A fortnight after the broken spring diagnosis passes without event for Shifty. Ashamed to say I didn't notice any ride difference despite Shifty known lameness.
All change though. Shifty now has a shiny new spring to bounce happily over the next tens of thousands of miles. I'll try and look after Shifty's other three springs a bit better than I have been though.
The dilemma is that I'm nervous of directing jets of water up into the wheel arches in case I do more damage than good. My worry is perhaps I might introduce grit onto the exposed shaft of the shock absorber's damper which then grinds away at its chrome coating and piston seals causing early failure.
That said and considering I've not washed under "there", the shock absorbers are still all working fine despite approaching 100K miles. Surprising when I consider the 300 yards of farm track it used to have to drive on for my daily workday commute. That was up to the eighty thousand miles mark. Now the worst it has to cope with is ten road humps per workday.
The other work that Shifty had today was to replace the air filter. Shifty was telling us it needed a service code 8 carried out in the next few thousand miles. I decided that since the next routine AB code service isn't wanted by Shifty for another five and a half thousand miles, getting the filter replaced slightly earlier wouldn't be unwise.
So Shifty now also has a brand new filter. I think 95+ K miles was pretty good for an air filter. The two iDSI engined Jazz before Shifty had them changed much more frequently.
In terms of increased fuel consumption as a result of clogging, I haven't noticed any. Perhaps that's old school, pre fuel injection thinking though. Consumption averaged over the last 5K miles and spring/summer temperatures, Shifty is indicating 61 miles per imperial gallon on the trip computer. This ties up with actual fuel used at the pump according to filling from nearly empty to full and noting the mileage covered between fill ups.
In summary, the iVTEC over the iDSI seems to need less frequent servicing and uses a little less fuel. I do miss the CVT though but I know I'd have gone through more brake servicing and brake parts during its life and a little more unleaded petrol.
