All My Begs In One Askit.

[Scorpiorefugee]

Against all odds I am still living with my now 4 year old MK3 Titanium but as the warranties are now running out I'm getting nervous so I'm looking for a usable interface to the electronics. Having had a quick browse on ebay and Amazon but the best advice is from other users so I have 4 questions.

 

1,  Which is the best one to work with a laptop as most seem to be aimed at tablets with bluetooth and I have no intention of using either?

 

2. I have now started carrying a spare and trolley jack. Does anyone have useful experience with using a trolley jack and adaptors for jacking points? Just for the record, I bought a new Ford alloy for about £190 delivered and fitted anther Landsail (see Q4) for £50 which still saved me £25 on the dealer prive for the alloy alone.

 

3. This damned motor is still a pain to drive in slow traffic due to it's tendency to surge as engine speeds of 1400 to 1800 rpm and it has a growing, albeit intermittent, tendency to hunt slightly at some speeds. There were other comments on this from others 3 years ago but mine seems to be getting slowly worse. Is this a fault or a yet another "feature"?

 

4. Having found it undriveable with the original runflats I dumped them a long time ago and fitted 4 Landsails at £50 each whichgreatly improved things and  have now done 20,000 miles of mainly long distance driving with 5mm tread remaining all round although both nearside tyres are feathering on the outer edge and the front offside seems to be wearing on the inside edge. Taken together this makes no sense to me so any thoughts on this would be appreciated. The car has still ony 29,000 on the clock.

 

Sadly, I still believe the MK1 was a much more enjoyable drive and ride but the alteratives are no better and at 6' tall I am finding that most new showroom cars are near impossible to get into because of ever reducing rooflines and all round visibility is getting dangerous for tall drivers.. 

 

[gregers]

like you i also carry a spare alloy wheel,and a few weeks ago actually had to use it,came back from work and heard the tyre going down split in the side wall,so the gunk/compressor would have been as much use as a chocolate teapot.as for lifting it up im sure it gives you a clue where to postion the jack in the handbook?

 

iirc you need this 1,ELM 327V2.1 modified think it comes with a switch on it??

[Scorpiorefugee]

Thanks Gregers,

 

It has been a while and yet you are still the first to reply. We  were in Eastbourne a couple of weeks ago catching up on a few of my ageing relatives and I was very grateful for my tomtom. as there seems to be new roads and one way systems everywhere. We're off to darkest Scotland in a few days and the prospect of tackling 50 miles of single track road with no turnings or signs of civilisation without a spare wheel was giving me the willies. In 50 plus years of 40/60 k miles a year I've had very few punctures but in almost every case it has been much as you described. Where do they find the bl00dy lunatics that make the decisions?

 

I've worked out where the jacking points are but a little concerned about the cills when using a trolley jack. I've looked at sissor jacks on sale and they don't look too encouraging so I'm going for a rubber spacer for the trolley jack and assuming that the strength is in the bit immediately inside(behind) the cill. I was hoping someone could say that they had tried a particular make with success. Much the same for the interface as there seems to be many looking much the same but with different descriptions and some extravagant pricing which I assume to be profiteering.

 

As for the other problems, I stil find it difficult to accept that the unpredictable surge at around 1400 RPM is normal but It ain't too bad once we're on a motorway so long as there are no hold ups.