[canis]

Uh oh. I've been and gone and done a Clarkey, ain't I.

Gave up on Old Solid Reliable and fell in love with a T4. Now, I didn't know it was a Turbo, I just needed something which didn't have an engine management light on. And this doesn't.

It drives well, although there's a lot of knocks and bangs, all manner of wierd noises coming from under the car. So it's gonna need some lovin'. The interior is a bloody mess, lots of broken stuff where previous owners have tried to get into the dashboard to make their modifications.

Modifcations? Oh yes. A proper scotch-lock fiend, this one. What I thought was a rag for wiping down the oil stick was actually a protective skin for a relay. A home-made DIY conversion to twin headlamps, done only in the finest mains flex. Lots of blue, brown and green+yellow flex hither and thither, leading from a fuse-box branch. Whatever, it doesn't even work properly.

When pulled the relay out from hiding, I noticed one of it's wires wasn't connected. Reconnecting it put the side lights on, "ahhhh, so that's what that is then" while the engine ticked-over getting hotter for me to see the fan work. Fan never came on, but you know how good these radiators are, for throwing off heat. I gave up waiting, in the end, and killed the engine. Talking of radiators, "What's this ... Hmm, this doesn't look right. Wait a minute? Is this is a turbo?" Today I discovered the intercooler.

Switched off and locked up - bloody sidelights still on. In any switch position. Oh dear. So this is going to need sorting out. For one thing I'll be wanting to turn off main headlamps for DRLs anyway as I don't think it's a good. Whatever, I'm sure I can do better than this cheesey hack!

None of the fog lights work.

Can't seem to get the alarm to trigger, either. While fiddling with the key, somethig happened inside the driver's door so it won't lock even when the alarm does. Fiddling with the key some more I got it back to locking/unlocking again but clearly there's something wrong in there. With the alarm armed, unlocking and opening the passenger door does nothing except switch on the courtesy light. No siren though. The fob button for opening the boot doesn't do anything too, so no idea about how that works. And interesting alternative to the previous V40 though, if you arm the alarm with a door still open (including the bonnet) is waits for the door to close, then arms itself. Pretty neat, I like that, although it'll frusrate me when i need to "half lock" the car leaving the bonnet open for whatever reason.

It has climate control, which is a bit wierd. To be fair, the air-con doesn't sap much power, but it still necessarilly must manifest as higher fuel consumption, and i'd rather not spend petrol on air-con. Just a traditional heater suits me far better, but ... it's what it's got so it might as well keep it for now.

So lots to be done. Loving the automatic though! I always wanted an automatic, and the relaxed driving style really suits me. Constantly shifting gears, perfecting it, balancing clutch and power, in the right gear all the time, revs matching the power band, double declutching down, getting angry with myself for notbeing spot-on with it - I can do all that stuff but it's a pain in the neck. Changing down to accellerate away from the speed hump I've just had to climb over, then changing up to freewheel into the next one, I'm changing gear every fifty years, it's too much to ask for! I don't need to do that anymore, and it's bliss. Seriously, if you're tired of being stressed at the wheel - buy an automatic. Enjoy driving again. Plus I get to keep two hands on the wheel, although in practice I dangle the right arm out the window just because I can! :-)