What have you done to your car today?

Flack88 · 11 Jan 2021 at 20:20

Long time since posting on here. Replaced my gearbox for a cryo treated one after completely stripping 3rd gear at Donington back in November, Toyota C56 gearbox. Probably still wont hold up but will have to see, only other option is a Quaife gearset which is £6K+ which is not an option.

Nearly got hypothermia over the weekend fitting it in. It was that bloody cold!

Rroff · 12 Jan 2021 at 11:59

Ooof been awhile since I saw something like that - though wouldn't be surprised if some of the work vans aren't close.

Meaker · 16 Jan 2021 at 20:39

I've ordered the updated cluster for my car, not a huge change but will feel fresher and was not that expensive:

to

Akagi · 16 Jan 2021 at 20:46

I err... I think the old one looks better.

More modern, less plain.

Looks like an A3 cluster now.

Meaker · 16 Jan 2021 at 21:25

Yeah it is more of a personal preference thing. I like the analogue fuel guage and you get more trip computer info at once.

Will Gill · 17 Jan 2021 at 11:58

It makes your car got 10mph faster, winner winner chicken dinner!

Akagi · 17 Jan 2021 at 13:13

There is that...

Meaker · 17 Jan 2021 at 14:11

Spent all of last year re-enforcing the engine and making it faster already

just doing the little things I want done to suit me for now.

Hades · 17 Jan 2021 at 16:14

My Corrado has been SORN for a year. So I charged the battery, reconnected it and it fired up first time. I think I will get it MOT'd, serviced and back on the road for spring.

Phemo · 17 Jan 2021 at 17:05

After last week's fiasco of replacing the hard drive in my wife's car's BMW NBT head unit, I decided to do the same to my car today. Only difference being that the drive in my head unit was still working fine but it was from mid-2014, so while the entire process was still fresh in my mind I thought I'd replace it with a brand new drive. Only took about an hour and a half this time round so at least I now have peace of mind with a fresh drive, a backup copy of the data from all the partitions and the old drive on hand too.

Now I can hopefully forget about ever doing that nightmare process again

DXP55 · 20 Jan 2021 at 14:20

It's throwing it down with rain here so went out and washed the car then let rain rinse it off - will go out later and put it by garage door and blade it off then put it away.

[TW]Fox · 20 Jan 2021 at 14:23

Phemo said:
Only difference being that the drive in my head unit was still working fine but it was from mid-2014, so while the entire process was still fresh in my mind I thought I'd replace it with a brand new drive. Only took about an hour and a half this time round so at least I now have peace of mind with a fresh drive, a backup copy of the data from all the partitions and the old drive on hand too.

Now I can hopefully forget about ever doing that nightmare process again

Why did you replace it?

Phemo · 20 Jan 2021 at 14:36

Mainly so I had a backup of the contents on the original drive while it was still operational. Since NBT units are all getting on a bit now it's only a matter of time before it gives up.

My wife's NBT drive was dead so it made things a bit more difficult but mine was still working so I thought I'd take a backup while I had the opportunity. I also had a spare brand new drive so thought I might as well put the new one in so I could retain the other one as another backup.

Though to be fair, chances are I'll have changed car before it's a problem anyway. But it cost me nothing but a bit of time.

[TW]Fox · 20 Jan 2021 at 14:39

I'm surprised you even use the drive for anything. I've never saved anything on mine, pointless really when you have USB storage or streaming.

Phemo · 20 Jan 2021 at 14:41

I don't put music on it because I just play from USB stick, but the satnav maps and the manual are of course loaded from it. Maps are obviously easy enough to reinstall but the missing manuals could be an issue if I sold the car on.

Annoyingly, Evo units can have the HD replaced with an SSD but I'm not about to drop that kind of money for a retrofit on this car.

[TW]Fox · 20 Jan 2021 at 15:40

I'm really intrigued because I've never even thought about changing the drive on mine

Phemo · 20 Jan 2021 at 15:48

If my wife's X3's NBT unit hadn't started playing up I would never have bothered with it, but on hers the navigation wouldn't load and the entire head unit kept rebooting. Usually every 2-5 minutes or so and when it rebooted it was reverting to the same radio station and loud volume it was set to previously so understandably she got annoyed with it doing that and I thought I'd sort it with as little cost as possible

I just figured that while I was still able to remember the process, I'd make sure that if mine ever died I could easily sort it out without much messing around. I don't even want to think what price BMW would charge as I'm sure they'd replace the entire head unit as well as diagnostics, installing and recoding so it was just for peace of mind for me as there's no benefit other than (hopefully) reliability.

watercooledman · 20 Jan 2021 at 15:51

Acme said:

I err... I think the old one looks better.

More modern, less plain.

Looks like an A3 cluster now.

Click to expand...

i have to agree, the old one looks much better.

ShiWarrior · 20 Jan 2021 at 16:48

i prefer the old one too

Dyson · 20 Jan 2021 at 16:57

Personally prefer the new dials.