New year, old shit

I love winter but some guys don't like and keep pouring salt on roads to melt winter. Sadly car's don't like salty water at all

Last winter's damages: hand brake ceased (again), a dent on exhaust (pot hole), a crack under bumber (pot hole) and ARB bushes have splitted (MOT issue if they spot it).

How to fix hand brake? 100% Rubber hammer time, give a good beating to hand brake hook at brake caliper to get it moving then use a ton of CRC, hammer a lot more then clean hook from salty mud if any of that shit is left. Works? Yes

A dent on exhaust: no rust yet so cleaned it and put some rust cover mass on it, so most likely no problem.

The crack under bumber? No big deal, nobody sees it and it doesn't affect anything. I will hang MOT dude if he says anything about it, it is just a decoration under car.. For fucks sake

The next issue is ARB bushes. I was working whole 2014 year and I didn't have time to fix everything so I let guys at garage to look at those bushing and call me if there any cracks. Well shit 3 months later a crack on both ARB bushes, I bet they did nothing so probably not going there anymore. Okay for some miracle those bushes could have splitted after the garage visit but I had symptoms (shaking, no wheel alignment issue) and car would't stabilize during turns (shock issue or ARB issue or both).

Shocks are fine, no leaks and shaking on standstill stops just fine so probably bushes then. I should have known but there is next project for summer to change those ARB bushes. Need to put whole car front on jacks, go under it, unbolt ARB, take out old bushes and put in new ones with white grease. 

Do not buy wheels that do not have enough big center bore hole. Seriously, it costs damn a lot for simple job.

So I bought new summer wheels that were on Nissan before. Nissan uses 66.1mm center bore and my Forfour 67.1mm. Not big difference but enough big for wheel not to go on hub. Dealer said to me it has aluminium rings to make bore smaller but surprise surpise. Behind wheels under all that dirt you find "Nissan" word and then you know you're screwed.

So what this happy nice operation costs? Now first thing you need to get the rubbers off first. Yes they cannot make center bore bigger without removal of tires. It won't fit into machine.  (Unless you got clown car wheels). Well anyway tire removal costs 10-30€ depending on shop but if you go at busiest time of the year then you have to use more expensive ones if you want to get your wheels before autumn. 1mm removal costs me a total of 30€, not too bad thank god but then comes the fun part... Fitting new tires... Now because it is the busiest time for tire shops, cheap ones cannot do it within month so off to blood suckers. Blood sucker took 19€ for one wheel. 19€!!! Grand total: 20+30+76 = 126€ to install wheels. Great deal! Now you see they only charged 30€ from me, how much other shops would have? 50? 100? Lesson: Always check center bore diameter on wheel, you can make it smaller very cheaply, making it bigger... Well that costs about 15 times more