TYRED AND FULLY SERVICED
We’re running a big, cheap Cayenne so that you don’t have to. Or at least ‘Bangernomics’ guru, James Ruppert, is. So how’s it panning out? Well, not too scary so far
The last time you met the flying pig, there was something of a pong going on. I wouldn’t say we were becoming obsessed, but certainly a bit desperate. There was that grass box incident where we stupidly listened to a suggestion that freshly mown lawn would help. Well it didn’t – think Glastonbury on a damp and muddy Sunday morning in front of the main stage.
A far better and more expensive suggestion from a member of the enthusiast public was a can of Valeo Climspray. There is not much of this stuff around and including postage ended up costing just under £20. This was not simply a posh spray, it amounted to a deep climate control clean. It would also waste some petrol.
So, engine on, you set the air con to recirculate and apply maximum fan. With the can balanced in the upright position in the front of the cabin, it was simply a case of press the button and retire for 15 minutes. After that you have to don a Hazmat suit and open all the doors, then leave them open for at least another fifteen. I might have exaggerated about the Hazmat element, but it seemed like enough of a chemical warfare procedure to work. Pong gone. We think. The Mrs. does have one of those fresh fragrance bottle things, which sits in a cubbyhole and acts as a back up. It is winter at the moment, which deadens any aroma.
As the mileage neared in on 100K there wasn’t just the prospect of just an MOT, the dashboard kept saying that it wanted a service quite soon. I decided that getting a specialist with all the proper diagnostic equipment to tell me the very worst and do a proper service, rather than the cursory glance under the bonnet that passed for the pre sale ‘service’. I went to the display advertising section of my very favourite Porsche magazine. That was good enough for me and I wound up talking to STR in Norwich who do all the posh tractors round here. I challenged them to do the MOT and anything else that cropped up.
After dropping off at 8am they were jolly efficient at accessing everything and calling me with a to do list. What I expected was a full service, which meant all the fluids and filters. Over and above that, it was unclear the last time that the brakes were overhauled so that fluid was changed, too. The rear discs and pads were on the thin side so I pushed the button on that fairly big job. The tyre wear was all over the place so it was best to have a full four wheel alignment. Getting the full MOT ticket was not a problem but there were advisories. Firstly, most of the tyres had barely 3mm of tread, all oddly worn. There was also the whiff of coolant, but there was no leak and only a strip down of all the covers could help. I can report that there haven’t been any losses months afterwards, but we will keep an eye on it. Most of all, though,
hooking it up to the diagnostics uncovered precisely zero fault codes, which is what I really wanted to read. Less pleasant to read was the bill. Including VAT the damage was a whopping £1340.18. We did get the pig back the same day and overall I think that is par for the course for a high performance SUV that’s had a serious once over.
So the tyres had only a few thousand miles of tread left. The front nearside was particularly bad, but I am just a bit tyre obsessive. I prefer the correct donuts for the job and it is easy to buy something cheap and cheerful. The good people at Falken Tyres learned of my distress and, full disclosure, sent me a replacement set. Best Christmas present I’ve ever had. Anyway, Falken Tyres have developed the FK510 SUV, a tyre specifically for SUVS. Obviously, it’s important to use a tyre with the correct load and speed rating and not use an everyday car tyre.
With 100K on the clock and a boot full of Falken tyres, getting them fitted proved something of a challenge. My local garage would normally have had the job but they were short staffed, so I shopped around. The usual fast fit suspects were pretty sniffy about it and said it was more than their jobs were worth if they hadn’t supplied the tyres. However, Tyre Pros, a sub division of STS could not have been more welcoming. The Cayenne would not fit on a ramp, but they did it in just over an hour at a reasonable £14.99 a corner.
I gave my daughter a lift and she loved the new tyres, but complained bitterly about the windscreen wipers. On reflection they did squeal like a pig being being run over by a cement mixer. She did the decent thing and ordered a fresh set and insisted on Bosch items rather than a cheapy brand. £28, with a trade card discount. The old ones looked fine, but must have been old and stiff. I must say, compared to some wipers these were a doddle to fit. Unclip, clip on. Done.
One thing has broken though. The pig was powering into 2019 when inevitably we had to stop for more fuel. On the way back from the kiosk I could see that something was missing, the offside fog light glass. The bulb was still intact and it worked. Half the glass had gone, presumably on the M25. To avoid the bulb getting busted I used some clear plastic packaging as protection and taped it in place. Initial replacements seem to be fairly pricey at around £100. Time spent on the interweb is seldom wasted and I found a seller with a secondhand offside fog lamp lens at £29.99 including postage.
It was a slight pain to fit as there was a lot of bodywork to take off for access. My daughter helped as she can get hands where I can’t. We wanted to avoid a total deconstruction and it was possible to pull out the plastic bumper lip and dive in after releasing screws underneath the wheel arch. It was still a challenge and I made a tool with a bit of wooden pole, clever old me. It was dark when I bodged it back together, a good time to test it.
Overall The Flying Pig has been delivering sterling service. It has recently completed a ton of important family stuff, lugging stuff to airports and quite a few 200 mile plus days. Not great for the mpg, but it is such a lovable lump of hard charging goodness. When stone cold the starter gives a little screech for some reason that no one has yet explained. Anyway, certainly worth mentioning how good it is at the sixfigure milestone. Really seems as though it is a fraction of the way through its useful life. Just about now it will have been with us a whole year, sort of proving that both time and the miles fly by in the Pig. PW