Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Living the dream

Yeah, SW. I’ll be renting for at least a year. If you know anyone that’s wants to rent my brockley sex palace...

Who would order such a combination!

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F254418824437

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JRG too

How SW? Are you joining Lfgss in Devon??

Gave the old 306 a treatment with some mothers CMX ceramic coating. An off the shelf cheapo version of the pro stuff.... I didn't bother polishing first but it went on well and the car looks pretty good. Hopefully the 20 year old paint will survive one more summer.

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this looks ace. hope lasts for years yet.

awesome dude. just kinda done the same myself. not huge workshop. but lots of space for one if I raise my wrenching game. hell yeah

Thanks! My daughter loves this car so I have to keep it going. Got to get the rear beam rebuilt as the last major job for a while. It's been remarkably trouble free considering the amount of miles it has on it.

Wilts/Somerset/Dorset borders

It’s been something I have wanted for ages, so I can’t wait. It will be expensive the way we are doing it, so I need to tighten the belt

Ahh, not quite dreamland but very close!
(I'm heavily biased to the Blackdowns- also known as LFGSS in Devon- where there's a small cluster of lucky souls who've moved down).
Jealous, as i am of all who get to move down there.

How big is your charger? Mine keeps the battery full enough to start a 3.4 litre engine after a month or two of inactivity.

@Dammit what solar charger do you have?

I got a decent sized one but I think it was faulty as it seemed to make things worse. After finding the battery drain and ripping out the related stereo rubbish that was causing it, the car now starts after being left for 2 weeks on a Bosch S5 which I somehow managed to resuscitate despite letting it get down to low single figure voltages regularly.

However, doubt I'd get a month. If yours can do that I'm going and buying one straight away. Having said that I'm not really enjoying 996 ownership so it'll probably be sold in spring.

I fitted a 20W solar panel to the rood of my garage, but you could prop the panel on the dash or use suckers to attach it to the sunroof. This is the one I got (includes battery charger): https://www.kuranda.co.uk/20w-solar-panel-sfp020ma-solar-technology

According to the chap at Kuranda it'll happily keep two car batteries topped up even in winter sun.

What are you not liking about your 996?

The self-loathing?

You’ve spelled jealousy wrong.

Ha

Would it work in the car if your windows are the UV blocking type (aren’t they all now?)?

I don’t know - but the Kuranda chap is very helpful, I’d give him a ring with any questions.

The panel can be epoxied onto the roof of a boat and walked on- they’re pretty tough, so using suction cups to stick it onto the sunroof is possible. I have the tail from a CTEK charger bolted onto the battery and just plug into that by trailing the wire down the windscreen and under the bonnet seal.

Every day when I drop my kid off at nursery, I go past a BMW estate with one of these suckered on the inside of the windscreen. Up until now I always assumed the car was some rapid response vehicle and it was an LED screen or it lit up and flashed or displayed a message, now I've seen the solar panel it seems so obvious that I feel very silly.

This is nice
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201911234667661

But having never purchased a used car, not a Merc, what should I look out for?

Deposit now taken...?

Not an expert, but that's going to cost an awful lot more than £4k.

Dem dash lights...

I was told to look out for balance shaft issues as they can be expensive to repair, Mercedes where taken to court over it. You can check the engine code to see if the engine is within the serial numbers effected. Further info

Just buy my Merc its less than half the price, I really need to sell as I'm moving and losing my parking.

Its a CLK350 convertible so same engine and is very smooth.

Details here...