Have you got aircon ?
That drips to get rid of collected moisture.
Car does have aircon, but the dark patches persist over days. Does not get washed away by rain.
Looks like tiny drops of oil on the bulkhead.
Might be leaking from a top end gasket, camshaft cover seal or EGR pipe.
I wouldn’t be bothered.
My standards may be different but that looks like a spoonful of oil getting out over a 1000* miles
- At least 87% guestimated figure with potential for 50% inaccuracy on a non linear scale
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I did 1381 miles between my last two MOTs. A trip to the LAN would be about 1/3 of that! I do think I should use a car more or just get rid of it.
My concern is if this could be a safety or otherwise bad thing to have if ignored in short term. If not, I’ll just ask to get it checked out at next routine service in under a couple months. See if I even do another 100 miles by then.
Before you get rid, do some sums.
Not Man-Maths, actual cost of ownership figures for the last three years.
Insurance,
VED,
servicing,
tyres,
that bottle of screenwash,
Oil but I’m going to guess you havent ever topped it up more than once.
The cost of the bi-annual trip to the car wash.
Do you have any of the pay-as-you-go schemes in your area ?
Zipcar or Co-wheels for example.
Compare their rates for your mileage cost.
If you do want to move it on let me know, it has many features I like,
but these may seem at odds with my usual criteria for a car
Bright Red
Low insurance group
Good Ncap rating
Next February, two of my three youngest will be have a provisional licence so the factors become
Visibility,
possible to insure,
survival of red-haze moments.
Zipcar seem to have closed in UK, and co-wheels don’t appear to be anywhere near me. Going to guess where I am is a bit small for that to work.
Your cost of ownership list is rather optimistic! Oil? That’s what the annual service is for. Tyres? I’d actually have to use the car to wear them down. Road tax is due soon. Can’t remember if they put it up, but it is/was £20/year so next to nothing.
Been a few “one off” repairs in last couple of years though. Clutch, windscreen (insurance excess), spring. What next? They add up. I did replace a bulb and battery by myself, which is about the limit of my mechanical skills.
Three MG’s or a Yaris dotted around Swindon through co-wheels.
Take the Yaris, you will be surprised how optimistic the Speedo will read on a long downhill.
It will struggle if you have Bilko, Preecy and Slim on board, it struggled to chase a Badger uphill.
Times used to be quite surreal
One small detail that got lost. I’m not in Swindon any more. 5 hours away up north.
The Up doesn’t sound that different from the Yaris. If I see a hill ahead it’s time to drop a gear or two and hope for the best.
I missed the house-warming party in Middle-earth 
Is it grim up there ?
Have you bought a flat-cap yet ?
No flat cap for me. My choice of summer hat is the Trilby, which could go with the fascination with Victorian era around here.
Back to the car, just got a call from garage. The leak is from a driveshaft seal. They can get it replaced by end of day so I can get my car back and do nothing with it this bank holiday weekend.
That fits with the few tiny spots on the back of the engine bay but odd for such low miles.
Did your last MOT have an advisory about driveshafts ?
Have you secretly been going out with your hat on backwards and doing this in Halfords car park ?
One of the front springs was found to be broken at last service but that’s it as far as I’m aware. It is normally more of a wear and tear item? There is a local patch of cobbled road I go by occasionally, and potholes in some areas are worse! Surprised nothing else has shaken apart.
Coils springs are one of the most common failures nowadays… the steel they make them out of now is poor quality… I replaced a coil spring on my Volvo C30, and the replacement only lasted a couple of years…
My C30 is 17 years old and still going… It doesn’t get used much but started suffering a parasitic drain issue with the battery. Arriving home one evening I spotted the tail lights were on… Disconnected the battery so I could look at the problem in daylight. Thought I’d start by checking the fuses, and when I was removing the trim underneath the CEM/fuseboard I instantly smelt a burnt out component smell… I removed the CEM, opened it up and found there was a burnt out relay. Found a replacement CEM and got the original CEM cloned onto it. Since I replaced the CEM the parasitic drain issue hasn’t returned.
I seem to have above average luck with springs, never had a broken one.
A friend seems to have been the balancing force.
Hearing a loud clunk on the driveway from his Rover 75 he went out to have a look and found the car leaning at the front nearside but tyre was fully inflated.
When he tried to drive it into the the garage to take a closer look the OSF spring broke and went through the tyre sidewall.
That could have been a bit exciting at motorway speeds.
In today’s episode of “is something going wrong, again?”, I’m back to the clutch. I’ve had two suspect events since the clutch was replaced. One time I thought the bite point was lower than normal when pulling away. It didn’t happen again since, but that would have been a similar failure mode to when the original clutch was failing. Today while waiting at lights I did think the clutch felt softer than normal. It was normal when pulling away. When I got home, I tried keeping the clutch pushed down for over a minute, and it didn’t make any difference to how it felt. I tried this several times, initially with engine on, later with engine off. Assuming my car isn’t doing anything fancy, I don’t think that makes a difference. Got a long trip soon and I’m left wondering if there is some intermittent effect going on I haven’t narrowed down yet. It’ll be a motorway slog so wont need many gear changes anyway. Worst case I’ll use the AA membership I’ve had for years and never used!
Decided to wash my car so it was no longer seagull poop polka dot. I also had comments before about my car’s “window box”, or a moss collection on the passenger window. Well, it totally dried out anyway so I did scrape it off now. With the poop off, there’s visible differences where it used to be if I get the light just the right angle. What have they been eating?