What's made you not grumpy but not smile either today?

[portland_bill]

Next door neighbour has a small dog. They got it early lockdown, so it is just over a year old now. Initially, they would walk it each evening, but the novelty of that wore off very quickly. Now it is just left to crap in the garden.

Garden, is actually a patio, enormous shed, and in between, an area of artificial grass.
This morning, lookin goout, I noticed, at least 9 'deposits' on the artificial grass. That would explain the son now using his bedroom to kick the football, so we now have that thumping the wall, instead of the fence.

Just after lunch, I heard a power tool noise, but strangely too light for a mower, strimmer or hedge trimmer, so curious, I had a look out. Neighbour was happily cleaning up using a Henry, which was then put back in the shed, without apparently being emptied.

There's a picture that will not go away easily.

 

[jimboy]

Have to admit where we are it’s very quiet and no problems neighbour wise, in fact our immediate attached house has been empty for over a year now due to a death and the wife landing in a care home. Sad story but that’s part of life.

 

[The Panda Nut]

2 New Continental tyres on the 169 Panda and full alignment check done. Rear and front camber out. I have almost all new front end so its annoying, I have 2 front camber bolts so I will try them and see what can be done. I see on ebay there is an adjustable camber and toe shim available for the 2008 KA. I am going to get one and a camber gauge and see if the rear can be adjusted, or it may need a new axle. (Now just £119 on ebay) Well that s all fine and Im sure the rear camber can be addressed.

What kin-pisses me off is the moron who fitted the tyres jacked the newly straightened and painted sills without any care and bent both sides. Suffice to say after 25 years of them supplying 4 cars a caravan and trailer, they have just lost one of their best customers. £36 got all the materials and one side is now looking fit again and one to go. That's much less of an issue thankfully.

Moan over. Nice to report our bright yellow car is actually paint code 509/A. Ketts Paints in Norwich made a can up in a few minutes which unlike Fiat matches the colour perfectly. There is a 509/a light version too almost the same but you have been warned. Also do their own white primer and stonechip so we are now able to do a decent repair. Why Fiat cannot supply the right colour of paint beggars belief.

 

[StevenRB45]

I got a part respray done on a Suzuki a few years ago. Remember the guy doing the colour match on it.

"You've got the lighter version of supreme red"..."That'll explain why the touch paint never matches.." Oddly enough there was only one shade of touch up available and it didn't match the damn car.

Regards jacking think the future for me will be using mobile places where possible. Given last one that turned up used airbags not a trolley jack.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Ketts Paints in Norwich made a can up in a few minutes which unlike Fiat matches the colour perfectly.

No known connection but all Ketts are related you don’t need to go too far back.

As for matching paint, fiat touch up will be one colour that just matches a variation of the colour, but as the colours do change from mix to mix if you take it to a proper colour matching service they will match it off the year the car was made

 

[portland_bill]

No known connection but all Ketts are related you don’t need to go too far back.

As for matching paint, fiat touch up will be one colour that just matches a variation of the colour, but as the colours do change from mix to mix if you take it to a proper colour matching service they will match it off the year the car was made

My experience of Fiat touch-up paints, is that they produce one touch-up, and rename it every few years. Most car manufacturers change their colour palette frequently, but Fiat just seem to recycle the same ones, but give them new names.

I had a Seicento from 2000, in dark metallic blue. Got a touch-up, which was named after an earlier colour, from a few years prior, and it matched well. It seemed to match a much later Punto too, although that was called different again. Lucky with that one I guess.

Many years ago, at the dealer I worked at, after a poor match from the bodyshop, the used car manager said, "I don't want it painted [colour name], I want it painted THAT colour." whilst pointign at the car.

 

[Cheest]

If I can count on one thing in life, I can count on my employer taking a simple task and turning it into an expensive clusterf*$k.

Case in point, last minute flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico (dirty thankless job but someone has to do it) for three jobs at the local rail transit to get knocked out before I retire. I only need stuff shipped down for one of the jobs and said it needed to be there by Wednesday morning.

Monday is a travel day, so all I do when I get to my hotel is get a couple of beers and a pizza. Tuesday, knock out one job. No parts to replace, just have a mating surface faced. Costs me lunch for the machinist. Get started on second job. Running the machine back and forth while watching a pressure gauge. Pressure gauge shouldn’t be doing what it’s doing. Send an email to one of the smart engineers in France knowing I’ll have an answer in the morning.

Wednesday, I call the US branch and ask where my package is. I get a call back from a distraught young woman telling me that the package hasn’t shipped yet. It was supposed to have shipped the previous Friday. Apparently, the printer in Shipping wasn’t working, so they never got the picking order. It also seems like no one said anything about the printer until she asked.

Facepalm and walk back to the machine with the goofy gauge readings along with the answers from France. Fire up the machine and pop splash, there goes a hydraulic line along with five gallons of oil between the rails. Because it’s Puerto Rico, it takes most of the day to find the correct crimp fittings we need to make a new hose. We have plenty of hose, just not the fittings. Get the hose made and installed. Fire up the machine and no more goofy gauge readings. Best we can figure out is that the shock of the hose going boom cleaned whatever crud was on a valve seat, OR, there was a damaged inner sleeve on the hose that acted like a heart valve and caused the goofy readings. That weakened the hose enough that the hose went boom.

In the meantime, they decide that they are going to overnight the package that was supposed to have shipped the previous week. I am told I will have it by Thursday (today) afternoon. My boss calls and complains about the cost. I tell him to ship it the normal way and it will just be another trip to Puerto Rico with a week of $200 a night hotels. He agrees to overnight it.

I use the UPS tracking system this morning to see where my package is. There is no info on the package. Nothing, nada, zip. It’s early in the morning so I send an email to my contact in the office. She emails shipping. Shipping emails us back that UPS called him late the previous evening to notify him that the package didn’t have the correct customs docs. I’m calling BS because we are shipping a 2lb package from the US mainland to a US territory. We shipped a couple of 20 ton machines down here with less headaches. My bet is that it never left the shipping department.

Now they want to overnight it tonight so I have it tomorrow. Both the boss and myself said, “Nope”. Past experience dictates that the earliest I would see the package is 5pm tomorrow. My flight back to Chicago is at 4pm. More than likely it would show up some time Monday. Shipping it basic UPS and our Spanish speaking rep will walk the local mechanic through the install.

So I have most of tomorrow to myself in Puerto Rico.

 

[m20b25]

A disturbing poop was made a little better by a completely clean wipe....

Filling up my car in recent times, it's averaging a crap 26mpg.... But then I remember I use it to go drifting....

Hello me, 7 years later! I'm older now, but not any wiser. I'll be back in due time again with some actual Fiat content, I hope


Not grumpy: Clean toilet
Not smile: The same clean toilet that smells, hours later :yuck:

 

[varesecrazy]

Hello me, 7 years later! I'm older now, but not any wiser. I'll be back in due time again with some actual Fiat content, I hope

Looking forward to it..
Stll got something a bit 'unusual'?

 

[portland_bill]

Was supposed to be playing bowls this afternoon. Been raining hard since mid-morning, despite forecast saying thundery showers. It is a silly game at the best of times, with the 'balls' not following a straight line, but is ridiculous in the rain. Lines change, effort increases, accuracy worsens. Lots of silly people standing around in an open space, wearing white waterproof clothing, pretending to enjoy themselves.

'Sadly', the host club's green is flooding, so it's been cancelled. Not a disappointment.

 

[DaveMcT]

If I can count on one thing in life, I can count on my employer taking a simple task and turning it into an expensive clusterf*$k.

Case in point, last minute flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico (dirty thankless job but someone has to do it) for three jobs at the local rail transit to get knocked out before I retire. I only need stuff shipped down for one of the jobs and said it needed to be there by Wednesday morning.

Monday is a travel day, so all I do when I get to my hotel is get a couple of beers and a pizza. Tuesday, knock out one job. No parts to replace, just have a mating surface faced. Costs me lunch for the machinist. Get started on second job. Running the machine back and forth while watching a pressure gauge. Pressure gauge shouldn’t be doing what it’s doing. Send an email to one of the smart engineers in France knowing I’ll have an answer in the morning.

Wednesday, I call the US branch and ask where my package is. I get a call back from a distraught young woman telling me that the package hasn’t shipped yet. It was supposed to have shipped the previous Friday. Apparently, the printer in Shipping wasn’t working, so they never got the picking order. It also seems like no one said anything about the printer until she asked.

Facepalm and walk back to the machine with the goofy gauge readings along with the answers from France. Fire up the machine and pop splash, there goes a hydraulic line along with five gallons of oil between the rails. Because it’s Puerto Rico, it takes most of the day to find the correct crimp fittings we need to make a new hose. We have plenty of hose, just not the fittings. Get the hose made and installed. Fire up the machine and no more goofy gauge readings. Best we can figure out is that the shock of the hose going boom cleaned whatever crud was on a valve seat, OR, there was a damaged inner sleeve on the hose that acted like a heart valve and caused the goofy readings. That weakened the hose enough that the hose went boom.

In the meantime, they decide that they are going to overnight the package that was supposed to have shipped the previous week. I am told I will have it by Thursday (today) afternoon. My boss calls and complains about the cost. I tell him to ship it the normal way and it will just be another trip to Puerto Rico with a week of $200 a night hotels. He agrees to overnight it.

I use the UPS tracking system this morning to see where my package is. There is no info on the package. Nothing, nada, zip. It’s early in the morning so I send an email to my contact in the office. She emails shipping. Shipping emails us back that UPS called him late the previous evening to notify him that the package didn’t have the correct customs docs. I’m calling BS because we are shipping a 2lb package from the US mainland to a US territory. We shipped a couple of 20 ton machines down here with less headaches. My bet is that it never left the shipping department.

Now they want to overnight it tonight so I have it tomorrow. Both the boss and myself said, “Nope”. Past experience dictates that the earliest I would see the package is 5pm tomorrow. My flight back to Chicago is at 4pm. More than likely it would show up some time Monday. Shipping it basic UPS and our Spanish speaking rep will walk the local mechanic through the install.

So I have most of tomorrow to myself in Puerto Rico.

It was this level of BS that made me leave the old CEGB (power stations). They were bureaucratic beyond belief but always blamed the poor g*t who placed the order when things went belly up. I got sick of being the fall guy and walked. Two years later, the whole lot got privatised and folks doing my job suddenly had the freedom to get stuff done. My future-seeing crystals let me down on that move.

 

[Cheest]

It was this level of BS that made me leave the old CEGB (power stations). They were bureaucratic beyond belief but always blamed the poor g*t who placed the order when things went belly up. I got sick of being the fall guy and walked. Two years later, the whole lot got privatised and folks doing my job suddenly had the freedom to get stuff done. My future-seeing crystals let me down on that move.

I used to like going to this place everyday until we relocated and the culture changed. At the old location, I used to say that "We are like a dysfunctional family, but we're still a family". At the new place, "We were like a dysfunctional family, but we were still a family. Here, we're just dysfunctional."

As I am at 69 days and counting until retirement, I'm just kicking back with a cold drink and a bowl of popcorn to watch this slow moving train wreck of a dumpster fire corkscrew itself into oblivion.

 

[StevenRB45]

Sent an email off to Mazda UK customer service to update the DSR at the start of the month to update my service on the cars online history.

Got one back after about a fortnight saying "Sorry system down at the moment please contact a dealer/the garage that did it as we cannot do it at this moment"

My reply was "Given this is a service history and is in no way urgent please just update it when your system is back up"

2 days later "no bother, all sorted"...

I'd love to know who was going to kick off about having to wait 2 additional days on a fortnight wait to update an electronic service history..

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Sent an email off to Mazda UK customer service to update the DSR at the start of the month to update my service on the cars online history.

Got one back after about a fortnight saying "Sorry system down at the moment please contact a dealer/the garage that did it as we cannot do it at this moment"

My reply was "Given this is a service history and is in no way urgent please just update it when your system is back up"

2 days later "no bother, all sorted"...

I'd love to know who was going to kick off about having to wait 2 additional days on a fortnight wait to update an electronic service history..

These things are highly important!! Life or death in some cases.

I can’t think of what cases they might be but …… ummmm

At least VW hasn’t (for my car at least) moved onto online service history. The mini stores all its service history on its key, so they put the key in a little reader and it will bring up the whole history

 

[StevenRB45]

These things are highly important!! Life or death in some cases.

I can’t think of what cases they might be but …… ummmm

At least VW hasn’t (for my car at least) moved onto online service history. The mini stores all its service history on its key, so they put the key in a little reader and it will bring up the whole history

Even if you were selling it tomorrow...you've got to send them a photo of the physical bill. So you know show a prospective new owner that instead.

Think I prefer the digital to the Citroën paper history stamp and a tick box for major/minor/ardous conditions doesn't say much. That and they forgot to stamp it one year leaving me with a 40 mile round trip back.

At least the digital one lists all the service items replaced all the way back to the PDI on your phone by service.



So if you're the sort of person to lose bills you can see when the brake fluid was last done etc.

Linking it to the key seems a bit anti-competition surprised they are allowed to get away with that, when Mazda 1st did DSR in 2004 only main agents could do it but then there was an EU law change so any vat registered garage can apply to do it or you send them an invoice clearly listing vat number etc. I'd imagine Mini will have to have a similar provision which like to Mazda they will do their very best not to advertise.

Do they allow you to view it online or you can only view it in a Mini dealer?

 

[varesecrazy]

Well... after a lousy month.. Ive had a little bit of good news

The Fabia Im having so much hassle 'adjusting to'.. is doing a 10 day tour of Scotland..
without me

10 days with an all Italian fleet again

 

[StevenRB45]

The standard seasonal reminder that rotational differential tps systems would let you run 1psi in all 4 tyres.

I really need to do the tyres on the Citroën more often but rarely does long trips.

 

[portland_bill]

The standard seasonal reminder that rotational differential tps systems would let you run 1psi in all 4 tyres.

I really need to do the tyres on the Citroën more often but rarely does long trips.

The Fabia has this system.
Through the summer I regularly need to increase the rear tyre pressures significantly to transport 4 of us to a bowls match. If I do not resset the monitoring system, it will throw an alert, usually after about 20 miles. I suppose it is thinking about it for a long time, as of course each pair are similar to each other, just a disparity front to rear.

I'm hoping that it would react sooner if just one tyre lost pressure.

Nice to have, in case we run over something, but does not replace the walk around the car before each journey.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

The Fabia has this system.
Through the summer I regularly need to increase the rear tyre pressures significantly to transport 4 of us to a bowls match. If I do not resset the monitoring system, it will throw an alert, usually after about 20 miles. I suppose it is thinking about it for a long time, as of course each pair are similar to each other, just a disparity front to rear.

I'm hoping that it would react sooner if just one tyre lost pressure.

Nice to have, in case we run over something, but does not replace the walk around the car before each journey.

My Ibiza has this system too PB as I mentioned in my post about it all recently. When the new tyre was fitted initially it took about 20 minutes and maybe 15 miles to decide to illuminate the light. However when I swapped it back onto the rear axle it triggered it within about 2 miles. I've been thinking about this and I think the reason is that it's looking for a wheel turning faster than the others not just a discrepancy in rpm. So when the new tyre went on, that wheel would have been turning slightly slower than the other three and it wasn't too worried by that. However when I swapped the new tyre from the front to the rear and put the old rear tyre in it's place on the front it immediately "saw" that that front wheel was turning faster than it had been last time it was driven. Which would explain the message for an under pressured N/S/F tyre as I assume it wasn't too worried about the slower RPM it was now seeing on the N/S/R?

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Well... after a lousy month.. Ive had a little bit of good news

The Fabia Im having so much hassle 'adjusting to'.. is doing a 10 day tour of Scotland..
without me

10 days with an all Italian fleet again

Guessing your Fabia is not all that different from my Ibiza - what engine does she have? - I'd be very interested to hear what's causing you difficulties in the "bonding" process?