Good Things Can Only Get Better
Here's a snapshot of the GPS.
Who ever said that doing the same thing over again is boring needs to re-think his philosophy. We made the trip again, this time, non-stop from Singapore to Hua Hin. Total time on the road was 18 hours. We only made short stops for fuel and quick bites. How did Daisy performed? Almost flawless; there was some surge in the transmission (feels like the DVANOS kicking in), idling was a bit rough and the CD changer was defective along with the AUX input. There were no dramas like the last time. Everything went according to plan. Another great drive for the book.
Here we go again
Daisy is all sorted out and we are ready to roll again. What we thought was an alternator or throttle body problem turned out to be an electrical problem. Over time, the wires in the car will deteriorate. There will come a time when the impedance will be affected and this will result in the engine check light coming on. Whenever the car is started, it performs a self-test and if the impedance is not according to specs, the ECU will go into a limp home mode to protect the engine. This was exactly what happened to Daisy. Good thing I bought an engine harness previously and this came into good use. After the installation of the new engine harness, everything is alright. It will take some time for the ECU to re-adapt but once that is done, Daisy is as good as new
We also had the dent on the left front fender repaired and honestly, you wouldn't even noticed that there was a dent there previously. Mr Lye of Lye Design is the master of hard knocks. The man himself only had Primary 1 education while his wife was much better; she had Primary 6 education. But, through sheer hard work, they have proved that an education is not completely necessary in life. What a man...
So, we are ready to go home again. This trip will be better than the past because I am now more familiar with the roads and the admin procedures. Home...here we come.
Hua Hin to Singapore
What a drive! We set off at 7am. Before that, Daisy developed the usual problem we have been facing the past few days ie. engine failsafe program will activate the limp home mode. Managed to resolve the issue and off we went. The drive from Hua Hin to Krabi was beautiful. The roads were clear since it was a holiday in Thailand and we arrived in Krabi around 12.30pm. Route 44 which took us to Krabi was beautiful. I have never seen 90 km of road so straight and scenic. We spent the night in Krabi.
The next morning, as expected, the engine failsafe program activated itself again. By now, I know that it would go away after some time. Thankfully, it did and we set off for Singapore. This part of the drive was rather stressful as I had to do the navigation myself and there were many twists and turns. We ended up going the wrong way a couple of times but we still arrived at the small checkpoint at Wang Prachan. The next part of the drive along the Malaysian North-South highway was the most boring part of the drive. I had to jostled with other cars who don't seem to know what safe driving is all about. It rained during some parts of the drive and the roads were dark at some stretches also. Thankfully, we got back safe and sound.
The engine failsafe program has been diagnosed to be problems with the battery and alternator. During crank-up, the voltage on the battery drops below 7 volts and this triggers the ECU to generate the check light. The alternator is also intermittent in charging and this sends out another signal to the ECU to activate the check light. The two problems will be fixed before we head back to Hua Hin again.
