Chimaera Questions

[willem]

I took delivery of a 2001 Chimaera 500 on Friday. Unfortunately, no manual accompanied the car.

I have a few questions :

1) Where can I get a copy of the "bible"? Amazon has none in stock. I am in South Africa.
2) About two seconds after depressing the brakes there is a soft chirp (from the alarm I presume)and the hazard lights flash once. This happens consistently. I have no idea what alarm/immobilizer have been fitted. Is this normal ?
3) There is a very small rubberized rocker switch fitted under the steering wheel. It returns to the centre position and seems to have no effect no matter which side is depressed. I can send photos. Is it standard and what is it for ?

Regards,

Willem

[Corin Denton]

willem said:

I took delivery of a 2001 Chimaera 500 on Friday. Unfortunately, no manual accompanied the car. I have a few questions : 1) Where can I get a copy of the "bible"? Amazon has none in stock. I am in South Africa. Here... www.tvrbooks.co.uk/ 2) About two seconds after depressing the brakes there is a soft chirp (from the alarm I presume)and the hazard lights flash once. This happens consistently. I have no idea what alarm/immobilizer have been fitted. Is this normal ? You should have a Meta system, this is not normal the only reason I can think of is that there might be a crossed wire on the alarm system as this is linked to the lights, when the brake pedal is pressed this also connects to the lighting circuit to illuminate the brake lights? 3) There is a very small rubberized rocker switch fitted under the steering wheel. It returns to the centre position and seems to have no effect no matter which side is depressed. I can send photos. Is it standard and what is it for ? Not heard of this before, a picture would help. Corin

[Nuggs]

willem said:

3) There is a very small rubberized rocker switch fitted under the steering wheel. It returns to the centre position and seems to have no effect no matter which side is depressed. I can send photos. Is it standard and what is it for ?

Could this be a bizarrely-situated heated seat switch? Does your arse begin to roast minutes after messing around with the switch?

OR

Could it be an equally bizarrely-situated manual fan override switch? Check whether the fans come on when you switch it on...

OR

Could it be a very rare dual purpose arse-warming/fan-override switch? No, thought not...

[tvrinbfg]

Heritage Motors were the TVR dealer in SA. Don't know if they are still going, but Dealer Principle was/is Brian Tyler who was on:-

t. 0027-113260126
f. 0027-117874168

The owner's manual also has the service history. Did you buy it over there?

The knob under the steering column isn't the wheel adjustment up and down is it?

[CharlieAlpha66]

willem said:

1) Where can I get a copy of the "bible"? Amazon has none in stock. I am in South Africa.

Give eBay a try - copies of "the bible" tend to come up on there fairly frequently (although there are none at the moment, I just checked for you). Just check that the seller is happy to post it to SA - and of course, expect to pay a fair ££ extra for the postage to Gauteng..!

[shpub]

CharlieAlpha66 said:

willem said: 1) Where can I get a copy of the "bible"? Amazon has none in stock. I am in South Africa. Give eBay a try - copies of "the bible" tend to come up on there fairly frequently (although there are none at the moment, I just checked for you). Just check that the seller is happy to post it to SA - and of course, expect to pay a fair ££ extra for the postage to Gauteng..!

You need the 2nd edition - blue cover. A lot of the ebay sales are for the first edition. Most of the prices are over inflated as well because people for some reason think that as Amazon don't have it, it doesn't exist. It comes up and people end up paying more than a new copy!

Get it from the TVR Car Club. [phone] or email [e-mail]

They post all over the world.

[beano500]

Good luck with your new purchase

There should be millions of suggestions for what "mystery button #3" does!

I'll offer (seeing as it doesn't appear to do anything, and I'm assuming it's sunny in SA at the moment) dashboard illumination switch. Try hitting it at night and see if your dials disappear! Other cars of that generation had similar switches....

[Jem]

beano500 said:

There should be millions of suggestions for what "mystery button #3" does!

it's the bemusement switch

J

[Nuggs]

I've been giving the mystery switch some more thought, could it be:

• An ejector seat button - does your passenger dissappear moments after it's pressed? Does its effectiveness depend on whether the roof's on or off?

• Rear-facing machine gun button (option on models after 1996) - do people behind you mysteriously die when you press it?

• Front-facing maching gun button - as above but with people in front?

• Inter Continental Ballistic Missile launch button - do entire countries tend to disappear when you press it?

...I'll get my coat...