I'm calling this one the miracle franken-watch. Why a miracle, because it's the first movement I have fully rebuilt, combination of two broken movements. Which it turns out, now both work after a few weeks or meticulous disassembly and re-assembly. Housed in a nice titanium case. I'm chuffed

We've been eyeing up camper vans for years now, looked at many discounted many more, Finally bit the bullet this weekend, by god these things are expensive! Mileage is a little higher than i would like, but with full VW service history it should be alright. You forget these things aren't like cars, designed to munch miles.

i drove the first GTE, took it out for a test drive, blasted it along the road, and drained the battery pretty much instantaneously, thankfully the ranges are much improved these days. I drove a new one and was very impressed with the range. We have a BMW X1 Phev, and its blown my mind, i couldn't ever go full electric, but hybrid it ticks all the boxes. 90% of the time, we drive on electric. In fact in 3 months we've used a tank of petrol, in 2000 miles. Apart from it not liking my Tesla ( stolen of a friend ) charger, the hybrid gubbins have been flawless. There are some nuances with it that are interesting...  1) The fuel system is pressurised, which means to fill it up, you need to press a button to depressurize it, before it will open the petrol flap. I can only presume it needs to be pressurized to kick in instantaneously, but do you think the depressurization worked when i went to fill it up, did it heck, a quick software update fixed that. 2) This one is brilliant, the cruise control doesn't like surface rust on the disks, i have no idea why, but every time you wash it, and don't take it for a spin round the block to clear the brakes, cruise control is disabled. The annoying thing, because its hybrid and regens, getting it to actually drag the brakes is quite hard. Spoke to BMW and they were like, yeahh, emmm we know, no fix yet...

Funny enough I had one of the first GTE’s stopped working after a couple of weeks. Dealer took it back as it came up with hybrid fault. Took them 2 months to decide it was just a bad 12v battery. Only good thing was they lent me another car during the time and paid for the fuel! 

Harry is going to add triangular fillets to each of the rear arm brackets .

Be so good to get the rear end finished . 

Yep. A mate had a brand new Hyundai Ioniq (or ironic). Stopped working and AA man diagnosed 12V battery flat. Went back to dealer. They said they couldn't diagnose the fault because the 12V battery was flat and needed 'a special part' from Hyundai to charge it. Six, yes six months, later fault still undiagnosed and car still VOR. Lease company gave him the Kia he had eventually managed to extract from them as a replacement vehicle. So far so good. Mind you another mate has a two year old Discovery 5 that went into permanent limp mode. Took it to his usual 'man' from whom he had purchased said vehicle. LR diagnostics weren't showing anything wrong with the car so the 'man' brought in LR for advice. They scratched their heads and said car needed an entire new wiring loom (FFS) and if my mate wanted to proceed they could get that done in about 6 months time. And after he got a new mortgage! His man (who is old-ish school and really quite excellent) took an educated guess and replaced the MAF sensor and lo and behold the car worked again. I'm glad I have a car designed and sold by people who actually knew how it worked.

Things you would not guess . 

yep very stupid! Even stranger is that you have to have the 12V battery working. If its flat you cant do anything with the car even if the EV battery is full!

Just spent a great weekend, watching Grandson No.1 play hockey!   Last year, I reported their team's success in the Under-11 North Western Championship, and now he's in the Under-13s team.     This time, in a round-robin tournament for Cheshire clubs, they made it to the semi-finals, and hoped at least to be in the Final, as both Final teams go through the North Western contest and if they do well there to the Nationals. But through some odd and ill-judged seeding, their semi-final was against the other Cheshire contender for the  Nationals, that they beat last year, so this was the Final that should have been!  And as in all good tragedies, they lost by the only goal scored!   Much disappointment, which we all took like the jealous grandparents that we are.    Just wait, Chester, we'll get you next year! John