well its been a while.... This car is still around.
Just for info on what has happened since i posted on this... I left the car in York for family to use when i moved house to the South-West in Feb 2014. The stutter returned and the car became worse and worse until was pretty much undriveable and wouldn't start very well. It was taken to a 'specialist' in York who changed the egr for a new, genuine one and then the car worked again but i was told it wasn't quite right still. But it worked and my dad and uncle were using it for work (alot of motorway miles). It one day ended up outside my house as my dad was working nearby so came to stay over for a few days.
I had a look and discovered that the 'specialists' had fit the egr without the restricting gasket plate which they are meant to have. So I just got a blanking plate and fit that and the slight miss it had sometimes low down went away immediately. So it now has a blanked egr and a little device in the OBD port that stops the car reporting egr errors due to the blanking plate. I also changed the diesel filter while he was there.
And then since then i have really seen the car at all, but i made sure they kept it serviced etc, it has had new cambelt and fluids, filters etc etc while its been in York.
Recently however, its not been being used and has been sat on my old drive (house is rented out to friend of the family, so i could leave it there and i even still have stuff in the shed nearly 2 years after moving haha).
So I have been trying to arrange getting the car down to my current house for a few weeks without having to pay for a train or something to get upto York to collect it. My dad was flying to Denmark yesterday and drove it down here on Saturday so i could drive him to the airport on Sunday morning and then come home in the alfa....
...and so, at long last - Urchin is home :woot:
And I can report on the whole it has faired quite well - few little things to sort out though. The battery was totally dead after being sat for a while and wouldn't take charge so its had a new battery and since then it says the 'vehicle protection system is not available' when you take the key out - and I am told when it first was started up the engine management warning came up for the first day (multiple starts and few hundred miles done that day) but since then has been ok. So need to plug in MultiEcuScan and see whats it thinks is wrong with them.
It needs a bloody good clean inside and out! And there is lacquer peel on the roof bars so need to get them painted. And there is some kerbing on the wheels. So thinking i might get the wheels, roof bars and mirrors painted to match in a different colour, bronze is what i am thinking atm but not 100% decided on that yet.
The rear brakes where rebuilt for the MOT (just a couple of weeks ago) but looking at them it looks like they have put the wrong pads on them as the outside half of the disc is still all rusty, so need to buy some pads and look into that.