Katiegan's Garage | Winter Plans

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I've never seen the Pandaghini nor Bruiser, yet I see your neighbours XR3i nearly everyday. :boggled:

And yet I've seen your Firebird twice on the road and once at a show. I don't travel far for work in the Panda though so unless you go through Slaithwaite during the week you won't see it. Bruiser travels to Lockwood everyday so I'd expect you to at least see him. :lol:
 
And yet I've seen your Firebird twice on the road and once at a show. I don't travel far for work in the Panda though so unless you go through Slaithwaite during the week you won't see it. Bruiser travels to Lockwood everyday so I'd expect you to at least see him. :lol:

Nope still don't see Bruiser, I don't go as far as Slaithwaite on my drive to work, only as far as Titanic Mills.
 
Today is the Pandaghini's 12th birthday!



On November 26th 2004, this little guy was first registered on the road. Coincidentally, the day after my birthday.

Little update on Bruiser too. This happened yesterday:



Battle scars from a road rage incident. Some guy wouldn't give way to my dad, they argued, threats were thrown, then the guy decided he'd try and go for the gap that wasn't there anyway (inb4 Senna), resulting in that. He then tried accusing my dad of reversing into him, and said he'd be 'hearing from the police', despite the fact he was the one who drove into the car.

I'm also thinking that Bruiser's journey is coming to an end. The gearbox has started making a rumbling noise, and nor me or my dad are all too keen on replacing it. The rust is getting worse, the engine management light is always on, and misfires are becoming a frequent thing now. I did have plans of turning Bruiser into a project and what not, but I just don't have the money for it. That, and no offence to the old guy, but he's not much of a project car. Maybe before I started working I would've said something different, but after working on cars for a living, a modern family car isn't the most ideal car to start with :lol:. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little sad, after all, this has been our family bus for 12 years. But, all things must come to an end. He's still with us for now, but my parents are on the lookout for another car.
 
Happy birthday to Pandaghini!

You haven't by any chance been cruising around Suffolk by any chance have you? Because, well, I'll leave this here.

2016-11-27 15.20.12.jpg


Saw it today in my village, had to stop and get a photo!
 
Your Panda looks pretty cool without the grill inserts in the bumper! If you squint, the radiator (or is it a condenser?) looks like an intercooler! :lol:

Haha, I thought that! It's a new radiator too so it shines a bit more. It doesn't have air con so there's no condenser.

I should really get round to putting the trims and grilles back in before a stone or something busts my radiator. The fog light trims don't clip in properly though and the old radiator grille doesn't fit the new bumper, and I just haven't got round to sorting it out. The missing bumper trim I need is £48 and I'm super tight with my money so I've been holding off buying that too. :lol:
 
Haha, I thought that! It's a new radiator too so it shines a bit more. It doesn't have air con so there's no condenser.

I should really get round to putting the trims and grilles back in before a stone or something busts my radiator. The fog light trims don't clip in properly though and the old radiator grille doesn't fit the new bumper, and I just haven't got round to sorting it out. The missing bumper trim I need is £48 and I'm super tight with my money so I've been holding off buying that too. :lol:
£48? Almost half as bad as genuine Peugeot prices! Could always try a bit of wire mesh - "yeah, it's a sport model..."
 
£48? Almost half as bad as genuine Peugeot prices! Could always try a bit of wire mesh - "yeah, it's a sport model..."

Wire mesh is what I'm going for with the radiator grille. It's the passenger bumper strip that's £48!
 
That's the thing, it's not a dealer price, it's the cheapest on eBay! Fiat don't sell the bumper strips separately, I already tried. :(
Most genuine dealers are a bugger for body parts. In the case of my Corsa, you can get it all separately, but the whole assembly is to the tune of about £500 before VAT. So, any separate parts are rather dear.

I half wonder if you could get a damaged bumper off ebay cheaper and then just rip the bump strips off that and throw the rest away?
 
Most genuine dealers are a bugger for body parts. In the case of my Corsa, you can get it all separately, but the whole assembly is to the tune of about £500 before VAT. So, any separate parts are rather dear.

I half wonder if you could get a damaged bumper off ebay cheaper and then just rip the bump strips off that and throw the rest away?

Full bumpers are priced quite high too. I was going to get a secondhand one to replace mine, but it ended up being cheaper just ordering a bare primered one from Euro Car Parts. I can afford the £48, I'm just a typical northerner and hate spending money. :lol:
 
Full bumpers are priced quite high too. I was going to get a secondhand one to replace mine, but it ended up being cheaper just ordering a bare primered one from Euro Car Parts. I can afford the £48, I'm just a typical northerner and hate spending money. :lol:
Ah that's no good then. I guess I'm lucky with the Corsa, since there were nearly half a million made in this country alone, parts are nice and cheap.

It's much the same down here as well with spending :D

I thoroughly enjoy the things I spend money on... I just don't like spending it in the first place. Why aren't more things free?! 'Tis the curse that we endure...
 
There's a new face in town...



Everyone, meet Carlos. A 2007 SEAT Leon Cupra, and the latest addition to the Katiegan residence. Bought yesterday from my work after I serviced it (including cam belt and water pump) and gave it a good clean. 111k miles with full main dealer service history to back it up, and heaps of invoices of the work done over the years, all of which have either been at SEAT or a VAG specialist garage (except a few times it went to Kwik Fit in its early life). It had a re-map at some point but it's since been taken off by SEAT. It's the 2.0 TFSI engine that's shared across various VAG platforms, pushing out a nice 240bhp, 100 more horses than ol' Bruiser. Bucket seats (not, like, race seats, the standard Cupra bucket seats obviously), tinted windows, 18" alloys, automatic xenon headlights, sports exhaust, sports suspension, 4-pot calipers (which take some getting used to), cruise control, other things I can't remember.

As I've mentioned before, we've been looking for a replacement for Bruiser for a while. It was a hard decision, but the poor old guy is struggling now with rust, gearbox issues and misfires, and I can't justify restoring a car barely worth £100 if it's purely for my childhood sentimental value. Maybe if he was something more collectible, sure, but combine that with him being a modern car with a lot more parts to deal with, I just don't have the time or money to do it, as much as I wish I did. Bruiser is still with us though, he's in the garage now while we figure out if we're going to sell him or scrap him. Part of me wants to put him back to standard and go to another loving home where he can live out his retirement from modified life in peace, and part of me wants to scrap him so he can end his journey with us and be parted out to help other Mondeos in need. I know it's only a car and all that, but he's been with us for 12 years. Sort of like having a family dog that you know is getting old and should probably put down but you're still quite not ready to make that move yet.
 
Seat de-mapped the remap? Why??

I'd imagine at the request of the owner. It's had 3 previous owners, so I'm guessing someone bought it after it had been mapped and couldn't handle the power/couldn't afford the fuel consumption so they got it detuned. Or it may have been a poorly tuned map and was causing more issues than it was worth.

That's an awesome colour 👍

It's really nice! It's called Emocion Red.


We've already done 100 miles since we picked it up on Saturday. Haven't driven it properly myself yet, I've only moved it around at work. The engine management light came on during a drive on Sunday though (inb4 typical VW), coincidentally while sat in traffic right outside the Ford dealer Bruiser came from (sp00ky). Brought it in to work earlier today and plugged the code reader in, and it looks like a lambda sensor has gone down. I think we've got some spare ones hanging around at work that'll fit so it's not too much of an issue. Other than that, everything seems to be fine, except for a small issue with the radio antenna which is probably down to the fact the previous owner had an aftermarket SatNav in it, but took it out just before selling and probably didn't plug in the antenna to the standard radio properly. At the moment, only two radio stations work. :lol:
 
Nice choice. Always liked that shape of Leon. Makes the current one look pretty dull. They're a bit of a bargain at the moment too, particularly considering the performance on offer.
 
Nice choice. Always liked that shape of Leon. Makes the current one look pretty dull. They're a bit of a bargain at the moment too, particularly considering the performance on offer.

It certainly was a bargain, we got it for £4500 in the end. The perks of working at a car sales garage!
 
The Pandaghini reached 59,000 on Christmas Eve!



That means I'm coming up to covering a whopping 3,000 miles since I bought him. I really need to get out more. Look at how satisfying my fuel gauge and temperature gauge look being almost symmetrical though.

Also, festive Panda!

 
The Pandaghini reached 59,000 on Christmas Eve!



That means I'm coming up to covering a whopping 3,000 miles since I bought him. I really need to get out more. Look at how satisfying my fuel gauge and temperature gauge look being almost symmetrical though.

Also, festive Panda!

I'd think twice before filling her up then*
 
The Pandaghini is starting to rival @ilikewaffles11's Celica in terms of leaking oil.



I've replaced the cam cover gasket twice now, and it still seems to be weeping from there. I cleaned all the surfaces properly and used plenty of gasket sealant, so I'm starting to think maybe something is warped slightly (either the cam cover or head) causing it to not seal properly. Maybe it got a little too hot when the radiator went?

It looks bad but it hardly loses any oil on the dipstick. It's hard to clean the excess oil off the engine too, so perhaps the worst of it is old oil still on the engine. Ah well, I'll just carry on until Greenpeace contact me for killing the local wildlife.
 
Pfft, you wish, try a quart of oil every 30 miles! :P

View attachment 620090

I'm in the process of fixing this finally at least.

I'm good, I think I'll stick to about half a litre every 4 or 5 months. :lol:

You guys know you have to potty train them right?

He's just marking his territory. I've tried to train him but he's very territorial for a small car. Must be some kind of small car syndrome.
 
I'm good, I think I'll stick to about half a litre every 4 or 5 months. :lol:
The funny thing is they use oil even when they're not incontinent. My 100HP remains the only car I've owned that needed regularly topping up with oil. Not excessive amounts, but I used to check it every 1000 miles and top it up each time - usually it would have gone from the middle point between the two dipstick marks to the lower mark. Worth it though, because that engine was cracking.
 
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