smurf

If you have a Campervanco conversion, your 12V battery is under the driver's seat. It doesn't crank the engine though, it just provides 12V power. Without that 12V though, it will not start.

Personally I wouldn't jump to use a liquid sealant before knowing what the issue is, as once that stuff is in there sealing holes it can seal any hole including ones there by design. If BMW really did put it in new engines I think they need to review their design and manufacturing processes if they couldn't get them to hold in coolant 🤣.

The most likely common failure point on the coolant system is a plastic T piece around the back of the engine. Unless you can actually see coolant leaking out of the block, I would investigate that first.

Leaks from the windscreen seal are not uncommon.

Mick said he has a Vellfire so I assumed he had just set up his profile incorrectly.

Thanks Mick, that is interesting info. Yours are for a Gen 2 and from a little bit of googling it appears the kerb weight of the gen 2s are little bit higher than gen 1 so the springs were possibly bigger from the factory. If so, uprated springs will be bigger again.

I've been doing a bit more investigating on this and I have been down a rabbit hole of spring rate calculations. This led me to taking some measurements and I've found the wire diameter of the springs fitted to my car is 16.5mm (presumably OEM springs). The uprated springs I bought via eBay have a wire diameter of 16.1mm. They appear to have the same number of coils, so if I had fitted those springs it would be sitting lower afterwards.

Open a Nationwide Flex plus current account. No need to transfer your existing account, just open it and pay the monthly fee of £12. Included with the account is full personal AA European breakdown cover with no age restriction on the vehicle, and Alphards are well within the size and weight limits. If you open it as a joint account you both get personal AA cover but still just £12 a month. It also has travel insurance and mobile phone insurance as well. If you are planning long stints abroad it might not be suitable. If you get quotes for European breakdown cover you may find it is vastly more expensive than the current account fee. I found I struggled to find a quote at a price I was willing to pay because mine is over 20 years old. If I recall correctly I would have had to pay more to get just 10 days breakdown cover to drive in the Republic of Ireland than the cost of the current account for a year.

Hi Chris. Did you ever get to the bottom of sorting this? I was about to get some 20% uprated springs fitted but I have since found out that the hybrid rear springs are a different part number to the rest of range, and the most likely reason is that they are uprated over standard because of the extra 200kg the car carries. As such, it probably means the 20% uprated springs are underrated on a hybrid 😫.

I have a 2003 Alphard E-four camper. It was converted by the now defunct campers Scotland, also known as Campervanco, and they specialised in converting the hybrid Alphard so there are quite a few about if you look. It suits me fine, won't win any speed records, and although it is a hybrid it is still a bit thirsty (I generally get about 35mpg on motorway runs sitting at 60mpg) The older hybrids are getting long in the tooth, and they can throw up expensive faults. Having said that, like anything these days you only hear of the people who have had a problem, not all the people who don't. If you have set your heart on the hybrid then maybe see if you could stretch to the later gen 2 model as the hybrid system is very different. The non hybrids models aren't too far behind in fuel consumption, so don't discount them if that is your reason for looking at hybrids. It terms of getting 5 belted seats, I believe North Star conversions do offer this with a side conversion but it does then limit the space for the side conversion. If you do a Google search you will probably find some photos to get an idea of what is possible.

Toyota don't make them, so don't waste your time with them. The only company left manufacturing them for the Alphard is PCT automotive https://www.pctautomotive.com/towbars

So far as charging goes, a lead acid leisure battery and a lead acid starter battery require absolutely no difference in how they are charged. The differences between the construction of the batteries is minimal. If the leisure is something like an AGM battery then a charger capable of charging that battery in the correct manner should be used, but even a charger just made for a common starter battery would not make wreck an AGM battery on one charge cycle It is more likely that your charger killed the Sargent unit by forcing current into its outlet side, or it was on its last legs and the charger exposed the weak point.

That is a great result 👍

Not as bad as it sounds. It looked like a Russian enthusiast run website that originally offered the manuals with payment via PayPal, and the Ukraine invasion stopped that method of payment. I took a punt for $40US and it worked out fine. The website has gone now, but this is it on the internet archive https://web.archive.org/web/20230326174700/http://en.estima.su/

It is perfectly fine to charge a battery on the car with a modern smart charger. Those of us with camper conversions are charging our batteries on the car every time we hookup. My main 12V battery is also charged from the solar panel. There is no reason for fuses to be blowing because a few amps is flowing into the battery. I wouldn't chance it with an old school charger, and would always disconnect when using one of these. They can be a bit more brutal.