Katie - the business grey Helsinki Express

[brettikivi]

So I picked up a Business Grey Superb the other week. 

 

116k kms at time of purchase. 150PS 4x4 TDI Combi, registered in March 2018. So yes, 45k kms per year for the first two years. 

We're moving up north and I will need to be in the office in Helsinki sometimes anyway, so it's been christened the Helsinki Express... I drove down the other morning in 3:20 or so to the present house and it would have been under 4:30 to the office. That's more than acceptable. And Katie is from the letters on the plate.

 

Some time with ErWin the other day gave me the full spec: Ambition for the Finnish market (Bi-Xenon) with Winter package (heated screen + wheel, remote Webasto), Amundsen, Fondpaket (220V + USB in the centre console), rough road package (+15mm, extra plastic underneath). 

It's returning 6l/100 which I'm happy with. 

 

Problems so far: 

 - there's a couple of dings in the door and the trim, I'll post some photos when I've washed it to show. I think I'm going to have to replace the trim around the rear window and the driver's door handle. Will try to get this done while the door card is off for the speaker replacement.

 - there was a bunch of white paint splats on the wheel and gearstick. Fixed - i'll explain more below.

 - rims and tyres --> more on this below

 - the tracking was way out, as were the tyre pressures - now sorted. 

 

So the white splats were quite easy - I'd seen what some hand disinfectant did when cleaning the wheel, so i used it again on a microfibre towel. Hey presto, all the splats are gone and the leather was matt again. I fed it with some horsey stuff we have and buffed it lightly - after a couple of days it's excellent. Lightly worn smooth, not shiny and polished. Very happy with this result. 

 

Other stuff on the to-do list:
 - Rear Camera 

 - More light out the front

 - Stereo upgrade

 - clear the VCDS errors and see if they return. 

 

Should be out washing, claying and waxing it today. 

[brettikivi]

So the Wheel and tyre problems: 

 

Summer and winter wheels are both 17", 215/55R17. I had a new set of Turanza T005s added before I bought the car. Problem: the Stratos rims are stone-pocked. We have lots of gravel roads here and the stones get thrown up despite mudflaps - and then they hit the spokes. 

Winter tyres are the second problem. The winter tyres have 7.5mm, 7.5mm, 6.5mm and 4.9mm. Winter tyre tread depth must be 3.0mm here and 4 is recommended for traction. 

The one with the least tread is currently on front right. It also has had an unscheduled meeting with a kerb or stone at some point as there's a bunch of gouges out of the rim. At least 15cm round the outside is damaged. The spokes also have some of the gravel pock marks as the summer rims have. 

Question becomes what to do. I like the Michelin X Ice Norths - I've driven them elsewhere and they're nice and progressive when losing grip and otherwise very tolerable. They're also around €175 each. I'm currently very tempted to replace two front tyres with X Ice Norths on the winter rims and keep the better of the two as a spare. I'll need a rim for that - that's easy, I drop the 6.5mm tyre on the damaged rim and replace the damaged one with a new one. But the car doesn't currently have a spare, so there's some work to be done to allow that. Replacing that rim is going to be at least €150 - 125 for the rim plus shipping plus fitting and balancing. That leaves me at €550 total, which is bearable.

 

For the summers... refinishing those Stratos is going to be €500. A set of WIzards in grey is going to be the same price. I'll have to look them over and see how bad it is...

 

[brettikivi]

on the audio front: I have a C-DSP 6x8, a CSS SDX10 and a Soundigital Evo 400.4 lying around. If I replace the front speakers with some GZRC 165.2SQs, I should have a decent front end. Then a custom box for the sub (along with a board so it can be clipped into place) and maybe a Soundigital 1600.1 for some serious power and we should be good. Don't need 1.6kW but that for €270 is a serious bargain. So it's a grand total of €500 for new parts  

 

Will try to get all cable runs done at the same time - power to the sub amp, rear camera and if the door handle is being replaced, then that at the same time as the door driver. 

[brettikivi]

washed, clayed and waxed - this was obviously professionally detailed before sale as the clay was way cleaner than I expected. Onwards towards winter...need to do another round of clay later but won't do it until the car's nice and warm, this was way too cold.

 

 

[brettikivi]

Got the Audio system set up the other week.

 

Helix S62 fronts, CSS SDX10 in a 30l box (sealed) and a Mini-DSP 6x8 DSP. Amps are from Soundigital, the Evo 4 4.100 and then the 1600.1 4 ohm for the sub. Less than €500 for the amps...

 

Initially there was an issue with one channel being lost, but now it's back. Initially wasn't too happy, got better (treble seemed too harsh). So I figured it would need more EQ, but then time aligned it late on Sunday, approximately, and the result is fantastic. Treble is no longer too fierce, and stuff like Havana just sounds awesome. Will do some measuring with the H2 and REW and see what it comes up with. There's some resonances I don't understand, but I haven't even added a cutoff on the fronts, which I do need to do.

[brettikivi]

Finally tracked down and sorted the issue with the channels - the order of them in the socket on the back of the radio unit is not as logical as it seems, so someone put the wrong high level input in place. Now with crossovers at 63Hz on the way down for the front doors and 120Hz for the sub, it's much better. Less mud, and an awful lot of deep bass. Now I need to work out how to use REW without a Line-in.... and remove the errors I added when accidentally powering up without the radio in place. D'oh!

 

Evo 4 channel is tucked up under the right side of the dash. 1600.1 is in the left boot pocket. Need to do some temperature monitoring while it's nice and cold to check just how toasty things get in there. 

 

 . Bret

[brettikivi]

for those who are following along, there are instructions on how to use REW without a line-in; essentially you need to create Pink noise tracks for the spectrum you want to cover. Because I know the XO on the fronts is at around 2500Hz, I've created four files, all of them stereo:

 - 20-150Hz for the Sub

 -50 to 4000Hz for the mids

 - 2500Hz to 24kHz for the tweeters.

 

I'll add these to the SD that has the music. 

 

Important not to go too low for the tweeters or you'll blow them up. 

 

The idea is then to measure each channel using the correct file. I'll set a basic crossover before testing - 2500Hz for the tweeters at least - and then measure. REW can create the biquad filters I can apply directly to the C-DSP, so they can be applied per channel and I don't need to create specific equalizations (I've only got 8 bands of full parametric available), so the biquad is a better answer anyway. 

 

Interested to see how this sounds before and after, will try to get some time to play with this this week still, got to do 1000 miles next week I fear....

[Joey83]

This thread needs pics!