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1

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 05 February 2026, 10:19:07 »

Took the BMW to the local motor factors to collect a replacement for the bits that dropped off the galaxy this week 

2

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 05 February 2026, 10:18:00 »

With the features switched off, I'd expect no impact of charge level over a few days, as it's only powering alarm, entry system and telematics really.

Been a lurker on Tesla groups, when they were on the short list. There is a 'phantom' drain issue there, but I think it's due to all the cameras and sentry mode etc. Not unheard of for considerable amounts eg 20% of power lost in a week. Other functions like a climate over product to cool if car gets to hot etc are on by default.

To allay any potential concerns - the iX lost about 2% over the week we left it parked at Southampton docks last summer - and iirc yours has a larger battery than mine. I assume waking it up with the app might make it lose more, but I can't see why you'd need to.

3

General Car Chat / Re: Disco Sport TD4...

« on: 05 February 2026, 10:12:54 »

Personally I wouldn't have one of the later 2.0 diesels, based purely off personal experience of a disco 5 that I owned for about a week before it went back to the dealer due to one of the well known issues that TB mentioned (cracked inlet manifold iirc). Also one of the dad's at my son's school had one that gave nothing but trouble. I suspect that was down to issues from improper diesel use but nevertheless, he seemed to always be chasing something, Turbo actuator / MAF, all manner of things were mooted and tested but he never got to the bottom of it. In the two years we were acquaintances it seemed to give him nothing but trouble - ultimately he traded it in rather than fire a big parts cannon at it  .

SWMBO's 2.2 Evoque seemed pretty reliable in the time she had it, a perished hose and some odd electrical gremlins caused by the need for a new aux battery were about the extent of its offences.   

4

General Car Chat / Re: Banger Volvo vs Brand New

« on: 03 February 2026, 12:58:58 »

I'll also add, I have a sneaky feeling that 90% of all brand new EV's on the road are salary sacrifice deals. Soon as support for that is pulled, no one will be buying them new.

Definitely this.

The inflated list prices (which all legacy motor manufacturers are incentivised to do) mean you'd have to be a bit mad to buy or finance one new with your own money.

5

General Discussion Area / Re: 3D Printer Chat

« on: 30 January 2026, 14:08:47 »

Can't remember if I said I had stick on RFID tags for my non RFID spools.  That works well - I know it only takes a few taps to manually enter on the printer, but RFID is proper lazy

I am going to do this, in fact I ordered some, then found out there are multiple standards and ordered the wrong ones because I'm a bit simple. Returned with more are on order. I find the little screen on mine quite fiddly with my shovel hands, so the stickers would be better.  Also, some of us don't have the ability to have 16 rolls on the go at any one time 

I've also ordered 10 reels of Hyper PLA RFID for £84 delivered from Creality, because, well, errr, its a fettish. 

£8.40p per reel for the RFID stuff is a great price. Looking on the Creality store the best I can see is £19.99 with 30% off if you spend 10. Am I missing something? 

6

General Discussion Area / Re: 3D Printer Chat

« on: 29 January 2026, 16:42:33 »

Ah, one question I did have TB, is do you have any sort of isolating feet for yours?

I'm just printing at the standard 100% but the printer doesn't half get a wobble on when going back and forth on narrow parts.

7

General Discussion Area / Re: 3D Printer Chat

« on: 29 January 2026, 16:08:36 »

Well it took me nearly another two weeks to actually get setup and printing, but so far its worked flawlessly, setup was easy and so far everything I have done has been via the Creality Cloud app and website. I will need to use the standalone slicer at some point, but to be able to design in tinkercad and print from the app, is extremely useful (work laptop).

To date I haven't any Wifi issues and the speed and quality of prints are both next level compared to what I have been used to previously. To date I haven't printed much beyond enhancements to the printer itself - CFS riser and dessicant boxes, poop chute and bin etc. But not having to wait 24-48hrs for big prints has certainly opened up a lot of possibilities. Overall I can definitely recommend the regular K2

Next stop is converting the old ender 3 into a laser engraver....

8

General Car Chat / Re: Help identifying airline connector

« on: 29 January 2026, 15:35:24 »

With the info from Skruntie's AI (which predictably cocked up the 2 I did know, but its the (sad) future ), it's identified as a Nitto Kohki coupling .  Apparently the dominant connector in the far east. Which makes sense, as this is decidedly Ching Chong.

WTF have you been ordering that's got that nonsense attached to it? I would have thought a man of your "experiences" would have been more careful with what gets put in their garage. 

9

General Car Chat / Re: Help identifying airline connector

« on: 29 January 2026, 15:09:33 »

ARO 3810 10mm...

https://twlnz.co.nz/aro-hose-insert-10mm-model-3810/?srsltid=AfmBOooA7EhUpWez2nWx4LKJ0FjEgay9_D8CbjecsLEtZ_6qU9w3UGAq

Obviously with a threaded insert on the other end rather than the hose tail of the one I linked to.

10

General Car Chat / Re: Banger Volvo vs Brand New

« on: 29 January 2026, 14:59:46 »

Plus work wise, I was in Lisbon in December for the week, I'm in Prague next week and I'm in Philadelphia at the end of Feb for 1.5 weeks. 

Sounds a bit like my travel schedule used to be! I honestly miss it sometimes, but also not sure I'd want to leave the family (and a wife who actually likes me) these days. Are you still with the same business? 

11

General Car Chat / Re: BMW i4 M60 Arrived

« on: 29 January 2026, 14:52:37 »

Officially, this i4 M60 on paper is a £75k car. Not that anyone pays that! BMW were offering 35% to Lex on the build slot, which explains why this was cheaper than a Tesla which had a list price of £50k on LEX monthlies.

I do wonder how BMW does the pricing on its lease cars sometimes. My iX is similar base price of c£75k (iX M60 is something like £115k  ), but the monthlies of Octopus can fluctuate by >£200 pcm. I managed to get it at a fairly low ebb, but I don't think I could have the same car again if my lease were coming to an end soon.   

12

General Car Chat / Re: BMW i4 M60 Arrived

« on: 28 January 2026, 12:03:38 »

Clucking bell.....sounds like a good deal.

They are currently an extremely good deal for those of us who Ms Reeves currently likes to ream out via PAYE. The 'trick' is that the net cost is low because we would otherwise be giving the money away in Tax. My car for example has a scary gross lease cost of something like £1150 per month, but because there's no way I could get to keep all of that, the net cost of having it as a company car is much lower.

Arguably you could put the gross amount into a pension and run a cheaper car - but where's the fun in that 

13

General Car Chat / Re: BMW i4 M60 Arrived

« on: 26 January 2026, 14:18:42 »

Sounds like a very capable motor, Mark. I wouldn't say £450 a month is cheap, but for what you're getting it's certainly good value. Enjoy 👍

Only cheaper if you go bangernomics and run something very old, but these days I don't have the time to maintain things and spend a weekend sorting out a car.

Even then, if you do big miles you'd struggle I think. Obviously don't know what your lease is, but for us, we pay £550 ish pcm to do 25k/yr (4yr lease). Running a banger we'd spend:

£343 per month in diesel (40mpg)
  £20 per month for tax
  £20 for servicing (2.5 regular services per year, plus belts, water pumps etc - this is a DIY price and I'm not convinced you wouldn't spend more when things wear out)
  £45 for insurance (the galaxy currently costs £39, so added a bit as its only insured for 10k/yr)
  £15 for tyres (assuming a full set every 40k at £70 a corner)
------
£443 just to run an old car

The only extra costs on the ev are electricity (2.3p/mile for me - excluding any freebies from work) =£49pcm to do 25k/yr.

So, over 4yrs and 100,000 miles the banger would have to be purchased and any problems/failures fixed for £156 per month. I'd say this was very unlikely to work out in favour of the banger, particularly as something in the £1-2k bracket probably wouldn't give you the 40mpg average you'd need to keep the fuel cost down and would probably need a big chunk spending on it to bring it up to snuff.

Even if it did *just* work out financially, you have to want to lie under the car, fix all the problems etc to save what amounts to a few quid a month, vs driving round in a brand new car with someone on the end of the phone to fix any issues for you.


 

14

General Car Chat / Re: BMW i4 M60 Arrived

« on: 26 January 2026, 12:35:07 »

So my new company car arrived just before Christmas, it's a 2025 i4 M60. I get this via Lex Leasing and it was to cheap to ignore really.

I added just a couple of options of an upgraded sound system, tow bar and active cruise control. (BMW love extras)

Headline Stats:

- 601bhp
- Dual Motor

I've already done over 1,000 miles in it. My thoughts?

- It's fast, it's ****ing fast, did I mention it's fast?
- Any speed any time, instant torque that all EV's give.
- Not lost a traffic light drag yet.
- It's very, very comfortable. It comes with adaptive ride (air) and it's 18's alloys with decent amount of side wall mean a very, very smooth ride.
- Super silent around town as you would expect.
- It's excellent at the outside lane cruise, very quiet and smooth.
- Active cruise is great, even comes to a stop and goes again without any involvement from me. Makes for relaxing busy motorway sections.
- Pre-conditioning is something I like way more than I thought I would, coming out to a toasty warm car every morning at 7am is nice.
- Unlike other EV's the touch screen madness is limited, still has traditional iDrive, with buttons etc.
- Easy to disable stupid EU rules, speed limit warning, active warnings/steering intervention etc is very easy to disable. Either 1 button or 1 click in a shortcut.
- I added a towbar, so I can use a rear mount bike rack, makes it easier for hauling bikes. It's electric as well and folds away at the press of a button.
- It's a 3 year lease, so nothing to worry about. Tyres, maintenance, insurance, service etc all included. 
- I've only charged it once away from home, mainly to test the discount from BMW. But worked without any issues.

For me it's incredibly cheap, both in fuel (£0.07 kWh) and the cost of the car itself (£450/m) - Costs me around 65p to get to work now.

Congrats, its a lovely looking thing and a real bargain for what you got!

Pre-heat is the best thing for me, car being warm and not having to scrape the windscreen is a massive perk! I also find it really useful on days out with the kids - such as yesterday where they're cold and tired by the end of the day. Pre heat with the app, bundle the kids into a nice warm car; they're asleep in 10s flat and I get a peaceful drive home 

15

General Car Chat / Re: Seized / sheered brake bleed nipples

« on: 22 January 2026, 17:52:10 »

The hylomar isn't there for its sealing properties per se, its to form a thin layer between the metals.

Hylomar blue doesn't set so shouldn't be affected by winding in and out. I'd be tempted to just add a little smear to the exposed threads as you slacken them off for bleeding.