I killed my Mazda.
 

As the title says, I finally killed Baa-17.
It developed an apparent steering issue last week, that turned out to be an intermittent differential lock-up that made turning corners very exciting.:eek:

My mechanic advises that repairs would cost more than the car is worth.:(

I was going to get rid of it in July anyway, but can't afford a replacement right now. So ...

Introducing my Wife's car (now mine for the next four months) RedCelica.

A '94, red, autotragic, Celica ZR.
My wife gets terrible mileage from it, I'll see if I can do any better without permanent mods. :)

You can't get a used transmission for the Mazda?

Well, that sucks. I was convinced for a while that the trans would be what killed my Echo; it held up and I got rid of it after a busted radiator. Would have taken about $40 and an afternoon to fix, but I was over it by that time and even the wifey (who, as with your Celica, had given me the car to begin with) was saying I should rid myself of it. Apparently having been her parents' first-ever brand new car didn't hold much sentimentality for her. A new experience isn't a bad thing, anyway!

This latest problem isn't so bad in itself, but it's the straw that broke the camel's back.

Baa is 20 years old, with 330,000 k on the clock, the clear coat is peeling, it has a scrape down one side, the strut tops are cracked, the windscreen is cracked and it's a repaired write-off (back when that was legal here).

If I was keeping the car, I'd consider repairing it, but I've already talked myself into upgrading in July.

Bah, quitter. Those are the best cars! Best because you don't give a **** if someone dings your door, or you scrape the paint on that limb or well you get the idea. I love cars/trucks like that that are mechanically sound but look like crap. Means I don't have to worry about "should I park way out there in the lot some some ass hat doesn't ding my car".. Nah screw that I'll fit her in this tight spot right up front!

Yup, that's the liberating part about beaters, something I found with my Echo. And because of what I do for a living, it turns out a beater is really what you want anyway, so I traded a beater for a beater. But I completely understand what the OP is saying, when you feel it's just time to move on to something else.

That is the thing i hate with new cars. When i bought a new car (corolla 1.4 diesel with the robotic transmission) every little ding and scratch makes you sad.

I cannot imagine buying a new car/suv and taking it mildly offroading (like an audi q7). That would be just terrible, havig leaves branches bushes scratch the paint. So what would be the point of such a car? None. Sure if you are that one guy that lives in a house that has a 1 mile mud track leading up to it. But besides that why would you want a showroom grade offroad capable car??? (Like a rangerover?)

Even when i had a 2003 mb ml350, I did not take it places i had imagined i would due to fear of damaging it. And its not about the availability of disposable income, its ruining something nice. So something that is not so nice to begin with is definitely the way to go :)

For me buying cars at the 4 year mark and using them untill 10 years old is the most sensible thing to do (as i do not have the facilities/ability to so most repairs myself.)

I agree. I've never bought a new car and don't plan to any time soon.
I'll be upgrading to a newer second hand car, so I can keep it till it falls apart.:thumbup:
At this point in time, I'm thinking of a diesel Hyundai i30, but that's not set in stone.

Hi D.O.G,

Sorry to hear about the demise of your Astina. As a fellow Astina owner i've been interested in your fuel economy achievements since you popped up on AstinaGT. I noticed that your updates on fuelly stopped in 2016. Was 5.1 L/100km as good as you managed over a tank? Did getting rear ended halt your progress? Have you put the Baa-17 tank numbers up somewhere?

G'day and welcome to ecomodder. :)

I lost the enthusiasm for pushing myself to get good numbers for a while and stopped posting results mid 2016.
Yes, 5.11 l/100 km was Baa's best tank.

Rather than just pick up again in late 2017, I started posting fills here again under the Baa-17 name.
Same car, lots of individually minor issues that I was slowly working through before the diff problem.
Baa-17's best result was 5.54, but by then I'd stopped doing shift work, so it's numbers were never going to be as good as previous.

The BA series Mazda Astina are a great model and I seriously considered getting another one.
Light, nimble, plenty of go without being overpowered.
The only thing it lacked (mechanically) was a six speed box with a tall cruising gear.

Pete.

Thanks Pete, well your 5.11 has certainly set the benchmark. I have instrumented mine with a UTCOMP-PRO. I've got a traffic light free control segment on my commute that i collect data over in light traffic conditions. My best A-B-A fuel consumption is 4.7 L/100km @ 83km/h - no warm up, no braking & modest P&G.

Agreed on the car Pete i do hope to hold on to it for a while, and i also would like another gear at highway speeds. :) I might take a lead from you and step up to 185/70 on the next set of tyres.

Did you experiment with grill blocking? Mine seems to take some time to warm up - so much so that i'm planning to check the thermostat to see if it is frozen open. According to my UTCOMP data, my Astina is fully warmed up when the coolant temps hit about 82C. On a recent drive it took over 12 minutes to hit these temps (~10C ambient) which incurs a significant hit to fuel economy due to rich running. Very interested in your observations commuting out of the blue mountains. I'm thinking there are definite gains here as my partners Swift warms up in a fraction of the time of my Astina.

In regards to grill blocking:

My commute wasn’t “normal”.

On a good day, I could coast (engine off) far enough downhill that the engine temp went down in between pulses. I could be halfway down the mountains before maintaining operating temps without a grill block.

The problem with a fixed block is that it has to accommodate worst case conditions. For me, that was climbing the mountains going home.

The best version I used was 60% completely blocked (30% either side) then the whole thing covered in shade cloth. At lower speeds most of the air passed through the shade cloth, as speed increased, more and more air was blocked.
I didn’t get overheating issues, but did remove the completely blocked sections (so it was all shade cloth) in mid summer just to be safe. My commute was 25 km mountains, 20 km motorway, last few km urban.

As a side benefit, the shade cloth was almost the same shade of green as my car, so it wasn’t obvious to casual observers.

The shade cloth is a good idea, might even keep debris away from the radiator as a bonus.

I've tested a pool noodle ~50% grill block through the cooler seasons to good effect on temps. Even with no grill block my Astina will fairly quickly rise to fan activation temps when caught in traffic, even at mild ambient temps so you are right to be cautious mid-summer. Ack the cooling worst case - it's finding the trade off that allows the fan to do its job in traffic in summer, but also harvest a Cd reduction at speed. My hypothesis is that substantial blocking could make little difference for this stuck in traffic corner case as even a 25% inlet won't bottleneck the cooling fan. It will however mean the fan is quicker to activate and may thus have to run longer. I'll keep a sharp eye on the temps as i test this - my real time digital temp readout and programmed temperature alerts give me confidence i can intervene before cooking the engine if i'm wrong. Grill block version 2 is a side to center 50% coverage paired with flush fog light recess covers. Yet to test.

Did you have a go at measuring Cd and Crr for either of your Astinas Pete?

No, I never tried to measure mine.
Factory Cd figure for the hatch is 0.32.
I don't think the curved rear end helps, most modern cars feature hard edges to act as trip points at the sides.

Ok, i'll try taking some measurements in the near future. Particularly Crr as...

I've just finished a right front brake service - both sleeve pins were stuck and the M-spring was missing. I was hoping to improve my Crr by addressing this, but my testing shows that all the friction seems to be somewhere in the drive chain. Even with no brake drag i only get about ~half a revolution from a two handed spin of the wheel.

The rear dead axel's spin for many revolutions.

Did you find this to be the case also with your Astina's Pete?

I had a similar issue with the left rear caliper, fixing it increased (restored) coasting distance by a noticeable amount.
As you've found, the front wheels are hard to test due to the drive line drag.
I lubricated the front to be sure but noticed no improvement.

If you have access to a non-contact thermometer, check rotor temps after driving.
There should be a big difference in temps if the brake pads are dragging on any wheel.

Or if you don't have a fancy thermometer, you can make a quick round of the car after driving and touch each wheel near the hub. ;)