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.

Its not a castle nut. Its a normal nyloc, but welded to the chassis is a piece of folded wire thats stopping me getting a socket or spanner onto it...

As per Mr Oranges pic :)

I'll give it a belt with a hammer.

I'm trying to remove the panhard rod.

On the drivers side, theres a nut and bolt. i can get my breaker bar in on the bolt head, but the nut has like a bent wire loop welded over it stopping me getting anything onto it. Before i get medieval on the wire loop, is there something i'm missing?

can someone move this to the right section please :)

I've just installed a new front track rod, and am looking for some pointers on aligning the steering box.

the box has a sorta line/nub thing on the side of it, and the input shaft has a smooth collar with a bump on it.

If i line the bump up with the line, the steering wheel is miles out, about a 1/5th of a turn to the right.

the wheels are also steering slightly to the right.

Have i got the right marks, and given the steering wheel error, i presume i need to remove the wheel and centre it? Then if i wind the adjuster on the track rod to lengthen it, that should bring the wheels streight?

ta :)

i dont think it prompts to enter the EKA, you just do it anyway once it ends up in that "press remote" state?

depends on your motorfactor. Mines completely useless.

I went in looking for a replacement sump plug for the Autobox, clearly their computer isnt going to list the auto, but i hoped we'd be able to find an engine sump plug with the same thread.

He stared at me with a blank face going "cant do anything without a reg" "we dont sell gearbox drain plugs" proper robot spec. I ended up standing in the shop, on Google, trying to find a car that had the same thread. In the end i discovered the BMW 330d used the same thread size as the autobox, and gave him the reg of the one i used to own. Then he sprung into life and went and fetched it no problem.

I then asked for some Copper washers as i wasnt sure if the new plug was going to seal properly (it came with an alloy washer on it), nope dont do them. the only thing they had was a big "garage kit" with about 200 washers in it of all different sizes and it was about 30quid.

You used to go into these places, and they'd have the computer, but they'd also have the old paper books, and those usually had some generic cross reference etc in the back of them so if you werent quite sure, they'd get the catalog out and you could have a look thru it. The bloke behind the counter actually knew cars, knew what you were asking for, probably had an idea of alternatives etc etc. Nowadays, the folk that work there seem to be no different to the folk operating the till in Tesco. They dont actually have a clue.

The computer software my local place uses will perfectly happily allow you to do a manual lookup, you can input make, model, year, engine etc and it works fine. Feeding it the reg simply pre-populates the fields automatically, but they will actually refuse to do a manual lookup if your looking for a part off a different car or whatever. I've had him refuse, then ended up standing in front of him googling the car make and model on my phone, and pulling a random reg from ebay before...

These days i try to avoid using them, i normally order online, or from EuroCarParts, and only go there when i really need to. Half the time i go there they dont even have what i need either.

Maybe unlock with fob disarmed it?

Seen that a few times on VAG cars. The VAG bottles go yellow/brown over time with staining from the coolant, so swapping in a new clear one is a common mod to tidy up the engine bay, and the last one i changed was covered in hairline cracks and crazing. I'm amazed it was holding coolant!

I also had a fairly decent coolant leak on my A4 after a similar split appeared in the plastic coolant elbow that comes off the back of the cylinder head. Almost completely invisible on the outside as it was along a moulding seam, but on the inside you could see a distinct black line.

oh yeh, swathes of them are vulnerable.

I bought a accident damaged A4 (albeit an older 2000 model) a few years back, which came with one key, that was snapped in half and glued back together. I bought a new case and attempted to swap the internals and managed to break the transponder chip in half leaving me with an immobilised car.

Got a lead off ebay for about £30, and a new blank transponder, and coded up the new key in a few minutes.

I guess the issue is, security access needs to be possible with an immobilised car, otherwise the dealer cant program new keys when you turn up having lost them... And once the security protocols over OBD are cracked, then anyone can buy the lead and do the same. The immobiliser has a secret key code a bit like the EKA, which needs input into the software while programming the key. This code is dealer only and unlike landrover they wont even give it out to end users at all.

However for a lot of the cars, the ebay leads can actually extract the key code from the RAM of the cluster after an OBD connection has been made. The cluster has to load it into ram to compare it with the input version, and someones figured out how to dump the RAM of the microprocessor over OBD. Thus you simply connect, read out the SKC, and then program a key using the standard routines that a dealer would use.

The Audi and BMW both have transponder chips in the key which are seperate to the alarm fob. The transponder is used to disarm the immobiliser and is checked on every start. The RF remote for unlocking is a seperate system and isnt not part of the immobilisation process.

I guess when the immobiliser system detects a valid key, it also signals the alarm/locking system to disarm and unlock. So if you jammed a copy key (or screwdriver) in it wouldnt disarm the alarm, and the engine wouldnt start either.

On the Audi the immobiliser is handled by the instrument cluster, whereas the locking and alarm is handled by a comfort unit in the boot. The BMW has a combined comfort/security module that handles both.

Yeh i did wonder. We're still mostly using the key as the antenna is unplugged and the fob range is useless, but i had a feeling that when i came in the other day i had stuff in my hands and just hit the fob button to lock, so thats probably what its been.

Both my A4 and my E90 BMW do effectively the same thing. If you unlock with the key, only that door opens and the alarm goes off. Once you put the ignition on the alarm stops and the rest of the car unlocks. I guess the range rover pre-dates the integration which allows the alarm to realise that a valid key is present in the ignition, and hence have the awful EKA system instead!

Ok, so we said it'd return and it did...

This morning the missus went to get in, used the key in the drivers lock, only the drivers door unlocked. She didnt open the door, but locked and unlocked it a few times, same thing, so she called me.

I told her to try using the remote, holding it near the drivers rear window. She did that and it unlocked immediately.

Now, i cant actually remember if i locked it using the remote or the key last time i used it, would that make a difference? I'm sure i read something about if you lock with the remote you cant then open with the key, but i cant really remember. If it doesnt matter, then clearly it implies something iffy with the drivers door lock? I presume a bad microswitch or similar?