Yesterday I took the drive to Leighton Buzzard to avail myself of Tom’s services. Huge kudos for his resilience in pressing on with the work in (unforecast) horrible conditions, and many thanks to Fiona for her kind hospitality, it was definitely an afternoon for warming cups of coffee. I now have my new sports seats lumbar adjustment wired in, mercifully I’d managed not to strip the thread on the partially inserted bolt I hadn’t put in straight (but have learned the perils of laying the seat rails flat on the floor). I also have a false boot floor; Tom had done a great job pre-cutting the holes for the rails in a fresh pair of boot trim panels, but even with this time-saving device I was glad that I didn’t try embarking on this job myself, extremely fiddly. And I also have a smart leather gear knob to replace the original plastic one.
As a bonus, Tom managed to clear the DTCs in the HVAC with a bit of jiggery-pokery of the climate control buttons. He also diagnosed the mysterious little fault I’ve had since I bought the car where it sounds as if it’s trying to lock itself every 30 seconds or so, only while it’s unlocked with the ignition off. It turns out that sometime in its past the original CCCU was swapped for one of the old spec units that are prone to fail, and it looks as if what’s happening is one of the CCCU’s random failure modes. So unless I want to gamble on it not getting worse I’m going to have to invest in a replacement soon.
But altogether a really good day, my FSi is feeling nicely enhanced and further proof of what a great community this is

.