Quirks.

[Yossarian]

The joys of owning a car that is somewhat notorious for electrical gremlins is that sometimes the said gremlins can provide amusement rather than annoyance.

Case in point, back during the cold winter months of late 2007. On a very cold, frosted morning, I walk out to my car in order to defrost it.

I turn it on, and whack on all the various switches so the air is being blasted into the windscreen, and the rear window is being heated up. Then I spend 5 minutes getting all the frost from the windows.

I get back into the car, and look at my dashboard with interest.

My range is now below 70 miles, so the computer is now flashing the range at me. However, it is also -3 degrees C outside the car, and because this is dangerous, the computer decides that this is also important to relay to me.

Unfortunately, the computer gets caught in a loop of "which is most important?" and flits between range and outside temperature every few seconds for a while, until, becoming fed up with that, settles on showing the outside temperature as -60.

The range is deemed unimportant, and quite rightly so, as the computer now thinks that I am somewhere in the Arctic circle, which is slightly more dangerous than being a bit low on fuel.

It shows this until the temperature rises above 3 degrees, and then the range becomes an issue again.

Got to love 15 year old computers!

[Yossarian]

It's time to reflect upon it's performance as a car in my ownership.

I bought it with 63k on the clock and since mid October it's at the stage where it's only a few journies from hitting 70,000 miles. This is a very high mileage for me personally, but then this car has been everywhere with me.

One of the more memorable occasions was an impulsive trip to Santa Pod. It was a RWYB event, and a mate had a £70 Citroen ZX 1.9d which was about as tatty as you like.

The day started off as a quest for holding the slowest quarter mile race in history. When it became apparent that the 480 could beat it fairly competently, even with an amazingly slow start, it turned into a Top Gear style challenge.

Could we turn a 1.9d Citroen ZX into a 19 second car?

Here is the story, from start to finish!

Have fun!

[Yossarian]

Seeing as I've not really posted a proper photo yet, here is my car...



Over the past couple of days I've spent a while turning my car into a web graphic. I usually do block shading and leave outlines, but this time around I tried using a different tool.



I can do yours too, although it will go on a "to-do" list. I can do basic block colour with no shading, with outlines, or without outlines, or I can spend a lot longer shading it. Sometimes block colour looks the best; simple is sometimes better.

EDIT - Just noticed the front wheel arch has it's own light source somehow. Nevermind .

[Yossarian]

At time of speaking, there are no warning lights on!

The bulb sensor is working (meaning it isn't showing despite all bulbs working), and even though I have tumbleweed blowing about in the rear washer fluid container, the sensor has given up trying to tell me and has blinkered out for good.

Yay!