Llandow Tuning

An amazing job on the Volkswagen. It tows up the lane without the howl, and empty it is a calmer cruise. Bowled over.

DPF one week and AdBlue the next, and the Ford called both on the same loaded hill. I kept a bottle in the cab and still got caught. That pair is finished. It holds speed, does not hunt, and a top-up lasts a proper working month. The empty run is a bit easier on fuel. Fair made up. Mondays are just Mondays. I had started routing around one particular climb, which is absurd, and I have stopped. The van does the job with less argument.

Full of kit, it used to fade. It keeps its speed now and does not hunt every time the gradient changes. Proper pleased.

The old hesitation has gone. The pull is there when the gap appears.

The DPF warning had made every hill a limp-mode lottery and every test a worry. Short trips aborted the cycle and a long run had not saved it. They got a regeneration to complete in the Audi and the light stayed out. It then went through the next check with no smoke and no lamp. The climb to work is a pull. Smashing. I have done another month of the short stuff and it has not returned. I am not living around a warning. The car is just a car again, in the best way.

Less right foot to hold speed, and the rise at the end of the run is finally boring. A compliment.

Not the first car I have taken in. The XF pulls up the hill in a higher gear and the fuel economy is better on a cruise. A phone call the week after was welcome.

A calmer cruise and a hill that has stopped being famous. That will do me.

Joining the bypass takes less road, and the Mercedes has stopped hunting on the way. Well happy.

I am using less right foot to hold speed, and the rise at the end of the bypass is finally boring, which I mean as praise. In town the throttle meets you without lunging, so the queues are less work. A month of the same commute and the figure is slightly kinder on the steady half. Well pleased. The car has not gone noisy or sharp. I can still creep. The change is that I do not manage it, and I notice the absence of that effort more than I notice a surge. That is what I paid for.

Class. The BMW climbs properly.

Those fish in reception are worth a mention on their own, really interesting to watch. I am not too proud to say I stood there like a child. Cock-a-hoop on the way out.

In-gear pull is the whole story. The hill out of the village does not need a downchange.

Free coffee, offered properly rather than pointed at, in a mug, and fresh. I drank it looking at the yard and had a second without having to ask twice. Then the Ford, trailer on, up the lane that used to be a crawl. It pulls, holds the gear, and still has something at the top. Off the hitch it cruises. Belting happy. The coffee made the wait civilised and the drive made the booking make sense. I have done that hill twice since and it has stayed boring. Good.

I noticed it on the way to my mother's. The long pull no longer needs a plan, and I was less tired when I arrived. Grinning.

He did an amazing job with the Audi. I stood there for the runs, and the way it drives home is in another league. Over the moon.

Towing was the test, and the long drag up to the yard is no longer a fight in the Ford. It holds speed and still sits happily on a motorway. Fair made up.

There is a fuller step in the middle, which is where the Mercedes actually lives, between forty and seventy with people aboard. Overtakes take less road, the hill after the roundabout is a single gear, and the cruise holds a headwind with less foot. We have done the airport run full and empty. Full, it no longer fades on the climb. Empty, I am not changing down for every slight rise on the way back. Class. Passengers said it felt less busy. I had felt that and not named it. Now I can.

The first car I took to this garage was an old A4, then my wife's Q3, and now the A6 I do the mileage in. I know how they work, which is why it was never going anywhere else. There is a long hill on the way out of town that used to force a downchange with two people aboard. The car pulls up it and barely notices. I have kept the fuel economy figures since the week after the remap: town driving is level, and the trunk road is better by enough to show on the brim. I asked them, a month on, to have another listen to a whistle I thought was new. They put it on a ramp, found a loose undertray, clipped it up and refused to charge. The aftersale support is as much a reason to go back as the remap.

The Volkswagen is less of a project now. Ask, and the mid-range is there.