Category Archives: Garage

Keeping my cars together

Averaging 25 mpg in an old Mercedes

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I recently had to sell my old Mercedes 190E. I had it for nearly 3 years; bought in late October 2014, because I liked the shape and I had been hunting on eBay. I think I liked the shape, albeit I didn’t really know what I had gotten myself into. I had my mk1 MX5 which was the same age, but that was an import car and this was a UK model car and the previous owners hadn’t given it much love!

Amazingly, there were no advisories on the previous year’s MOT, so I was in a bit of a shock when the MOT came up and it failed on quite a number of things.  At the time I needed the car and wielding a credit card I naively paid for the repairs. I considered myself to be a caretaker of the car I guess, silly in hindsight. It was an old car and I thought it should be repaired and maintained. I wanted to keep it on the road. That was an expensive MOT!

I then continued to drive the car for some time, but considering it had probably been driven now harder than it had for a few years it started to show some signs of wear and tear. Driving above 50mph became a bit harrowing, and the car would shake violently.  The order of this account is a little hazy now, but the events were correct.

The garage came back with a long list of parts on the underside of the car that had worn out – a lot of suspension components and bushings, so yep, I went ahead and told them to replace and fix.

The car at this point was driving quite well…. I had previously been up to Middlesbrough with my Dad to pick up some parts, and I’d painted and replaced the front wings of the car as they were rusting quite badly. What I hadn’t realised was that parts of the car around the spring mounts were also rusting quite badly and these had to be welded at one of the MOT tests to pass.

I also had to replace the EHA valve as quite a lot of petrol was leaking out due to the cracked plastic on the previous unit. Hard to find anywhere, but finally found it on Amazon (also quite expensive, but solved the problem).

The following year the car required an exhaust bracket welding underneath to pass the MOT but nothing serious.

And then this year it failed on quite a considerable amount, bits and bobs under the car that I would deem as normal wear and tear, around £600. But also a lot of welding on the opposite side of the engine bay. The mechanic tapped a section of the driver side inner section where the coolant, and washer bottle are located, and the screwdriver went straight through. Something I had failed to spot. They had quoted £1700 to fix. Emotionally, my head wanted to pay for this to be fixed, but luckily my Dad talked some sense into me.

I have never got as emotionally attached to a vehicle like I did with this, the car had character, it had been on the planet as long as I had and me and my girlfriend had been on some good  adventures with it – that probably adds to the utter feeling of regret at letting this one go…

And the best bit? It consistently got 25miles to the gallon! And to think that in 27 years we have only just managed to get over 50 from a petrol engine, shows just how slowly things have come on?

 

Running a Mazda MX-5 with TunerStudio

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I was about to name the title of this as “tuning a Mazda” but as mine currently sits being worked on by Track Tek I renamed the post to “running a Mazda…”.

This is going to be an ongoing piece to try and help others with getting their car up and running with an aftermarket ECU (in my case a Megasquirt PnP), and wideband AFR, (in my case Innovate LC-2).

I am going to try and list my “not to do, don’t skimp, you are better paying some money” list but can’t guarantee how quickly I will get this post done as it’s going to be a matter of starting from the beginning for me too.

Only until recently have I enlisted professional help in getting the car properly sorted. The initial build I did on my parent’s drive with the help of my Dad but it has gotten progressively more extreme to the point where I can’t use it as a daily driven vehicle. Hopefully when it is back up and working I’ll be able to work on it to the point I can drive it to work once a week at least 😉

Mantra – if it’s turbocharged, and modified, especially where it doesn’t come from the factory as such be prepared to spend some money!

To be continued…

mazda-back

Scruffy back, with rudimentary boot lock (looking to fit drift spec latches). Custom 3″ downpipe back catless exhaust with 4″ tip)

The true cost of mods / the last car I will ever buy…

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You’re likely to spend at least 1/2 as much on parts as your used car, or double if you are looking to modify it. This being in wheels, exhaust, suspension (coilovers, springs etc). If you start modifying the engine or turbocharging etc this will be even more. Modifications are not cheap and they will NOT increase the value of the vehicle when you sell. You have a higher chance of making your money back by selling the performance or modified parts separately and converting the car back to stock.

I have learnt this, noteably, the hard way. With my turbo Mazda I have been building the car for 2 years. Yes, you could do it much quicker by spending more and getting someone to start from scratch. It now has a custom exhaust system on it that has cost well over double what I initially paid for the car or the turbo kit on its own. Am I mad? Yes, probably, but this is something that I can build in my spare time now. It does need some welding to finish off, and then tuning from ground up again. I still need to purchase an oil catch can and some other bits but all along I know that I’m doing this properly. Modifiying a car is not cheap if you want to do it properly. I aim not to cut too many corners on this and I want to complete it. The majority of cars I do want are well outside my budget anyway. And let’s face it, smaller turbocharged engines are the way forward until electric vehicles become affordable.

This leads me on to say that my Mercedes 190 is the last car I will buy. If it lasts me as long as I need to take to finish my MX5 then that will be good, but I have good memories already in it, have already spent a lot more than I bought it for to get it through its last MOT, and don’t particularly wish to purchase another car. Modern cars bore me. I own two cars both 25 years old. Personally, I think their design is timeless. Not one new car particularly interests me. And the ones which do, Porsche 911 Turbo (circa 1970…) or ’66 Mustang Fastback are too expensive for me to even consider right now.

I’ve done V8s, convertibles, four bangers. I haven’t done motorbikes yet but for now I prefer life on 4 wheels.

I’ll hope to maintain this resolution for 2016 at least!