Couple Of New Issues For My Car...

[mickq]

Hey all,

I just hit 7000km today, and noticed a few things that changed over the last few thousand km.

1) Ticking from the engine. Comes from RHS of the engine block, near where I imagine the injectors are. They didnt fix it at my 3k service like I asked. Maybe a noisy injector or a mistimed valve or similar? Very noticeable at idle with the bonnet open.

2) Diff started leaving some spots on my driveway about 1500km ago. Nothing bad...but not good either. I notice a bit more driveline lash now when I accelerate unless I do so very carefully.

3) Gone through a bit of coolant in the last few weeks. Put 1 litre in and it seems after only a week or so it may be back down to the minimum marker again. May have that leaking water pump or whatever problem people have written about. Its not overflow from it heating up.

4) No oil consumption which is great. I expected some from an engine like this.

5) Not a hint of big problems with the brakes. (Premium brakes). Around 3000km it pulled slightly left when I braked, and they fixed that (machining I think) when I did my 3k service. Fine since then. I brake damn hard all the time and havent had an issue except it takes about 10mins of my driving before the front mags have a light coating of break dust after being cleaned!

6) There is a loose small thing (sounds like a little ball bearing) somewhere in the cabin at the front LHS. When I slow down hard or speed up hard, I can hear it slowly roll backwards (accelerating) or forwards (braking) until it hits something and stops. Anyone heard of this one? Driving me nuts because Im under hard acceleration or braking nearly all the time. Its somewhere between the gearstick and the passenger front door.

Overall, given I drive the car *damn* hard (I once went through a set of front tyres in a non-powerful front wheel drive car in 5000kms with no burnouts!), and drive to redline most gearchanges while Im accelerating, bang it down through the gears with rev matching and double-clutching most of the time, and hit the brakes hard to see how close I can get to ABS kicking in without it kicking in properly - all habits that most people would overall consider thrashing a car- its held together remarkably well! It says a lot about their engine.

I still love the traction control as it lets me drive to the cars limits without having to do worry about going over them suddenly. I do wish however that it was more controllable, like it had 3 settings and an off setting. Sometimes it kicks on too early and prevents hard smooth acceleration. (Which sounds interesting...like an F1 car hitting the limiter). Could turn it off but the risk of a sudden loss of traction outweighs the positives except when Im really in a serios driving mood.

My one overall complaint is still the gearbox, as with many people. I think they made a mistake there. Should have used the heavier one for the XR8 and tweaked the boost an extra PSI or so to make up for the weight gain.

Most of the time its OK, but its much slower than I like to change gears and sometimes I "beat it" which results in imperfect changes. I also find if Im in 5th at 100kmh+ and go to put it in 4th, its often not very easy (to find and to do). Sometimes I either cant and have to spend a while rev-matching until it gets into gear like Im driving a rent-a-truck with a dodgy gearbox, or its easier to get it into second...not something I wanted to do! A couple of times that has proven dangerous as I quickly needed to get into 4th to accelerate....and the result was not only not being able to do it, but being stuck out of gear and slowing down instead of my needed speeding up!

[Dagabond]

  Quote

6) There is a loose small thing (sounds like a little ball bearing) somewhere in the cabin at the front LHS. When I slow down hard or speed up hard, I can hear it slowly roll backwards (accelerating) or forwards (braking) until it hits something and stops. Anyone heard of this one? Driving me nuts because Im under hard acceleration or braking nearly all the time. Its somewhere between the gearstick and the passenger front door.

Rock stuck in the lower skirt?

[mickq]

Hey, interesting idea!

I will see if I can suss that out with my fingers tomorrow. I havent felt the underside of the skirt, so didnt know there may be a place for that to happen. If the rock were small and near-round, then if it got stuck somewhere like that (that is in line front to rear of vehicle so it moves when brake/accelerate) then that would make sense for sure.

[XRSICKT]

That sound in the cabin could be a screw that fell during production, I found one under the cup holders in mine that was pissing me off...

[Redhawk]

Interesting comments on your gearbox mick,

I find it near impossible to go from 5th to 3rd, but no probs with 5th to 4th.

Does yours crunch into 5th above 100kph? If so your up for a new gearbox sunshine, getting mine replaced tomorrow.

And agree whole heartedly they should have put the Tremec box in the Turbo, its a shame its such a big job to change over to the Tremec. :(

[Zeke]

On delivery of her car, Mrs zeke had a loose screw in the passenger side air con vent. (Did I leave enough scope here, ken?)

Before we fished it out, it sounded exactly like what you are describing.

[Cobra]

had a similar sound ... but to my surprise it was only the locknut bit rolling around in the glovebox

[Superoo]

  Dagabond said:

  Quote

6) There is a loose small thing (sounds like a little ball bearing) somewhere in the cabin at the front LHS. When I slow down hard or speed up hard, I can hear it slowly roll backwards (accelerating) or forwards (braking) until it hits something and stops. Anyone heard of this one? Driving me nuts because Im under hard acceleration or braking nearly all the time. Its somewhere between the gearstick and the passenger front door.

Rock stuck in the lower skirt?

My money's on the rock/stone in the side skirt.

[Guest bat]

we had the same noise - drove us CRAZY .. twas a screw in passenger side air vent .. just a Zeke said!!

[MattB]

I've heard of a screw being left in behind the dash with a note from the guys at the factory saying "Bet it took you a while to find this."