Spring doesn't normally follow summer. It does for Shifty

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.

Jangling Jazz

At 95K miles you can accept the odd noise here and there. I've been super lucky and got to nearly 100K without any squeaks, clunks, rattles or other unwelcome noises.

However this week I heard a little bell like tinkling sound over certain types of bumps, so Shifty went to the Honda doctors to see what was up.

Poor little Shifty has a broken suspension coil spring, the bottom end where it sits in a locating cup had corroded to the degree where it broke, shortening its length by a centimeter or two. The bit that had broken off then was dancing around the cup when it was jiggled just the right amount by a bumpy road.

The broken bit was about 3cm long and you could see that it had clean snap across it and the end was corroded quite badly. Now that it has been lifted out of the cup there won't be any more tinkling noises.

I could have left it at that but I don't like the idea that Shifty would have a battle scar for the rest of its time with us so it's going in for surgery at the Honda hospital in a couple of weeks. It'll be getting a nice new spring so after that it will be properly able to cope with life's road humps and bumps.

The Honda people said it was rare for them to replace a spring on a Jazz. I felt instantly guilty - certainly I'm not doing my bit washing under the wheel arches and clearing out winter's salty gunk. I stopped doing it with the last Jazz because I thought I might be causing the rear brakes to keep seizing up.

The older generation Jazz, 1999 - 2009, models with rear disc brakes did have a problem with that and our second 1.4 CVT-7 probably had five or six dismantle, clean, lubricate and reassemble sessions in its 150K miles with us.

So, in reflection, I probably wasn't causing the sticking problem since I wasn't cleaning the brake calipers directly and any debris falling from cleaning the wheel arch and the general water splashing down wouldn't be worse than driving on a wet road and through a few puddles.

Thinking it over, we've had three Honda Jazz and covered over 300K miles in them, so one suspension spring over that time isn't too bad!

Cars are really made very well, I guess it's down to us as their caretakers to look after them properly. I really just jump in and expect the car to just work. OK, we do spend a few hundred pounds a year maintaining and keeping the Jazz in tip top shape, and we drive it sympathetically over the 25K plus miles it does every year  but, still in reflection, they are astoundingly resilient compared to cars even twenty years ago.