Dogconker

So I have taken the plunge and am going to try out Hydrosilex Ceramic paint coating. Ordered a bottle today, the theory, no more polishing and waxing, one application to all surfaces creates a hydrophobic surface thst nothing sticks to? Your car still gets dirty but it just rinses off. Can even use on glass, plastic, wheels and matt surfaces such as vinyl. They say it lasts for 6-8 months before needing a top up. so anyway, got a bottle on order, £30, says it’s enough to do 3 cars so I’ll try it out and feed back, take some pictures etc.

All subaru clutches can judder, some do it a lot, others very little. But its accepted as a characteristic of the vehicle. Subaru will only replace the clutch if it is severe, I had this with mine after about 5000 miles, the main dealer advised living with it for awhile to see if it gets better or worse, it got a lot better. The dealer told of a guy who complained so mucb about some slight clutch Judder after 2 years that subaru eventually changed it hnder warranty, a year later and now out of warranty he briught the car back with quite pronounced clutch judder. My clutch is at 69,000 miles and I have been towing a train weight if 3400kg, I expect my clutch will have its life curtailed as a result. Have spoken to the dealer and been advised that a new clutch and dual mass flywheel cones out at £1800 for a diesel, best save my pocket money.

I may just run another pass over it once it’s had a week to fully harden

XV is 535kg total payload, but I’m 6’3” so no lightweight, then there is the wife, the dog, the dog crate, and you have to subtract the 75kg nose weight and weight of towbal yes, and you haven't even loaded the awning, clotges etc yet. I weighed the XV and cravan at a public weigh bridge so we know exactly what everything weighs because we have quite a big rig, our caravan makes the XV look like a tonks toy, but it’s all carefully worked out and we are well within limits despite appearances.

So tackled the “big one” today, had a sizeable and deep stone chip, really obvious and it was really annoying me. anyway The two pics beliw show the results, I think I need just a tiuch more paint another day but really pleased with the results, wasn’t expecting it to cover as well as it did. would definitely recommend the pack, it’s nit a perfect finish, but as my dad used to say “a blind man would give his right arm to be able to see it” (such an odd saying?) in both pictures the mark is by the right finger

Apparantly it is true that you get 50kg more carrying capacity in a diesel XV than you do in the new 2.5l petrol Outback (subaru not making diesels any more). pinkstones in Stoke confirmed GVW of 2100kg, i think the 2017 was almost exactly the same. bizarre that the smallest car in the range has the greatest carrying capacity, so I’m sticking with my XV for now. It tows well so no reason to change.

I think taking time is key on this, quite pleased with the results though, I would recommend this kit to be fair. Will try to finish the job tomorrow evening see how it looks.

Ok so had a stab at it this morning, done the first fill of the holes, photos actually loo much worse than the chips do in real life, but I will still build up another layer, but got to fetch the caravan home now to give it a wash, some before and after photos below, the second one of each set was actually a big stone chip about 2-3 mm long but it looks far less noticeable noe its partially filled. Might take a couple of days allowing the paint to harden between each layer. on the first photo though you can see the two smaller chips have all but gone

Not sure we are talking about the same system, this system uses a blending solution to smooth down the soft paint to the same level as the surrounding paint, there’s no need to sand at all

Having used it, any advice for a first timer?

Just waiting for some decent weather

I was just going to do it because the forecast said it was going to nice for tge next couple if hours, had to repair the vinyl on my grille where a stone hit it which I got done in about 20mins, then it rained, so much for weather forecasts. It looks like it works on youtube vids etc, I know it’ll never be perfect but if I can get the holes filled in with white and smooth then I’ll be happy

No they didn’t replace any injectors even though it was reading that two were running high and one was way off, Subaru UK said it was extremely rare for injector failure. They say they only replaced one diesel injector the whole of last year, (which sounds unlikely) so to have 3 fail on one car has raised a lot of red flags in Subaru Technical. They hve only done a software reset on the fuel pump and injectors, which don’t get me wrong has greatly improved it but its not right still. I reverse my caravan onto the pitches generally because I cn do it in one go no I’m getting cocky, plus we use flat pitches which helps.we have motor mover for the fiddly ones or slopey ones. I’m still taking the van out don’t worry, I have Greenflag Mayday cover so I’ll just push on. We’re not getting as far as you this time, only Keswick this time.

So I bought a chipex repair kit for stone chips, figured I’d try it out. I will report back when I have tried it, hopefully tomorrow afternoon weather permitting

Spoke to the dealership, they think it’s low on gas, it can’t be because it runs fine if you set temp to 15.5deg but if you set it to low it periodically trips out, you can here the vents change. Usually when I put it in reverse, which is just odd. its definitely an injector issue though as it’s much better than it was before they did the relearns on the fuel pump and injectors, but it knocked like mad as I pulled into Gloucester Services with caravan in tow, after tgat it was fine again.

Looks like a severely shortened career as a parking valet to me

Well after towing a caravan to Somerset for the weekend and after having had my car “fixed” by doing an injector re-learn the car is still knocking from time to time and as if not bad enough within 20mins of picking the car up the aircon packed up and would only blow air at ambient temp, odd thing is if you turn off the engine wait 10 seconds and start it again the aircon works fine for a bit then it shuts off again so clearly a software issue or something. Funny it should start doing this just after the dealer has done a load of software re-installs. looks like she’s going back again

I always rev maych mine when down shifting, take it out of gear when stationary, take foot off clutch and try not to rest hahd in gear stick. If it’s like the Hondas then the cruise control uses the clutch also so just in case I avoid using cruise control, especially when towing its like I don’t use hill start assist when towing either. Mine has done 68k and I tow a 1.5t caravan, total train weight of 3.4t and the clutch has faired up well so far, dealer reckons clutch is fine, hoping it stays that way at £1800 to replace including dual mass flywheel.

Yeah, they pretty much never fail, I had an injector relearn in October but that didn’t fix it, they think its the fuel pump as apparently that has AI too?

So subaru are saying that they’ve only replaced 1 injector in the last few years so it’s extremely unlikely that it is an injector failure, becausexof the video I took they agree however there is a knock so They have instructed the dealer to carry out a full install and relearn on both the injectors and the fuel pump, subaru susoect it could be the software that manages the fuel pump. I get the car back tomorrow so hopefully I’ll find out.

No, I’ve never heard of the steering light coming on.

Took me about an hour or so to do mine, most of the time was waiting for the previous coat to dry. There’s hardly any masking to be done other than the masking the grille to stop it hitting the radiator.

Plastidip!! perfect finish, it isn’t permanent, it just peals off if you don’t like it, you can even do it with the parts on the car. https://youtu.be/u8Gfd46AxLw

I’m loathed to get rid of my Diesel XV, 0-60 in 9 sec, handles really well and happily pulls a ton and a half of caravan up a hill. the only thing I have never liked is Subaru feel the need to stick chrome bits on it, but I soon sorted that out!

Well this subaru dealer is also an MG dealer so you get these crappy cars as courtesy cars. It feels like I’m sitting on it rather than in it! Hoping to today what Subaru intend to do with the car