[Johnny 216GSi]

Hope winter is OK to it, it's rot free at the moment, and if it ends up laid up for a long time I'll have to take care that the cooling system doesn't do its party trick of rotting out the water channels on the head gasket.

Change the coolant now then You can get 2 year monoethylene glycol delivered for under £15. Just add water...

[burtonm]

A good call! It's driven its last for a while, need to SORN it before the first of the month.

[Mr Teddy Bear]

Try and start it every month for half an hour and get the engine warm, park with the handbrake off. You can buy plastic blocks to put under the wheels to help keep the tyres round. Take off the battery.

Sitting outside parked up doesn't do them any good at all, but sometimes I appreciate that it can't be helped.

[Vulgalour]

But if you take the battery off you have to do the keyfob dance when you reconnect it. Bloody things.

[Mr Teddy Bear]

The way around that is to only swap the battery over every couple of moths, letting the battery partially discharge and then swopping it over trickle charging it while running the car up on a spare battery will be good for both the car and battery.
I'm led to believe [Practical Classics] that keeping battery permantly on trickle charge shortens it's life.

[burtonm]

But if you take the battery off you have to do the keyfob dance when you reconnect it. Bloody things.

Early cars don't have remote central locking, it's done on the key, which has no electrickery. No trouble!

[Vulgalour]

Jealous.

[RoverRevival]

Yep

[burtonm]

Well, today was the day I went to collect the GTi.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Around 9:30am I picked the car up in south London.

IMG_20180905_095204398 by max_burton, on Flickr

I'm pleased with it, the seller seemed to overplay its issues a bit - with some work it'll be a great car. Interior and headlining are great, and the car runs smoothly, and everything feels taut, smooth, and as it should. The leather steering wheel feels great in the hand, too.

Drove it to Leyton, near the Olympic Park, where I found an Asda and filled it up, around 11:45:

IMG_20180905_112629270 by max_burton, on Flickr

that's my mum in the passenger seat!

IMG_20180905_114024141 by max_burton, on Flickr

Aaaaaaaand it didn't start.

When I've had hot starting issues in the past, bridging an HT lead to earth has allowed the car to start. No dice today.

There was a NOS main relay in the glovebox, and the PO had repaired the original, which was still working and clicking when I put the ignition on. I tried to install the replacement relay to see what happened, but found the multiplug to be different.

The car also had a NOS Hella alternator freshly installed, with a Gates belt, as the PO was suspicious it might have been at fault. He included the old alternator as well, so I shall have to investigate it. I might rebuild it.

I'd noted when I set off that it was a bit slow to crank, and that the oil light was dim when I put the ignition on.
Well, now the battery light was dimly flickering when it was cranking.

Having realised there was more to the issue than the main relay, we called the AA.

The AA man arrived 45 minutes later around 1:15, took the relay out, tested it, put some spades on the NOS relay to bridge it to the plug, no difference.
The battery was also revealed to be weak, with a jump pack attached the starter span as it should, but as soon as it was removed, the starter was much slower to turn.

IMG_20180905_131829444 by max_burton, on Flickr

When it's home I'll take my dormant GSi's battery for it.

Relays, fuses etc checked, jump pack added etc, I explained how earthing an HT lead sometimes let my GSi start. This revealed there was no spark, and with this the AA man was out of ideas. I'm suspicious of the ignition module, but couldn't point him to it, so he requested a recovery and left around 2pm.
We get a phone call after a bit - due to the long distance we were going (London-Manchester), the AA offered us a complimentary hire car, as the GTi would need to be transferred between multiple flatbeds to get up here.
Flatbed arrived at 3, and took us to Enterprise Ilford for 3:30.

IMG_20180905_145316260 by max_burton, on Flickr

We requested an auto, as we were driving one at the time, and luckily enough they managed to sort one for us.

IMG_20180905_150757538 by max_burton, on Flickr

After about an hour we left in a nearly-new Ford Fiesta Zetec:

tapatalk_1536187158646 by max_burton, on Flickr

wasn't bad tbh - I was impressed, especially for a Fiesta. I haven't enjoyed a Fiesta much since my mum and aunt's old mk2s: my mum had a sad face CVT for a while and it was godawful, and my aunt has a 2003 model which is one of the worst cars I've ever experienced. The new one on the other hand, well I actually quite like it. Reasonably comfy, solid feeling, intuitive, and holds its own on the roads easily. No lumbar support, and it not wanting to charge my phone off the USB ports were my only issues. Nice little thing.

We stopped off at Peterborough services for food etc, and happened upon the AA flatbed driver from earlier in the day, dropping off the GTi for another AA man to pick up. He told us he'd seen four people taking pictures of the car in Cambridge services - I checked Autosh*te as I had a break from driving, and it turned out another user I'm acquainted with had also been to see my car's PO to buy a Citroen ZX today (the PO keeps a few cars at once), and on his way back to Newcastle with another user and a friend, travelling the same way north as myself and the flatbed, had happened upon it, knowing of my misfortune already as I'd been posting about it through the day. I had no idea he was buying the ZX.
I'm intrigued to know where the GTi key was, as he left the car in a corner of the car park and left. Handed in at the services, or being relayed around, perhaps?

The flatbed left Ilford a good hour before I did so it was a number of absurd coincedences.

IMG_20180905_181623093 by max_burton, on Flickr

IMG_20180905_181405471 by max_burton, on Flickr

IMG_20180905_181758136 by max_burton, on Flickr

I haven't seen the GTi again, and the drive home in the Fiesta was fortunately uneventful - and surprisingly enjoyable.

In light of what happened the GTi seller offered me my money back and to have the car recovered back to him- I declined, it shouldn't be a hard fix and the AA did a great job of getting us and the GTi home. All the same, he's offered to foot some of the cost of repair by way of apology, as the car was bought in good faith as a runner, and he's going to Interflora my mum some flowers too - how charming!
My mum has become really rather taken with R8s and classics in general recently, often coming to shows where I'm exhibiting, sending me pictures of things she spots and so on. She's always loved cars too, and took it all in good spirits. As many said on AS, she has the patience of a saint and I'm lucky to have her!

What a day... now to wait for the GTi to be dropped off.

[Paul_1978_yorks]

That’s a lovely car. Shame to hear about the staring issue and I hope you get the to bottom of it. You were unlucky with breaking down - I’ve bought a few R8’s from various parts of the UK and driven them back to Yorkshire and have had relatively trouble free experiences.

I notice it has a very clean MOT history and once the starting issue is resolved it’s going to be a great car.

I also had a “new shape” Fiesta hire car last year and I really enjoyed it. Very easy to drive, too easy almost. I must admit I prefer to drive an R8 as they a real “drivers car”.