Sics Consolidated Faded Moderns Thread - 2006 Golf Mk5 GTI & 2004 BMW Z4 2.2

[SiC]

Typical helpful* Facebook comment on asking if 205/60/16 would fit.

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I'm not sure if MO rated tyres are even still available in this size. No doubt a big premium on them if they still do too.

[Hooli]

I've got MO (if that's Merc Only) Goodyear Eagles on my XJR, only option in the size I looked for. Cheapest on Asda tyres oddly enough, but that did mean fitted at halfrauds

[Hooli]

Check the handbook though. They normally list the tyre options per wheel choice so you'll know if the 205s will fit.

[xtriple]

The wheel tyre combination should be on the reverse of the fuel filler flaps. Mine are...

[Eddie Honda]

I don't know enough about wheel/tyre size to understand the significance of these sort of things.

1) Wide = wank
2) Low profile = wank²

Easy.

[AutoshiteBoy]

What's the latest on this?

[SiC]

Funnily enough just written something up now. Been out for the count the last 7 days with severe and chronic food poisoning.

[SiC]

I broke it.

Not intentionally and it was my good intentions that did it. 

As I was getting low battery warnings, last week I thought it would be prudent to stick it on charge. With the battery deep in the boot, some tearing into was required.

Of course opening the boot it did a Mercedes as the automatic load cover just flopped open rather than retracting gracefully.

7 seater seat base needs removing and other bits pulled out of the way.


 
Then I left it. It ended up being much longer than I expected due to a bad bout of food poisoning that has wiped me out for the last 7 days. 

While waiting on another gut movement, I was Googling about charging Mercedes in-situ. While flicking through I saw a brief mention that it shouldn't be set to charge above 14.8v. 

Erm. Well I set the charger onto reconditioning mode. Checking the manual it states this pumps the voltage to 15.8v to fully charge all the cells.

Oops.


Checked the code reader to see what was up. A bunch of different codes on several modules but this is the battery fault.

 
Checking the voltage of the battery and it seemed more than fine. 


Bumhats. Have I fried something? 

Not sure quite what to do at this point as the code wouldn't clear. So did the usual thing of turning it off and on again. I removed the negative terminal, left it for a bit and reconnected. 


This fixed it and the codes now just show up as stored. These erased fine and the dash warning has gone. Phew!

The climate control has decided to throw this new code up since too. I think a coincidence. Also stored not current. Seems to work fine? Maybe just a sticky actuator.

 
The left side suspension definitely leaks out more than the right. I started the car up to allow it to pump itself back up. On these self leveling rear suspension setups, the car doesn't know what each side position is at. There is only one central height sensor. So while it has pumped itself up, there is still a tilt. Hopefully it'll right itself once on a drive and pressures equalise from cornering?



I know you can kill airbags by keep inflating from flat. I want to get this through an MOT (next month, I need to book!) before spending out on anything like that. So I'll keep them relatively topped up till then. Tbh I'll probably put eBay Chinese special units on it. £100 for a pair versus £800 each (iirc) from MB.

[SiC]

On a related note about battery discharge, I noticed this has an AGM battery in the boot. Whether it should have one or a flooded pack seems to be debated online. Most online checkers seem to say AGM.  

​​​​​​Now here's the rub. AGM batteries have different charge voltages to flooded lead acids. Flooded 12v packs (traditional) usually charge at around 14.1v. AGM 12v however need a higher voltage - around 14.7v. 

I'm getting an indicated 14.0v or so on the dash diagnostics mode with the engine running. Perfect for flooded packs but too low to fully charge an AGM pack. 

So either the alternator has been replaced in the past and not the correct regulator for AGM batteries or these cars are really designed for flooded batteries. 

​​​​​​​It could explain why these cars seem hard on their batteries. Apart from the mass of control modules that all seem to only switch on/off by the CAN bus rather than a relay - which relies them on doing their job. Also the large amount of electronic gubbins on board. But also if the wrong type of battery is used and it's not getting fully charged, it'll shorten it's life. 

[SiC]

Also I had fun with this button. 
Thankfully probably for my passengers, it doesn't work in reverse. Otherwise I'd have too much fun bopping them on the head.