Petrol consumption again ..

Before leaving for Ipoh with Zulamran Hilmi at about 16:30 hrs on 09/09/2010, I filled up the car tank to automatic cut-off level. The odometer display read 19,557 km. On the 3rd day of Hari Raya, on my way back to Subang Jaya, I had filled the tank with RON 95 that cost me RM 75/=. When I got back to Subang Jaya petrol station, I refilled the tank in the same manner and it cost me RM 9.99. The distance travelled from Subang Jaya to Ipoh and Chepor and back again to the same petrol station in Subang Jaya was (20,040 less 19,557) 483 km. Petrol cost was RM 84.99 and no of litres consumed was 45.9405. Therefore, the petrol consumption this time was 10.5136 km/litre or in terms of miles per gallon, it's 29.8783 . Not bad this time compared with the last test.

Changing my battery ....

Oh, it's a long time since I blogged and my car has not travelled much either. No wonder my battery conked out since the car has been in the porch for some time and I had not the foresight to remove the battery or at least disconnect the negative terminal. Well, today I changed the made-in-Korea GP battery to another made-in-Korea Novo battery. At least the newer one has 13 plates instead of the 11 plates in the GP battery. The battery is one those new-fangled "maintenance-free" battery without the need to top with distilled water when the electrolyte falls to a certain level.

The voltmeter needle indicates that the battery power is just a shade over the 12 volt indicator line. When removing battery, one thing I must not forget is to disconnect the negative terminal first followed by the positive terminal. When installing a battery, always connect the positive terminal first followed by connecting the negative terminal.

Next time I shall make sure that I disconnect the negative terminal if I am parking the car for an appreciably long time say for 3 weeks or more.

Hari Raya falls on Friday 10th September 2010. As before, I shall be driving north to Ipoh with Zulamran Hilmi and will be monitoring my petrol consumption from where I live and back again. The others in the family are already in Chepor in the E320 Mercedez Benz. The full year comprehensive insurance recently cost me about RM 2,700/= while a 6-month road tax came to about RM 2,200. Is this what you have to pay for a "luxury" car ?

The fans again ...

The day before yesterday, I was driving to KL to fetch Dania from her violin class. While waiting for her, I let the car engine running for about 15-20 mins only to luckily realise that the temp meter needle went past the middle and was creeping toward the upper indicator mark, though not yet up to the danger level. I quickly switched off the engine.

I don't know why this has happened since after I had changed the cooling and aircon fans, the temp meter never even budged past the middle and this is about 2,500 km ago. I started the car again and drove back home with Dania constantly watching the needle. The aircon was switched on and off until at some point, the temp seemed to stabilise as before. Happily, I continued driving until I arrived at the last traffic lights before reaching home.

Then the needle started creeping upwards, and, with aircon switched off I continued driving to the washing bay of the condo where I lived. The engine was really overheating but not to the extent that I had experienced before. On checking the fan, I noticed that both the radiator and aircon fans were not spinning at all. I then parked to let it cool overnight before taking it the next day to the workshop that fitted the fans before.

Since it was already a bit late when I took the car to the workshop - APD - the mechanics there were unable to diagnose what went wrong.

Today, I discussed with chief mechanic Ali who had yesterday checked all the electricals and found them to be in order. There were no signs of over-voltage that could have caused the motors to burn. When he discussed with some Tan Chong mechanics, they told him that, apparently, it's a common failing of the 350Z. Ali was himself not satisfied with the views of the TC mechanics and wished to re-check the system again. So I left him at that and went home.

Update 20/03/2010 Saturday: Today, I collected my car after it being in the APD workshop for a couple of days. Just before this, I discussed with Ali what he had done to rectify the fan problems. He emphasized that there was nothing wrong with the relevant electricals; the fault was due to the fan motors themselves. He described, as agreed in the previous discussion, that he had installed the Nissan Cefiro fans rather than the 350Z fans based on the experience of a 350Z owner who had similar problems until he switched to the Cefiro fans when the problems disappeared. Ali mentioned that shims had to be installed in order to align the fans to match with the original fans. The cost of installation and fans came to RM 700/=. This is considerably cheaper than the so-called UK made Nissan spec fans that he installed and got burned after a couple of months and that cost me RM 1,954/=.

The mileage meter when I sent to APD read 19,330 km or thereabout. I jotted that the mileage when I collected the car was 19,344 km.

I just wonder whether other 350Z owners have similar problems with the car fans. After this problem, I may put off or totally abandon the idea of installing a supercharger.

Driving the Fairlady again ....

Ahh ! After such a long time, during which the car has not been driven because I was away on holidays, I am again checking the fuel consumption. After inflating my car tyres at the operating pressure of 240 Kpa, I filled petrol tank at odometer reading of 19 ....... The fuel used was .... litres at a cost of RM .........

The fuel consumption is therefore ......

To complete .......

My home town ...

Yesterday, I drove back to my home town in West Pahang to meet an aunt of mine who had been away from home since 1948. She had been a nationalist fighting the British and had been operating as a resistance fighter in the Malaysia-Thailand border area all these years. As she is now about 92 years, she was granted permission to enter Malaysia for a month to visit her relatives before her end. I don't know her personally as I was not born yet when she started fighting the British, but I went to see her on the invitation of her brother who was considerably younger than her.

For a 92-year old women she looked strong except for the fact that she had to go about on a walking stick. When I posed her some controversial questions she replied with full of spirit and enunciate her words clearly. From the way she talked, she seemed convinced that what she had been doing was right.

Afterwards, on her behest, I took her to see my sister who knew her before she disappeared into the jungle. My cousins from Kuantan and Kuala Lumpur also drove up to see her for their first times. There was a lot of videoing and photographing and storytelling about how our grandparents lived and who were related to whom.

Anyway I took the opportunity to once again check on the petrol consumption of the Fairlady. From the last filling to the filling just before I left the petrol station, the odometer had clocked 424 km and petrol consumed was 59.32 litres. The petrol consumption therefore had been 7.1477 km per litre or 20.1947 miles per gallon. This was an improvement over the previous check of 15.8384 miles per gallon.

The average to date consumption since I first used the car was 22.2837 miles per gallon.