Posidrive

Feel for you. Bad enough when some twonk drives into the back of you (happened 3 times in my old 300ZX TT) but unforgivable when they then drive off. Hope you got their number have have reported to plod.

It is located in the cam cover on the top of the engine and is easily reached and is a DIY and will only take a few minutes. New and preowned PCVs in stock if required Alex Thanks, wiill get back to you if its knackered. Hope it is.....

I agree, The breathalisers in Halfords was £25 on the ferry they were £5 (for 2) I got a twin pack from Halfords on Sunday. £4.99.

Before trotting off to get my oil consumption/smoking investigated by a pro I thought I'd clutch at straws and check the PCV valve. Is this a DIY job, how long should it take. Can you get to it from the engine bay? If the PCV valve is knackered where is the best place to get a replacement. The Nissan dealer near where I work has a bit of a reputation so I'd like to avoid if possible.

I had realised that they are within the Nissan limits but those are for the less viscous oil. my concern is caused by (a) the oil consumption rate that up to about 10k miles ago was essentially zero ( oil pressure is consistently about 10 psi lower than it used to be, it never used to go below 30 psia © sluggish acceleration in which I had trouble pulling away from a Golf TDi that was trying to hitch a ride this morning.

The oil pressure seemd to have dropped a bit recently so the mechanic used Fuchs Titan Pro R Oil 15w-50 Ester Synthetic. This raised the pressure a bit for about a week but now I'm back down to 20 psi at idle, 50 psi at 2000 rpm and 75 psi at 3000 rpm when fully warm. It never goes above 90 psi even when cold starting. I've had to top up about a litre over the past 3000 miles BTW, it only ever smokes (white) at startup. None at all when warm. But definitely more white smoke that there used to be. My other concern is that she appears to have no real guts when accelerating. I suspect that the clutch is nearing the end if it life but if the clutch slipping was the cause of the lack of acceleration I'm pretty sure that my nose would let me know.

Anyone ever heard of a company called Engine Solutions Limited in Colchester? Comapany with a similar name in Yorkshire has been investigated by watch dog, but these guys specifically state that they are not contected to the rogues in any way. Perhaps a replacement Zed is the way to go but I have become rather fond of my Zed (silly I know) and don't want to be in the same place 2-3 years down the line again as the miles rack up (I do 18k or so a year) so a properly reconditioned engine has some appeal.

I had a slightly erratic idle so so decided that the throttle body needed cleaning. When I took off the intake pipe the edges looked a little dirty so I decided to try and clean it in-situ while at the same time using 10kboost to clean out any downstream crap. I gently pushed the plate to open it and sprayed carb cleaner liberally. Used paper towel to carefully wipe around the edge and also had some under the end of the throttle body to catch the gunk that dribbled out. My moment of madness came when I got my son to srpay the 10k boost while I revved the engine. Cries of panic from him as the paper towel that I had placed under the throttle body was sucked into it. Fortunately it got caught and I manged to get it all out, but only after quite a fight and a fair amount of manipulation of the throttle body plate. I put everything back to together and did the pedal dance to reset everything and "oh crap" the idle was as high as 1500 rpm befire finally settling aroung 900-950 rpm. After reading many posts from this and other Zed sites I thought that I had damaged the throttle body. Sigh.... I put after with the high idle for a week then decided to have one last investigation before a trip to my pet garage. - In case there was a vacuum leak I reassembled the inlet piping making sure that everything was really tight.The breather pipe underneath is quite a pain unless you either have very small strong hands or the right shape pliers. -I disconnected the battery for an hour. - I redid the pedal dance for learning the trottle position. This time I did one thing slightly different though which I suspect was the previous cause of all my problems. After releasing the accelerator pedal when the engine light becomes steady I just flicked the key one more notch to start the engine rather than through force of habit been turing off then on to start the engine. Yippee Idle smooth as anything and back down to 650-700 rpm. So after what I did to it, I think that the xtreme delicate nature of the throttle body may be just a myth although I would not recommend being to rough with it.

I eventually managed to get the peddel dance to work and the revsa drops a bit to about 850 but this still seems a tad high. The other odd thing is when coming to a halt at traffic lights the revs drop as expected until I reach a stop and press the clutch then then shot up to about 1400-500 before dropping back to 850. One thing that comes to mind is that I had a pig of a job trying to get the clip in the right place on the pipe that connects the air intake pipe (MAD to throttle body) to the rocker cover (PCV hose). If air is leaking here would that cause this sort of problem?

That's intriging. I always have the aircon turned on and have always had an idle between 750 and 800 rpm. Looks like the throttle body clean may have improved things:) Will see what its down to by the time I get home tonight. Anyone know how long it normally takes for the ECU to settle down after a reset?

Out for a couple of miles at lunch tiime and now she is idling at around 900 rpm instead of the 1000+ rpm. Could this behavior be part of the ECU relearning process?

I cleaned the throttle body yesterday. Nowhere near as bad as some pictures I've seen but there was a bit of buildup around the edges that I think was giving a slightly wobbley idle. Also put a can of 10kBoost though here and was surprised not to see any crap come out of the exhaust. Perhpas the tankfull of BG44K a couple of weeks ago did most of the same thing. But, she is now idling at 1000 rppm and I just can't get the peddle dance to reset the throttle position learning to work. I can get the engine ECU reset to work OK 3 times in 4 but this one is doing my head in. Are there any other tricks?

Look on the bight side. People smile when they see a Zed but the series 1 BMWs are visually as bland and boring as they come.

In 4 years living in Calgary I only saw one Zed, although it was in the best colour (Sunset) . Sit outside a bar on 17th Avenue in summer and you are quite likely to see a few sepercars because of the oil money there. Not unusual to see a convoy in which the Porche's were the poor man's choice. You are right about speeding though, it is not the country to do it in with radar traps everywhere. My ex boss used to treat the fines as an additional tax to allow him to drive his Ferrari faster . Bit of a shame really because the road between Vancouver and Calgary is twisty enough to have lots of fun.

When I replaced my rotting exhause with a stainless one Admiral only wanted an extra premium if I wanted cover for the new exhaust rather than the standard one. For a non turbo car the change in performance is next to nothing without additional mods

My Zed has recently starting smoking a bit more than usual and appears to be consuming a bit of oil although not alarming amounts (she has done 80k) but it occours to me that I probably have some engine wear and ts better to fix ealier than later. I realize that this is a how long is a piece of string type question, but where do we start cost wise for fixing such issues. Plus can anyone recommend a good place to get engine work done in the Swindon/Wiltshire area that won't break the piggy bank. I normally use Owen Developments near Abingdon for general servicing since I completely trust thier head mechanic, Mark, but they are (a) very very busy at this time of year now that race season has started and ( not by any means cheap (not a critisism since you generally get what you pay for but there are limits to what I'm willing to spend of a 7 year old car).

I think that we are all agreed that you don't buy this type of car based upon its fuel consumption for for those of us who use it as their daily driver and cover a reasonable number of miles the ridicilous cost of fuel in this country does tend to make you think about it. If you just poodle around town for a few miles at a time then 20 mpg isn't much of a problem but for a 60 mile daily commute that doesn't involve motorway cruising it starts to make your wallet scream. During the 3 years that I've had her the fuel consumption has been pretty constant around 26-27 mpg. Seems to drop a bit when really cold in Winter and gets a bit better in the middle of Summer. Never quite understood why? But had my first ever £100 fill up a couple of days ago so after recovering from the shock I thought that I'd adopt a more relaxed driving style for a few days, helped by the really crappy local weather . Last two days covered 120 miles with an indicated 33.4 mpg. Seriously doubt I'll keep it up though

Good choice. Got to work 5 minutes quicker than usual today giving it beans while listening to Made In Germany at ear aching volume

When I moved back from Canada I had a devil of a time finding anyone who would taking into accoun no claims bonus earned in Canada and the many years of UK no claims from before we emigrated. This year Admiral saw sense and gave me 10 years no claims. I assume that when it comes to renewal time that I will get a renewal quote with 11 years on it (fingers crossed for no accidents this Winter). The question is can I legitimatley then ask for 11 years no claims to be taken into account by other insurers when the expected joke renewal arrives.

I've seen the occasional post about problems with some phones synching with the BlueTooth adapter. Are there any particular phones that should be avoided? I can't stand the shame of my 5 year old phone any more but have become rather attached to it working with the Zed.

Lools like many have a rather heavy foot. I got 20k plus on my last set of Falkens. Any they were still legal when I changed them

Dumb question time. Is a noisy/blowing exhaust an MOT fail?

Full marks to Admiral Current insurance renewal through the broker Lifesure up from 480 ish to 630 with Zurich although was with NIG last year who have pulled out of the market. Chris Knott and Sky Insurance couldn't touch us with their underwriters who give club discounts because of a pending attempt at a fraudulant claim against us by a third party a few months ago that won't be resolved for another month or so. I see some of their point but irksome nonetheless. I suspect that they wouldn't have been able to come close though because their underwriters believe that you forget to drive when you leave the UK for a few years so could only give 2 years NCB. Admiral came up with 450 so well chuffed given the current happenings in the insurance market.

My OEM exhaust is rotting from the cats back, so need to replace it, probably with stainless so I don't have to worry about replacing it again. Anyone got any recommendations? Ideally one that doesn't change the standard exhaust sound since I don't want to wake the neighbors when I set of for work at 5h30 each morning Aso needs to be acceptable to the general insurance community.

That is where it gets intesting. Job title is Senior Software Engineer, but I have absolutely no software qualifications. The job primarily requires domain knowledge and if the code happens to be reasonably well written then so much the better. What software are you using? If you are writing programmes then you must surely be a Software Engineer qualifications or not. Equally you shouldnt get the job title Senior Software Engineer unless you have about 3+yrs actually hand cranking code. Sounds like someone wanted your expertise and to justify the cost you had to be made a Senior position. I've had this happen a few times where by job title is actually a bit above what I do but due to domain knowledge it was the only way they could get my rate/salary past the bean counters I've been cranking code for engineering applications on and off for in Fortran, C, C++ and C# (plus others that I'm too embarassed to mention) for about 25 years so Software Engineer it is then