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46

General Car Chat / Re: Mk7 Golf amp

« on: 21 February 2024, 08:06:32 »

Long shot but anyone know where the amp is located on a mk 7 golf estate?

Got RH front door speaker, off most of the time - comes on sometimes on the wretched potholes.

Door panel off - no power to speaker.

Head unit off and quite a surprise at just how few wires there are. So somewhere there is an amp with loads of wires. Can’t see one under/ back of glove box , only pollen filter. Nothing obvious in boot. Couple of humps under each front seats but covered by carpet. Can’t see much cooling if they are under that! So stumped. Not getting very far on the internet either.

You say no volts, hopefully you are measuring AC with a decent RMS meter, there should be no DC across the speaker terminals

Check behind the glovebox for the amp, its often under the seat for the branded audio

47

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 19 February 2024, 08:08:25 »

Had a look, not tooooo bad.

Bumper as obviously known.
New rad needed, bumper smashed into it.
Wheel arch liners, I think, got some bits look like they should fit there
Exhaust grazed through, think one of those repair kits will work here for the moment.
Heatshields bent a bit, roughly straighted them.
Both headlights need bottom clip gluing on.
Drivers wheel a little buckled, will swap with the spare for now.
Started it on stands with no bumper to have a look, drivers side wheel was sluggish to start moving, just jerked slowly initially. Next start it worked fine, so hope that ok.  ABS light on, not read the codes yet.

So, Shall get a rad and fit that, clamp the exhast, swap the wheel with the spare and give it a road test, assuming all ok will sort an alignment check after i pick up the liners and bumper and glue the lights.

That sounds like a bodge fix.

First decent pothole will break the glued clips. New crash bar isn't that expensive and will confirm just how far out the rest is.

Abs light suggests a hub issue.

It probably wont, the primary fixings that support the weight are across the top and the lower just maintain a spacing, epoxy on a well prepared plastic plus a bit of extra to add strength should work well until the right opportunity arises to do better 

48

General Car Chat / Re: Understanding DPF issues

« on: 19 February 2024, 08:05:17 »

The 2.0 CDTi glow plugs also monitor the cylinder pressures, I suspect a faulty one would show a low compression fault code and might also cause a change in the idle. It sounds like this is a confirmed issue given the codes and the fact the cylinder pressure is measured as good so the first job should be to repair this.

DPF regen gets inhibited when many engine faults are active, this is done to protect the system/engine from overheating or bore wash during the active regen phase.

So change the glow plug, ensure the codes are cleared, check the live data to confirm cylinder pressures are good, and go for a good drive to regen the DPF (forces regen should be avoided if possible!), if it does not regen then do a forced one.

Not rocket surgery but, we all know how to many mechanics struggle with the basics these days

49

General Discussion Area / Re: Alaskan Door escape

« on: 11 February 2024, 22:12:18 »

Indeed. Something very wrong there... At the very least, Boeing should have an inspection team at Spirit Aero double checking them before they're loaded for shipping and once again once they get to final assembly.

Better yet, bring the fuse assembly back in house.

Obviously, starting with the wrong aircraft hasn't helped 

It's a pretty basic quality failing, you would expect them to weigh the assembly as part of the QC to make sure there is the correct part count as a minimum.

50

General Discussion Area / Re: Police for sale?

« on: 05 February 2024, 16:33:12 »

Shit reporting, JLR have not paid the Police anything, they have funded Police analysts to understand car thefts better and also paid £15M for software updates to close a security issue.

I doubt Adrian will get an invite back to no 10 anytime soon as he told them they are failing the UK with a lack of Police to address the rising crimes in the UK...........and he is pretty spot on with that one.

51

General Discussion Area / Re: New car technology .

« on: 02 February 2024, 07:41:35 »

If you google "Mercedes eco-start-stop-technology-guide-pdf", and click on the link to the glaowners.com, you'll get a pdf describing the system. There is a whole load of guff in there, and I checked it all on my car. The only thing that is out of limits is the battery voltage drop.

What I'm unsure about is if it's the drop on the small auxillary battery, or the main 'big' battery. But I can see on the iCarsoft that the 'battery' voltage dips to between 10 and 11V on my car (from > 12.5V) , and that's enough to disable stop start.

That's not what the document says at all.

If the voltage dip (U < 11V) at engine start is to great, the engine stop is deactivated for t = 1 minute in order to recharge the Eco start/stop function battery

Its not actually defining what it considers to great and it also is only delaying activation of the stop start for 1 minute. The rest of the doc is referring to 'available electrical power' which is the SoC.

Also, be absolutely assured that your scan tool will not be able to report the mS long volt drop at cranking as its just reading messages at random intevals, you need an oscilloscope on the starter terminal to do that. The volt drop will be down to 9V or less on a cold engine crank (remember, this is my day job on the design side  )

52

General Discussion Area / Re: New car technology .

« on: 01 February 2024, 16:29:59 »

They do!

The Merc system monitors the battery voltage drop during cranking. If the voltage drops below (IIRC) 11.5V then it disables Stop/Start. It'll still start all the way down to less than 9V.

It's not really the state of charge that matters, but the batteries internal resistance. The resistance increases as the battery ages, so it can be fully charged (>13.7V) but still drop enough during cranking to disable the Stop Start.

Mine's been like it for over a year. Behaviour confirmed by iCarsoft scanner. New AGM Stop/Start battery would no doubt cure it, but why on earth would I want to do that! £300 to re-enable something I don't want.

If they do then they are fools! (I am confident they don't as we use the same setup!), they wouldn't meet ISO 16750-2 under those conditions

Monitoring the terminal volts under load tells you little about the battery condition as there are to many variables, temperature being the very significant one, as the chemical reaction in the battery is much poorer at low temperatures and so the VBatt drops much lower. There are also variables with connector/cable ageing, engine types and a whole host of other things.

The SoC is the critical measure for start stop, as it is the only means to tell if you have the reserve to complete repeat re-starts, its also the only viable means to determine battery health by checking the batteries ability to absorb energy 

53

General Discussion Area / Re: New car technology .

« on: 01 February 2024, 12:24:57 »

....
Coded the stupid start stop malarky off mine, Only kicks in if I have it in Eco Plus mode..... Which I never do!

My ML's stop/start has stopped working all by itself  I suspect the main battery is a little low, though it never hesitates to start up.

Keep an eye on it, the stop start systems do not look at the cranking ability, only the state of charge, if its stopped working then the battery is probably not recovering to more than 85% SoC which is plenty to crank but, shows the battery is deteriorating and they have a habit of dropping off a cliff after this point. 

54

General Discussion Area / Re: New car technology .

« on: 01 February 2024, 12:22:31 »

An interesting read.

Just waiting for all the court cases attributing car crashes due to the driver looking at the screens. (like the use of mobile phones)

Thank god I still have my Omega's. They have plenty of buttons/screens for me but I am not looking forward to the future when I replace them.

Drivers are getting more stupid.........we get two UK breakdown calls a week where people have pulled over because they have a low screen wash fluid warning.

There was a court case recently (not against us) where a passenger had their feet on the dash and the airbags deployed in a lowish speed crash, it dislocated there hips and paralysed them as they were folded in half...........the owners manual warns of it and its a bloody stupid thing to do but, they still won.

Lets also add that if the insurance companies were allowed to discriminate, then people of a certain religious background would have higher premiums, and the hood wearing females of the same, would be higher still..........and hence why more emphasis is being put on the 'nanny' intervention of the ADAS systems

55

General Discussion Area / Re: New car technology .

« on: 01 February 2024, 12:17:37 »

.....
Just wait until you get a 24MY car which badgers you every time there is a speed limit change or you go 1mph over the speed limit.....you quickly learn the to knock that one off at every ignition cycle 

hope it's set up better than than the camera in my ML that reads road speed signs ..... every now & then it comes up with the NSL sign when on a 30/40 road. I've yet to discover what it thinks it's 'seen' 

Some system are a hybrid of map data and forward vision systems, it might be that a section of road once was a national and the map is overriding the vision..........plus the vision systems are far from perfect!

56

General Car Chat / Re: Air con gone faulty VW

« on: 01 February 2024, 07:30:46 »

I would have thought any AC specialist would have been a better option than a dealer.

Its either going to be a cracked pipe, failed condenser or a pump issue (either thermal fuse blown in the clutch or the pump has detonated.......which would mean a flush and new dryer also).

You don't tend to vary the hvac across territories on the central system as its a big and expensive to tool part and even in the UK, a sun soaked dark car can get pretty much as hot as it would do in an Arab state. Bigger cars do tend to add secondary systems for third row and rear seats but, they still use the primary AC system.

57

General Discussion Area / Re: New car technology .

« on: 01 February 2024, 07:28:45 »

However the system on newer cars seem to set by default to 'activated' mode whenever the ignition has been off, which would do my tree in.
It's like being a pilot, I guess. Going through the cockpit drill before setting off - lane assist off, engine stop / start off, auto hold on.....

You can thank some selfish arseholes in Wolsburg for that!

Since the emissions scandal, the legislation was changed such that the car has to default to the modes used during approvals at every ignition cycle. That means driving modes, any ADAS functions, safety functions etc. Just wait until you get a 24MY car which badgers you every time there is a speed limit change or you go 1mph over the speed limit.....you quickly learn how to knock that one off at every ignition cycle 

58

General Discussion Area / Re: Not a surprise...

« on: 31 January 2024, 12:28:48 »

Another person who has no idea what they are talking about  ...........more brake dust from an EV..........much less is the answer as they rarely ever use the brakes

59

General Discussion Area / Re: Gas Chamber

« on: 25 January 2024, 15:18:08 »

Alabama on the news lunchtime death sentence by gas chamber  inhuman to make a murderer suffer they say, snowflakes protesting, surely a bullet in the head would sort it nicely. Why is the human race becoming so stupid ?

Just been watching the news about the killings in Nottingham.

The families of the deceased were not expecting a manslaughter verdict.

Looks like the police f*ucked up yet again.

Yes, three murders and three attempted murders and he drops out with a manslaughter charge.

60

General Discussion Area / Re: Vans

« on: 16 January 2024, 14:30:46 »

Rascal was mid engine rear wheel drive, they salesmen used to get despatched with them to the Melton Road in Leicester to flog whenever a trade in one arrived into stock.

I always joked that I would get the apprentice one as he hankered after a mid engine vehicle