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I've been on the forum for probably over six months now and been lurking longer than that while I did research and waited for the right car. The right one finally appeared for sale and I concluded the purchase last week. It was delivered today. I'm in Atlanta and the car was in Houston and I had a lot of stuff going on so wasn't able to get out to look at the car in person. I bought the car without ever seeing it in person or driving it, which I've never done before and was quite nerve racking. The car is cosmetically in excellent condition, but has a couple mechanical issues I'll get to in a sec. First, here it is. 2013 V8V in tungsten silver:
As you can see, the car has DBS wheels on it. The car has had 5 owners, which made me think really hard about buying it, but I called AM of Austin and talked to one of the service advisors there about the car. Turns out one of the owners put a ton of stuff on the car. Exterior wise the carbon fiber splitter and diffuser were added along with the DBS wheels. The interior has the DBS shift ****, carbon fiber shifter surround, carbon fiber door pull bars, and carbon fiber upper center console. The car has a Quicksilver exhaust (not sure which model) and I was told it has the V8S air boxes and S tune. Options from the factory included the luxe pack and sport suspension. So with all that I decided to get it even with the 5 owners. The car is in excellent condition so everyone who owned it has been good to it.
The intake manifold is not black and does not have the extra vacuum nipple, but I did find vacuum lines zipped tied to the intake tubing that goes down towards the air boxes. It appears those lines are fed by a T off a vacuum line on the passenger side of the intake. So I suspect that AM came up with a different way to retrofit the S airboxes onto a non-S car. Here's a pic of where the T is on the right side of the manifold. The vacuum line heading off to the right feeds the lines following the intake tubing.
Now to my issues. The brakes work awesome. The pedal is pretty sensitive so I will have to adjust to that. But I'm getting some metal squealing. The car had a PPI done some I'm presuming the pads are ok, but I'll check anyways. Is the squeal common or is that something to check into more?
The other issue is that I went out for a drive today and the "Emission system service required" message came on. I looked through a lot of the threads on here about that and it looks like it could be nothing or could be an O2 sensor. I don't have an OBDII reader, but am going to get one to check the codes. The issue I have is that metro Atlanta has emissions inspections and the car won't pass if it has any codes. I actually went straight to an emissions station after receiving the car to get the inspection. The car failed due to the "Readiness test" failing. That appears to mean the car had not been driven enough since the last code reset. So if I reset the codes then I have to drive it enough for the emissions test to pass. I was getting a low battery warning while I was siting in the driveway playing around with the controls and I wonder if that is related as well. Any thoughts are welcome.
Shot of the car at the emissions place.
The car looks and sounds awesome and I'm happy I got it. Hopefully the emissions thing is a simple fix. Looking forward to contributing to the DIY community.
Replacing the battery will require a drive cycle for readiness reset. Also, a low or dead battery or a battery swap will require a reset. Low voltage can also cause many different system warnings...an obd2 reader can really help to determine what is going on...congrats...nice ride...enjoy in good health
great to see another local owner, congrats on the car.
i wish you well in finding a solution to the emissions code, i've had one as well ever since i got my car last summer. luckily i was able to register it in a diff county where my mother resides that does not require testing.
Once you reset the code and drive for a few cycles it should clear. The squeaky brake thing is common. Mine goes away after a few firm brake applications.
Code reader ordered, but in the meantime I dropped by AutoZone to have them pull the codes. Have 3 P0130 O2 Circuit Bank 1, Sensor 1 and 1 P0150 O2 Circuit Bank 2, Sensor 1. The reader thought it was an old Subaru, but I think those are generic codes so the make/model doesn't matter. They wouldn't do a reset so I'll have to wait till I get mine to do that. Hoping it was just some flaky readings. Also have a battery tender on they way with a 12v power port adapter to make sure the battery is topped off. At some point I'll put in the Braille battery, but just want to get the emissions done at this point.
Thinking I have the super sport Quicksilver exhaust. It sounds like a race car, which is cool, but it is pretty loud, especially at cold start.
Shifting is pretty notchy so it may be time to put in some new transaxle oil. I don't have maintenance records so I may flush/replace all the fluids to have a baseline.
There's an rj-11 phone type connector coming out of the headliner right next to the rearview mirror. I have no idea what it is. I don't think it's stock, but maybe it is. I have no idea where it goes and don't feel like taking down the headliner to find out. Only thing I can come up with is maybe radar detector. Anybody have any clue?
The car has premium audio, but there's hardly any sounds coming out of the back set of speakers. Even when I move the fader completely to the rear. Is that normal or is there some sort of issue with those speakers? Audiophiles how do you set your treble/mid/bass/sub along with the 5-band eq? Do you leave the treble/mid/bass at 0 and then adjust using the eq? Not sure what is the best way.
The car has premium audio, but there's hardly any sounds coming out of the back set of speakers. Even when I move the fader completely to the rear. Is that normal or is there some sort of issue with those speakers?
The audio system is totally stupid, you have to fuss around with not only the settings you get from pushing (or is it holding down) the music note button, but hit menu on the console and go to "aux options" or whatever source you are using (FM, SAT, etc)...
Then go to surround options... I feel that 'surround EQ' makes the music sound like **** so I turn that off, I tried 2 channel stereo and it sounds just 'ok' so I went with the 3 channel and it seems better, there are a ton of different settings and two totally different places you can find them at. Don't forget to fiddle with the Equalizer under the menu settings as well!
This car is very British!!! Get used to some things that are backwards!
The car has premium audio, but there's hardly any sounds coming out of the back set of speakers. Even when I move the fader completely to the rear. Is that normal or is there some sort of issue with those speakers? Audiophiles how do you set your treble/mid/bass/sub along with the 5-band eq? Do you leave the treble/mid/bass at 0 and then adjust using the eq? Not sure what is the best way.
Yes...Valentine one...Never leave home without it...On a thread someone did a custom fit for theirs with hiding it inside the dome...Clever..
good luck with the car...
Yes...Valentine one...Never leave home without it...On a thread someone did a custom fit for theirs with hiding it inside the dome...Clever..
good luck with the car...
Got my battery tender today and hooked it up. Not even at 50% yet so the battery was definitely low. Using the power port in the hatch sucks. You have to open the little cover in the hatch area and the connector is so flimsily attached that I'm worried about bending it when plugging in the tender. I was hoping to leave the tender connector plugged in, but the cover won't close if you do. Then you have to leave the hatch unlatched to not damage the seal. So I'm thinking of using the power port located in the ashtry area instead and just leaving the passenger window cracked a little bit for the cable. I'm not fan of using the power ports to charge the battery so will probably hook up cables directly to the battery at some point and just have the connector under the parcel shelf.
Also received a bluetooth OBDII dongle. Going to get OBD Fusion for my Android phone and use it to reset the codes. Hopefully they don't come back once the battery is fully charged.
Codes are cleared and reset, but appears the battery may be toast. Just opening the door and hooking up the OBD reader caused the tender to go from almost 50% to below 25%. Doesn't seem the battery is holding a charge. Car immediately popped up a low battery warning. Will let it run overnight and see what happens. Oddly it still has enough juice to start the car. Might be getting that Braille sooner than I thought.
Update. Swapped out the battery. You can read about that in the thread I started on the battery replacement. Short story: 2013 cars use a different size battery than earlier cars. Took the car out for a drive and no codes so far. Fingers crossed it was the low battery. It needs to be driven some more before it'll be ready for the emissions test.
Apparently one of the previous owners thought the same thing about the power port in the hatch because I found a battery charger cable spliced into the power port wires using vampire taps. Looks like it hasn't been used in a long time as there appears to be corrosion on the exposed connector. I'll find the fuse for the port and remove the cable and possibly put in my own. Still not sure whether leaving the hatch open or leaving the passenger window cracked is better.....
I tried the audio setting in the FAQ from PH and it sounds pretty good. The +6 for the surround is what makes the rear speakers louder. I found them to actually be too loud as you want the sound stage in the front so I've turned it down to +2. The rears are so close to your head that they don't have to be loud to be heard. Guess that's why Aston has the level so low to start.
Brakes squeal no matter what I do. Annoying, but I can live with it.
Another update. The car passed emissions. No codes have come back since I swapped the battery. I had issues getting all the different systems to show as ready even though I was driving the car. I found this link helpful:
I followed the test drive outlined in the article and when I got back all the remaining systems were ready.
The rj-11 connector is for a v1 as folks thought. I found the other end of the cable in the passenger floor fuse box. There was an adapter spliced into a power wire with V1 on it.
I was in the fuse box to try and pull the fuse for the power socket in the hatch. The service manual I have shows fuse 77 as for the hatch socket, but it still had power after I pulled the fuse. It looks like the power socket positive wire goes into the fuse box in the hatch, but you can't tell which fuse and I didn't feel like pulling each one to see. Anybody have definitive info which fuse on a 2013 controls the hatch socket?
A PSA. If you fancy yourself doing wiring work in car, zip ties are cheap so use them. Don't just leave wires hanging.
I'm enjoying driving the car. The exhaust sounds awesome and the steering feel is precise. The car has the sports suspension and it feels good to me. I don't think I'd want it softer. The brakes are great. I have to be careful not to hit them too hard in normal driving or the car immediately stops and I don't want somebody hitting me from behind. I think I've finally found a good position for the seat. I had to completely deflate all the lumber support so that it didn't feel like I was being pushed out of the seat. The side bolsters feel more supportive now. My only complaint is the pedal positioning. I have not been able to find a consistent way to heel-toe downshift despite my size 13 feet. I'm thinking of getting one of the custom gas pedals with some extra width to see if that helps.
