Lol, that won't be my car - it's in Kent :D
Having said that, Northumberland is quite a stretch from here - I realise it all counts as "the North" to you lot :P
Where is it?
Well, so far it has not been plain sailing! New brakes all round and there was a rag in the diesel tank which stopped the fuel level being reported correctly. Fun fact: the L322 has two senders and if they don't agree it throws a fault. If the fault stays for too long, the engine shuts off for self protection. I got it "fixed" in time but the threat of the engine just stopping was definitely a motivator!
Now it's going into Restricted Performance on and off, which looks like a boost leak. Hopefully at least as they're relatively simple fixes (just hoses) but if it's the turbo changeover valve that won't be fun at all. It's off to a specialist for diagnosis. Then we'll see if the warranty is worthwhile!
Hey ho.
On the upside, driving to/from the airport a couple of time recently made me feel like a President. It's ridiculously luxurious.
Am I missing The Duchess? Yeah, I am :( But I've still got the Jeep which is even simpler to fix, for emergencies and the Zombie Apocalypse.
Gilbert, I'd love to drop in. Not sure when but I know where you are! :D
Hey Marty!! I'd love to come and see you (and maybe get a drivers door latch?)
When are you here till?
I'm under no illusions that the L322 is a vastly more risky purchase than a P38. Sadly, The Duchess just isn't filling the "big comfy car for family motorway trips" niche that she used to. After a decade and 60k miles never leaving us stranded, I'll be sad to see her go. As you can tell from my profile, she's had all she needed mechanically (I ran out of space to put more updates in!) It's bodywork that will let her down after I scraped the rear door/wing years ago :(
Gilbertd wrote:
But it's a diesel!!!!
I know. The devil's pump :( I've also had complaints about range and the lack of LPG round here is pretty drastic. We spend half of our time on Petrol now. The good news is that I don't intend to cover many miles when I'm working from home - it's more of a holiday/expedition bus.
The Duchess is running well to be fair. But she's getting too small for us. I'm 6'4" and my son is rapidly catching up. We can't fit him behind my wife who is 5'11 and 3/4" (or vice versa) without someone being uncomfortable. Plus we're still a household of five and getting three adults and two kids into the same vehicle is getting more challenging than it was 4 years ago when the kids were 11 and 12!!
Because I've just put a deposit down on an L322.
Picking it up next week subject to seeing it.
Feel free to mock me when I come back with tales of woe!
I'm not against incandescents, but I tend to find them less reliable in the long run. Of course that does rely on the application and if there's no suitable repalacement, trad bulbs it will be.
Yeah, this is my concern... Also if they fit physically as some are a very weird shape.
I'll do some googling
Gilbertd wrote:
I suspect you will need to get ones that are marked as Canbus compatible so they have a built in resistor. If you were to just fit LED bulbs without a resistor, they won't draw sufficient current so the BeCM will assume the bulbs have blown and give you the warning all the time.
Peeps, are there any recommended LED replacements for the rear bulbs? I'm getting intermittent winging about brake and tail lights... And before I go in there I'd rather get wine more permanent replacements.
Thanks!
Well, I got The Duchess valeted because I was driving over to the continent and taking some colleagues to a meeting when I got there. I'm hoping that the local carwash guys got a bit excited with the water.. but I suspect I might have something else going on!
After about 30m of driving, I braked quite hard for something and immediately the horn started and I had to hit it again to switch it off. Most odd! Then I turned the wipers on and the horn stayed on, the wipers wouldn't switch off and then the alarm decided to join in. The dashboard backlights also dimmed in time to the wipers, which was quite trippy.
So, I did what anyone else would do and turned the radio up so I could keep moving and didn't miss the ferry. I did a quick restart in a laybay which brought the wipers back under control but hilariously, a single sweep would beep the horn whenever the wipers moved through the park position. Then the alarm started again, it ran for 5-10 minutes at a time before shutting off for another 5 monutes or so. Luckily, nobody in Hull seems to notice cars being driven with their alarms going, so I was able to keep going without getting arrested. I stopped at a garage, switched everything off and filled up with fuel (because adding LPG and Petrol to faulty electrics is how I roll). The Duchess decided to behave perfectly after that and didn't miss a beat for the next three days (and still counting).
Judging by the bits that were affected, I'm wondering if I need to think about replacing the clock spring in the steering column, or whether I just chalk it up to the joys of damp Range Rovers and keep on trucking. The worrying option would be the fuse box - does anyone have an idea where I should look to make sure this isn't something that is likely to set an airbag off, or leave me stranded?
Wet grass is really tricky nomatter what tyre to be honest. I've done OK with Grabbers (the AT3 version) on my Jeep, which is a lot lighter.
For road use I go with Michelin All Seasons which are not an off road tyre but cope with farm tracks etc OK while being superb in the wet and snow as you'd expect.
My understanding is that ZDDP is needed for flat tappets...
Comma does oil with Zinc. It sold as "Motorsport" but I think that's just to let them put what they want in it.
https://www.commaoil.com/en-gb/product/moove/moove/comma/engine-oil/motorsport-5w-50/pdf/tds
0.1% / 1000ppm. It's not as high as some, but up there. It's also very high VI and pretty cheap on Amazon at £32 for 5l
That's impressive!! IIRC She's had a new engine in that time - but that's still a hell of a run even for two engines I reckon.
What a landmark :) I certainly wouldn't have been able to keep my P38 on the road without the Pub and all you great people. Thank you!!
I passed this on, and I'm getting a refund. Apparently three more have been sold in the meantime and they all worked. I hope I didn't cock something up!
It's a shame it didn't work for me, as I would like a spare - but if you find yourself in the same situation as me I'd recommend giving this option a try as there's nothing to lose, really.
Sorry folks, but I'm terrible at comparing circuit diagrams.
Are there any variations in the wiring for the P38 DSP amps? Did it evolve over time or was it a one and done type thing?
Well, it's a bit intermittent as it turns out. I did some driving in Europe last week and for some legs the amp ran perfectly. For some it clicked (switched on or off) and at some points it would make a sort of ratchet noise through the speakers if you tried to change the volume. But the volume didn't change... Very odd behaviour in all. Switchinig off/on would usually calm it for a couple of minutes.Then for the final couple of trips it behaved really well. Unless the battery was a bit marginal to start with, I think it's still not quite fixed.
I'm talking to the Vendor above on WhatsApp. Seems like a nice chap, we'll have to see if this is a solution that should work but it's a bad unit, or whether he's got confused on the P38 vs Disco.
Bolt - don't throw any amps away just yet! ;)