A friends son gave me a lift in his brand new Volvo XC40 mild hybrid and that actually isn't too bad. You stop at a junction and the engine stops but as soon as you want to go the electric motor makes it pull away immediately allowing time for the engine to fire up and carry on with moving it. It's a fudge to keep the emissions down when being tested but does seem to work quite well (or it does in the XC40 anyway).

It has to be really bad for you to get the 3 Amigos though.....

Pierre3 wrote:

Incidentally, what are the signs that the accumulator may be on the way out ?

ABS pump cutting in too often. It will run to pressurise the accumulator when you first turn the ignition on and then shut off. You should be able to press the brake pedal 3 times before it cuts in again. If it cuts in after every press of the pedal, it is weak. However, just to confuse things, it will also cut in after every pedal if there is air in the brake system. The presence of air means that more fluid is taken from the accumulator to operate the brakes so the pump will cut in more regularly to recharge the accumulator. Unlike a conventional non-pressurised system where air in the braking system gives a spongy pedal, air in a pressure system will result in a delay in the brakes being applied as the fluid under pressure has to compress the air first before it moves the caliper pistons. It will only be a very short delay and probably not even noticeable but you will notice the difference after the brakes are bled if there was any air in there.

It is above the gearbox but as the gearbox is offset to one side and the handbrake is central, it is easy enough to get to.

Pierre3 wrote:

I looked at the schematic, and this may sound a bit stupid, but is the adjust made to the handbrake cable on the brake drum ?

No, you adjust the shoes at the drum and the cable on the adjuster nut where it comes through the floor (as shown on the picture, step 7).

Does this mean that you can still use the car with an expired test as long as you have an appointment booked? Here,once the certificate expires you can only legally drive to a pre-booked test or to a place of repair for the test. Mostly you check it over for anything obvious, then take it in for test, see what it fails on then just do the essentials before taking it back for a retest. I've taken cars in fully expecting them to fail on something that I've noticed when checking it and they've passed so that saves me having to do a job unnecessarily.

Under Parking brake - Adjustment

So if you have to book 3 to 4 months in advance, does that mean you have to do that 3 to 4 months before your certificate runs out? Blimey, I can usually get an MoT appointment the next day, or, if I call early enough, the same day. Price is about the same as in the UK though although a retest is usually free if you take it back within 10 working days as they only check whatever it is that it failed on previously. I took one car (not a P38) in a couple of weeks ago that failed on a pair of suspension bushes. Replaced the bushes and the tester didn't even bother putting it on the ramp, he just looked underneath, saw shiny new bushes and went into the office to issue the Pass certificate.

Agree with you totally on that. I drove a brand new Mercedes GLA last year that had stop start and it really annoyed me. Sitting at a junction waiting for a gap in the traffic and rather than being able to pull out quickly, had to wait for the engine to start before it started to move. Until I found out how to switch it off, I discovered if I twitched the steering wheel it would restart so would go when I told it to and not a second or so later.

On the Thor, the gearbox has adaptive values as well as the engine, so it may well be that it has got offended with doing lots of short journeys.

I can see the attraction of Android Auto but think I still prefer my separate units. The Kenwood gives me DAB and Bluetooth so I can use it for hands free phone calls as well as streaming audio. The later Garmin sat nav units link to an app that runs in the background on the phone so gives live traffic and is two way so if anyone using it is delayed it updates the sat nav. I've got it mounted low down but central on the screen so it is more in my eyeline than having to look down or to one side at a built in screen. I suppose that depends on where the built in screen is mounted though, I had use of an Audi RS7 where it rose up out of the dash so was better than a fixed one in the dash, although I still had to look to one side to see it rather than just drop my eyes downwards as I do now. The advantage I can see with a combined unit is that everything is in one place. For example, if I use the Autogas app on my phone to find the nearest LPG filling station, I need to stop to transfer the postcode to the sat nav to get me there but assume with an integrated unit I can simply tell it to give me directions?

Folding mirrors, yes, a definite want for me too.

I've already got a reversing camera (that is Bluetooth linked to the Garmin sat nav) which I installed to help me when hitching up a trailer when on my own. It's currently mounted on the lower part of the rear bumper which makes judging the distance from something difficult. I've got a spare tailgate number plate light panel with the intention of mounting it in that so it looks downwards more but haven't got around to trying it yet (running the cable through from the upper tailgate down to one of the rear light clusters has stopped me).

Aragorn wrote:

A nice in-dash screen with Android Auto is on my list, i find it invaluable in my daily and feels like the thing i miss the most driving both my older cars.

I'm not too fussed about a big screen. My Kenwood head unit deals with sounds, Bluetooth hands free and audio streaming, while a Garmin sat nav stuck to the windscreen tells me where to go (and as it links though an app on my phone gives me live traffic too).

However, two things that I would definitely like so much that I stopped noticing them, rain sensing intermittent wipers and automatic headlights. The former worked perfectly when you get that light rain that you can never get the intermittent delay right by only wiping when a certain amount of wet was on the screen. The automatic lights are great when you go into a tunnel, not only for switching them on but switching them off afterwards. There's been numerous times I've driven miles with the lights on after forgetting to turn them off when I come out of a tunnel.

Having been driving a few modern cars just recently, I considered starting a similar thread. In the last few weeks I've driven a Hyundai i10 (hire car), a Mercedes E350 Cabrio and currently have an Audi S6 (standard Audi A6 body but with a 439bhp Lamborghini 5.2 litre V10 under the bonnet) parked outside. All have lots of modern driver aids, many of which will become compulsory in a couple of years and it set me thinking which would I like. Obviously all have a screen in the dash dealing with navigation, radio, media, audio settings and various other things that can be controlled by the driver but even at under 10 years old, the nav on both the Merc and Audi are getting a bit dated.

Reversing camera, yup, but that can easily be added to any car as can reversing sensors.

Then there are the driver aids, things like adaptive cruise control, brake assist, blind spot monitoring, lane departure warning, etc. I never use cruise control, preferring to to control my cruise speed with my right foot and on both that have it, it had been turned off anyway, as had the brake assist. The owner of the Merc told me that adaptive cruise was a pain as it would slow down if it saw a car in front of you travelling slower. Fine unless you intended to overtake that slower car because it expected you to indicate to pull out to overtake but if you were already in the overtaking lane, it had to be overridden.

The lane departure warning on the Merc and Hyundai would cause the steering wheel to shudder (and reduce the power assistance on the Hyundai so it felt like your wheels were in a rut) if it detected that you were drifting out of your lane. The only way to stop it is to indicate to pull out to overtake but you still had to indicate when you wanted to pull back in. However, if you indicated to pull in while the car you had overtaken was still in view of the blind spot detection in the rear view mirrors it got grossly offended and caused the steering wheel to shudder and it would beep loudly at you too!

I thought the blind spot warning would be useful and it is to a degree but I found it makes you lazy. As a big red triangle appears in the mirror if there is someone in your blind spot, I found I was relying on that rather than looking over my shoulder (what is known in motorcycle circles as the lifesaver), so while useful, not something I would consider an essential. At the end of the day there is no substitute for the Mk1 eyeball.

The Merc also had automatic dip beam which I must admit I really liked. Put the lights on main beam and if it detected another light coming towards you, they automatically dipped. Initially I thought the system may not dip when coming up behind another vehicle so I would blind them with the lights in their mirrors, but no, it detected them and dipped the lights. The only time it was fooled was on a section of road with Armco on the central reservation which obscured the other vehicles lights but not their windscreen so it didn't dip the lights but the oncoming driver got the full benefit of a pair of HID lights in his face. However, I did drive that car back from the south of France where there is hardly any traffic at night so I doubt it would be that useful in the UK when the roads are so crowded, even at night, you rarely get chance to use main beam anyway.

Although I've got my stereo as good as I can expect without spending a fortune (Kenwood DAB head unit with Bluetooth, JBL speakers in place of the originals and a powered sub under my seat), the Harmon Kardon system in the Merc and the Bose system in the Audi are absolutely amazing, so that would definitely be on my shopping list if it could be fitted without taking up any more space.

As Dave says, more power but having got out of the Audi yesterday and straight into mine, it still didn't feel underpowered, although I wasn't trying to break any records (which the Audi probably can do and sounds glorious when given some welly!).

So the bottom line is that while these modern driver aids may be useful, there isn't really any of them I would insist on having, except maybe the blind spot monitoring in the mirrors.

leolito wrote:

Now the next following question would be ... how do you "unfreeze" it? 🙃

You don't, you sling it in the bin. I've replaced all my woofers with JBL Stage 600 speakers (https://www.amazon.co.uk/stage-600CE-170mm-Component-Speakers/dp/B06XHL5R74). Fit straight in and sound way better than the originals. Even if you just get a pair, you can put them in the front and the known good ones from the front can go in the rear. You even get a pair of replacement tweeters which you could fit but I didn't bother as my old ears couldn't hear any difference.

Are you sure your spare speakers are good? Testing them for resistance will show if the coil is good, but not if the cone will move. Just about every one I've looked at where one woofer isn't working I've found the cone has seized so can't move. I'd start by swapping the speaker with the one in the other rear door which you know is good, just to be sure.

What's weird about the wiring? Pins 1 and 2 from the amp go directly to the speaker coil. The amp incorporates a crossover so full range going in and it is split so bass only to the woofer and mid and higher frequencies to the midrange.

I miss out a couple of steps. When I'm pulling up to park it is footbrake on, parking brake on, gearbox into P, engine off and get out of the car. There was someone on the other side that was complaining that with his car in P it would still roll. After checking that the gearchange linkage was correctly adjusted he ended up pulling the transfer case and gearbox tail housing off and finding most of the slots on the park plate had been worn away so the pawl against it was doing nothing. I suspect he (or a previous owner) had been putting it into Park while still moving which had destroyed it, but even so, it is only a bit of plain old mild steel after all.

As said, there's nothing wrong with your pump so you'd just be wasting £200. If the pump is running to get the system up to pressure then cutting out, it is fine. It is when it runs constantly and the ABS and TC lights stay on that you have a problem. The pump supplies pressure to the accumulator which is stored and used to operate the brakes. As said, the ABS system releases a brake when it detects a wheel turning slower than the others so isn't using any pressure at all.

I've just read the manual too and you are quite right, it does say on vehicles that can't be tested on the rollers need testing by the alternative method but nowhere can I find what says is suitable or not. On the section on the parking brake, it does specifically mention brakes that operate on the transmission and say that both wheels must be tested at the same time, not individually.

I would totally disagree that a parking brake is redundant on an automatic. If you take the tail housing off the gearbox and look at the thin steel plate with notches in it that a similarly thin piece of steel slots into, you would see that relying on that to hold the car on any sort of incline is asking for trouble. The parking brake is to stop the car rolling down a hill, not the park position in the gearbox.

Does it kick down when you floor it at 2,000 rpm? On mine it will change up at around 4,000 rpm unless it is in Sport mode then it will rev to the red line before changing. In Sport it also kicks down more readily.

Don't you just love stupid testers? I had one tell me that there was no point in testing my car as the ABS light was staying on until his boss told him it will until the car reaches 5mph. Show him the owners handbook that clearly states that it will stay on until the car is moving so it can check the outputs from the wheel speed sensors.

If the pressure was low the pump would run continuously, the brake efficiency would be low and the TC and ABS lights would be permanently on as the pressure switch would never close to switch off the pump and extinguish the lights.

If they insist on using a two wheel roller, the Traction Control must be disabled as per the instruction posted by Pete above.

Assuming they test the parking brake the same as they do here, they will normally do one wheel at a time which will result in no brake force at all displayed as the opposite wheel will be turning in the other direction. Point out that the parking brake operates on the rear propshaft so both wheels need to be turning at the same time.

The only way you can actually test the ABS is by stomping on the brake pedal on a loose or grassy surface.....

Aragorn wrote:

If its a petrol, at wide open it shouldnt be trying to shift until at least 5k.

So i would actually suggest the opposite is the problem, the gearbox isnt shifting because the engine hasnt reached the shift point yet... Something on the engine side is stopping the RPM climbing any higher.

Lifting your foot will have lowered the shift point and so it changed gear.

Will it rev past 4k in neutral? Any fault codes on the ECU?

Agree totally. Shift points are set by a combination of TPS and MAF sensor readings but if it isn't revving beyond 4,000 rpm, then that is your problem.

Aragorn wrote:

I also reinstalled the passengers side exhaust manifold heat-shield, and peered at the drivers side one thinking how the F am i getting that back in there... any tips?

Shove it down at the back, then rotate it so the front comes down. It bends easily enough so will go in (if you are brutal enough) but you can always bend it back into shape once it is in place.

I can't see why not. As you say, the additional flexi is probably there so the hard lines on the chassis can be connected to the others on the body. I can't see there being any movement between the two, it isn't a Classic where the body mounts will have rotted away years ago and the body to chassis distance will vary every time you go round a corner.....