KwS

I really liked mine. It was comfy, handled well and the engine was lovely. Shame the electrics were flaky and the floors were rusting quicker than anyone could fix them. 

A gta would be worth owning, but I wouldn't bother with the normal models. 

I keep getting loads of 503 errors recently. Makes it almost not worth trying to come here.

They generally have a tube that runs inside the radiator tank to heat/cool the trans fluid. This is common for failing and mixing fluids.

In the case of the 130i it appears they have a heat exchanger mounted to the radiator and acts as its own little radiator with coolant and trans fluid flowing through it. I guess the internals of this heat exchanger must have failed.

Having driven both, the MK5 R32 is a more special car to drive than a 130i. The sound, the DSG and the darty awd handling combine to make them great fun to drive. Its still one car that is on my list of "have driven but not owned, but want to", except now they are getting so sold that I couldnt own one due to the risky nature of DSG. The VW manual boxes around that age are a bit rubbish.

I would own a mk4 R32 though with the manual box. The interiors are sh*t, but there is something about them.

Wow, and the golf r32 is the pimp spec fancy model. Crazy the 130i was so much more expensive. 

Yeah it was the most common culprit I came across when trying to sort the idle issue with my S50b30 (though mine didn't have o2 sensors). Be worth checking  

You might be missing the point of the rally bred GR Yaris if you think the Megane is better...

It's a scrappy little point and shoot rocket, not a track slayer.

Megane has 10 more kw, and 30 more nm from an extra cylinder and 0.2l, but weighs 100+kg more than the Yaris. Also not awd like the Yaris. The Yaris does 0-60 quicker than a Megane.

52 minutes ago, lord_jagganath said:

do you mean the trademe link?  or the 364s? 

Sorry, the ones on the car. 364s?

How are the o2 sensors, do they read and test OK? 

Too small for the car and kinda generic looking.

I want to hear one with a decent exhaust or straight pipe. Straight piped 3 cylinder ecoboost fiestas sound amazing.

Awd, turbo 3 cylinder manual hot hatch sounds perfect to me. I like the i30n but I'd take the yaris for its weirdness. 

1 hour ago, M3AN said:

Edit: key was in tray under armrest, lid was up. Now I shall keep the 'key' part of the fob in my pocket when I'm working on the car!

Better habit to get into is to always leave the drivers window down when working on the car. Standard practice for most mechanics for that reason.

Do the doors unlock if they're ajar and pushed closed? 

Is the key in the slot or on a seat or something, could you use a stick magnet or coat hanger to retrieve key or press button? Or is it stuck covered in the boot? 

32 minutes ago, GorGasm said:

I'm almost tempted by yours but I think i'd probably spring for a turbo one.  I would be using it to punt around Hamilton and commute once a week to Auckland.

The early turbo ones have a well earned reputation for being a bit rubbish, but the later ones are more reliable. I found that the turbo ones are nicer "cars" to drive, but less urgent and "sporty". They have oodles of power low in the range,  so dont need to driven hard to get them moving quickly, but you lose that sporty sense of fanging it everywhere. For a commuter the turbo one would be better, but as a weekend B road thrasher the R53 is more fun.

On 9/4/2020 at 10:35 PM, jom said:

I was only giving the historical perspective. Gearless cars have superseded the requirement - although I'm impressed if you can change gear and indicate at the same time.

As mentioned, you get used to it. You learn to time shifts around using the indicator. 

Didnt some 135i come with black exhaust tips?

In my quest to tidy up the loose ends and get the Mini ready for sale, the car received an oil service and a simple but impactful cosmetic change.

Yes, the Mini is for sale. It should be no surprise really; by the time I got the car home from buying it, I had lost a lot of love for it already as it was a complete shitbox, but it was my shitbox and I had to work with what I had.

Sure, its come a long way and is now a decent little car that can be driven and enjoyed, but the damage was done for me. Now its time to pass the car on to a new owner for them to enjoy my hard work.

Part of the sale prep was, of course, a WOF. Thankfully this passed easily, with a clean check sheet and no advisories. I'd hope so after all the work I've done! This will give the new owner at least a year of worry-free motoring.

A couple of other little loose ends to tidy up was an oil service. The sticker on the windscreen showed about 1500km to the next service, but who knows what the interval was, and the oil was looking quite black. I picked up a genuine oil filter and some Valvoline 5W40 synthetic oil and got stuck in.

The filter is actually not that bad on the R53, its just tucked down the back a bit but there is plenty of access with a 36mm socket and ratchet (or breaker bar to crack it if the previous owner used many ugga duggas)

The sump drain plug is on the back of the sump. I was a bit worried because I noticed early on that the plug isn't an original Mini one but a VW sump plug, which means it's been changed. The alloy sump is pretty soft so I suspect someone stripped the fine threads for the Mini plug and tapped the sump out to the course VW thread. It came out, and went back in, with no issue, so that's good.

The old filter was filthy but wasn't housing any chunks or surprises

The new filter went in (rubber seal on the filter facing OUTWARDS) and torqued to 25nm, same with the sump plug.

The engine was filled with its new liquid gold and started to fill the filter. Everything looked good, so I reset the interval on the dash (went from 3100km overdue to 25000km until next service; yeah nah, 5k intervals please) and moved on to changing the transmission fluid.

The trans shifts well enough but has been a bit on the notchy side. I figured with no records of having the fluid changed it probably hasn't been done, and it's an easy job, so let's just do it.

The two plugs are pretty easy to get at with an 8mm hex socket and ratchet. Fill is removed, and drain is the black plug in the foreground. Always remove the fill first.

The internet recommends Redline MTL as the correct oil (75W80 GL4), and who am I to argue with the internet? I grabbed a pair of quart bottles as it needs about 1.5qt.

The old fluid that came out was dark black, thin and had a metallic sheen to it. Obviously it had been working hard; good thing I'm changing it.

I used my little "tom thumb" transfer pump bottle thing, and pumped fluid in until it started to dribble out

Put the fill plug back in, check both are tight, and jobs a goodun. 

The last job for the day was to slap some stripes back on the bonnet. There was previously a pair of stripes offset to one side that ran from nose to tail. White on the blue and blue on the white. The previous owner didn't like this so pulled it all off.

Unfortunately, this revealed some fading from where the stripes were, so now we had dark blue stripes in the paint

This bothered me, so the obvious solution was to slap some new stripes on and cover it up. I didn't want to go for the offset stripe, so after much internet research, I decided to go with a pair of solid white stripes.

A big thanks to the guys at Doozi for hooking me up with some 3m vinyl stripes custom made to my weird specs (13cm wide stripes with 7cm gap between them). I was having issues finding anything else locally that would work and I'm happy to support a small NZ business.

This vinyl was really easy to work with. The hardest part was getting the stripes straight and centered. LOTS of measuring and repositioning happened before I was happy with where they were. The biggest tip here is to use some soapy water, as recommended by Doozi, and keep the panel wet. This allows for repositioning, and then once you are happy just use a plastic blade to force the water out from under the vinyl.

Because its cold here today I had to use some gentle heat from a heat gun to warm the panel and vinyl up, which made working with it a lot easier. I wouldn't recommend doing it all in a cold garage without heat.

I carefully rolled the protective layer off and used a microfiber and heat to get any bubbles or liquid out.

Compared to the stripes we did on the R50 Cooper, this was a much nicer finish. No bubbles, and only a couple of small blemishes. You can still see some fading next to the stripe, but without going with super wide or really spaced out stripes I couldn't cover it all. The fading also continues down from the scoop, through the grille and down the bumper, but it's not as obvious. The fading is more obvious under my new super bright LED lights than in natural light.

I was originally planning on only doing the stripes to the scoop, and then I changed my mind and decided to go from in the scoop to the grille as well. 

Well, that didn't happen. I quite like the subtle little stripes from the scoop. Its like speed stripes from the go-fast scoop.

Once done I had to take the car for a test drive, just to circulate the new oils around and see how it drives. The engine is quieter and the gearbox is shifting smoother, so its a win all around.

I took some photos for the new listing, and hope it will get some interest. It's not the best example around, but its also far from the worst (and mechanically I think it will beat a lot of the "nicer" looking ones available). Hopefully it sells soon and I can move into another project.

Some bonus shots of the underside from the WOF, just if anyone is curious what they look like under there

My key spun around and around in the barrel, is that not what you mean?

Mine did that, but only because the key wasnt the right one for the car (given two keys with car, one worked and spun sometimes, one spun in the barrel every time). 

I drilled a hole in the bottom and ran a screw up to lock the barrel. There is a slot in the barrel that the screw is engaging with, but you have to drill it in the right place.

https://www.tasteslikepetrol.net/2019/02/bmw-m328i-spinning-ignition-barrel-fix/

As shown on a recent $1 reserve auction someone won on another forum im on, and trademe is allowing the seller to bail on the sale as the reserve set was "a mistake" and "being sold too low", trademe is a complete waste of time and money. No care and no responsibility. 

8 hours ago, GorGasm said:

Good work as always.

What do you reckon from a fun/driving perspective?  I really miss aspects of my old manual TT Legacy and I have an itch to get one of these but I am not sure I can justify it if I'm not going to go to the office.  They would appear to be a lot of fun.

 

 

If im honest, not as fun as expected. Its lacking down low power, but once its in its power band its takes off. You really need to keep it on boil. Handling is good, but there is a lack of decent roads down here that can take advantage of the crazy sharp turn in. Its useless in traffic and I wouldnt bother as a daily unless your commute takes you down empty back roads. You can throw it into almost any corner at any speed and you kinda pivot on your own axis and just whip around it.

Mods like a smaller pulley would probably help, and an exhaust would increase the fun/lol factor, but im done spending money on it and will be selling it off soon to move onto the next project.

On that note, clean sheet WOF today.

I was watching a video on youtube last night where a high hp street racing audi caught fire, the brakes failed, and the electric e brake didn't work. Basically had to stay in a burning car until it lost enough momentum as the owner stupidly chose not to grind the wall to slow down. 

Back in my day, pull the handle and it works. Bam. Technology for the sake of making it easy for dumb people sucks. 

AA arent even abiding by my policy documents when handling my claim, so dont expect too much from them. The ombudsman is there to help if you cant get the resolution you want.

Lh indicator is the correct way IMO.