Charging at a petrol station is definitely a bit crap, but on the flip side, its better than not charging and ending up on an AA lorry. I think in the ~5 years i've driven EV's i've charged at a petrol station two or three times, but in all cases it was critical because there was nothing else nearby. One time i rolled in with the battery showing literally 0%, having had a failed charge at another unit 10 miles down the road.

It feels like a stop-gap, however all of the big petrol providers seem to be looking at it, i guess they dont want to be left behind and want to get a foot in the door. It will certainly help EV adoption if you know that any of the many filling stations around also have charging. MFG has setup a few EV only sites, but they've also rolled out a lot of "hubs" with 6/8/12 chargers at existing petrol sites, which as an EV driver is far more useful than the usual effort of one or two units.

Charging is slow enough, without turning up and finding a queue for the one charger (or worse, its broken). So multiple unit sites are a huge draw for an EV owner.

Its very likely a huge profit source for their shop too, as if your sat there for 15-30mins charging the chances are your going to pop in for a coffee or a drink or whatever. Generally on a longer trip i will try to align the charging stop with natural breaks like lunch, so there will be some capturing of that market too.

Motorway services ofcourse are a different story, but the provision at most motorway services in the UK is utter garbage, so a lot of these charging hubs at normal petrol stations are popping up near motorways, to catch the folks who need to charge and want to avoid the motorway hubs as they're generally under-specified (often only 2 or 3 chargers) and massively busy.

As for the LPG side, its certainly a concern, availability has dropped significantly over the last few years. However i suspect its just never been that popular here in the UK unlike Europe, and with the move towards direct injection, it stopped being viable for new vehicles probably 10 years ago. Thus we're basically in a run-out period where its only used by older cars which are as time passes simply disappearing from the roads. Add in the EV side going the other way, and with limited space, as a business you can see its a very clear choice... Keep the large bulky LPG tanks for the 3 campervans and 4 V8 SUV's a day, with all the associated costs of maintenance and upkeep, to sell fuel with wafer thin margins... Or remove them, install some EV chargers where your making not only a bigger margin on the fuel itself, but you've got a nice captive audience for your shop.

I'm pretty sure the '00 door cards i recently bought just said "wood" for the trim type on the label on the back of them. I also found my dash trim which looked totally different to the door trims had infact just been bleached by the sun, as when i removed it the area around the glove box button trim was the original dark color.

I've got a set of four door inserts if your needing a set as i transferred over my wrapped ones.

On mine you dont even need a key to put the gearbox into neutral.... Just pull the shifter into N.

Steering lock will be your main issue. At the most basic, you can probably remove the lock barrel to disengage the lock.

The codes may have been generated at different operational sites.

For instance one set generated at idle and another while cruising or while under accelleration.

It also depends on the complexity of the ECU itself. Some management systems have fairly sophisticated models of the engine within their code, and so they know that for a given operating condition (say 2000rpm, wide open throttle) the MAF readings should be within say a 10 or 20% window, and if they stray outside this, they will generate a code. Other systems are REALLY dumb by comparison and just believe anything certain sensors say.

There was a thread created for that, its further down the first page!

Because warping is usually pad deposits, heavy braking can clear it up, sometimes. it may return depending on many factors.

Thats possible, however i'm pretty happy with the data i have managed to collect so far.

Just need to get some time to work on it, been busy with family stuff and work so havent got near it for a couple weeks. I did get some 5 lobe torx bits to remove the sensor from the TT MAF i bought (I bought a slightly different - larger - unit from ebay to my original ones, as it was a better fit for the factory intake pipe), as for some reason the housing is disgustingly dirty and needs a bath. Might also swap the sensor element for a spare one given the state of the whole thing.

Ok so its similar to the Audi one then (not a huge surprise as they're both made by Valeo!)

I think the Audi version you can adjust the fan speed and it acts like an offset rather than becoming fully static, which is probably the main difference i'm noticing.

Thanks. I sanded the three metal fingers it looked a bit oxidised. Also rubbed the tracks with the sand paper but that didn't seem to do much.

Both the fan control, and the temp up/down switches seemed intermittent. I couldn't see anything wrong with the rubber membrane switches though, not sure how to proceed there.

I ordered a bulb kit with the replacement zebra strip, as while the display worked okay, I guess I should just sort it all while it's apart.

As for auto mode, I find different cars deal with that differently. In my A4 for instance full auto seems to make strange choices on where the air goes, but if you manually select say footwell and windscreen, the fan control remains on auto and you've only changed the direction.

I've not played with the range rover too much, but from a cursory look it seems if you adjust anything knocking it out of auto, the fan then ends up static. I'll experiment a little more with auto mode. However I do often find it will make decisions that are annoying. For example on a cold day the A4 will run the fan at a low speed until the engine warms up. But then it'll run the fan at full bore to get the cabin up to temperature which I find a bit too much.

ABS and warped disks feel quite different...

Warped disks is a much lower frequency and is generally a "smoother" pulse or judder. It also varies with speed.

ABS is a very high frequency "vibration" and often the pedal will feel very odd as the pump takes control.

I've had both on the P38. ABS engagement due to a front sensor with too large an air-gap, but it was very intermittent. It also felt bloody scary, as it would effectively turn the brakes off trying to get the wheel to unlock, which ofcourse never happened as it wasnt locked in the first place. Eventually it started producing a code for the front right sensor, and a small tap fixed the issue.

If its warped disks, you can sometimes tell by looking on the disk surface for a pad "imprint". Looks like the outline of a brake pad left on the surface of the disk. Warping is almost always caused by "user error". If the disks are hot (from lots of braking) and the car is then stopped with the brake pedal held on, the heat causes pad material to transfer to the disk surface. Sometimes this material is then simply worn off again, but depending on the exact thermal cycles etc, sometimes it doesnt go away and interacts with the steel to form an extra hard deposit. Over time the disk around the deposit wears away, but the deposit doesnt, creating a high spot (and we're talking fractions of a mm here) which is what then causes the vibration.

I've pulled out the HEVAC control to remove the nasty sticky on wood trim from the front of it. When its out i want to see if i can fix the unresponsive buttons...

Is there a known fix? i was guessing i just pull it apart and try cleaning up the contacts?

I should probably have ordered a bulb kit while it was out 🤔

Gilbertd wrote:

The ignition switched supply comes from fuse 23 which also powers the airbag system so it should wake it up.

The odo sync in the Nanocom forces them to be the same but if you swap another one in, you will get an Odo Error on the message centre every time you start the car.

Just to confirm, are you saying if i swap, i'll get odo error until i do the sync? Or forever more?

yeah i think that ignition live is just for the airbag warning lights or something. Nothing happened at all when 12v was applied there.

Thanks dave3d, I had read that you can blank out the BECM by removing the eeprom and plugging the cluster in, so i guess its recoverable if i do end up with a higher mileage. I guess i just go for it?

I'll wait until i've finished the stereo bits (and now HVAC bits) first though, i always seem to start about 5 jobs and then they never get finished.

Yeah it may just be the becm staying awake enough. However I was generally just sitting with the door open working on it. Maybe 3 or 4 open/close per side as I went to get tools or whatever. It's certainly a little odd though, doesn't feel like enough activity to drain the battery. Battery might be tired i guess. I need to stixk my clamp meter on the battery cable and see what's being drawn.

Yeah deleting the door amps. Routing everything to the head unit for now, but as a second stage I will look at an external amplifier to drive everything along with the sub. Just running the factory speakers for now, they have not disintegrated yet!

Gave it a lot more juice and it powered up with everything warning lamp on the entire thing lit up. That'll be why it wanted 2 amps!
No message center though. The ignition live on the green wire didn't seem to do anything at all. Looking at the diagram that seems to be airbag related somehow.

As above I don't want to stick it in and have the becm overwritten with a much higher value and I've no idea what miles are currently on it. My cars on 195k, so it seems unlikely it would be higher, but you never know 🤣

Anyone know if the becm will automatically take the reading from the cluster, or are there additional steps which will allow me to power it up in the car and see what's shown? There's something in nanocom about odometer sync?

Anyone know if its possible to bench test an instrument cluster?

I picked up a cluster from the scrap yard. Wanted to power it on to check the mileage, so i've connected the two purples to 12v and the two blacks to ground. Set up a current limited supply of half an amp, and its pulling all of it and showing no signs of life.

Before i just crank up the power i wanted to check if anyones done this before and knows if it will even work? Does it need the serial comms to the BECM to actually come alive?

Been working on fixing my audio system, converting from "high line" to "midline" and replacing the door cards at the same time.

Ofcourse its slow going. Rear cards are in, but one of the plastic bushes that holds the handle to the door has exploded. Rear speakers also rewired, and 10uf filter cap added and thats all working as expected. Started on the front and discovered the tweeters built in filter cap is completely useless, so i'll need to fix that!

Managed to run the battery flat twice working on the car. Not sure exactly whats going on but seems like a few hours of opening/closing doors and the odd ignition cycle is enough to run it flat. For now, i'll keep attaching my bench supply while working on it as i dont want to ruin the battery completely.

you need to select "security learn" i think its on the next page?

you can sometimes tell by simply jacking it and spinning each wheel and seeing how it sounds. Especially if you compare side to side you might notice one feels or sounds rougher. however due to drag on the brakes and depending on how worn the bearing is etc its not always foolproof.

I dont think there are any bearings in the outer end of the front axle case? there is a plain section of shaft that runs in the oil seal, and otherwise its supported by the CV joint/wheel bearing itself.

Chrisp38 wrote:

I replaced the reg/brush pack on my diesel in around 1/2 hr, no need to remove the alternator and I'd never done one before. Just small bolts, no soldering.

Yeh some have removable brush packs, but the main rectifier diodes are still soldered to the windings.

I think i've got a similar bosch unit on the bench, i'll pop the cover off and take some photos when i get a minute.

I suppose its one of those tradeoffs, your spending £20 instead of £120, but if it goes wrong your now out several hours and £140.