I spent a fair chunk of today plugging up and down motorways. Well down and up strictly speaking but that never scans as well.
Anyway, the sun was shining and for the first time in what seems like years but was in fact just the dreary duration of another British winter it was possible to delight in the forms and shapes of the other vehicles I was sharing road space with.
I'm slightly embarrassed ( not here of course as I suspect this is one of the few places there remains at least a core group of fellow car nerds ) but I am otherwise a bit careful to conceal my childish glee in just looking at cars and taking pleasure in their designs.
Weekends do generate a different sort of traffic of course, some of which is not welcome but then again, the pride and joy vehicles get an airing too so you tend to see more exotica and or older but fettled stuff.
Then quite tangentially, my thoughts drifted off in another direction. Quite a lot of the cars on the road today were fairly seriously dirty ( my own included ) despite the spring like feel to the day. Presumably because the weather has only very recently improved and many of them were still wearing the grime and salt of last week.
So, I started to amuse my few remaining functioning brain cells by trying to decide which of them were actually aesthetically improved by being dirty. The obvious ones were the "real" off roaders, proper Land Rovers and the like which always look better for a bit of evidence that they have actually at least once been in a field. Those super clean ( usually Lara Croft homage ) ones never look convincing.
Black cars, alternatively, never seem their best unless sparkling ( mine almost never is but hey )
Dark grey or Silver ones can take the dirt a bit better even when it's caked on but white ones look dreadful when grubby.
The one which surprised me the most though on the M4 tonight heading out of London at a more than fair lick was a sort of dark silver Panamera which was absolutely manky ( Scots for jolly dirty old chap ) it somehow transformed it's appearance from vaguely ill proportioned to a magnificent shabby chic.
It made me really want one, not I'll ever actually do that. But you know how it is when you're mind drifts through things on a long journey.
Anyway, if you're still awake after all the above rambling, I suppose what I'm getting at is that sometimes, some cars look better when they need a wash than when they've just had one.
Or so I'm still desperately trying to convince myself.
As you were chaps...as you were...
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I noticed my rear number plate was virtually illegible under a coating of dried mud.
Wiped it off yesterday.
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I knew a guy who used to wee on his numberplate when it got too dirty. Sort of frugal Scots pressure washer I suppose.
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"Wiped it off yesterday"
The wife did mine this morning.
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I generally pour the dregs from my flask onto a bit of kitchen roll and wipe mine off with that if I notice it needs it and I'm away from home.
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The dregs from my flask of Caol Isla are too precious to wipe anything. Apart from my lips.
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>> pour the dregs from my flask onto a bit of kitchen roll and wipe mine off with that if I notice it needs
I thought you peed on it?
I just wiped it off dry. Made the cloth even filthier but so what? It's almost hidden under parking tickets and supermarket bumflets anyway.
Cars are expensive, filthy and dangerous. I keep telling you but you don't listen.
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Funnily enough I have cleaned the Lancer twice this year. Well I cleaned it once for the MOT (thats a physiological thing) and ran it through the car wash this morning after my spot of green laneing the other day (how do you get gobs of mud on the roof?
Its has a fantastic metallic blue colour that positively sparkles in a tropical sea kind of way when clean, which it instantly loses at the first sign of dirt, whereupon its just a dull nondescript dark blue - which to be fair is a coat it wears for much of the year.
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I rarely bother cleaning mine in winter, occasionally clean the lagged up lights and plates. I think that a clean plate on a manky car cuts a dash...as if the driver almost cares. The bike is cleaned off after every run in winter and I rarely bother in the summer..
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>>I rarely bother cleaning mine in winter,
Howls about the alloy wheels though? - if I leave mine for just a few weeks it's the devils own job to clean them. In fact it takes me as long to clean my alloy wheels as it does the rest of the car.
They be 8 years old so, I dare say that has something to do with it and, why oh why are the front wheels 10 times dirtier than the rears - when the jamjar is discs all round??
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>> Its has a fantastic metallic blue colour
There's no accounting for taste, is there :+)
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Somewhat embarrassingly last week I got mine stuck in some gloopy, wet, very clayey mud not a million miles from home. Well, to be exact, in our garden!! Took one of BAs finest inflight blankets to free it - liberated from FIRST of course; well, it is a Merc ;-)
But as a result it's somewhat plastered in mud now...along the sides of course, but the wheels are absolutely caked from where it sank in, as are the wheel arches. There a few splatters on the roof and bonnet too. It's 60 days until it needs servicing so I'm going to have to do something about it before then...
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Take comfort, Runfer - a gleaming Mercedes is a status symbol; a dirty one is one that's being used to do the job it was designed for.
I like to think my car is well-travelled rather than just dirty - there's a difference, especially noticeable with white cars. White is surprisingly good at hiding a layer of grime, but I wouldn't have a white car down here in Dorset where our village is surrounded by farms....which mean tractors....which mean MUD.
(Incidentally and off-topic, I think there must be a lot of us who would pay a few more pence for a carton of milk if it meant that dairy famers got a fair price for their produce.)
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>>
>> (Incidentally and off-topic, I think there must be a lot of us who would pay
>> a few more pence for a carton of milk if it meant that dairy famers
>> got a fair price for their produce.)
>>
>>
I thought you were going to tell us that real natural "wholemilk" isn't white but a kind of diluted mud colour, and they bleach it at the factory because no one would buy it otherwise.
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Spring-like weather arrived here the other day. As we are about to depart for our (belated) annual trip to the lickerish lights of the Cote d'Azur I thought I'd give the Honda its spring coat of polish. It wasn't dirty, you understand, just looking a bit dull after being forced to go out sometimes in inclement winter weather. I also topped up the polish on the boot lid and back wings of the Beast, which had got a bit dull under its cover.
Anyway, after the job was done we drove the 15km to town and, after parking at the supermarket I noticed - horrors! - the whole car was covered in a coat of clinging fine dust! After niggling to myself about this for a while it occurred to me that post-polishing static electricity might be the problem. So I relaxed and when I got home I wiped the car over with a damp cloth, which seemed to resolve the issue.
Years ago I had a device called a 'Zerostat' pistol that one 'fired' at gramophone records before playing them to reduce crackles and hiss caused by static. Is that sort of technology still available? Or maybe I should just get a life?
Incidentally, no amount of cleaning or polishing could ever make that car attractive to look at. I sometimes wonder whether a coat of mud might be the medium-term answer. But I have my reputation among the neighbours to think about...
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Mike I remember the adverts for that Zero stat thing...!
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I've not washed any vehicle this year and I don't care. I was relaxing in the garage on my redundant, spare computer chair and thinking I really must get the insects off the front of the bike with some baby wipes.
I couldn't be assed..it was too nice a day. I did take the sump off the Jowett......had a niggling oil leak..about one drip a day. Pinpointed it to the back of the gasket and the fact that the car's on axle stands..a bit higher at the front. Spare gasket found today. Will get another tube of Hylomar in the morning.
Still doing the Voyager's brakes. got the nearside rear dismantled in the sun. The car is black and it's filthy. After leaning my forehead on the wheelarch a few times I went in for a coffee.
SWM said, with the black forehead and the fact of wiping my itchy nose on the back of my work gloves, that I looked a dead ringer for Hitler !
Why does your nose always itch mercilessly when you've either got filthy hands or just on the cusp of completing some intricate task ?
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>> www.amazon.co.uk/Milty-Zerostat-3-Anti-Static-Gun/dp/B0033SHDSS
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>> And still available...!
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Could we get rid of Zero with one of those?
Blimey, all my birthdays come at once!!
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>> Blimey, all my birthdays come at once!!
sorry mate, still here. You should know by now that birthday surprises were always crap.
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>>> why oh why are the front wheels 10 times dirtier than the rears - when the jamjar is discs all round??
Of course you know the answer to that Dog... relative pad area and wear rates.
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>>Of course you know the answer to that Dog... relative pad area and wear rates.
No, I honestly don't know Fl, I can be a reet thicko sometimes :o)
Are you saying the front pads have a larger surface area than the rears. And surely the hydraulic pressure applied to all 8 pads should relatively equal.
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Well in laymans terms I'd be thinking the fronts have a larger surface area and still wear down at a much faster rate so you have many more times the amount of pad and disc wear particles to be deposited on the front wheels.
Having forked out £250+ to replace my tired 12yr old BMW alloys with mint OE ones even if I can't get to wash the whole car I'll give the alloys a quick interim clean most weeks.
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I've toyed with the idea of having my alloy wheels sprayed/enamelled (properly) black, then I wouldn't have to bother about them so much - not just for that reason though. The car is met Garnet red so ... black wheels with chrome nuts - get the door mirrors done in black too, and the silver front grill - like I did to my 1600 super Dagenham dustbin years ago, to make it look like a 1600 E.
:+)
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Disc brakes on the back of the average car are more about showroom appeal than braking necessity. Drums would be perfectly adequate on the back and better for a handbrake.
Last edited by: Old Navy on Wed 11 Mar 15 at 11:44
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I still don't really get it though, it will have to be hammered in before I do tbh. I can understand that the weight of a car lurches (for want of a better word) forward when you brake. But surely an 'alf-decent car (like a Subaru ;)) would apply the breaking pressure evenly to all four corners.
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>>would apply the breaking pressure evenly to all four corners.
Specifically not. Aside from any impact from ABS there are pressure regulators fitted to ensure that by far the lions share of pressure goes to the front.
If you think about it, that's where all the weight is leaning and coming off the rear, so the front can take more braking without skidding.
Think pushbike braking.
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>>Aside from any impact from ABS there are pressure regulators fitted to ensure that by far the lions share of pressure goes to the front.
If you think about it, that's where all the weight is leaning and coming off the rear, so the front can take more braking without skidding.
Think pushbike braking.
Yep, I'm getting there, slowly ... when I used to ride my pushbike, I would attempt to apply equal pressure to the front and rear brakes - same on my motorbike, or I possibly wouldn't be here now.
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>>same on my motorbike, or I possibly wouldn't be here now.
Surprising. My motorcycle and bicycle technique was/is loads of front brake and enough back brake to keep the whole thing straight.
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>>Surprising. My motorcycle and bicycle technique was/is loads of front brake and enough back brake to keep the whole thing straight.
I most likely did the same I should imagine - it's an automatic response, maybe.
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>>>>>would apply the breaking pressure evenly to all four corners
And even allowing for any system that reduces braking effort to the rear if the *pressure* was the same to front and rear the braking effort will not be the same if the friction areas are different...
force = pressure x area
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>> >>would apply the breaking pressure evenly to all four corners.
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>> Specifically not. Aside from any impact from ABS there are pressure regulators fitted to ensure
>> that by far the lions share of pressure goes to the front.
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These days it is EBD (electronic brakeforce distribution) or whatever your manufacturer of choice calls it. Without it the rear brakes would lock every time you braked.
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You'll all have to leave it there I'm afraid (I told you I can be a bit dense sometimes) I still can't understand why my front wheels get black with dust (and difficult to clean) whereas my rear wheels stay relatively clean - even after quite some time.
Thanks for all your efforts :o)
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>>>You'll all have to leave it there I'm afraid.... I still can't understand why my front wheels get black with dust.... whereas my rear wheels stay relatively clean
I reckon you'll have to go and see the teacher at lunchtimes until you catch up with the rest of the class :-)
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>>I reckon you'll have to go and see the teacher at lunchtimes until you catch up with the rest of the class :-)
I got sausages out of the *fridge this morning instead of the chicken, and I'm only 62!!
*Freezer!
Last edited by: Dog on Wed 11 Mar 15 at 13:19
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>> I still don't really get it though, it will have to be hammered in before
>> I do tbh. I can understand that the weight of a car lurches (for want
>> of a better word) forward when you brake. But surely an 'alf-decent car (like a
>> Subaru ;)) would apply the breaking pressure evenly to all four corners.
No - physics doesn't work like that. You apply equal pressure all the way round the rears will lock up. Just accept most of the breaking happens up front. Thats the law.
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>>You apply equal pressure all the way round the rears will lock up. Just accept most of the breaking happens up front. Thats the law.
It's slowly beginning to sink in now, I was never much good at physical things really :}
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Let's say that the pads are the same size. More braking is done at the front, the front pads therefore wear more quickly, therefore more brake dust all over your front alloy.
Now let us make the front pad twice the size. Even more dust all over your front alloy.
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>>Let's say that the pads are the same size. More braking is done at the front, the front pads therefore wear more quickly, therefore more brake dust all over your front alloy.
>>Now let us make the front pad twice the size. Even more dust all over your front alloy.
As I say, it is really and truly starting to enter my LH cerebral hemisphere now, although I wasn't aware that the front pads were larger than the rears.
I like what Noughty said too Re: "applying equal pressure all the way round making the rears lock up".
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I wonder whether the fact that a lot (most?, all?) cars come with stability/traction control, which as I understand it can brake individual wheels to control the car, has in part lead to the widespread use of discs at the rear of cars? I know that the 5 series tourings I had would go through rear brake pads quicker than fronts, a function of smaller discs/pads at the back , RWD and the intervention of the traction control. Well, it was a 535d...
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I try not to brake much, I see it as a failure to time things right. Which is of course nonsense but one has to have something to help pass the hours at the wheel.
Not running over cats eyes is another naturally but I expect everyone does that.
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>>>get the door mirrors done in black too, and the silver front grill - like I did to my 1600 super Dagenham dustbin years ago, to make it look like a 1600 E.
I was a bit of an annoying kid car wise and I remember without asking painting the chrome grille of F snr's Triumph 2000 mk.2 in matt black to look like the 2.5PI. Just got away with it and I like to think I had a hand in prompting him to buy a 2.5PI not long after.
Also remember finding the wheels on a Marina we had fitted Mrs F snr's Minor which looked so much better on 165 radials than the skinny 5.20 crossply tyres so I swapped them for a test run... that caused more trouble than the grille painting episode.
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>>I remember without asking painting the chrome grille of F snr's Triumph 2000 mk.2 in matt black to look like the 2.5PI
It used to chip off though eventually, being it was lacquer on chrome (in my case)
I used to do the rear panel around the number plate in matt black too :)
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>>>It used to chip off though eventually
Yes frequent touching up was needed particularly as it was a hard driven car.
Until I started thinking about that era just now I'd forgotten that my ultimate mum's Minor upgrade was the wheels from the Marina and the "sporty" wheel trims from the PI.
I'd go crazy now if my girls did stuff like that to our cars.
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Shabby chic or not? - Armel Coussine
