May 11th

Tesco again.

A trip across Cheltenham to watch a friend do some dressage, more to get Mrs Pasty out of the house for the first time all week.

Including a greasy trip across a massive carpark between grassy areas.

Was like my own personal rally stage!

May 12th

Garaged for the day

May 13th

Commutes to and from work

no news

low mpg due to traffic :(

May 14th

Nothing but commutes

May 15th

Commutes very dull

May 16th

Will the tedium of driving too and from work never end

May 17th

Friday so the commutes were a little more bearable

only thing of note seems to be that the creaking from the suspension when steering seems to be back.

sounds a lot like it's coming from the front drivers side so i'm thinking a pothole has damaged something.

Top mount maybe?

Wishbone?

oh joy

May 18th

Drop Mrs Pasty at the gym and head off to tesco's to do the weekely shop (yes i will do literally anything to avoid exercise!)

Took "the long way" via a coupe of dealers to see if there was anythgn of note, there was not.

Trips in to town for some more shopping in the afternoon and to a restaurant in the evening.

Creaky suspension/steering still present and correct.

May 19th

Trip across Gloucester to watch more dressage (maybe i need different friends)

Now the sun has come out my lack of air con is becoming infuriating. I now realise why most of the errands are run in the black car in the summer :(

Almost washed the car following arrival of a new box of Sonax goodies following resubscription to evo magazine but then decided against it.

The bright sunshine woudl have meant bad watermarks and quick drying wax anyways

Then a trip to a pub for a meal in the evening.

Car continues to creak but is performing flawlessly and given it's just clicked past 129,000 miles I think that's pretty bloody good!

May 20th

Dull commutes with a fuel stop on the way home

Fuel - £49.10 - MPG - 49.7

Much more what I'd expect from such a frugal machine

May 21st

and so continues the worst keeping of a diary since records began!

Anne Frank i am most certainly not.

nothing doing

May 22nd

Escorted Mrs Pasty to the hospital for stitches removal, droppe dher home, headed off to work.

Did give it a wash in the evening as it was turning a lovely darker red on the boot - no pictures as well you've all seen that before.

I did plan to polish and wax it too ready for summer but Mrs Pasty returned home jsut as i was finishing off my alloys so washing her black car trumped polishing mine

May 23rd

commuters misery.

well i say misery

i think it was ok.

i don't remember sitting in traffic or anything crazy happening

May 24th

Dull Friday and then locked in the garage while we took Mrs Pasty's card back to the motherland for the bank holiday weekend

May 25th

May 26th

May 27th

May 28th

locked in the garage awaiting my return

May 29th

commute to work and home again via collection point of my latest project

not for this car though so keep an eye out elsewhere

Have noticed that the Recaro-ing of the rear seats does mean that they now don't fold quite as flat as the original seats.

Small price to pay i guess

May 30th

Couple of dull commutes nothing to note

May 31st

Dull commutes with to work and back but an evening of "prep" for tomorrows "How Fast" Event

Rear seats = out

parcel shelf = out

crap from the door pockets = out

track wheels put on

they were terribly soft but i put that down to having been untouched in the garage for 6 months

limped to Tescos and spent 50p to inflate them the fronts being a scary 8psi and 12psi - yummy.

All ready to go

Actually quite fond of it back on silver wheels

June 1st

The day of Briskoda How Fast #3

Extra - Bedford How Fast Event - £90

an early 7:30 start for a 2 hour trek across country to Bedford Autodrome.

Car felt great the wheels/tyres were loads better than last night when they felt horrible and crashy but car performed faultlessly all the way.

Joined up with the boys

had the briefing and headed out on track

Managed to get half a dozen laps in in pretty heavy traffic before returning to the pits to stow some things i'd managed to miss and were rolling around distractingly in the back

Headed back out on track and got a good clear flying lap in.

This car is awesome. i truly do loves it's torquey delivered and constant surge of power, even if the cloud of soot that follows you were really pushing on can be disconcerting. Even more so for those following me i guess!

Passed a slow Jabozuma as he headed out of the pits on the straight before the first chincane, arrive at the chicance going to fast, turn in, still going too fast, lift off, oversteer, add opposite lock, over correct, oversteer the other way, overcorrect back again, snap out of control into the infield.

This was after 3 trackdays and a half a dozen sessions at Combe my first full on spin. I did get massive lift off oversteer at Combe once in the wet but this was the first time i'd ever actually "lost it" - it's pretty scary actually!

drop it into first accelerate off the grass on to the track (just as Jabo goes past giving me a massive thumbs up!) go to recommence maximum attack but have no power and a seriously loud new whistle.

Limp back to the pits hoping it was a boost pipe, and pull up at the garages.

Realise i've coming p1ss poorly prepared and haven't even got a screw driver!

Lucky Will (ickleginge) has a set of screwdrivers and James I lends me his awesome trolley jack so we remove the undertray to find all the boost pipes connected but leaking oil all over the place, and it splattered all over most of the rest of the engine bay.

A quick shine of a torch up the back of the engine shows both inlet and outlet fixings from the turbo dripping oil.

GAME OVER.

No more hot laps and no driving the 140 miles home!

Phone call put in to Flux Breakdown and luckily the fact its gone pop on a trackday doesn't seem to be an issue and they'll be an hour.

Luckily that gave me enough time to watch the final minutes of the boys practicing and then enjoy the tension of the timed laps.

This is where I cannot thank this forum enough and my faith in humanity was restored.

James I the crazy gentleman that he is was kind enough to off me the use of his mk2 Fabia vRS to do the hot laps in.

I honestly cant thank him enough as it did take the edge of the fact i'd paid £90 to a trackday and killed my car after about 8 laps!

The pressure and fear of driving someone else's car coupled with a car i didn't know and battling with a DSG gearbox didn't make for quick lapping but i was incredibly grateful to be given the chance.

All that said even with just 4 (very tense) laps behind the wheel the mk2 fabia is much better put together than the mk1 and feels loads lighter and more stable when pushing on.

a distraction did come during the laps in the form of the breakdown guy ringing my phone in an attempt to tell me he was loaded and ready to leave where was it!

So luckily the breakdown guys were also picking up a Westfield which had also gone pop whilst on the track day at Bedford so lorry ride wasn't too bad.

Lots of "gee aren't cars an expensive hobby" conversations etc

The main issue came from the fact that being a Saturday the breakdown company did not have anyone free to ferry me and my car from Bedford to Gloucester - an approx 8 hours round trip/

This meant dropping my car off at their depot at Newport Pagnell Services on the M1 and giving me a courtesy car to get home in.

My car would then be passed across the country, relay baton stylee, to return to me early next week.

Unfortunately all this had to happen after dropping the Milton Keynes based Westfield driver off

back to Newport Pagnell and my car was unloaded and emptied of everything worth taking and left in the care of the recoverers.

A weird feeling walking off away from your car with someone else having the key knowing your not going to see it for days!

so for the time being i shall be rocking the mighty of mightiest of weapons.

In fact i was almost tempted to head straight back to bedford to set the record straight.

I present to you the mighty

HYUNDAI GETZ 1.1 GSI

Sexy or what!?

All i can say is i will never have a bad word to say about my Fabia ever again.

It was a massive shock pushing the throttle into the carpet down the motorway slip road and precisely nothing happening!

That said once it did get going it buzzed along nicely at 70-75 although getting from one to the other took about 15 minutes so overtaking had to be carefully planned and getting boxed in took literally miles to undo!

I did question to myself (well i had to do something given the radio didn't work!) who'd buy such an awful box but to be honest if you're not boethered about cars and just want a cheap box to get around town it does the trick.

Central locking, power steering, electric front windows, baning on the door of 25 horsepower( maybe) air con (although the warm waft i got from the vent wasn't conclusive proof of that) it's really not that bad.

The only real issue i had with the thing was the the indicator and wiper stalks are on the opposite side to the Fabia so i must have shown other road users i was going to make a turn by putting the wipers on full blast about a dozen times!

It did resolutely refuse to get up to 100mph on the drive home though.

The driver of the A4 convertible looked the most surprised i'd ever seen anyone look when i whizzed past him at 95 though (after a looooooong period of full throttle and a very steep down hill section)

As if to make things worse I also had to follow this the 50 miles from Oxford to Gloucester

I can't think of anything worse following the breaking of your own car than having to follow one almost exactly the same for nearly an hour!

If this is you, you nearly made a grown man cry simply by being there!

Anyway diagnosis from the assembled track side mechanics was that as the car still started the turbo wasn't seized - like the black one was when i broke that - so the impellor and propellor must still be ok however it is likely that the violent forced involved in my spectacular off probably caused oil surge and blew the oil seal in the turbo - which would explain why there was oil everywhere!

Bottom line is a new turbo - which luckily i have in the garage already for just this predicament.

We shall know more when car is returned to me in the next few days but at present my tame mechanic cousin is booked in for Saturday to do the swap.

I'm still upbeat as given KKKs seem to die anything from 50k to 100k, the fact mine has lead a hard remapped, trackday filled life and survived to 130k it was on borrowed time anyways.

The fact that my mother in law commented the last time she rode in the car - "oh where's the police car?" and Unit18 said "turbo's a bit whistley" last summer shows the poor health it was in and inevitability of the failure.

Just massively frustrating that it happened after having spent £90 to do a track event, but i guess there's no more spectacular way for a turbo to fail than whilst fishtailing into a massive spin whilst on track!

Apologies for the war and peace length post but it was a busy day!!

It will be a couple of quiet days of Getz travel coming up but more news as and when it happens

For those regular readers I hope that all this makes up for all those days where i drove to and from work incident free

June 2nd

All quiet on the Pasty front.

My mum and step-dad took us to Prescott hill climb for the day so the Getz has remained at the side of the road surrounded by worshippers.

Top the black car for a gentle run out to get some tea and was asked "not to be too hard on it given what i do to turbos"

Is "the turbo killer" a bad nickname to have?!

June 3rd

I thought of something profound to say about the Getz while commuting to work, again with no radio my brain was working over time.

I have however completely forgot what it was!

Dd get a lovely text from the recovery company though saying that they "were not able to return my car today we. Will be in touch tomorrow"

Always good to be in the loop I guess.

June 4th

Received a call to say my car will be returned this afternoon - hoorah!

Explained that they'd need to make sure the driver called about half an hour before his ETA so that I could be there to meet him as I still had to go to work "yes of course sir"

Guess what phone call I received at 2pm?

"Hi this is X of Y recovery services I'm returning your Skoda Fabia. Just wanted to check the address is 10 Z Road"

"Yes that's right"

"Ok can you answer the door then as I'm outside."

"Um no I'm at work as I told your office. However I'll leave now and see you in 20 minutes."

Idiots.

Getz handed back, my car unloaded and all is well in the world again, well I mean as well as it can be with a car that doesn't run.

So my tame mechanic came over straight after finishing at the dealer and set about stripping things down.

Bottom line - Another day another dead KKK turbo

Luckily completely intake based again so no need to worry about replacing the downside/cat/exhaust.

Looks like as with Mrs Pasty's car before Christmas the impeller has exploded, this time however it didn't seize the shaft so the expellor(?) would still turn hence why the car would still run but it had no boost cos well it didn't have any boost.

The boost pipes and intercooler are full of oil and shards of impeller but my tame mechanic will use his dealership workshop perks and get them flushed out and in their proper machinery

A few days now to go through the sourcing exercise with ECP and my local dealer before the mechanic returns on Saturday afternoon to put my banker turbo in.

Another relatively lucky escape from a turbo failure.

Was it oil surge? I doubt it.

Was it overworking an already old rickety turbo but mashing the throttle into the carpet to try to pull myself out of a massive tank slapper? Maybe

Big question though given both cars have now had new turbos do I need to bother sourcing another one "just in case"?

June 5th

Locked in the garage in pieces

June 6th

Still locked in the garage in pieces

June 7th

Borrowed a work car to head over to my dealer to pick up all the gaskets and nuts etc to allowed us to finished my turbo replacement.

Essential - Turbo swap gaskets & nuts - £38

Met my tame mechanic at 6pm and cracked straight on.

Gaskets changed, ancillaries removed from dead turbo to new one, intercooler screwed back in, turbo bolted back to the engine, boost pipes reattached, exhaust manifold but back on

"Um this doesn't fit"

"Course it does we've just swapped like for like"

"No really it doesn't fit the EGR to turbo pipe is miles off"

Take a couple of minutes off to swear LOTS as the penny drops that I bought a BLT engine turbo rather than an ASZ one meaning they have different cast intake manifold attached to them so they can't be fitted to the other engines!

F##KETY F##K!!!!!!

The one situation I didn't want to be in - having to rush around and find a turbo following a failure - has come true.

You have no idea how quickly the smugness of being prepared wears off when you realise you've prepared with the wrong f##king thing!

Ah well you live and learn.

Am now trying to weight up the options:

do I buy another correct second hand ASZ turbo (circa £300)

do I get one of my dead ones rebuilt (circa £500)

do I get an EGR delete kit and hope everything works (circa £90)

do I leave the EGR in place and just blank off the holes which should connect to either end of the pipe that no longer fits (circa £20)

Do I try to find the right Garrett PD150

I have a feeling it'll be the cheapo blank everything off option and see what happens option

Grrrr so annoyed with myself though