Recently, I had the good fortune to attend the Bathurst 12 hour race. This meant a weekend away driving the car in and around the central west of the state.
We departed mid-morning on the Friday and after dropping our stuff off at our accommodation we headed to the Mount Panorama track. Here the ole F355 ticked over 100,000 kilometres total travel distance. Never a more fitting place to do this.
The rest of the weekend was a series of drives to and from the track, as well as around the area. Unfortunately, this did mean exploring some pot holes along the way but hopefully none of them caused any serious damage. It is always annoying to be travelling along at speed and then hit one out of the blue that was hidden or your missed.
Before I left I had the concern of the getting lights and no crank so I had given to Sal from Racing Red to go over. The good news is that he did find a loose connection on the starter motor and since then that particular problem has not re-occurred. The bad news is that that the ‘glugging’ start hasn’t fully gone. I had one instance over the weekend when the car was started and went into limp mode. I turned it off and on again and it was fine.
The issue seems to happen more when the car is warm and stopped for a short while and then started again, like when you stop for fuel. The limp mode incident was only at the end of the weekend, and only the one time. However, the start up is not as crisp as it once was and it feel like a bit of a lottery as to whether it starts fully. So far, the results have been favourable, but there is still an issue I feel. Unfortunately, it is hard to troubleshoot as it doesn’t happen all the time. I’ll need keep track of how it goes, but certainly the no crank issue seems resolved.
Unfortunately, here in Australia, when a car crosses the 100,000 kilometre barrier its value tends to plummet. I have no intention of selling but I kind of wonder what sort of hit the value has taken now?
The trip to Bathurst was a great weekend away with probably almost 700 kilometres of driving in the brilliant sunshine and surrounds. Love that kind of weekend. Let’s see how the start up process gets on from this point and see if there is some way to isolate what the issue maybe.
Onwards to 200,000 kilometres.
Love the F355 