Bongo Fury

rita wrote:

BongoBongo123 wrote:What is a charge to the turbo mean Mike? Probably means Turbo Boost .....From the Turbo.

£85.00 rita

£85.00 is a very good price for a lower suspension arm (Wishbone) even without fittin,, is that a second hand one.?

I am not sure rita but that is the price they gave me. Maybe it is this:

"Gaiters for the balljoint on the Mazda Bongo lower suspension wishbone arm are available as a separate item at around £20 each. You will need to pay your mechanic to release the wishbone balljoint"

http://www.mazdabongo.com/catalog/servi ... fact-sheet

Plus fitting labour?

I'd check what they are replacing as £85 for the lower arm is well below a cheap copy price, let alone the labour. So you could assume it isn't that. Alternatively they could be planning on changing just the ball joint but not many people have had luck doing this I believe.

Again if they are doing a gaiter, I'd still question it, as it's a pig of a job and most people just pay for the whole arm replacement.

I've been doing some research as I think one of mine is knocking (not fully convinced it is that yet) at the cheapest blue print ones are £95, the genuine ones are nearer £200.

BongoBongo123 wrote:What is a charge to the turbo mean Mike?

£85.00 rita

Bit of a loose term and we could use a techie hear. But things like air temperature, density, humidity do I think all affect the fuel/air charge to the engine and efficiency of combustion. If so, it might be relevant what conditions were like when you travelled.

Ok to clarify the problem I paid £85.00 to get sorted:

"Offside front lower suspension arm ball joint dust cover excessively deteriorated so that it no longer prevents the ingress of dirt"

Ball joint gaiter £10.00 + £75 fitting

Got rid of 2 advisories : Oil Leak (there was not one) and screen chip (professionally repaired) Yippee !

Got 2 new ones....sigh : "Nearside and Offside front track rod end ball joint dust cover deteriorated, but preventing the ingress of dirt"

"Again if they are doing a gaiter, I'd still question it, as it's a pig of a job and most people just pay for the whole arm replacement. "

1.5 hour labour charge, that Bongo site said 1/2 hour. Not sure whether it was a such good price or not now. But still better than the whole wishbone + labour ultimately. I am not going to complain, it might have been slightly more than it should but for the price I am glad it is through the MOT.

I cannot do it myself so what do you do ?

We paid about the same to have a gaiter fitted to get our Bongo through an Mot although an 'alternative' gator to the Bongo part was used.

I'll join in the toing and froing of the post....

Yep, it's possible to get 40mpg out of the diesel. I drove at a steady 50mph for 150 miles or so on dual carriage ways and motorways and our 4WD Bongo, which normally does around 26mpg when I measure it, went at least half as far again on the same amount of fuel when I did this run.

One good place to look when searching for improved mpg is....Formula 1. No, seriously, F1 drivers save fuel by releasing the throttle prior to braking for a bend (for example) but then let the car coast for a short while before applying the brake. The idea here is you save fuel but only lose a little time.

Of course, you can always slip stream a lorry, a dangerous practice that can lead to you becoming mesmerised by the bobbing up and down of the tailgate and lead you to miss your turn off. That's, ehem, why I've never done this.

I would not tailgate as you say, bad plan all round. I would never compromise safety for fuel. Fairly sure I take the foot off the accelerator in good time for what I see ahead so I seem to have adopted that habit. A lot of this is driving habits I think.

I am happy with the repair I can see they have done the job under there with fresh rubber in place and they have done good work for me in the past. And the time to take it to MOT and retest it. You know you always tend to like to check to see if your price was fair and it seems to be given it seems like a job that is not so easy. I am pleased the Bongo is in good health for another year.

I will take the MazdaBongo 1/2 hour labour with a pinch of salt, given Bongo parts seems to be sold for what seems to be a very tidy profit. Everyone has to earn a living. We all have choices to make in the end regarding goods and services.

Just replaced entire wishbone complete, £95 from mazdabongo.com and £30 for a garage to fit. No complaints here. Seems a false economy to replace just the gaiter as you don't know how much damage has been done to the balljoint by dirt before you carry out the replacement.

weebrian wrote:Just replaced entire wishbone complete, £95 from mazdabongo.com and £30 for a garage to fit. No complaints here. Seems a false economy to replace just the gaiter as you don't know how much damage has been done to the balljoint by dirt before you carry out the replacement.

Glad you did it the best way you see fit. And I hope that your copy part lasts as long as the original did. Sadly not a lot of use knowing that for myself after the job has been done. As long as the repair lasts it is ok.

Apparently 41.48 miles per gallon achieved on latest journey. And interestingly I was not being as religious with the speed. Probably 56-58mph average. Probably warmer than my last run by 4 degrees that might make a difference.

180.8kms/112.34 miles using 12.31/2.708 gallons diesel. (£16.36 filled/12.31 litres @£1.32.9/L))

Magic result, pitty about the PPL of your Diesel.

BongoBongo123 wrote:(£16.36 filled/12.31 litres @£1.32.9/L))

Ye gods!! Where do you live, so I know not to move there That is hellishly expensive diesel

I filled up somewhere on the M1 cannot remember to be honest bu around 113 mile away from home.

(Probably BP they are usually the rip off masters of the fuel industry) I did get 2 Snickers Duos for £1.50 though (uneaten as yet)

Talking of which I must have been doing 50 for a fair way cause there is about 30 mile of road widening going on, but other than that I was not quite as mindful and did not bother about sticking bang on 50-55mph.

I do wonder if this is progressive cleaning (and lubricating) of valves, pistons and other combustion areas, fuel lines etc. from using the Millers additive or just temperature and my gentle foot/driving style. I am seriously impressed though, 20 years old/2.5 tonnes of metal doing 40 mpg+ on motorways regularly is very good going.

I would not mind I was also stuck in traffic a lot hardly great for fuel consumption at 0mpg.

It would be great of the UK could reduce fuel consumption by 25pct overall. 25pct cleaner air.

BongoBongo123 wrote:Apparently 41.48 miles per gallon achieved on latest journey. And interestingly I was not being as religious with the speed. Probably 56-58mph average. Probably warmer than my last run by 4 degrees that might make a difference.

180.8kms/112.34 miles using 12.31/2.708 gallons diesel. (£16.36 filled/12.31 litres @£1.32.9/L))

A following wind really helps. Glad to read this figure. On my best run the calculation suggested 41mpg but I didn't push it as I knew even suggesting 40mpg would attract much scepticism. Interesting thought though that filling up with cheaper diesel could be more cost effective than eking out the mpg. And one big bill, as I had recently, reminds you that within reason the mpg is not such a big issue. But its fun to see what you can get and it does serve to remind that some of the MPG figures on modern powerful turbo diesels are not that much better than a gently driven Bongo.

P.S. I don't personally think the Millers has that much to do with it but I could be quite wrong. Only way to find out is try and repeat tests without Millers?