Today I Am Driving . . .

He's having his clutch slave cylinder replaced, and a new steering wheel fitted. The clutch work is a gearbox-out job, so I'll be hacking it back to Tattershall on Monday evening /grins: B1225/.

When the a/c kicks in, it drains torque from the donk . . . so it's like you've just lifted off.

In the Ka, you can feel it cycle in and out in the city, but it's more annoying when climbing a hill on the open road - if it kicks in whilst climbing, you have to readjust the power (i.e. press slightly harder), but it usually loses speed, so you need more power to get back up to your cruise, then the compressor kicks off . . . bwahahah!

With the Fiesta, at low engine speeds, it makes a huge difference to the performance of the engine . . . in first and second gear, it's very jerky when it kicks off.

The system may be running low on fluid.

I could never do that! I'd get traded in myself!

Done under warranty I hope.

I didn't know a/c systems kicked in and out like that - I always thought they were constantly running - is it the case of being thermostatically controlled, and going on and off as required?

Whatcha want's a re-chip and uprated head gasket, then you could up the peak power on the Fiesta from around 75bhp to around 150bhp :-))

Heh!

Peter

Or supercharging? Does anyone know if that works well with small engines?

Peter

New steering wheel? Did you break the old one?

Whats the best you've had out of it then :)

Turn it off then :)

You should've taken the Mondeo - and you know deep down i'm right :)

-- Dan

Yes. ;)

Hot hot hot!

Possibly, but in the weeks to come I've got a BMW Mini One diesel to get through, a Fiesta TDCi, and something else I'm keeping under wraps for now.

/sneaky/

Yes. The leak is tiny! Ordinarily, not worth getting it done, but the warranty expires in October, so the garage are doing it now.

Yes; it's so that the fluid doesn't freeze over. With the fan set to position four, it's pretty much running the compressor non-stop. With lower fan settings, so it cycles the compressor in and out. When it's hot and humid, and the fan is only in position one (like last Wednesday in York), the compressor was running for about 70% of the time.

It'd lose a bit of the driveability! The 1.4 version, as rallied in the Puma, puts out about 150 PS.

You're along the right lines with three bits of the above . . . three individual bits . . . bwahahahahahaha!

Thats why MB use a mag clutch (a/c style) on their 180 / 200 / 230 Kompressors to bypass the supercharger during periods of high manifold vacuum- i.e. cruise. Shame BMW didnt on the mini...

Tim..

Indeed! I was surprised at this, although I suppose they'd argue that somebody buying a 160-odd PS small car probably isn't too fussed about fuel consumption. However, they may well be bothered about the CO2 output . . . hmm interesting, interesting . . .

i'd be pissed off if they tried to give me any Ford :)

Well true :) But i suppose i'd be chuffed i managed to get rid of a Ka for a while :) Not that any force on this earth could make me buy one in the first place..........maybe if someone gave me one.............nah i'd sell it :)

-- Dan

That's fighting talk....... :-)

Peter

Nah, that's big talk for a wookie.

:)

I've never gotten laid as much as I have following getting the Ka! :)

Is this a case of the Nova syndrome? It always seems that the best looking, sexually active girls like men who drive lower rate cars ;-)

I would have thought with all that tappet rattle you'd have the same trouble as I do with my diesels - you have to stop the engine to talk to birds walking by!

The Dervboy

Yeh but will it do 95 in 3rd like the Cav? (The outcome of one of my pointless recent experiments. I chickened out before I got to top speed in

considerably

Strange that. On the vauxhalls the compresser seems to operate continually. I've never experienced this effect. The only time the compressor is disconencted is when full throttle is applied suddenly. It then comes back on about 5 seconds later.

I hate cars which lack engine braking. The DTI is has lots of engine braking, even more when the air-con is on. I like it in town because it saves having to keep braking every time a change in speed is required. It's also fun watching the tailgaters panic when I decellerate suddenly with no warning :o

When the vauxhall garage "upgraded" the petrol astra's ECU, I lost all engine breaking as it disabled the overrun cut off below 2000rpm, which is where most rown driving is done. Even with the air-con on it still had no engine braking as the fuel system compensated for the extra load. I hated the car from that day onwards, so I changed it for the model I really wanted in the first place.

Take her back to the dealer under warranty then. She's obviously faulty :-)

The Dervboy

Careful, nothing wrong with a Lada.

I don't see how anyone can benefit from it. It's just wasting fuel keeping the engine producing power (albeit a small amount) when it doesn't need to. On the other hand, if I don't want engine braking, for example to coast the last 500 yards to a roundabout I take it out of gear and just let it idle. It's amazing how much fuel this saves. I simply prefer to have the choice whether or not to use engine braking.

I also hate the time it takes for the revs to drop on many modern vehicles with muppet oriented ECU programs. You can't drive hard without the car lurching on every gearchange.

The Dervboy.