yeh i had a play with the car yesterday and noticed the Auto worked the same way as the A4. I pressed auto and then pressed Airconditioning Off (the compressor is leaking). The Auto light went out, but i noticed the fan "bar" was still missing. The fan did seem a bit annoying though, blowing a bit too hard for no reason. I ended up manually turning it down a bit. I suspect i might have had the temperature set to an impossible value, IE set to 18c when it was 20c outside or whatever.

I think theres some argument for less control in an Automatic car due to the lack of engine braking. When you lift in a manual car, you get immediate retardation of speed, which makes it feel like you've not only stopped accellerating but have actually started slowing down. The Auto doesnt seem to do that as much, as soon as you lift it drops out the lockup clutch on the converter and the engine drops to idle meaning you lose almost all engine braking.

I've always had manuals, and was REALLY against automatic boxes as i wanted the control. When i replaced my old trooper with the Range Rover, i resigned myself to the autobox and figured it wasnt a daily driven car, and so wouldnt bother me too much. It then sat for months broken and i never used it. However in the mean time i got the electric car, which obviously has no transmission, i started using that daily and quickly realised that infact, for the daily commute, there was nothing wrong with it, and i quite enjoyed not having clutch leg ache in traffic. Thus once the range rover was finally pressed into use, it felt pretty "normal". That said, the EV has fairly strong regenerative braking which comes in when you lift off the throttle, so the engine braking issue isnt realised in that car. I guess fundamentally its just different and people dont like change.

The primary thing with the range rovers auto that annoys me, is the inability to manually downshift before a manoever. EG if i want to overtake, you end up mashing the foot down and theres a significant delay while everything winds itself up and gets into the proper gear. Whereas newer "tiptronic" autos allow you to flick the box down into the correct gear before you start the overtake. It also seems to occasionally down shift too far. So it'll jam itself into 2nd at 5500rpm, and then immediately upshift into 3rd, whereas with a manual, you'd just have selected 3rd to start with.

As for the cruise control, i dont find any feelings of out of control. I'm still driving exactly as normal, my brains processing the same things and performing the same actions, the only difference is i'm not having to hold my foot wedged on the throttle in the same position for ages. End of the day 99% of driving is observations and planning. The physical controls are almost subconcious anyway

RutlandRover wrote:

I know a couple of people that won't use it because they "want to be in control of the car". One of these people won't even use auto climate control for the same reason. His car has auto climate control but he steadfastly refuses to hit the "AUTO" button and as a result is constantly adjusting the temperature and vent speed etc.

I assume they think that it means they're a better driver in some way as they are "in control".

Yeh, but if you need to accelerate, then do so, and similarly if you need to brake, do so. The controls still there, its just helping you maintain the setpoint. If they're that worried about control, do they refuse to drive automatic transmissions?

The climate control is interesting, i tend to turn Auto off in the A4, and direct the airflow at the windscreen and footwell vents. However in the A4, the automatic fan control part stays on even though you've turned "auto" off. So it'll still ramp the fan up as the engine reaches temperature, and shut it back once the cabin is warm enough. If you then adjust the fan speed, your adjustment is applied as an offset to the automatic speed.

I did the same thing on the P38 when i got it but havent paid too much attention to how its operating.

i used 6mm fuel hose when i did mine. Never keen on long runs of largish bore silicone where vacuum is involved. It tends to go a bit soft and squidey and sucks flat.

I've never quite understood why people dont use cruise control. Its really quite annoying when your sat on the motorway, with the cruise on at 70, and end up playing yoyo with someone who cant maintain their speed properly. And fair enough if its an older or crappy car that might not have it, but when its something new and a bit flash and will almost certainly have it, why arent they using it? I use it every time i'm out in the other two cars, certainly improves fatigue and ankle ache on motorway jaunts. Also saves worrying about your speed creeping up and then getting stung by a scamera van.

instead of guessing, and changing parts that may or may not be broken... why not ask the unit why its brought the light on?

not yet, i was away at the weekend so didnt get a chance.

My point on tax is there's no way you'd get away with putting 70% tax on the electricity people use to power their homes, or the electricity that powers industry. If they wanted transport tax, it would need to be only applied to electricity used for transport. With petrol and diesel, the non transport uses are small, so it's generally available pretaxed, and getting it untaxed is a challenge.

As for the turbodiesel thing, sure you make a valid point. But until very recently, a turbo petrol was restricted to the high performance only options. The run of the mill everyday cars had either a turbodiesel, or a naturally aspirated petrol. Don't get me wrong. I'd personally much prefer a turbo petrol or a huge v8, and infact that's exactly what I do have, as well as the EV. But you can't ignore why people buy diesel, they are typically torquier, and easier to drive than a similar spec and size non-turbo petrol. For a given power output, the diesel tends to make that power at a much lower and thus more accessible point in the rev range, which to you average Joe who doesn't rev his petrol to 5k+ means the diesel has much more accessible power. Compare a 2.0 TDI Mondeo to a 2.0 non turbo. They probably both make about 150hp, but the TDI will feel a lot more willing to accelerate, and the petrol you'll need to downshift and rev the nuts off it. It may well be that when driven flat out the petrol is infact faster, but the way your normal Joe drives doesn't realise that performance.

The biggest issue I see with diesel is the millions of folks that have bought them and use them solely for short trips where it's completely pointless. Unfortunately they fixate on the MPG, but don't realise if you only do 5 or 6k s year the difference in fuel is negligible, and they then have all sorts of issues with the engine that cost way more than the fuel savings ever will.

Yep perfect, that's what I can see 😀

Gilbertd wrote:

An EV would be no good to me at all. I have a works van, supplied by a Government Department, that is a stinky diesel, costs the taxpayer £10.40 two or three days a week when I have to go into the congestion charge zone but does between 150 and 200 miles a day. How could I do that, and still get a days work done, in an EV? For my own car, I'm currently the best part of 1,000 miles south of home. While I may do the odd short journey, could I really justify having an EV to go and do the shopping when the rest of the time (every other weekend at the moment) I'm doing anything between 1,000 and 2,000 miles.

Ofcourse, they;re not perfect, and not for everyone. But a tesla can happily do 200+ miles on a single charge, and theres plenty of space in a van for a big battery pack, after all if it fits under the floor of a big saloon car, it can fit under the floor of a van! The market will grow, and more products will become available. Nissan have been building electric NV200's based on the LEAF running gear, and they seem very popular with councils around this way.

As for your long trips, its very unlikely you drive 1000miles without stopping... My bladder manages about 150-200miles, and my stomach and legs usually want serviced around then too. So you stop, you plug the car in and charge it while you recharge yourself, and 30mins (ish) later its ready to go again. Its no different to my range rover LPG tank, that also only goes about 200miles. Except instead of standing at the pump holding the annoying button while it slowly trickles in, i can go get some food or take a piss or get a coffee while it fills itself.

For us, we have multiple vehicles anyway. Previously we had the 330d, the A4, and the 4x4. I ditched the 330d and swapped it for the EV. I use the EV for my commute, which it makes somewhat nicer due to how it drives. On the days i work from home, the wife uses the EV for running around town. If i have it away at work, she;ll use the A4 instead.

Things will improve markedly for EV's once the 200mile+ cars move from the super premium tesla models, down into the more mainstream. Renaults new Zoe with the 40kwh pack is heading towards that point, and makes a fairly convincing package to replace most small hatchbacks.

Lpgc wrote:

Diesels sound crap, kick out crap from the exhaust and are crap to drive.

The electricity used to charge electric only vehicles (and run everything else that runs on electric) comes mostly from power generation plants that burn fossil fuels, this is likely to be the case until (and if) fusion reactors are invented. If fusion reactors were in place tomorrow the electrical supply infrastructure would still need upgrading before the majority of homes could have an electric vehicle.

Countries need revenue from vehicle fuel tax on the one hand but want everyone to be green on the other hand. If it currently costs a motorist something like 15p to drive a mile in a car and government get half the 15p in revenue, that's 7.5p gov gets for the average mile driven. As a nod to green gov allows reduced taxation on green fuels such as LPG and electric vehicles. If there comes a day when everyone runs an electric vehicle, the electric will have to cost at least 7.5p for every mile driven plus whatever extra needs to be factored in to cover the cost of upgrading infrastructure.

The savings enjoyed by running electric vehicles may only last until the electric vehicles get better and start to become more mainstream. While-ever anyone produces petrol, LPG will also be produced and governments that like to nod to green will tax it less heavily than petrol. We could even see a situation in future where it costs less to run a vehicle on LPG than electric... Electric cars are not totally clean, they shift the problem from vehicle exhausts to power station exhausts. Then we could talk about (ref Brian's post) what it takes to get enough lithium to produce batteries for all these electric vehicles and copper for electric cables and transformers.

In the future maybe we'll have to take our dead in our electric cars to recycling centres for rare earth element extraction lol. One of the biggest problems with regards oil use is the rising demand from developing countries like, say, China and India. What would happen if developed countries took a hard line on this - 'Sorry China / India, we developed first and have become accustomed to our way of life, but we're not going to let you do the same as we have/do with oil because there isn't enough to go round'. War? OK. So what if we say to oil producing countries 'We know you only have oil to offer and have based your economies and standards of living on selling oil to the West but we're not going to buy any oil in future, sorry'. War? Well maybe they'll start turning oil into more plastic products such as ships ,etc which become much cheaper than current metal ships but the new products bring problems of their own (plastic on the sea bed etc). Then we might say 'Sorry still no good, you're still causing pollution'. Is it war yet? If only we had nuclear fusion, and that Star Trek technology for producing food etc out of thin air (that runs on lectric).

Simon

My 330d was one of the best cars i've driven. It wasnt noisey, it was smooth and refined, had oodles of torque from idle and was effortless to drive with nearly 300hp on tap when required. I've also driven a small 1400cc 3 cylinder diesel in a ibiza and it was SIGNIFICANTLY nicer to drive than an identical 1.4 petrol, which would barely pull itself up a hill. So i'm not sure i agree that they're terrible to drive. The emissions are another story ofcourse, but no-ones disputing that.

We've already had days where more than 50% of our electricity generation has come from renewables... Coal stations are expensive and are only turned on when really needed. The grid is getting greener all the time, and as a result so is the miles driven in an EV. The next big step change is grid level storage which is the big thing thats being worked on, various schemes including batteries and heatpumps and compressed gasses.

You make a valid point on taxation, but unlike petrol, its near impossible to tax electricity in the same way. I suspect we'll end up with some sort of mileage or road based charging in the long term.

China and india are already rapidly rolling out renewables, faster than many western countries infact!

This is the dot i can see on the box itself:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zh45w6b7l9n60xd/2017-07-20%2020.20.34.jpg?dl=0

If i rotate the steering a bit, this sticky out bit appears:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3wzbigw3ywpeqve/2017-07-20%2020.21.37.jpg?dl=0

So i presume those are the marks. Whats the best way of lining up the steering? Do i just undo the bottom UJ and slide it off?

Well the bolts arrived today, i'm away at the weekend and being able to move the rangey while i was away would be handy, so i set about trying to finish it off tonight after dinner.

First problem was the body had moved across, and didnt want to move back. In the end i reattached the drag link, and just hauled on the steering and that pulled it back across so i could get the panhard bolted in.

Torqued everything up with the car at ride height.

Then got stuck into that drop link. It came off easily enough. New one went on fine. I couldnt decide which side of the bar it went on. It originally was mounted on the outside, with the nuts on the inside. It seemed to me that it would fit better the other way round, as when fitted that way you couldnt get a spanner on it to hold it still. In the end i put it back the way it was, but i thaught i should probably check and see!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bo7cx6kw6p0fshd/2017-07-20%2019.49.16.jpg?dl=0

It seems stupid, as it specifies a really high torque figure, but with it mounted that way its pretty much impossible to counter hold the top balljoint while tightening.

Went for a test drive, seems better, but not sure its 100%. However the steering box isnt centred and the drag link isnt adjusted at all, so i'll wait until thats sorted first before passing judgement! What was noticeable was a drastic reduction in bodyroll. Who'd have thaught!

In terms of overall experience, diesel will surely win out over LPG. LPG might just pip the cost per mile numbers in certain circumstances, but for the vast majoirty of folk who want to buy a standard unmodified car from a dealership with a warranty, LPG simply doesnt feature.

The problem with hydrogen is numerous. The electricity used to produce it (with your two electrodes) has to come from somewhere, and its MUCH more efficient just to directly use that electricity. Once you've got the hydrogen, you need even more electricity to compress it, then store it, then move it around using trucks or ships or trains. Its just a really really inefficient use of energy. And if you put it into an ICE, you need to package seriously substantial tanks. And once you've got it into your combustion engine, about 70% of the energy you get from burning your fuel gets thrown away out the exhaust pipe and radiators. Fuel Cells are not quite as wasteful, but you still have all the issues of producing, storing, moving and dispensing hydrogen which unfortunately arent particularly easy to fix.

Its MUCH more efficient to charge a battery (lithium charging is extremely efficient, most of the losses are actually in the power supply!), and simply power an electric motor to drive the wheels.

Its also MUCH easier to cleanly produce electricity in a big plant, than it is to cleanly burn fuel in millions of little engines. Even more so for short journeys where your combustion engines running super inefficiently. Furthermore, the electricity plants are remote, and thus not filling our cities with combustion byproducts, and we can use renewables like wind and solar with no combustion required at all.

The problem is theres lots of utter bullshit being spread by big oil and the media as well as many of the large car companies who have billions invested in combustion engines and dont really want to see that disappear, that you only really begin to realise once you start looking into it properly. Tesla have given them all a bit of a scare really, and they're now all scrabbling to get EV's to market.

I guess only time will tell, but i think a lot of people get their eyes opened once they actually drive a proper EV. I certainly did. And my reasons for buying mine werent any sort of green environmentalism. Wife wanted a newer car, and i wanted something non-shit. We couldnt afford to buy a nearly new car with decent engine, but when we realised the fuel savings offered by the EV meant that half the lease cost essentially vanished, it suddenly became quite viable. I had a short test drive and it seemed fine, so we went for it.

The chemistry used in a car is somewhat different to whats used in a phone but fairly similar to most laptops. Its pretty robust.

I think your really underestimating what a vehicle fire in a normal ICE vehicle is like, the batteries wont really make any significant difference, if its going to go up, its going to make a big mess in the process. Liquid fuels can also leak (and fuel tanks are usually plastic...), and spread around on the floor, spreading fire, the battery pack cant do that.

The main limiting factor at the moment is manufacturing capacity for the batteries. But ofcourse, as demand increases, so does the production. The cost of batteries is constantly falling as more manufacturing capacity comes online, which suggests, at least at the moment, theres no real supply issue for lithium.

The charging is a wee bit complex and is the bit that takes some understanding. There are various "speeds", the fastest chargers (called rapids) might fill the battery most of the way (on the typical sized pack available today) in about 30minutes, realistically the time you'd spend stopping for a pee and a coffee at a motorway services. Fast chargers vary from 7 to 22kw depending on supply and vehicle ability, and thus charging time on those varies substantially. Cars themselves also vary as to the maximum power they can draw on the fast chargers.

For me, it does a lot of my journeys without issue. I leave for work with a full battery, its usually down to 40-50% by the time i arrive at work depending on the weather. I plug it in while working, and when i finish its full and i set off home again. And realistically for a lot of folk, the range of the current models is fine for the majority of their driving. If your barreling up and down a motorway doing hundreds of miles, then sure diesel is still the best option. But for a lot of folk, and especially two car families, an EV can work well, even with its current limitations. Once the Model3 and other cars arrive in the next few years, we should see another step change in usefulness.

holland really loves its EV's at the moment, the tax breaks are so severe all the cabbys are running around in Teslas...

I have an EV, and tbh its really quiet nice. You need to drive one to experience it. Not a silly hybrid thing either, full electric no combustion engine at all.

Theres lots of nonsense spouted about them, including the comments above about fires. We forget that we're all already driving around in cars with tens of litres of readily combustible petrol onboard. A lithium ion battery is no more dangerous, and infact probably MORE robust with the design of modern lithium packs. Theres also less energy in your typical LI pack than there is in your typical car fuel tank...

It makes sense as a propulsion system. The power delivery is seriously impressive, its smooth, its quiet, effortless torque and your always got maximum power on tap with instant throttle response. If you want to clean up the carbon emissions of ICE cars, you need people to buy millions of new cars. If you want to clean up the carbon emissions of an EV, you need to replace the power generation with cleaner options. The latter is happening anyway and growing all the time, thus the EV gets cleaner over its lifetime, and the ICE gets dirtier.

It also charges overnight, and is full in the morning ready to go. No need to visit a fuel station or stand around in queues. Now granted, most are range limited and that causes issues for longer trips, but that will improve. Mine will do about 70-80miles on a charge. But that does all my commuting without issue, theres a charge point at work as well, so its full when i leave. Its a bit marginal if i visit my folks, especially in the winter, but i'll either just plug it in when i get there, or take the petrol car instead on the longer journeys. Its also costs about 3p a mile in electricity. The fuel savings are so large its paying for half the car.

Hydrogen is a waste of time, Its only being tabled because it allows the oil companies to continue their model of charging you to pump fuel into your car, and my the car manufacturers as it can be burned in a combustion engine. The energy involved in producing the hydrogen is bonkers and it makes no sense at all from an environmental POV. we might as well just keep burning petrol.

A wee tip, if your struggling with a photobucket image thats been held hostage in another thread or something.

If the link is clickable, click it. It'll load the photobucket website. On my PC this at first shows the same placeholder image, though sometimes it does just show the image. Once the page has loaded, hit shift F5, and the page will reload and the image will appear :)

If the image is not clickable, right click it and choose "view image" or "open image in new tab" depending on browser. Again, this should load the photobucket page directly, and should show the image. If it doesnt then again shift F5 should bring it up!

For hosting my images i have my own webserver, but i often find myself using dropbox for quick snaps as the photo automatically syncs them and it creates a public url with a simple click.

If your going to host images from your home connection, sign up to a dynamic DNS service, which means even if your IP Address changes, the name still points at your new IP.

Gilbert: yep, i hope so. I think it really needs the balljoints done on the end of the axle case. the top drivers one is creaking a bit when you turn. But i'll get this round of stuff out the way first!

i have air and a good Ingersoll Rand impact gun, but i've never had much luck with siezed bolts like this and an impact gun.

I guess i should have tried it, but i didnt.

For the nut and bolt it wouldnt have fitted anyway i dont think, but the axle case side probably would have gone in.

had dinner then went back out. It creaked another turn or so then released a bit and got steadily easier. Once apart its clear why it was such an arse, someones reused an old bolt, and slathered the rusty mank in loctite.

Finally got the bar off:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7yrf4mi3pumjka3/2017-07-18%2019.21.09.jpg?dl=0
Ruined bushes:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/o878oorg56l48bx/2017-07-18%2019.21.20.jpg?dl=0

Used a hole saw to cut out the old rubber, then hacksawed the case and hammered it out with a chisel (screwdriver)

Managed to press the new bushes in with the vice and a big extension bar over the handle!

Ready to go back on:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xyez6g3tdfltd3y/2017-07-18%2020.19.05.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7i796qauix4za4g/2017-07-18%2020.19.13.jpg?dl=0

I'm going to order replacement bolts and a new nyloc to replace the ones on there, as they've clearly been wildly overstressed removing them, and clearly been off and on at least once before as well.

bleh. things fighting me the whole way.

An hour with two breaker bars finally got the nut and bolt off. 1/8th of a turn at a time.

Started on the other side now. ended up popping the new track rod back off its taper to get access, and again about 1/8th of a turn at a time. This sides even worse, i can barely move the breaker bar, and it keeps going "BANG" and jumping so my backs done in from all the jolting.

also found this:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mnfv0xmcxr0hb8l/2017-07-18%2018.22.08.jpg?dl=0

Which certainly wont be helping the handling...

Looks like 5 years sat in a shed does wonders for the balljoints!

It cant be to stop the nut coming off, as you say the bolt would just back out and it would fall off anyway.

My initial guess was to stop the factory putting the bolt in the wrong way round. But i cant really understand why it would matter if the bolt was in the other way, theres nothing in the way of it!

i had the tracking done at kwikfit the other week, after fitting the rear bar, so we can assume that bits right.

I guess i'll centre the box, pop the UJ off and centre the wheel, then set the drag link.

Just to confirm the two bumps/slot on the box likes up with the bump on the smooth collar on the input shaft?

Rave just says "line up the marks" and doesnt explain what they are.