It never rains, but it pours....

[sgould]

OK, so she has a puncture on the 9-3 Carlsson.  Wheel off and down to the tyre place who say that it's too near the edge. I think the position of the screw in the tyre is right on the limit, so OK to repair, but they refuse. I'm sure that most others will also refuse.

So I may need a "Major Repair".   Start researching that on the net.  Still inconclusive as the sun came out and I went to work on my 9-5 and stopped looking online.   The tyre may be damaged as I don't know how long she ran on the tyre when flat.  Annoying, as the tyres have done less than 1000 miles.

The sun comes out, so I quickly whip the front wheel off the 9-5 to see if that also has a puncture. Used the electric scissors jack to lift the car.  This runs off the cigarette lighter socket.   No puncture visible, so I put the wheel back on.  Starts to rain again.  So start engine to lower the jack.  Car won't start.  Finally the sluggish starting has come home to roost. 

Now sitting here watching the rain, with one car on the odd sized spare and the other stuck in the air.

Rude words flying everywhere..... 

Maybe time to pop to Costco and get a cheap(ish) booster set.

[sgould]

After a bit more research...

Major repairs search comes up with lots of different conflicting info.

Outside of the "middle 70%", or maybe 75%. Nothing to say where the tyre width measurement is taken from.

Not possible on V & W rated tyres, not possible on tyres of W and above.

Repaired tyre will have lower speed rating.  After repair, the tyre will "as good as new".

Total frustration....

[sgould]

Tyre damaged.  Need a new one...

[Geoff1951]

You have my sympathies, Will. I saw your first two posts earlier.

A neighbour rang our doorbell in the middle of University Challenge. He'd just noticed that the rear offside window on SWMBO's Peugeot had been smashed in. On his way back from walking the dog - the window'd been OK when he went past an hour earlier.

Double    and 

[sgould]

A year or two back I polished her car.  Such a rare event, that it confused the local pigeon who flew into it and smashed it.

But it the street?  Vandalism?

[Geoff1951]

A fairly quiet street in a leafy suburb, but there's a local scout HQ three properties away and it brings with it lots of parking aggression from people who can't be bothered walking more than 30 yards.

[sgould]

I know that feeling.  We are three houses along from a junior school.  Frequently come home to find the access to the parking blocked.

[sgould]

I've checked the battery drain as best as I can.  Difficult when the door is open to get at the fusebox.  The open door turns on lots of things.  I need to try again with the door switch taped up.

[MikeIOW]

(just dropping by.....Volvo XC60 still bringing smiles here with magic headlights etc!)
Will, I got one of the "multi-function power bank" chargers recently.  I noticed in Costco they had an 8,000mAh for about £50....mine was a FLOUREON 16800mAh at a similar price (although I suspect it is nearer 11,000mAh in reality, having done a bit of testing charging tablet devices!).

Mainly got it for my son's Fiesta.....he rarely gets out in it, and often I have to plug in the main charger to get enough in it to start, but this device did get it going.
Probably better off with the bigger lead-cell things for 'heavy duty' stuff, but it was an interesting take, and small enough to take in the car if out on a journey!
ttfn!

[sgould]

I went to get one of the Costco battery packs last week, but they were out of stock.  I got a Ring one from Halfords instead. 

Went to Costco this afternoon and the powerpacks are back and a lot cheaper than Halfords....

The battery on the car is still low if left for a day.  Now it's a bit warmer I can try to get to the bottom of it.  At least I have found the Halfords receipt for the Bosch battery and there is over a year left on the guarantee!

[Audax]

The battery on the car is still low if left for a day. 

One thing that had me stumped was the hidden tracker on a car. The internal battery on the tracker had failed so I think it had gone into some kind of alarm mode which meant the cars battery would be low after just a day. Places to look for these are all around the boot area and under the rear seats.

[MikeIOW]

Went to Costco this afternoon and the powerpacks are back and a lot cheaper than Halfords....

You shouldn't have tortured yourself by checking!

We have a Nissan Figaro 'fun car'....been through about 3 or 4 batteries in the past 15 years!    Not managed to have the receipt to hand on the one or two times it failed inside warranty!   I do use a Oxford Maximiser battery conditioner, generally keeps it working okay.   Not very convenient for a regularly used car though....& NEVER start the car with it attached, unless you want to blow it (yes, yes.....I did it once.....)

[Max Headroom]

These trickle chargers - keep an eye out for the ones that Aldi / Lidl sell.

There are a lot of petrolheads where I work work as well as a lot of people with laid-up camper vans, and they swear by these chargers from Aldi/Lidl; mine is a really expensive one so I was a bit miffed when I learned I could have saved myself a small fortune.

[sgould]

Today's problem was noticed by luck.  The sun was in the right position to show the defect.  More money down the drain.  6mm of tread left.  Summer tyres on asap, I suppose.  Could have been caused by the pothole I hit in the dark on the M1 last week, but who knows…..

[Geoff1951]

Some small comfort -  it's on the outside, and seen before it blew on one of those alpine passes, fully laden with cases of wine...