Caterham 170 experience

TL;DR What a year 📄 First, I take the opportunity to shed some light on the Index page I wrote over the past week-ends. It’s available as the first item in the left-hand navigation bar of the blog. Content is sorted by topic, allowing to find what one could be looking for - the calendar thing is basically useless.  🎂 Two years then... It went both quickly and slowly, with the car stuck in the garage waiting for parts or paint for nearly five months. That made me miss the driest spring/summer season but I somehow managed to drive around 15 000 km despite that.  We did attend about 10 events and longer trips, from Mont Saint-Michel (shown above) to the Black Forest, club events, blats with Seven friends, a charity drive... and a first track day. Even if it sometimes looks and feels like a "Sisyphus' Caterham" story with the need for near constant upkeep, the worst issues so far have been a pair of 70€ oxygen sensors and a ~25€ thermostat that will be replaced wi...

TL;DR a lot of fun After two cold weeks of rain on frozen roads, any outing would mean soaking the Caterham in salt. We don't want any of that, so I jumped on the first chance of properly rinsed but dry roads one Wednesday evening after work to go for a quick 45-minutes drive. It was  just enough to keep the battery in good condition. Yes, I could have cut the master switch beforehand. I came back with really cold feet but had some good old fun. With the kids on vacation for 2 weeks, the original plan was to use it as my daily and take it to the office every day. Weather was so bad that they had to close the motorway near Francorchamps because of jackknifed tractor-trailers (on ice). Anyway, with the week-end came March showers. A bit of everything, with warmer rain. I don't know if I was craving driving so hard or what pushed me to see it that way, but it felt like a perfect day for one of my long drives around the Eifel and Rursee area. I left at around 9:15 and came ba...

TL;DR I'm really pissed this time Excuse my use of Greek letters, but What the Fυϲκ ! I just gave the car a quick power-wash after our Saturday blat to the Nürburging, and came back home to grazing sunlight that releaved strange brownish shadows behind the left-hand headlight. Looking closer, the bucket is rusty; all fυϲκed up with the paint cracked and lifting everywhere. With a car that's just 3 years old, "for the price" , this is just unacceptable. Options range from a £60 replacement that would most likely end up in the same state in a few years; to the 1000€ carbon fiber alternative from Wesmo. Or there's the obvious solution of spending hours cleaning, protecting and painting them to get them future-proof. My " perceived quality" (a strong focus at the top management at Caterham) has been never lower.