smashed the valves up. So a 7 hour trip back home ensued changing recovery trucks 3 times, the missus was far from impressed and took to blaming me.
The Audi was sold as spares or repairs and from what I hear she is back on the road after have an engine transplant.
So I was left looking for a new car, unsure what to get I started searching but couldn't find anything I really liked... That was until a friend told me about a Mondeo St tdci with 68k miles and full history, that was being sold by his mate, after reading into them a bit more it started to make sense. Large Family car would suit perfectly for chucking the gear in for camping and it also had a little poke. I went and viewed it, and after a test drive I paid a deposit and picked it up a few weeks later. There were a few issues but I got it for a bargain price so I wasn't overly concerned. It smoked a little when pressing on, so the egr and intake manifold was cleaned out, egr blanked and a good dose of bg244 was added to the tank. I also fitted 4 new tyres as it was fitted with ditch finders, so I plumped for some michelin pilot sports and had the alignment set the same as the v6 model to stop the rear tyres scrubbing the inners.
After this was done I enjoyed the car for about 4 months before I started tweaking it, a decat was fitted and the alloys refurbished in smoked chrome. I also have some focus st225 calipers and discs to fit, along with eibach springs, fmic, exhaust and then a remap.
Problem is getting the time to do it all as working full time and studying a degree is leaving me with little to no spare time.
As I said not exactly exciting cars but I like them and I have learnt tons over the last few years. So much so that I'm now in charge of servicing the families cars and fixing most things that go wrong.
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