Diary of a Porsche Owner appears to have beaten me to the idea of a blog about a year of Porsche 996 ownership (in his case, 2001 Carrera2). Hats off to him, who sold his in 2014.
Thanks for the feedback. Good to hear of another owner doing something similar. I've now moved on to a 1980s retro classic, a VW Golf MK2 GTI 16V. Totally different to the Porsche but a huge amount of fine and surprisingly quick especially round corners! Another car, another blog ... http://vw-golf-mk2-gti.blogspot.co.uk/
After fixing the radio in the Corvette, it was time to tackle the clock. We tried mightily to revive the patient, but in the end, a heart transplant was necessary. The clocks in the "midyear" Corvettes (1963-67) are electro-mechanical units made by Borg Instruments. They were used in a bunch of other GM cars of the period, in addition to the Corvette. This article gives a nice description of the clock and what commonly goes wrong with it. These are analog, spring-wound clocks with an electric winder that is supposed to reset the spring mechanism every 3 minutes or so. To see how it's supposed to work, check out this video (currently at 460 views, many of which are from me!). The design doesn't exactly inspire confidence, as it depends on a set of 12 volt contact points reliably closing every 3 minutes or so, pretty much forever. Those contact points build up corrosion over time, which will kill the rewinding mechanism. Thanks to a bunch of threads on the
Let's talk about accent lighting. Not the functional stuff: headlights, marker lights, taillights, turn signals. Don't get me wrong, those are all nice, too. But Mercedes really knocked it out of the park on the accent lighting. So much so, that I'd say this car really looks its best at night. When the W222 generation of S Class cars came out in 2014, Mercedes bragged that it was the first production car to have zero incandescent bulbs. Every light is a LED. Not such a big deal in 2022, but unprecedented in 2014, apparently. They not only went LED everywhere, they took the opportunity to really up their entire accent lighting game at the same time: Puddle lights! Yes, you get the star log and "Mercedes-Benz" projected onto the pavement whenever you open the doors. You'll either love it or hate it. Mirrors and door handles. Look, you probably could have found the door handles and mirrors without them, but they look so good at night, tastefully lit. Interio
A slow leak in the front left tire revealed a cracked wheel. Actually, two cracks -- one in the barrel, and one on the inner rim. While the latter can sometimes be repaired with a weld, the former is fatal. Further inspection revealed that all four wheels had cracks, although the other three were not yet bad enough to leak air. Sigh. It seems almost certain that this damage was there when I bought the car (there's no way I cracked all four wheels in less than 1,000 miles). And since the front left tire was showing low on air when I first test drove the car, it also seems almost certain that the dealer knew about at least that one and didn't tell me. Caveat emptor, anyone buying from Mercedes Benz of El Dorado Hills. I should have had all the wheels pulled and inspected before purchase. So this brings us to the question of replacements. Since my S550 came with the "Sport Package" option (mostly appearance changes to the bumpers and side skirts), it came from the fa
Thanks for the feedback. Good to hear of another owner doing something similar. I've now moved on to a 1980s retro classic, a VW Golf MK2 GTI 16V. Totally different to the Porsche but a huge amount of fine and surprisingly quick especially round corners! Another car, another blog ... http://vw-golf-mk2-gti.blogspot.co.uk/
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