Ka Diary
– 68,417 – 19 April 2005 – Back To Normality
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fter
the Italian Job Road Trip, things
have been getting back to normality. It
was rather strange not to have to drive for three hundred miles on the first
Monday back to work but by the same token it was also welcome. I put over four thousand miles on his
odometer in just a fortnight and I have no aches or pains whatsoever. Who’d of thought that a small car could be
so comfortable? Indeed, who would have
thought that a modified small car could be so comfortable! This would depend on what you modify on your
car and to what aims and objectives you have, as I discuss here.
We
had two Ka problems during the road trip.
One was the cruise control
command unit loosening and the other was he blew a fuse. Although both are trivial issues, without
having them fixed either one would have caused us real problems.
I didn’t cover Kermit’s cruise control command module coming
loose in the Italian Job Road Trip
Ka Diary entry. The first time it
happened we were on our way to Venice when I noticed the gear knob had come a
little loose. Tightening the unit it
very easy as it is held in place with three grub screws, just requiring a small
allen key.
The
accessory socket fuse blew at Dover as we plugged in the GPS charger. It’s
a simple job to replace a fuse but because I didn’t have any fifteen amp fuses
on me we had to make an unscheduled stop.
Note made for the next trip - ensure that we have fuses to cover all
eventualities.
Returning
to the topic of cruise control once
more, it certainly proved itself on the road trip. For the hillier sections of the road trip I used the system more
for semi-automatic speed control system rather than fully automatic
control. The biggest problem with
cruise control is that it cannot anticipate a gradient. This means that on the motorway, if you come
to a steep section the servo only increases the throttle when the speed has
ticked down a little bit (_you usually don’t notice that you’ve slowed
down_). It then has to accelerate the
car both up to the original speed and up the hill. Some of the gradients in Southern France are steep enough to
cause the system to use a very high throttle setting. Here’s where I can help by accelerating the car prior to the
start of the hill and then letting the speed slowly bleed off as we climb. It’s more economical and quieter.
It’s not a problem but
during the road trip I noticed that he’s producing a glorious popping noise
from the PowerFlow exhaust on the overrun in the
lower gears. It persuaded a few
Italians to give us room when descending a few mountain passes, I guess they
thought Kermy had rather more engine than he really does!
We
had Kermit’s original factory fit front vented discs replaced just as the
odometer was approaching forty thousand miles, I’ve covered it in this diary entry. Following the road trip, I’ve noticed that under light braking
there’s a “pulsing” sensation as though we have warped discs. I can think of at least one occasion in
Italy when we were descending down a very steep, twisty little road and
the brakes would have gotten rather hot so it’s possible that I’ve warped one,
perhaps both. Then again, during my
commute to and from the office it’s usual for me to not brake for twenty five
miles. When pulling off a motorway or
decelerating for a roundabout I’m a fan of allowing the kid to decelerate by
himself, using the brakes to check speed.
That’s good for brake longevity in terms of mileage covered.