New Porter owner seeks other microvan owners to moan about previous owner's bodges

Hello everyone, I've been reading around on this forum to see what I've got myself into now that I'm the apprehensive new owner of Piaggio's HiJet clone.

My previous van was a citroen c15 which I bought in Leeds from a man at a boarded up pub on a roundabout. Previously I've had another citroen which I bid for on ebay without looking at the location. I had to pick that up from Belfast. These are stories for another time, maybe.

This time, I knew I wanted a little van like a hijet or an extol and as the single extol I was looking at sold pretty quickly, it left me with a choice of two Porters, one in Peterborough that looked OKish and one in Milton Keynes on an 06 plate with 9000 miles only but a really knocked about body. Bearing in mind that I live in South West Wales which is as far from civilisation as it's possible to get.
I phoned the dealer in Peterborough and they said they would deliver (haha) for only £100 so there we are. Needless to say the driver didn't enjoy his 6 hour trip and as he arrived in the dark I couldn't really see what I'd bought. He went through a whole load of problems and things I needed to know exceptionally quickly in an accent I found a bit hard to follow before making off with my cash into the dark.
He mentioned that they had changed the coil packs but it hadn't made any difference. To what, I still do not know. If anyone wants the old ones....

The next day:
I have never before seen a vehicle with so many stone chips. Does everyone get this problem? I've painted over them now but the original paint must be wafer thin!
The van was exceptionally clean and the only rust other than surface in the stone chips is inside the sills behind the front wheels. The rest of the underside is all waxoyled, presumably hiding a multitude of sins.

It's a hilarious van to drive and I love it. There are some highly amusing faults with it too.
At first I thought the temp gauge wasn't working, but it turns out that it uses about 15mm of its scale from cold to fan-comes-on hot. Great!
I thought they'd given it to me with a half tank of petrol, until it ran out of juice within walking distance of the petrol station. The gauge works most of the time, but when empty, defaults to half-full. Positive thinking.
One sliding door handle was broken and the other sliding door very stiff. Neither lined up very well.
The rubber was hanging off the wipers. In wales this is a disaster. Found some old wipers and cut them down to size.
Decided to have a look at coolant. Couldn't find any. eventually some spurted out of cap on engine when air lock released. Colour was milky lemon.
Decided to change coolant. Book says should take 5.7 litres. Clearly didn't drain everything out as only took 4 litres. Where is drain plug on radiator? Metal coolant pipes have been masticked. Evidence of massive coolant leaks. Seems ok right now though....
Paint/lacquer behind speedo peeling so speedo needle gets stuck. Drilled hole in perspex and used wire to knock offending paint away. Speedo works! Shortly after realised how trivially easy it is to remove speedo thus rendering drill hole unnecessary. Screw is missing from one side of dash clocks unit -- must be a favorite place to go!
Also have fun little box with all cables unplugged and some wires cut. probably for functionless remote locking keyring. Also have rear parking sensors in bumper (novelty for such a short vehicle) but little unit in window is broken. Oh well!
Quick internet search to fix doors reveals that every one's favorite treadmill repair man, treadmill doctor, sells a bearing kit and sliding door handles. Less than £20 and I have a new handle that is only marginally more rubbish than the original and a nice smooth bearing action on the door. When he says it's a job for two people to remove the door, I didn't listen so to all those kids out there that want to go it alone, just remember you'll need a friend or a rubbery pen to hold the rear door bearing/hinge at the right angle to get it back in the slider. Which you can't see when you're holding the door.

Next job is to see if I can upload a photo..

Welcome to the madhouse and Hijet ownership. Like the imobiliser\alarm\central locking unit. Presume you dont have the remotes for it. Anymore info on it, sure you could get replacements and get it working again.
Looks a tidy van other wise. Glad you got the hang of picture posting....now you can post some more pics of it

Having a Google, I think you have a GT Auto Alarm fitted, something like a GT904. CLICK HERE This is for a different model I think but looks similar to yours. Sure you could get replacement fobs for them. If you can find out the model then the GTAlarm company in Italy (have their email somewhere as had one of their imobilisers fitted to mine before I got it) were very helpful in supplying the correct instructions.

Thanks Raggy!
The magic box does look pretty exciting but I'm a bit reluctant to plug it back in... presumably it has been unplugged to solve some problem possibly related to indicators (MOT history and grey wires cut...) and maybe other wiring bodges to make it work with/without? But i DO have the transmitter fob, battery flat though. It has a handy on/off slider so you can't press the buttons without realising in your pocket.

I should give it a go, shouldn't I. Does yours work?

I'll do a few more photos tomorrow.

Is the rear door of the van supposed to lock/unlock with the rest of the central locking system or is it manual lock only?

gogopiaggio wrote:

Is the rear door of the van supposed to lock/unlock with the rest of the central locking system or is it manual lock only?

Front and sliding doors lock/unlock with the central locking system.....rear door locks/unlocks manually with key.

Give it a go, you can always disconnect the ones that dont work and work on each non working bit at a time. Shame not to have it if its there and you have the fob which is a bonus.

Parking sensors?


Keyfob

Raggy I will give it a go when i have a battery for the fob.
Thanks oldie for rear door tip.

The van gets 35mpg which seems a bit poor, is it normal? Thanks!

Welcome. My Porter has a different make of c/locking which is referenced in the workshop manual. Unfortunately my destop PC went into cardiac arrest at lunchtime so am unable to acces it atm to see if yours is there.

Yep, paint is thin, and the fuel gauge thing is always fun. Mine worked perfectly until I changed the tank (keeping same sender unit) and now never gets all the way up or down. (Increasingly, like myself!)

I too have wondered about the sort of people who put reversing sensors on a vehicle this size. There must be a term for them... As for the sliding doors, there are several comments on here (somewhere) about those available from the treadmill dr. Also, you don't need to remove the door to change the centre bearings, but at least you now know how to refit them when they fall off!

My running average mpg since I bought the van about 4 years ago is 38.1 IIRC to the last fill. My '02 reg Hijet is running about 34mpg, but that's not me driving it.

What is that thing with a digital readout on your tailgate?

That thing on the tailgate I think is the reversing sensor display, probably could see it from mirror or just used the audio if it has it.
I get 35-39 round town, and on a long steady motorway drive (55mph) I have got 55mpg and mine is the 993.

PFM wrote:Welcome. My Porter has a different make of c/locking which is referenced in the workshop manual. Unfortunately my destop PC went into cardiac arrest at lunchtime so am unable to acces it atm to see if yours is there.

Which manual is that in? Just put central locking on mine, a Piaggio unit and actuators etc. No instructions, just a try and see which works method. No remote module for mine though, just works on the key.

I think the rear display is one of these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Car-Parking-Rear-Reversing-Sensors-4-Sensors-Kit-Audio-Buzzer-Alarm-LED-Display/263552979436

And there was me thinking it was an expensive item.

The unplugged alarm unit in mine probably isn't the brains behind the central locking, as that works from the key Even Though it's not connected.

Thanks everyone for mpg info

The unit you have is an alarm which can trigger the central locking when the alarm is activated. Follow the wires and it will take you to a big grey (if its the same as mine) relay where all the wires go back to from the actuators. This links them all together so that one key movement locks or unlocks the all the doors. Cant tell you where the unit may be as I retro fitted mine. due to length of wires I expect it to be in the driver foot well area somewhere.

Right it’s not a GT auto alarm but one of these CLICKY HERE Looks one decent instruction, good if you could get a set. Maybe contact them, explain situation and see if they will supply a copy?

It is indeed a Silicon Warrior, ready to battle to the death for the safety of my van...

As soon as I have batteries for the fob I'll give it a go.

Meanwhile I'm aware that this is moving into "general hijet discussion" and I don't want to go breaking the rules while I'm still a fresh face.

Your van looks pretty smart raggy, are there any better photos of it floating around?

Do a search for Skylark on here and you will find the rebuild/upgrade topics I have posted. The main one is Renovation but there are others like Facelift etc.

Start a new topic under the General forum, and we’ll carry on from there helping out where we can.

I'm just going to follow this up by saying, thanks to You, raggy, I splashed £2.50 on some cr2032 batteries, plugged in the Warrior and held my breath.

I now have remote locking complete with a comedy blip!blip! sound when activated, just like in an american film!

Hopefully it will be reliable.

btw your van is tidy! lovely paint scheme. Like the custom front end too

Are the bumpers easy to dismount

gogopiaggio wrote:I splashed £2.50 on some cr2032 batteries

Here, enough of that - showing all us tightwads up! Do you have evidence that Raggy 'mounts' his bumpers?

It takes prictace and the sensible answer is yes, easy to take the bumper off.

Do you have evidence that Raggy 'mounts' his bumpers? Very Happy

The high level of shine suggests prolonged and enthusiastic rubbing

I’ll have you know I very careful about my mounting and rubbing, all done with the complete concentration it requires!

Now from the last few posts can you tell it’s the correct forum to be for anything Hijet wise?