Yes - gone and bought another one. This time a MY 2000 with the Bosch/Thor Electronics. Bit of a rash / last minute thing really. I just liked it, so bought it.

Bought from a dealer - looked clean, but has problems:

Air compressor seals gone (Fixed already, £25)
Shaky under braking
Sunroof not working
A/C not working
And of course battery drain - and again I disconnected the receiver to work around.

Dealer had the car nice and warmed up, which masked the knackered compressor and flat battery - I did spot that, but not much you can do once its hot and off the bump stops.

I’ve already ported my FaultMate Diagnostics over to this car - cost was £50

May 2012

Well with some reasonable weather I thought I would make a start on some of the jobs.

First up was an investigation into the cause of a rumbling noise on full lock - I suspected a faulty CV joint, but it turns out it was the front drive hub.

Didn’t take many photos - but the procedure is as follows:

Remove the wheel
Straighten out the dimple in the big nut in the middle of the hub
Replace the wheel and lower onto the ground (to stop wheel turning)
I had to use a very long breaker bar to undo the nut
Jack back up, remove brake caliper (two bolts at the back)
Remove brake disk (small posi drive screw)
Slide ABS sensor out about 1 inch (no need to completely remove)
Undo the 4 retaining bolts for the hub
Lever, pry and hammer the hub out.

I ordered replacement hubs from Island 4x4 which were a shocking £160 + vat. You can get replacement bearings for about £80 - but I dont have my 10 ton press handy and or mandrels (l’ve lost my workshop due to house move) - so decided not to attempt repairing them.

Whilst the car was up on axle stands, I decided to get the wheels professional refurbished by pristine wheel in Woburn sands - was very impressed with the results, but cost nearly £350 for a set of for wheels.

Despite the front disks looking in reasonable condition - I decided to measure the run-out using a dial-gauge. One side as 10thou and the other side was 15thou - so a complete set of new disks were ordered up.

So with new hubs, new disks, new pads and refurbished wheels I’ve been for a test drive and the whole experience is much better. No more wheel shake when braking, drives in a straight line and is quiet and smooth.

P39 Cam Position Sensor

The diags are reporting that the cam position sensor is faulty - engine still runs fine, although only in batch fire mode - not fully sequential.

The cheapest replacement part ERR6169 is £116 + vat (list price is in the hundreds of pounds. So I thought I would remove the sensor and check the wiring. A bit of googling suggested this was difficult to remove - but I didn’t find it that difficult - I managed to get some decent photos of it, so you can see what you need to do - as most of it has to be done by touch alone.

You need to unclip the cable from the connector (red arrows) and then unclip the connector from the bracket (blue arrows)

Photo of the car after having the wheels refurbished at Pristine Wheels.