March 2014- A year on...

It has been a year since I bought the Avantime, and now has 92,000 miles on the clock, over 10,000 more than when I first bought it.

I have loved every moment with it, but cannot hide my frustration with sourcing particular parts or even the complexity of fixing certain parts!

The rear silencer of the exhaust has completely broken, alongside 2 holes further up the exhaust system. In my quest to find a quick replacement, I visited a breaking car in Oxfordshire. Unfortunately the exhaust was in quite poor condition and was blowing. However, I met a very enthusiastic owner, and another fine example of an Avantime, while being able to purchase a driver side wing mirror base to replace my corroding one. I will now tie up with exhaust manufacturers to get a stainless steel rear exhaust section made up for the car.

Replacing the wing mirror became a nightmare! Removing was simple, but to remove the base required me to dismantle the wing mirror. However trying to refit the star washer on top of the stiff spring proved a big ordeal, and meant I could not use the car for 3 days while I tried many things to sort it! Perseverance, an engine valve compressor and a large socket (plus screaming, shouting and sweating) got it back on and putting the rest of the wing mirror together was a simple task. The wing mirror looks a lot better now and hopefully should resist corrosion for a while now! I need to source or refurb the passenger wing mirror now too. I hope to use the old driver side base as a practice piece to see how good a finish I can get.

Other current issues of concern, include the knocking occurring during tip in and tip out of the throttle. Seems like an engine or transmission mount so I have started with the torque-reacting mount, to see if this solves the problem. I have one on it's way so we'll see how that goes. The car also briefly showed a stop warning light, but once I stopped, turned engine off and then back on, it went away! Best keep an eye out for that...