The car would start and run at high revs (circa 3000 rpm) but wouldn’t tickover.
As I was travelling and up against it time-wise I decided to get Caterham to pick up the car and sort that and the U/S oil pressure gauge out and then put it through its IVA. In all honesty I knew I was going to be a little bored sorting out cable routing etc anyway so this seemed like a good idea.
IT WAS NOT!
The car was picked up and the IVA date booked in for 2 weeks later. I got a call from Caterham a few days later and a quote for £1000 for 12 hours!!!! of rectification work. 3 hours of which was to cable tie stuff under the engine bay. I was helpfully told “thats really pretty good”.
I know I made a couple of errors with washers and I mis-routed the top rad hose but charging me for new battery lead terminals because the leads were too long! The leads supplied by Caterham – really! I also objected to having to pay for a new throttle cable because I had fitted it with the metal insides from electrical block (it was secure and others have done it), rather than bend the throttle peddle arm (I have big feet and I was worried my feet would catch the top of the bent arm – and they do!!).
The icing on the cake was trying to charge for making the engine run properly.
Caterham Gatwick were totally disinterested in my objections and took a “pay up or you can pick it up and do it yourself” approach.
With the car at Gatwick and me travelling I ended up forking out the money and the car went through OK so I got it back in time for some hot weather.
It was a very disappointing end to my build.