Hi,

My TA Cross passed 4k miles this morning.

Other than the ongoing rear brake drag when reversing & stinky aircon, it's been great.

Topped up with 750ml of oil at 3.5k. Economy remains sub 35mpg so not great but used on the M4 for at least 12 miles every day.

Anyway, the tread is coming off the clutch pedal & filling the footwell.

Warranty replacement at the next service or wear & tear?

Seems to coincide with my new uniform shoes.

My Magnum boots were fine, the Magnum active duty shoes seem to have a very fine but grippy sole.

Cheers,

Simon

At only 4k? Not normal wear and tear, I'd have thought, unless you're driving in spikes!

gar074 said:

At only 4k? Not normal wear and tear, I'd have thought, unless you're driving in spikes!

Click to expand...

Work boots are Magnum Stralthforce 6. Shoes are Magnum Active Duty.

Nice grippy soles but not spikes...lol

Squadrone Rosso said:

Work boots are Magnum Stralthforce 6. Shoes are Magnum Active Duty.

Nice grippy soles but not spikes...lol

Click to expand...

Maybe those heavy boots are why your avg. mpg is 35...? Did you not get the TwinAir-driver, standard issue , ballet pumps with your Panda-purchase?!

4k seems premature for a pedal rubber to be going, so you could try for a warranty claim (wear lighter shoes when you go into the dealership!). If not, I'm sure it'll be a cheapish part to replace. Good Luck!

PS - as a longer term fix, if you do think it's your work boots causing the problem, you could always look at if you could find a suitable aftermarket alloy-pedal set to cope with them? Just a thought....

The samepedal rubbers on the 500 were like new at 25k despite the same footwear.

Not a biggy, can wait until service.

I fully suspect the 35mpg is down to the binding rear brakes as you can hear them moving forward in slow traffic, as well as reversing

I was just joking with you about the footwear...! They should last more than 4k. Convincing a dealer of that might be not worth the cost of a new one, though....!

On the brakes binding - we had this same problem at about the same mileage (4k miles) - the dealer cleaned the brake calipers to clear the built up dust and it's been fine since, however, today, I was reversing and as I touched the brakes, they groaned, as they did as the problem built up last time....we're currently at ~7,500miles - maybe that's the kind of distance that it takes for the dust to build up?

Someone on here was talking of a solution, but I've not heard any more of this....may look into it (or resign myself to 4,000-ly brake caliber cleans!)

What you want for good TA mpg is ballet pumps with puppies (or kittens, if you prefer) tied to the underneath

Must check mine but certainly haven't noticed anything re the pedals. The "Ballet pumps" made me chortle, my size 10 Garmont clodhoppers have caused me no end of problems and so on longer journeys I have resorted to what you could describe as Ballet pumps, think they are a Nike trainer much favoured by track day devotees. Not since my Awfulsod days Have I experienced such a "dainty" footwell? currently averaging a not unreasonable 40mpg, but that has involved a lot of A road trips at 50-65 which appears to be the TA's economy sweet spot.

Interesting re the pongy aircon, I have this week noticed a pond like smell but attributed it to transporting an inflatable canoe which had been used on Coniston and was still a bit wet. I leave my aircon on permanently, maybe I should investigate further?

Desira Fiat in Norwich fitted the new brake 'dampeners' on the rear calipers on Tuesday. No squeals etc since. My initial impressions from the instantaneous consumption data are that I've also got a slightly improved mpg. Hard to say over the short interval since fitted though. More importantly I've also lost the odd 'clunk' that i could sense when maneouvering at slow speeds, especially in reverse. This could have been due to brake binding and releasing.

No doubt they will have also cleaned the calipers, so it'll be interesting to see what happens as the miles (& brake dust) pile on.