14 days since acquisition, and the supercheap Vectra was still performing faultlessly. At least until on the way back from an unsuccessful scrapyard foray.
Pootling along the A8 in 50mph average cameras, the computer flashed up the ominous warning – Check Oil Level. Buggerations. I dropped off my brother and headed to the supermarket to source some 10w40 synthetic.
Back home, I parked the car up and set to watching the touring cars. After watching the banger race of a 2nd race (complete with comedy tyre wear), I decided to head out and see what was what.
Initial wiping and re-insertion of the dipstick yielded nothing but a dry end. Unperturbed, I opened the bottle and shoved a litre in. This achieved 1/2 way up the markers, with another 500ml seeing it hit the MAX. I had a look about for a likely culprit – and the throttle body looked very oily – I think there may be a rocker cover or other gasket failing to do as expected.
A touch oily about the throttle body!
The top-up put the check request out, so I’ll just keep an eye on the level weekly – assuming it doesn’t drink loads we should be ok.
As I was under the bonnet, I thought I should carry on with a check of the car. Based on my experience of driving it so far, there were 2 potential areas for concern –
Poor grip from the front end in the wet
A relatively long brake pedal
To figure these out, it was a fairly simple “one wheel at a time” approach.
First up, the left front.
Flagrant False advertising
Thankfully the wheel came off with no issue, the wear appeared even across the tyre – a uniform 2.5mm. This is bad and good. Bad as the front tyres will need replaced soon, but good because I can get rid of the ditchfinders, and good because the even wear shows that the front arms and bushes are in decent condition.
Can you spot what I did in the next image?
Bastard
See the fluid dripping down the wheel? Cockbadgers.
Immediately, I had visions of lovely 10W40 rattling out faster than I can pour it in..
Underneath the car told a slightly better story:
Where is that coming from?
The electric fans were covered, as were the wiring and coolant pipes. I headed up top to see.
This looks a bit manky
It appeared that the source was the power steering fluid reservoir. Relieved, I set to resolving this inconvenience.
A level check revealed that the fluid was about 150ml over the Max level.
Too much of a good thing
Lacking any sort of syringe or pipette, I had to improvise to remove the fluid – enter the kitchen roll.
Wick-ed!
Several pieces later and we were golden – bang on the max.
Boom! It spurteth no more..
Now back to the brakes.
The outside of the disc looked ok, and the outer pad had plenty meat on it, but a strip down revealed the inner was not doing quite so well..
Ehhh..
Time for new discs and pads then!
The drivers front looked exactly the same.
None to clever neither
Suffice to say, new discs and pads are winging their way to me via the wonders of the internets.
I took the opportunity to see inf the coolant was going to need the classic “dishwasher tablet” trick – I’ve never seen coolant so clear, so I was able to breathe a sigh of relief!
Lovely biscuits!
Heartened, I pressed on with checking the rear – a simple brake and exhaust eyeball revealed that both rear discs were not looking the best, but the pads were serviceable. they’ll last a while yet.
The exhaust and especially the funky square sectioned backbox seems in tip top order, so that is a positive.
Exemplary
Look at the lack of rust!
All in all, it looks like I’ve done ok with this purchase. Next up will be sorting the brakes!
fu'guttycars 