I mentioned previously that I had sent my Stagea off to get some work done on it. Well it turns out a little more work was needed than what I had anticipated, and future work has been uncovered. Better the devil you know, I guess. This additional work added several weeks on to the 2-4 week estimate, taking it up to 10 weeks in total.

In those 10 weeks quite a lot has changed with the Stagea, there is the new turbo and ECU as expected, however there is a new front mounted intercooler, new clutch, new charge pipe, new cam cover gasket, new spark plugs, as well as a flush of the fluids in the all wheel drive system. All these changes don’t change the visuals of the car much, exactly what I was looking for.

I primarily made these changes to increase the longevity of the Stagea, the turbo was on its way out and now it’s been fully refreshed. The process did turn up a new future issue, the compression isn’t even across all cylinders, it’s not an immediate issue but something that will need an engine rebuild at some point in the future. Another thing to add to the list of things to get done!

The good news is that it also passed its MOT (annual vehicle inspection) with no advisories at all, even if I only managed to do 800km (500 miles) in a year, which is pretty pitiful. In my defence it did spend 10 weeks I’d normally be using it in a workshop and I knew it wasn’t healthy last year. My aim is to manage quite a few more than that, hopefully that’s possible with the Stagea being my summer “daily”, however without ISOFIX it does make bringing our son a bit of a challenge!

Furthermore, even with the slightly tired engine it is now making 382hp! Over 100hp up from the legal factory figure. On the road it feels a bit faster but not uncontrollable or unsafe. It also may have quite a sizable turbo flutter which I wasn’t expecting but giggled like a small child when I heard it for the first time. I can’t say too much as I have only driven it for an hour back from the garage so I am looking forward to giving more updates as I get to experience more and go on more adventures.

Speaking of adventures, last month me and the family went to Canada to visit my wife’s family. For those of you with children, you can imagine what a 7 hour flight with a 6 month old child was like. We are fortunate enough that when we are in Canada we are able to borrow a vehicle which is very helpful. It does mean that I have a slight panic when driving in Canada as I don’t want to wreck someone else’s car.

What doesn’t help that panic is the quality of driving in Canada. I’m sorry if you’re Canadian but my goodness, it’s not good. Any time I have driven on a highway I have had at least one vehicle drift across into my lane or attempt to merge onto the highway into me whilst I can’t move across. This accompanied with the apparent inability to keep to a speed limit, I am honestly shocked I only see a couple of accidents every time I go.