UKH

We bought a 1.6FSI Mk5 Golf off a friend about three years ago, it was a bit of an impulse as after moving house we suddenly both needed transport. He was selling this and it met our two criteria points - cheap and, for the most part, it worked. 

132k ill treated miles (most of them on some welsh hill farm) later and she is desperate to retire in a scrap yard somewhere. It's got to that stage where things just keep going wrong and its not economical to repair - we had a check engine light on for an emissions / lambda sensor a while ago (£400), then the handbrake started sticking (£300), now a front spring has snapped right at the bottom and the check engine light has come on again. 

I went to the garage yesterday and they wanted £50 + VAT just to read the fault code. Sod that, its time to buy a new car! Were at a weird stage in life at the moment where everything is going wrong and money is a bit tight, I would like a newer car, but realistically its not going to happen. Plus the thought of having to deal with car sales people makes me shudder.....

So time to dust off the tools! I bought a code reader for the engine for £30, although I have a suspicion what it is already - I think its some sort of air leak, the car sounds like a turbo spooling once you go past 2500RPM. Also I have found a front strut on ebay for £14 so fingers crossed we can get this thing mobile again. 

Even if it only gets me past the next MOT (in June) and another year out of it that will be fine, just buys us time to buy a new car on our own terms rather than rushing into it. 

Have you considered a Skoda Octavia? 

The amount of money people waste on car maintenance baffles me. You are absolutely doing the right thing getting your own code reader and sorting these issues yourself. Perfect opportunity learn on a car that has no value to you. Cars really shouldn't be treated like a black box of mystery that only a mechanic can touch.

The amount of money to be saved is considerable.

An air leak would definitely trigger a check engine light. Usually caused by a split rubber. Follow the hoses from Mass Airflow Sensor back to the inlet manifold. Feel for any splits.

If you can't find anything it may be a gasket which you can't find by touch or sight.

A garage would use a smoke machine. All my attempts to create my own smoke machines have failed. What I do now is use an air compressor, and put about 5psi into the inlet system (major leaks won't hold any pressure). Means blocking off the inlet and if the valves in the engine just happen to have the inlet open, may also need a potato up the exhaust.

You will hear any leak hissing really clearly and it won't take long to hone in on it.

Any leaks small enough to actually hold pressure won't be your issue. You're looking for pretty big leaks.

Thanks for the vote of confidence! I have worked on older cars (read: simple things with limited electrics), but the world of sensors and diagnostics is new to me. I must admit I quite like the satisfaction of fixing something myself! 

Like you said, at this stage there is no loss. If it fails its MOT in June and its cost prohibitive to fix then its scrap anyway, so I might as well have a play and see if we can get a little bit more life out of it - second hand parts seem fairly cheap on ebay (I assume a fair few are getting broken up) so should be fairly cost effective. Worst case I can always clear the code before the MOT and hope for the best! 

Fingers crossed its something simple like a split hose, ive got the soapy spray at the ready! 

I think that's the UKC car of choice! I think an estate is a bit big for what we want, but Skoda Fabia (sp?) is certainly an option as they are essentially rebadged VW's 

Absolutely agree, if you have the time/facilities/tools. I've done quite a lot on cars, but then my Grandad was once head of production at Ford and my Dad is a pretty handy mechanic as a result, so learnt from him.

Problem is that a lot of modern cars need specialist tools for some jobs and there's so much under the bonnet now that access can be a real pain.

I stopped working on cars when you could no longer buy a 'standard' rotor arm at any garage and fit it by the side of the road🙁

Yeah, agreed. I used to do most of my own maintenance when I had a Ford Ka. Now I drive a T5 I’ve been using a well recommended garage but I’ve come to the conclusion I really should get back to doing some stuff myself. For example, I’ve just had them replace the glow plug wire harness, which came to 4 hours of labour, at 240 quid including VAT, as it needs soldering to the relay board: I can pretty much guarantee I can solder better than the technician, seeing as it was my literal job a decade ago, all the way down to reflowing SMD, hand-soldering QFNs etc…

I should do the stuff I can definitely do to a high standard myself and use their expertise where it’s needed, because the costs are adding up big time when keeping a vehicle with a quarter of a million miles on the road.

Time is the big factor for me. There are lots of jobs I am pretty confident I could do on the car, but know that what a garage can do in a day might take me a couple of weekends, especially if it’s something I’ve not done before. I need a car for work and for a lot of things it will work out cheaper to send it to the garage for a day than to rent a car while I work on it myself in the evenings and weekends.

I’ll do smaller jobs myself, and before booking it in somewhere always try to get a sense of whether I can do it at home, but it’s just not realistic for me to do bigger critical repairs.

Good effort getting stuck in, you can make some big savings for modest effort but it can also be a total ball ache.

My Leaf needed a full set of brakes, it was shaping up to be a four figure job with genuine parts, labour and vat. In the end it was 3H work on the floor with basic tools and less than £200 in pattern bits.

Broken springs are a pain in the ass, it really shouldn't happen as much as it does.

Jk

Most jobs on vehicles are easy enough, but you can spend days diagnosing faults. 

Mrs car has a 7500 page workshop manual 3500pages "just" on the electrical system. Updates on the manual add a lot more pages. 

The auto gearbox has to use a diagnostic computer and a supposedly dealer only dipstick to fill it. 

YouTube and forums help but, you have to be careful with some of the free advice given 😂

...or when a 'code reader' was called a 'Haynes Manual'?

I can remember push starting a car, driving to the scrappie and changing the starter motor on the street outside to get home again.  Also, a holiday ruined by a diff stripping many of its teeth, so spending day one of the holiday on my parent's drive changing over the diff.  Went off for a test drive on day two - perfect - only for some wazzock to write off my newly repaired car by driving into the back of me!

Yeah, that's precisely why on a vehicle that complex I've been using a garage. The issue is that I've had them fix quite a lot of things where I already knew what was wrong, like the aforementioned wire harness.

Once had a breakdown chap tell me the start motor was knackered. Replaced it myself, still didn't start, so put first one back on. Eventually traced it back to worn ignition barrel!

I'm too stubborn/stupid/poor to go to a garage, hence the 7000page download on my phone

As for the T5, good luck

my problem is getting the bolts out !  it's such a pain , halfway through changing brakes and the discs have a retaining bolt that i cant shift, need to ether get someone to undo it or have them replace the disks for me !

I used to have one of those. Great car but appalling engine - couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding. I always suspected there was something wrong with it but the problem was never worth diagnosing.

I also had to replace a spring - you might already know this but you'll need a set of 'triple-square' (or XZN) drivers for the job. Proxxon make a decent quality set, which is worth it as triple-square fasteners are dead easy to strip.

I think I've still got a service reference of some kind saved for that engine. If you want it send me a PM and I can email it to you. Although I must have found it on the internet somewhere so you might have found it already.

Is that wise?

Our local Skoda garage has so many cars piling up on the forecourt that they have to shift a load of them onto the main road every day to make space to work on the rest

I think modern car are examples of brilliant engineering, and terrible design.  All those moving parts, wizzing around thousands of times a second with a precision of 100/th of a mill. Awesome. The fact that you may need to remove several bits of plastic in order to change the spark plugs, air filters or other consumables is horrible. To change a headlight bulb, can often require double jointed pixie hands and a certain amount of blood. That's the engineering equivalent of saying 'its going to get harder from here on in'. Sometimes paying a grown up to do it, is worth the time saving, whilst you try to get that clip out of that crevice it pinged into.

@ukc: Out of interest, what are electric cars like to work on?

I would expect less mechanical breakages, but more 'you need a main dealer to reset that', kinda conversations. Is that the case?

When I was reading your post my first thought was 'he doesn't need a new car, what he needs is to find a new mechanic'. 

Once you get your head around it it's mostly a matter of removing bolts and then putting them back on. There really is not magic involved, but plenty of contortionism.

That said, removing bolts is the hardest part of fixing a car. Plenty of penetrant oil sprayed liberally already the day before or at least hours before the removal attempt. Use only well fitting 6 point sockets. The longest ratchets you can fit in the space. And keep handy a hammer and a blowtorch. 

Also take photos at each stage so you know what goes where and which way. Never assume you will remember, because you won't.

Have fun and remember that swearing is totally allowed when trying to remove seized bolts in awkward places

The amount of money people waste on smoke machines baffles me. Seems like a perfect opportunity to learn how to make one.

See what I did there?

Personally I value my free time far higher than I value the money I would spend at my local garage. 

Yep, I’d say that sums it up pretty well.

Ive got a 10 year old Leaf, owned by me for 6 or those years and the vast majority of the miles.

Until this year the only repairs it’s ever had are brake lines, pads and a broken spring.  Totally reliable - never let me down.

Owing to a fl*stercl*ck involving waiting weeks for a small part, mechanics off sick, by the time the mechanicals happened, the 12v battery was flat which appears to have done “something” to the electronic system.  Now waiting for EV tech from another garage to try to clear the fault as a homer as it’s a 3 month waiting list if I booked it in.  Car now off road for 13 weeks and counting…….  Very frustrating.

I set too with my new diagnostics tool, good intentions and Belinda Carlisle playing in the background.... issue one.... the damn bonnet wont open. I've had the opposite problem before, it went through a phase of opening all the time, but I solved that problem, clearly I solved it too well. Some tool abuse, plenty of hammering and a few modifications of the front bumper later and were in. 

We actually went down to a 'car supermarket' type place last night with the intentions of looking at new golfs. Synopsis, they were far too new for what we are willing to pay (we could afford it, but don't want to) and ended up looking at a Kia Ceed (apparently its pronounced See Eee Eee Dee!?) - it was very ford focus. 

Long story short we got carried away with the sales person and got as far as about to begin the payment process. At about half eight the realisation of "what on earth are we doing" hit us of it and we said that we would like to reserve the car, do a bit of research and come back tomorrow (for reference, we were serious about this, fully committed) - She explained that we cant possibly do this (despite the page open on her computer right in front of us said exactly that). She asked why we didn't want to do it and we explained that we wanted to think about it "what is there to think about? Its a car? You like it? Just buy it" was the reply...... 

It started to get a bit more aggressive after that, the senior sales person, complete with wax dripping from his forehead, was dragged over to 'ask us about our experience' and I have never witnesses sales technique like it..... He essentially resorted to calling us poor and if were poor we should look at something else. I honestly don't know where he was going with this, but the more he spoke the less I wanted anything to do with them or the car. 

Hard sales is one thing, fully expect that. Just to be insulted - no. So we were going back today to buy it, but not now. 

So this morning has been spent buying a few parts for the golf. I think all we need is a front drivers spring for the MOT, if we can scrape through the next MOT is buys us some breathing room to then look at something new in our own time rather than being rushed. 

The engine light is emissions related - same as the last one we had, I think its likely to be related to the cat in which case I think its an ignore it and clear it when required code as its going to be expensive fix. I still think there is an air / vacuum leak so that's tonight's job. 

The crosshead retaining screw? An old school smack it with a big hammer impact driver is what you need. Or heat.

jk

Ours has always been good, its not going to win any races but can happily break the speed limit and pulls away well. 

Front drivers spring is the one we are replacing, thanks for the heads up. I think I have some in the shed somewhere, so fingers crossed its the right one. 

If you dont mind that would be ideal please

Madness. 

This would have been the first big red flag to walk away:

I guess it depends on what you earn. Garage rates around me are around £90 per hour. That's a heck of a lot more than I earn. Then I can shop around for much cheaper parts or buy second hand and bring the cost down much further.

If the cost is comparable to your salary rate and you don't enjoy doing it, then using a garage makes sense. But at £90ph you'd be looking at a £200k salary.

Old Leaf: Haven't had to touch the drivetrain or body electrics. Brakes rust, stick and wear unevenly, Nissan parts are extortionate. I couldn't believe how easily they came apart and went back together, for a decade old car it was astonishing, the fronts were like new under the grime, the rear was a bit rustier and stickier. I was expecting to have to buy a rattle gun or light up the hot blue spanner but it was hand tools and the odd smack of a mallet at worst.

The touchscreen system in the cabin has failed which can't really be worked around fully but I can get Radio4 using the buttons so who cares, I know where I live and work, I don't need satnav.

Probably when the electrics go wrong but mine haven't so far.

jk

torx , hearted it,  hit it,  not got an impact driver

Treat yourself, it's like magic and cheaper than paying a mechanic to use theirs.

jk

Maybe EVs (or some) do this already, but if not, it would make sense to me for the brakes to engage without any regen for a one or two big slow downs on every journey. If speed X is met, and force on pedal of Y is met and it's the first time on this journey, use the wheel car brakes only. Wouldn't think it was too hard to program in. It would use a bit more electric but it would keep the brakes in better condition.

Brakes on mine are mechanical, when you press the pedal the pads move, you just don't need to press as hard as in a petrol because the motor is also dragging (at least when it's set to). The regen braking on mine is weak, to use it fully you really need to be thinking ahead and care to. Modern EVs have much stronger regen.

On mine It's the back callipers particularly that rust and bind up (though the front suffers too), the uneven disk wear is just a consequence of sticky callipers. They stick and clunk particularly in reverse, it feels like rubbing handbrake shoes camming on but it's not, the pads can't move freely in the scabby callipers so they snag and jam on eating up one disk face. Filling the scabs out of the pad holders fixes them for a while. How Nissan stuffed up a near hundred year old technology is beyond me.

jk

Ah, my 2006 Lexus RX is a little more complicated. It has brake decision valve block thing (which I hope never fails) that under moderate braking it can choose to ignore your inputs and wholly rely on regen. You can feel it switch between the two due to things like battery temperature or state of charge etc.

If you stomp on the brakes, it forces a valve open to give you full mechanical brakes with no computer decision needed as a fail safe.

I guess on the leaf they went for a simpler option.

They should have just put drum brakes on it. Especially on the back. Discs are hanging around on EVs longer than they should because of consumer perception that discs are better. On an EV, you're never going to cook the brakes due to regen so drums would shine here. They could easily last the life of the car with little maintenance.

Drum brakes are getting more common now on EVs however.

Drill the head off it and buy a replacement screw, they remove easily once the head has gone and the disc is off. 

When whacking it, are you using a heavy chisel and hitting it an angle to force it to turn anticlockwise? This works on most bolts.

I'd love to know why, but this has happened several times, where I've been whacking for a while, got frustrated, gone in for a break, come back and it's come off on the next hit. I assume the spanner pixies take pity and intervene whilst I'm away, but it's just a hunch.

These are the pixies that hide the spanner or screwdriver one was just using. Only to put it back exactly where one left it, after a 5 minute frantic search, for said tool. "but I looked there several times ...'

Another top tip, is to try and tighten a bolt by a fraction of a turn. Often this is enough to break the rust/gunk/friction enabling one to undo it as normal.

Gawd. The main thing putting me off replacing my current car is the thought of engaging with car salespeople. 

When we were buying my wife's current car we went to one dealer who had nothing that was right for us, and said to the (already quite full on and patronising salesman) that we were also going to look at a car with another branch of the same dealer later that day. The bloke got quite wound up about this and point blank told us not to do that and told us to wait a week and he’d get it moved to his branch.

We made our excuses and went off to the test drive appointment with the other branch, who were actually really helpful and easy to deal with, and bought the car. 

A week or so later my wife started getting weirdly aggressive phone calls and texts from the first salesman along the lines of “I know what you did - I told you not to do that”. They stopped after we made a complaint against him, but from other experiences with the same company I can’t imagine anything came of that. 

Really? How awful for you.

But it might take you four times as long...? And you might screw it up.

Wow; that's borderline psychotic. What on earth did he think he was going to achieve by that?

I don't have a two post lift so some jobs do take a bit longer, but not four times longer. 50% longer maybe. 

Nah, it's all just nuts, bolts and wires. As long as you check your work when doing things like cam belts it's pretty hard to screw somehting up.

If it is the cat that's gone, BM (on eBay) only charge £100 for one with all the gaskets needed. I put the same brand on my Focus and it lasted for the 3 years I had the car after doing so. 

Not a clue. Somehow doubt he’d thought it through rationally enough to have an answer to that question himself. Utterly astonishing behaviour. This was a main branded dealership as well - fancy showroom, free coffee and biscuits while you wait, complimentary harassment.

In hindsight I wish we’d followed it up further with complaints to the Information Commissioner and police. There’s no way that was a lawful processing and use of her data and messages like that from someone who also has access to home address, bank details etc are uncomfortable to say the least. 

There you go again, equating the price a business charges for doing a certain job with an individual's annual salary.

I suspect you might find that the garage Dax uses isn't charging the labour at nearly that rate, but even if it were your comparison doesn't make sense unless the DiY job with its inevitable setbacks and learning curves takes no longer than the 'book' time the garage is charging for (and incurs no significant additonal costs).  Maybe for you, enthusiastic amateur mechanic that you are, it is.  For the rest of us probably not so much.

And then there's the assumption that Dax, or anyone, values their free time at precisely the average hourly rate they'd be paid if they were working instead of doing something else.  That one reminds me of the old saying that a Tory is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

What's wrong with that.

It's perfectly relevant. If I take a day off work as unpaid leave, and that unpaid leave costs me less than what the garage would charge (minus parts) and I can get it done in the time I take off then it makes economical sense to do so. And at £90ph it's pretty easy to make it work in your favour. And it's more tax efficient. And I can get parts cheaper. Not sure what your issue is here.

Maybe not, SW London is typically £140ph, round me it's £90, Huddersfield is ondly only £47. It varies. https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-11942409/Are-stung-car-mec...

With an hourly rate 8 times higher than a typical Tesco checkout job there's a bit of wiggle room there for a few set backs as your learning, unless you're on silly money.

If you take time off, then your time is worth exactly what it costs you, your hourly rate. That what you pay to take a day off. If I can take a £1000 worth of time off, and avoid a £2000 car bill, and not use any more time in the process.... Think about it.

The only way the above wouldn't work in my mind is if you enjoy your job so much you feel like you are loosing out on what you love by working on the car instead.

The garage in Leeds that I use charge £70 per hour. That's way more than I earn but in the range that I can afford to pay. 

I have been with them for 6 or 7 years now and they look after all my work vans as well. So far I havnt had a single warranty with them. 

I work with hand tools every day, I'm not doing it in my spare time too, plus I genuinely despise working on cars. 

Plus the garage does it much faster than I can and has the experience to find things I might miss, the flip side of that is the garage gets me in when their compressor needs service or repair because I can do it faster than them and find things they might miss.

My final reason is I want my wife's car worked on by people who are trained and competent to do so. 

This is a great reason not to do it. Always try and pay for things you hate doing.

Wish I could afford a full-time house cleaner, tidier and things organiser.