New Car! (la)
Friends, meet Daisy:
stats: 1984 Mercedes 300D Turbodiesel
starts: every time.
Thanks to everyone who made a suggestion for her name, but not surprisingly, I've come up with something completely different: Daisy Carla Rose. Daisy is mainly because she's yellow, Carla is because the previous owner is deceased and was named Carlos Roza, which also correlates to Rose, though that's mostly just to balance the whole thing out.
Getting used to the diesel engine has been surprisingly easy, though I suppose it helps that the weather is warm. The main differences I've noticed are that it's a lot louder when it's idling, and that the turbo-lag makes it sluggish when you first step on the gas. erm.. the diesel...
I'm pleased to report very little mechanical funkiness (the car has ~150,000 miles). The vacuum system is a little interesting though, and probably will need maintenence someday. Mercedes used to rely on vacuum tubes for most of the functions that other companies used electronics for. The A/C, the power doorlocks, the engine shutoff, and a few other things, all rely on a complex system of rubber tubes, and a vacuum pump. It seems that the rubber is pretty old now, and consequently it's sensitive to the weather, the heat in the engine bay, and whatever else -- to make a long story short, sometimes they leak, and sometimes they don't. Usually they don't, actually, but when they do the A/C won't turn on, and the engine won't turn off until it uses up all the fuel in the lines after the fuel pump (which takes about 10-15 seconds).
stats: 1984 Mercedes 300D Turbodiesel
starts: every time.
Thanks to everyone who made a suggestion for her name, but not surprisingly, I've come up with something completely different: Daisy Carla Rose. Daisy is mainly because she's yellow, Carla is because the previous owner is deceased and was named Carlos Roza, which also correlates to Rose, though that's mostly just to balance the whole thing out.
Getting used to the diesel engine has been surprisingly easy, though I suppose it helps that the weather is warm. The main differences I've noticed are that it's a lot louder when it's idling, and that the turbo-lag makes it sluggish when you first step on the gas. erm.. the diesel...
I'm pleased to report very little mechanical funkiness (the car has ~150,000 miles). The vacuum system is a little interesting though, and probably will need maintenence someday. Mercedes used to rely on vacuum tubes for most of the functions that other companies used electronics for. The A/C, the power doorlocks, the engine shutoff, and a few other things, all rely on a complex system of rubber tubes, and a vacuum pump. It seems that the rubber is pretty old now, and consequently it's sensitive to the weather, the heat in the engine bay, and whatever else -- to make a long story short, sometimes they leak, and sometimes they don't. Usually they don't, actually, but when they do the A/C won't turn on, and the engine won't turn off until it uses up all the fuel in the lines after the fuel pump (which takes about 10-15 seconds).