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My Owners Diary October 1999Previous Entry | Diary Index | Next Entry3rd October 1999Weather was good enough to cycle to work all last week so I had another 5 day break from the Elise. Good weather most of the weekend so I went out for a run on Saturday morning. A beautiful, sunny, autumnal morning with a hint of dew and the odd fallen leaf making the local lanes a bit more treachourous than usual. Did a quick check over on the car at lunch time and found that the colder weather has reduced the tyres pressures by nearly 2psi (it's dropped about 5 degrees over the week). I reset the tyres pressures to the recommended figures and went out for another spin in the afternoon. The difference was amazing. There was nothing wrong with the handling before lunch but the car kind of jumped into focus. It's this clarity of feedback that puts the smile on your face and no other car does it for me. I hadn't noticed the gradual degradation with temperature.Gave the car a thorough clean on Sunday afternoon and noticed some hairline cracks in the trailing edge of the passenger door, maybe missed from the accident. Will have to get them looked at by Stratton next week. They can also sort out the passenger window which is still stiff. I also noticed that the screws holding the rear number plates lights in are starting to rust. Better find some stainless steel ones quickly. 5th October 1999My Grandfather died last night. Nothing but time will ease the pain but the Elise is welcome distraction and something else to think about. Drove up to Orford Quay in the afternoon, a beautiful place to go for a bit of peace and solitude in any weather. Today was a typical sunny, autumnal day but the weather was closing in. My Grandfather used to say that its not a car for a family man but, we both knew he didn't really mean it. At my age he had a Norton motorcycle. Took a few pictures and managed to out run the rain on the way back home.
7th October 1999My bicycle had a puncture this morning so I drove into work. Another nice sunny day so I left the roof off. By lunchtime it was clouding over but, it looked like it would stay dry. When I looked out of the window at 5pm the ground was wet and so was the inside of my car. I'd was too busy working to notice the rain shower. Most of the water brushed off the seats with a cloth and I wiped the rear shelf and sills down. The windscreen had kept the rain off of everything else. Before I managed to get home it started raining again. I'd got a wet bum from the seats and still had no roof on but, I still had to a take a long detour home in the drizzle. Will have to put the rain cape over the car next time.12th October 1999The vi was in for a service this morning so I had to take Kim to the garage to pick it up again. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a problem but she's expecting our second child in three weeks time. With a bit of planning, she got in and out of the Elise without complaint. So what's all the fuss is about it then? That's the first ride for my new baby in the Elise. Lets hope he/she likes it as much as Emma does. Can you legally bolt two baby seats into the footwell?Had to oil the clutch pedal because it starting squeaking a few days ago and was getting louder with every gear change. I now have a eerily silent car again. I've also noticed that the car is now starting to feel quicker with over three thousand miles on the clock. I really must get the video camera in-car and put my favourite run up on this site. 22th October 1999Not sure why I'm writing this because it's tempting fate maybe just a little bit too much but, I haven't heard anything about my speed camera fly-by on the A14 so it looks like it was empty or out of film. I didn't see the camera until I was level with it. Guess I was born lucky. I will never do it again, the wait is far too stressful.22th October 1999Typical! Put the hardtop on last Sunday because the weather was so miserable over the weekend, but last week was sunny every day. Cleaned the Elise this weekend and paid careful attention to the windscreen because I bought some RainEx to try out. Under close scrutiny I found over fifty small chips in the screen less than 1mm in size, another five or six about 2mm and one about 5mm, thankfully on the edge of the screen behind the rear-view mirror. Having cleaned the car the radiator did it's usual trick of dumping the collected water onto the screen but it just ran off, thanks to the Rain-X. |
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