Ghibli through first big service

I spoke with Jorrit this afternoon and the Ghibli is through its first big service! Jorrit had systematically been through my list of actions and sorted most of them out for me.

• The windscreen washer nozzle is now pointing in the right direction.
• He's left the fuel pump since he thinks it's OK... it is indeed making a noise but he think it sounds OK.
• He's fixed the switch for the courtesy light in the boot.
• He's performed the big service, changing out the timing chains and resetting all the clearances and timing.
• He checked the Lambda probe and confirmed that it's working OK (as we observed on the rolling road a couple of weeks back).
• He's going to order some lamps to fit to the buttons on the center console after he confirmed they don't illuminate at night... he worked on my car 'til midnight last night and probably drove home in it... think he's feeling a bit guilty about making me wait so long for the service!
• He's going to fit a new aerial so that I can receive radio signals!
• He's tightened up the alternator belt, so hopefully no more squealing!
• He's told me to hold off trying to remove the leaf from the A/C ducting, since apparently this involves removing the dashboard. He's advised to try and ignore it for a while and see if it works it's way out.
• He fitted a new volt meter, thinking that the original one was faulty. Turns out that this did not solve the problem. It was instead caused by some short circuiting at the back of the instrument cluster; he re-soldered some of the connections and tightened things up a bit and it appears that this has sorted the problem!
• He oiled the clutch pedal , despite not being able to get it to squack.
• He's fixed the handbrake and tested it on his brake testing machine... he reports that I now have a very good hand brake!

You'll remember that while last at the dyno, we discovered a hole in the throttle body which we thought was the cause of the lost boost pressure. Well, turns out that it wasn't! After changing out the throttle body (he agreed that it was worth changing given the circumstances), the lack of boost pressure persisted and he tracked down the cause to a disconnected wastegate control hose... it had apprently popped off somehow. He re-fitted it and reported the boost pressure now up to 1.23 bar (so I need to get the boost controller reset again!).

While testing out the car, he tried out the brakes (by braking really hard) and thinks that they're not quite up to scratch. He says they're looking a bit blue which is probably an indication that they're getting too hot and fading. So I need to start looking into a new brake system I think... although I think the cause is that I simply don't use the car enough and that the brake discs are oxidising which is making them perform badly.

He also checked out the CO emisions. Seems that the catalyst on the right hand side is not 100% since CO on the left bank reads 0.25% (which is below the maximum 0.3% for my EURO2 car), but on the right hand side it reads 0.46%, which is obviously over (this is at 3,000 rpm). Seems at some point a new catalyst will be required.

If all goes to plan then I should be able to pick up the car tomorrow and hopefully get the long awaited new wheels next week!