Dragging this discussion back from the dead following a conversation at work yesterday. One of the women at our place has a Nissan Leaf but lives at what she has now found is the limit of the range for a two way trip. When she got the car she was assured that it would do the round trip on a full charge easily. Not a problem she thought as we have charging points for some of the specialist vehicles with auxiliary batteries to keep them topped up when not being used so she figured she could plug her car in there during the day. First time she did it someone queried it and that caused all sorts of discussions. Upshot is that she has been told that under no circumstances can she plug in to charge it during the day. The argument being that nobody else gets their fuel costs for commuting to work and back reimbursed so why should she? There could well be a tax implication too. She has now found that if it is raining so she needs to have wipers and headlights on, unless she drives at 50mph or less, she doesn't have enough battery power to get home. Despite being a dyed in the wool tree hugger, she's considering changing the car as once winter arrives she is likely to need lights on for both legs of her commute and isn't sure the car will actually make it.

By the way, under the new tax rules introduced in April, even small engined diesels will now have to pay £140 road tax rather than the £20 or £30 that they would have done previously.

I actually met him many years ago and he's a really nice bloke. Into his cars too.

If the solar sensor isn't working, the HEVAC just thinks the sun isn't shining.

and how would you know that?

I certainly do want it but also not sure how to get it to me, I'll drop you a PM.

HEVAC does a self check when you turn the ignition on (one of the odd noises you hear is the blend motors being wound from one end of their travel to the other) so if a fault isn't apparent, there's no book symbol. Then there are other things that it only notices when it starts to get up to temperature so the book can come on them but if everything is working as it should, then no book.

Problem with electrical faults is there is nothing you can see going up and down or round and round. I've worked with electrics and electronics all my working life and sometimes you get faults that seem to defy logic until you find what the actual problem is and can then work out why it showed the symptoms it did. Most people would just stick a meter across a battery, look at the voltage and, if it is low, immediately blame the alternator. It's only when you check between ground and the alternator itself you see the true picture.

I would suspect the dodgy earth was showing a lower voltage than expected (if the test done was to measure the voltage across the battery it would suggest a faulty alternator) so it hasn't fixed itself, there was nothing wrong with it in the first place. If the new one you got had a short circuit rectifier, it would cause the battery to go flat and would also back feed the ignition switched circuit (via the sense wire) and cause the two relays that should be ignition switched to be permanently energised.

On the one and only occasion I've driven a diesel (quite recently), I noticed it did seem willing to kickdown at the slightest opportunity. Revved to 3,000 rpm before changing up too. I figured it's just a characteristic of the different power delivery to what I am used to. There's times when I think my V8 hangs onto a gear for too long and doesn't kickdown soon enough. I think they are just different that's all.

Ahh, but it's got two bends in it, although, as OB says, you can fit a straight length, it doesn't actually need the two bends they just make it look neater. I always slit the hoses lengthways with a Stanley knife to get them off the heater stubs so as not to put too much strain on the O rings. For putting them on I bought a tube of silicone grease from Maplin (as that is what Mr Land Rover says you must use on ABS sensors) and found that it is often used as a lubricant for rubber (according to the book of Wiki, that's what's used on condoms even). A smear of that on the inside of the hose and it slips on easily, even a 19mm bore hose on the heater stubs and that big lump of steel on the inlet manifold at the other end.

Exhaust repaired with bandages or even a bean tin and a jubilee clip, isn't a fail or even an advisory as the only reasons for failure are a leak or insecure. If the note has a number in brackets after it, then it's an actual reason for failure, if there isn't a number, it's a manually entered comment.

All, or most, places do a test, fail it, then do the work then a retest, it makes there figures look good and there's no retest fee as it hasn't left the premises. I took my daughters acr in to have two tyres fitted and an MoT. Rather than fit the tyres and then test it, they tested it, failed it on tyres, then retested it. My local guy got a VOSA inspection and they were concerned about his high rate of passes. He was asked what he did if someone came in with a blown lightbulb (which is the most common failure but he seemed to never have any fails on blown bulbs) and he told them he just fitted a new bulb. He was told he should issue a fail, fit the bulb and then issue a pass.

Martyuk wrote:

Hmm, looks like I'm out of the contest for the red Vogue too... since I'm already in the '3 P38 club'!

Yeah but you've got the space. I've run out with 3 P38s, a Maserati Biturbo Spider, Dina's Merc, the company van and I picked up a Discovery last weekend that I'll be selling on behalf of someone else. At least 2 of them have to go before the end of the month as there's a Volvo P1800ES sitting in a container about to cross the Atlantic too.

You buy it then, you've only got 2......

No, No and three times, No. I've got 3 already and really don't need any more (bloody blend motor is putting up such a fight on the Ascot at the moment I'm getting really pee'd off with looking at a book symbol.....).

First one looks like someone was so impressed with the body mods, they took an axe to the bonnet.

I would agree that it's a red herring, one side of my heated screen has been progressively failing since I've had the car to the point now where it doesn't work at all on the drivers side. I would have expected an open circuit fault to show but there's no faults on the HEVAC at all.

I'd say the pair of relays is not only to protect the tracks in the fuse box but also the relays, when working the heated screen does draw a hell of a lot of current.

The lockup clutch will only drop out if you are travelling slowly, once you are at a reasonable speed, it stays engaged. To give you further engine braking, the fuel injectors are switch off on a closed throttle above a certain set rev limit, so the engine isn't even firing to give you more engine braking. Even on LPG, as it slaves off the petrol injectors, if they are off, so are the LPG injectors.

For a quick overtake, I just poke the Sport button when getting ready and then floor it. Not only does it hold the revs in each gear longer but it seems to make it kickdown that much quicker.

The two connectors for the airbags are both in yellow shielding so easy to identify. The one under the seat is to the side airbag in the seat but the one under the dash feeds the one in the steering wheel. If you drop the panel under the steering column off, you'll see it running along a bracing strut with a connector partway along. As long as the ignition is off when you disconnect them and stays off while they are disconnected, you won't get a fault. Just pull them apart and give a good squirt with the contact cleaner.

Last one is easy, give the connectors under the drivers seat and under the knee panel a squirt of contact cleaner (worked on the Ascot).

The engine ones are probably due to the odd running before and shouldn't come back now it's running right.

HEVAC ones are weird, for there to be that many current faults suggests something very odd. When I first got my white one, I had odd intermittent faults with the HEVAC that turned out to be dirty contacts in the multiway connectors. Again, contact cleaner sorted them. I've been playing with the HEVAC and blend motors on the Ascot tonight. I'm not sure the faults reported by the Nano are strictly correct. On the Ascot, Nanocom is reporting RH blend motor feedback short circuit but testing it with a meter on the leads show no short circuit but what it does have is a short circuit motor (3 Ohms compared to 40-50 Ohms on the other two) on the LH blend motor. I checked the inputs and when the RH temperature was changed and the feedback could be seen moving but the LH one doesn't (because the motor isn't moving as the HEVAC has detected a short circuit motor and doesn't try to move it). Same goes for the blowers, you can manually adjust the speed and watch what the feedback does.

But that's probably too late now as you and the car have scuttled off in opposite directions.....

Aragorn wrote:

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.

RTFM, if it is in AUTO and you change where the air is being sent or the fan speed, it is still in Semi-Auto mode, so will adjust the temperature but leave the things you've set manually as they are. Personally, I just leave it in AUTO all the time and let it adjust the airflow to where it thinks it is needed, the fan speeds to what it thinks are needed (I like the way that the solar sensor causes the fans to speed up when the sun hits it and slow down when in shade) and keep the temperature at what I've set.

As for cruise, it's not so much a feeling that I want to be in control as a feeling that I don't want to feel out of control which I do if all I'm doing is pointing the car in the right direction. Although some would argue that it's better for fuel consumption I'd argue against that when it tries to maintain speed on a steep uphill. I tried it once on a Crysler Grand Voyager while driving through Switzerland, I saw 8mpg on the instantaneous readout when it was trying to maintain speed up a hill that it wasn't possible to maintain speed on as it didn't have the grunt to do it.