Male - Where we will be flying into, then out of by sea plane!
Our Destination
Right now the bad: Stupid holiday company sent out the tickets and they are completely wrong, not the end of the world but its a bit tight to get a decent set before we go.
Now the ugly: The beetle was in for MOT today. Naively I thought it would sail through (maybe have a minor issue with the exhaust) but oohhh no, it decided to fail in spectacular style with a total of 12 reasons for fail, the worst being that some b*stard previous owner has botched the passenger side heater channel together and the tester found it! Thats a body off job for the car and muchos £££. There also seems to be some issues with the rear brakes and headlight aligment but in comparison these are minor. The sheet I have says it failed on braking efficiency (probably due to the drivers side rear drum doing nothing at all), however the idiot tester used a kerb weight for a modern vehicle, doing it with the correct weight (1060kg not 1600kg) it passes (marginally), but with some new rear drums it should sail through (or is it the the time to upgrade to discs at the back as well? I really dont know. Anyway I just have to keep reminding myself of the reasons that I bought it and the fact that performance motoring is impossible at my age without resorting to vehcles that are nearly old enough to collect a bus pass!
2 comments:
Now I know nothing about beetles right, but the change from a drum to a disc brake is significant and expensive. Not only do you need to replace the master cylinder, there is no mounting on the strut for the caliper and you'll need to change the hub as well! given your heater fun I would leave this one until you are rich!
Its not too much hassle from what i've read (read reasonably cheap) to add a porsche 924 setup but given research has told me its about £350 quid a side for the heater channels to be done properly plus any additional rot they find down there (quarter panels etc) that if the body is off its really worth doing plus paint. A proper job was estimated in the region of 1500-2500 just for the rot and stuff with paint. However that is just out of my league, i'll ponder what to do after my holidays but I think it'll have to be an un-sympathetic resto in the form of major platage! The drum repair was quoted at a ridiculously low price by the nice bloke down the road, . Out of interest it turns out the guy who last did my repairs and MOT (which seemed a little dodgey) has gone bust for fiddling customers out of money....
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