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

Not had the best New Car Day. When dealer turned up to exchange new Mini with old Skoda he said “was this here last time I saw it?” I went round to see that some c**t had smashed up the passenger wing on the day I was f-ing exchanging. He went off with it and said they’d let me know cost of repairs. I was so shocked at my shitty luck I wasn’t thinking straight. No witnesses sadly and of course no note left. I’m guessing it’s a new wing and hundreds of £? Guess I should claim on insurance but I suspect there may be difficulties as I don’t have the car now?
What a nightmare.

1 Attachment

Fuck sake, what a ballache!

If the thermostat does not open it will not circulate the hot water to the radiator to circulate it for cooling, ergo the fan switch will not get hot water to it to cut the fan in.

A lot of modern engines will over heat with out the rad cap in as the pressure build up raises the boiling point of the coolant, without the pressure small pockets of coolant in the hottest part of the engine can boil up creating steam which then forces the coolant out.

I would replace the thermostat first.

checking the radiator is quite easy remove the hoses and force water through it to see if it flows OK

Any way you can track the culprit?

You know roughly when the damage happened, and the colour of the car that did it. Supermarket car park? CCTV?

Sadly it was in my street and can’t find any witnesses or cameras

Went to see a very nice and fairly priced Civic last night. Chap bought it at the start of March, put it through an MOT (two new tyres and rear brake pads), then lockdown happened, so he's only done 900 miles on it in four months. And he lives in Surrey.

After the MOT he took it to the garage to get the air con looked at and they told him it needed new gas, but to come back after lockdown, so that still needs doing.

He's asking what he paid for it, which given the work he had done and that he paid a good price for it doesn't seem unreasonable (it's a 12 year old Civic with 100k, so 4 months and 900 miles really is neither here nor there). One more owner I suppose.

I've already got him to agree to take £50 off the cost for the re-gas, but while he had it the door blew open and there's now a tiny dent/scratch on the driver's door. I'd like to get this fixed as the paint/bodywork is otherwise basically perfect, so it seems reasonable to use this as a negotiating point to cover the cost of the repair as it happened on his watch.

What would be a reasonable amount? Googling suggests I'd maybe be looking at £60-100ish so I'm thinking if I can get another £100 off that would do, even if it doesn't totally cover it I'd feel cheeky asking for more tbh.

It’s never “just a re-gas”.

Ring the dealer now and ask to speak the manager. You need to control the conversation about what's going to happen, not them. Otherwise there's a risk they'll turn this into an easy way to extract money out of you. Don't go in all guns blazing, my line of questioning would be:

Are you fixing it or auctioning it as is?
If they're fixing, bargain hard on the estimated cost.
If they're auctioning, bargain on the estimated reduction in expected price.

Thanks

It’s never “just a re-gas”.

Correct. A/C systems can be a complete money pit if someone who doesn't know what they're doing has had a crack at fixing it. So many compressors have died on my previous cars due to past cack-handedness.

@Fox get a reputable Honda place to look at if you can. At minimum and hour of labour will be ~£90-£120 and gas could be another £50 (R-134a). If the seals are gone in the system those numbers only go up.

Thank you @villa-ru and @underuser53929 , much appreciated.

^^My system “just needed some gas”, £1,600 in parts later it works very well.

Was it a Merc / Porsche place that diagnosed the work or an AC specialist (do such places exist?)

I've had my Focus 'serviced' (some kind of pressure test which apparently found no fault) and 'refilled' a couple of times, both of which did nothing. I'm not sure where to take it to next to find quite what the problem is and this isn't something that my usual mechanic tackles.

Radiator specialist should be about to help. I have one locally but I’m in Norn Iron - probably not much use to you.

£1,600 in parts later it works very well.

Years ago a mechanic in training friend re-gassed the ailing A/C in my 70s Yanktankmobile. It was awesomely cold. But he did not add any lubricant to the system and 3 days later the compressor locked up and died. In the summer. In Texas. With vinyl seats. Amazing I didn't die.

I had 4/35* aircon the rest of the summer.

(4 windows rolled down, 35 MPH)

I'm presuming that as he was told that by the garage they would have checked the seals/pressure, but the obvious question is why they didn't re-gas it there and then, presumably most garages can do R-134A.

He tells me it was working OK before and I trust him on that but that doesn't mean it just needs a re-gas of course...

I'm presuming that as he was told that by the garage they would have checked the seals/pressure

Could be an expensive assumption. Worth checking that.

This all sounds like absolute horse shit.

I would 100% avoid that car.

They were able to check enough that it just needed a re gas but couldn't re gas it?

Fuck off.

Sorry just seen this post, I absolutely would not trust this guy.

I can see why you'd say that but everything else checks out and everything else about the car is good. My instinct says he's straight up, but he might genuinely think it just needs a re-gas when it doesn't.

Just checked and there's an ATS Euromaster where he lives so I might suggest he goes to get it done as I'm nervous it might not be a re-gas that's needed and I don't knock the £50 off. He doesn't want to sell it till Tuesday so he's got time...

Just had this installed this morning. Ready for the new car to arrive next week...

1 Attachment

What's his reason for selling? You don't find it odd that he's selling so soon?

If he gets it regassed and there's a leak it might work long enough to buy the car, but not long after.

His work have unexpectedly given him a company car apparently which is arriving on Tuesday, which is why he doesn't want to give it up before then.

Honestly my feeling is that he's just a bit half-assed: the original ad had crap pictures, hardly any blurb and he'd managed to upload a screengrab of Roy Orbison's Wikipedia entry along with the pictures 😂

He was then quite hard to get hold of, but when he sent me more pictures the car looked a lot better than the pics in the ad.

If he's some evil genius he's not doing it very well, he's also been super relaxed about everything and no hard sell at all. But apparently getting Honda to fit a new compressor is £650, so yeah, there's that.

Good bye petrol stations.. Hello super cheap travel and range anxiety..