Leaderboard

Had a look at my 12v aux battery in the engine bay this evening. Noticed there was quite a bit of dirt covering it so decided to check for any discharge across the top of the battery. Using a volt meter, one probe on the battery -ve terminal and with the other probe touch various points across the top of the battery. Any reading of 0.5v and above could contribute to battery discharge, but the maximum I got, near the -ve terminal, was around 0.1v. Still decided to give it a clean anyway with water and baking soda and then dried off. The voltage reading were now down under 0.01v across the plastic top of the battery. I then noticed that on the OEM battery there is a channel in it. It still had some dirt and I guess moisture in it. Putting the meter probe in there gave me a reading of up to 7.0v near the +ve terminal! Some WD40 and cleaning later and the reading was back down to under 0.01v in the channel. I am however wondering if this is a common issue. Unfortunately I didn't take a reading in the channel before cleaning the battery with water so I probably made it worse than normal however I still feel this could be a minor source of the battery discharge issues which plague the 400h for two reasons: Normally the battery is covered up so rarely gets a clean. When filling the screenwash you often get water spill/splash over the side which would fall onto the battery and collect in the channel which would then take a very long time to dry out. something to keep an eye on

I didn't know that, the cool box that is. It would have been useful for my water yesterday when it got up to 34 degrees in London. I thought I'd read all of the manual, I obviously missed that one. Well as the topic of this post says, you learn something new every day! I always keep a bottle of Vintage Moët & Chandon and some Foie Gras, unsalted butter and French Toast just in case I see and stop another LS400 owner. Mike Always the class act of the club Bluesey :) Bren

Depends who does it and how much of the old is removed I would suggest. There's some excellent welders out there, and some mediocre ones, and some rubbish ones. Yup but unless your an expert welder how would you know The one I employed was supposed to be good but it started to blow again within days hence the replacement of the Y sections The same thing happened on my MK2, welded, fine for a week, and then started blowing again, but they didn't remove any old sections. The garage where I took mine recently also make their own complete systems so I have more confidence in them knowing what they're doing. I did expect them to make a whole Y piece but they said it didn't need it in my case. Time will tell, and if I'm wrong I've got a great recipe for humble pie, I'll come down to Dorset and you can watch me eat it! Phil

Depends who does it and how much of the old is removed I would suggest. There's some excellent welders out there, and some mediocre ones, and some rubbish ones. Yup but unless your an expert welder how would you know The one I employed was supposed to be good but it started to blow again within days hence the replacement of the Y sections

Class, that's superb mileage - wonder if some of the AD engine problems are down to UK fuel