My new daily is NOT what you expect

What's this in here? A snail. I'm very French. This is where I feel a bit vulnerable now. Come on, more speed. Give me 60. I'm going to run out of space. Good. That's kind of fuzzy to it. Good tag. Is Hi, Sir Matthew Watson. I've bought one of the rarest cars in the UK. Now, before you say, that's not a car. That's clearly a quadricycle. No, this is classified as an actual car, same as a Rolls-Royce. And it does actually have something in common with a McLaren F1. But things aren't always as they seem because I've already discovered a few worrying problems. What? So, I'm going to put this car through a series of tests to see if I've made a terrible mistake. Look at this. This is not good. I'll also dig into its bizarre history, measure its performance. Come on, just a bit more. Find out if it's a death trap. Oh. And uncover the most difficult thing about owning one of the UK's rarest cars. I'm Matt Watson and you're watching Car Wow. But first, what the hell is this car? Well, it's called the Mia C and it's a tiny electric car built in France between 2011 and 2013. It's actually rarer than a Ferrari F40 because only a thousand were ever made before the company went bust. And I think I found a reason why. I found a review from Auto Car Magazine from back in 2012 on the Mia C and they gave it their equivalent of considerate. Now, they said it was all right and quite a good concept, but the problem is considering the price, £25,000, it was a little bit expensive considering the performance and the fact that it's quite noisy and the range isn't great. They just said like for an extra 4 grand, get yourself a Nissan Leaf, which is a way more sorted car. And most people did because Nissan sold over 40,000 Leafs. According to the website, how many left? Only 11 MC's were ever registered on UK roads. But despite that, it does have a few redeeming features. First things first, I need to show you how to get into this car cuz it flammucks a jack over there. So, if you press the key, this is all that happens, right? You can hear it locking and unlocking and you like it doesn't open. Can you guess how you're going to get in? You press the flower and it releases the electric ladder and then you've got this sliding door which makes it quite easy to get in. Now, this is the part where it's like a McLaren F1. It's a three-seater. So, you have the driver in the center like this, which is great. So you get a good view all around and then there is space for people behind you. So Jack, would you mind just getting in here? Have you got enough room? Oh yeah. Lovely. Look at that. So I'm just going to shut the door then open the window. Look at that. It's clever, isn't it? Now confusingly there's no actual button to press to open this. Look, you think there's one under there, but there's not. You do actually have to just do this on the key, then it opens. Don't know why they didn't do that for the doors. So it's complete piece of glass. the tailgate to save space and weight. Unfortunately, look, it's a used vehicle. This is a bit saggy, but the capacity is decent. And I'll illustrate that now with the help of unfortunately you again, please, Jack, can you climb into the boot, do you think? I'll try. Go on then. It isn't a car way review unless I'm humiliating somebody. Right. You ready? Yeah. Don't say, "Oh, God, you're like doing the car down." I think it's fine. Look at that. Actually, looks perfectly comfortable. The MC came with two battery capacities, 8 kW and 12 kW. Tiny by today's standards, both of those. Now, the 8 kW is supposed to have a range of 56 mi. If I'm looking on the dash here, it says battery is full and I got a range of 50 mi. So, maybe it's the 8 kW. However, if I press the eco button, it then changes to 68 mi. So, perhaps it's the 12 kW and it's just lost some of its cells. Let's get going. Going to drive by pressing this button. Hear that noise? I need to get that checked out. We'll be getting up on a ramp as well, so hopefully it's not a death trap cuz I have to drive it back. And little did I know this foreshadowed some pretty scary discoveries I'd make later in this video. It's going to cost you a hell of a lot. Oh, but interestingly, the Mia is a real car, unlike my Citroen Ammy buggy. So, you can drive it on any road, even motorways. But this comes with a few problems of its own. First thing I've noticed about driving this car is, blime me, steering does nothing. Then all of a sudden it just starts like a when you're going at faster speeds. It doesn't feel great at around 50 mph. It's certainly nowhere near as stable on the road as a Nissan Leaf. But it'll be interesting to find out if the reason it's not stable is because there's something wrong with this particular car. Feels like there might be. The suspension is just a little bit bouncy with no damping. And this thing is pulling to the left and it's just so wobbly. I've noticed a problem with this central driving position. Right now I'd like to just rest my arm on something. It doesn't really work in this, does it? This is where I feel a bit vulnerable now. I'm getting tailgated by a big lorry. Can I dare an overtake? Come on. 56. Come on. Can we get 57? Yes. 57. We're going to start going downhill. What can we get? Top speed supposedly 62. Come on. 61. Prepare for Vmax before we go on an incline. V-Max 62. I saw a 63. Come on, baby. 63. Oh yeah. Yeah, we're going uphill now. Oh, that's it. Oh, the rush. Things soon took a turn for the worse when the ABS light came on. And that was the first sign that my little car wasn't 100% okay. Thankfully, I was just around the corner from the garage that was going to inspect it and hopefully fix it. This is Ty. He's the mechanic who's going to check this car over. Now, have you seen a Merc before? No, never heard of them. I'll show you how unintuitive this car is to operate. So, there's the keys. Go for it. Get in it. Drive on the ramp. Wow. Now, I think it's having a problem because it won't let you put it into drive when the door isn't shut properly. You think the door shut, but it's not. You have to give it a good old slam. But it does say in like little writing just on the dash and where the doors open. It's a bigger benefit of medication if you're diagnosed. I mean, I'm seeing DNR for drive and reverse, but nothing's changing from neutral. Right. Turn the ignition on hard. Now, press and what's it saying underneath? It says in there, turn it off and on again. Do it again. Turn it till it beeps. And what does it say? Door L. So, there's a problem with it. The doors like, see that when you shut the door, it doesn't shut. Probably this is the left door. So, if you do that now, give it another go. There we go. Tolly finally got the car on the ramp so he could inspect it. But I've already got a few suspicions. The ABS light is on, so there's definitely something wrong with the brakes and the suspension is far too bouncy, so maybe it needs new shock absorbers. But the worst thing is the steering because the car wanders all over the place. However, I'm no mechanic. So, I braced myself for even more bad news and I was about to be shocked. Actually, it don't look too bad. It doesn't look It does not look bad underneath. I think it might have had a bit of an accident here. And that's a bit dented, isn't it? Your rear right shock is leaking. How easy is that to replace? Can't be that hard, can it? A couple of bolts. They don't look too rusty. Well, you got to find the parts for it. I don't know. Where are we going to find the parts for it? That is a problem. The drop link's just starting to let a bit of grease through on the the edge there. That looks like it's moving a bit. There is a slight bit of movement in it. So, how do we fix that? I'd say probably front end off. Oh, what? And the bad news kept coming. It seemed like the tie rod ends on both sides had worn, which would explain the dodgy steering. But even though we knew the problem, we had no idea where to get the new parts from. But I still had a small glimmer of hope. So got a bit of a development. I just went on to Gemini and it's don't ask for parts from Mercy. Ask for parts for a Citroen Saxo. I know that the key is from a Citroen. If you look at it compared to my Amy, it's the same. But the good news didn't stop there. As well as tie rods from a 2004 Citroen Saxo. Gemini said the shock absorbers were from a Citroen C1 and we could get all these parts delivered by GSF the next day. So all we had to do was work out how on earth to fit them because there's basically no information about this car online. Although Gemini seemed quite confident it knew the answer. The body released on the mirror se is not inside the kite is on the exterior. Go to the front and stand by the very front of your mirror. Find the driver's side vent. Driver's side vent where the driver is in the middle. I'm not seeing any of that. I don't trust Gemini at all. Now you found it. Yeah. You unscrew him. It's not a proper one. It's the unscrew one. Oh, I saw those earlier and wondered what they were. There you go. Should be fully out. What's this in here? A snail. A snail. How very French. So, now we can see the steering rack, can't we? However, it looked like we couldn't reach it without taking the front bulkhead off. That would be difficult enough, but then Ria noticed something that might make it impossible to do any future repairs to the front of this car. Well, his plan was to take this front end off it, but this windscreen's been replaced. If you can see, whoever did it did it badly and they've glued onto the here. Yeah, but you can cut that off, can't you? We'll cut it off. But then you got to glue the windscreen back in again. And this could be a recipe for disaster. If we crack the windscreen, we might never be able to get a replacement because unlike other parts, the glass was made specifically for the MIA. However, I noticed a phone number stamped into it, so we gave it a call. I've got a weird French car. Yeah. You guys made the screen for it? Mia electric mia. Yeah, we do it, mate. No prices against it. Could you make me one? I don't know. And if it could, it's going to cost you a hell of a lot. So, I thought I was smart buying this rare car, but now I'm not so smart, am I? I'm not I'm not saying anything. We to Gemini and Google looking for workshop manuals or diagrams that might tell us what to do, but found nothing until we discovered a German company called Fox E-mobility. They're currently developing a brand new electric car that's also called the MIA. I thought it was just a coincidence, but the technical diagrams on their website look exactly like my car. It even has the same flower logo. It felt like a long shot, but they might be the only people in the world who can help me fix my car. Good. Good. Is Hi, Sir Matthew Watson. Uh, I'm English. Do you speak English? Yes. Oh, good. Despite my terrible German introduction, I managed to arrange a video call with their CEO for that evening. Maybe he could explain how to mend my car's awful steering without removing and possibly breaking the irreplaceable windscreen. We all agreed that it would be stupid to keep working on the MIA today and risk causing any serious damage. Hopefully, I'll be able to come back tomorrow with the workshop manuals and new parts so we could actually make some progress. But right now, the best thing we could do was put it all back together so I could drive it home. And this gave me a chance to do another important test. I'm going to see just how far I can drive before the battery dies. I'm not sure if I'm going to let it die the whole way. You're probably going to call me later recovery truck. Yeah, I've broken it. I've been driving for almost 30 miles. We got 33 miles of range remaining. So, over 60. That will be in total if it gets that far. Oh, it's just dropped to 32. Battery percent is above 50. I can't quite read exactly what that means. I am concerned though. I'm not sure if I'm going to go the whole hog. I don't want to brick it because it would just write the car off. So, I might just take it down to 1 mile of range. We shall see. But there's something I want to show you first. Now, let's see how quick this little Mercy is from naugh to 60 mph. Will it even reach a proper 60 mph? Said it on the dash, but they always overread. Let's find out. 3 2 1 go. Oh yeah, we're in power mode. Won't be doing my range much good this, but let's find out. Speed is building. Time is ticking. 40. God, it's all over the place. 50. Come on, you can do it. Quarter mile in 25 seconds. Not even at 60 m an hour yet. It's coming. We're approaching. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. More speed. We're so close. Come on. Give me 60. Give me 60. I'm going to run out of space. I'm going to run out of space. Come on. Just a bit more. More. Ran out of space. Right. I was so close. Have to go up the top of the runway again and see if you can give it another go. 30. Oh, sorry. 40. We should do it this time. Come on. 50. No, we've got like a mile or so to get to 60. Slightly slow on the quarter mile. Not by much, though. Come on. Come on, we can do it. Let's go to 60. 56 57. Come on. 58. 59. Come on. Get over 59. We're going. We're going. We're going. We're going to do this. Come on. YES. 60 in 56.49 seconds. Wow. Can we reach the 62 mph top speed? No. I'm going to full emergency stop now to check the braking distance. Well, ABS definitely doesn't work. No, the ABS doesn't work at all. Uh, the braking distance was 209 foot. That's not good. In fact, that's the slowest naugh to 60 mph time I've ever recorded and the worst braking distance as well. But woe for performance wasn't the only thing troubling me about the MIA. I've been looking at this car and trying to figure out what's going on with it. Obviously, we've got this terrible windscreen replacement. This is a wrap, but then this looks like it's original. And then when we move around here, rip off part of the wrap, you can see that this is the original color of the car. Yeah. When we come to this door here, look, look here. That is definitely white there. Can you see? And then in here, look in here. That's white as well in there. If I look down here, you'll see that's white underneath here. Yeah, this is white in here. You can see. And so I've been thinking, what's going on? And I've got an idea. This is what I think happened. This car's been in an accident. We seen the dent at the front. I think it got smashed here. Maybe they went over something and it went underneath and ripped. If you look at the bottom of the doors here like this, maybe it ripped part of the bottom of the door and because it's plastic, it just shattered it. Obviously, not many of these sold. They need a replacement door. They had to take one from what was available and it was a white car. And so they just thought sod it'll wrap it in red. I've got a damage to me. And that's not the only unusual history I discover about this car. But before we get to that, let's check out the cabin because in some ways it's even weirder than the exterior. You got a flat bottom steering wheel. This one's a bit worn out on its flat bottom. Oh, at least we do have an airbag. Not sure if it works. You have this symmetrical dash design cuz you sit in the middle of it. This is your air vents. You then have your switches there for your light. Quite a creaky old stalk. A little digital driver's display with your speed, your range, your battery, and your mileage. And it shows you what gear you're in. Then down here you have your headlight up and down adjustment. Um, these I thought these were aftermarket and stuck on, but they're not. They're part of the car, but they've gone all sticky. It's like the coating they had on them over the years has gone Yeah. You got a 12vt connector there. Another one on this side as well. I actually pulled this one loose trying to figure out what it was. Down here you have some storage nets. Storage nets. There's a place for your stereo there. And I think that's what the cutout is in there. It's for you probably put a CD changer in there. What else you need to know? one sun visor, rear view mirror, which just seems to be on the wrong side. I'd rather almost have it there. Maybe if you're in France, it's better. I don't know. It's got a manual handbrake. Can't adjust the steering wheel or anything like that. Oh, we have an air vent down here. That is really all you need to know. Actually, there's one other thing I need to find out about this car. How far can it really go on a full charge? Well, I'd already managed 53 mi so far, and I was hopeful I could make it back to my house, which was just a few more miles away. But as soon as I hit the road, the BC had other ideas. Here we go. Here we go. We got the battery warning light. 4 miles of range. What's going to happen? Not sure it's going to do the 60. We're going at 3 mi range. How low can I go? The battery light isn't flashing now. It's just permanently on. 2 mi. These miles are falling. Falling faster than I'm traveling. Is that just going to go disappear and then game over? I mean, as far as I'm concerned, that's showing a quarter left, but it's not quarter left. Really feels like the car's losing power. Going up a slight hill. Normally it would just be able to pull itself up here, but it's really struggling. Oh dear. How about if I press power? No. It's saying to stop. Look at this. This is not good. I'm not going to make it. I need to find somewhere to pull over. Just disappeared. Yeah, it's lost power. It's gone to Let's move out the way. Sorry. Ah, great. Sliding doors are right. So, we're a bit stuck now. Um, oh dear. It won't start. It really just went 2 miles. Puff done. Overall, I'd managed 55 mi, which is about 69% of what Mia claimed it could do when it was new. And it's only 13 miles shy of what the car predicted that morning. But there was still a big problem. I only had half an hour before I was due to call the company that's trying to resurrect these weird cars. But I was currently stranded by the side of the road with no way to get home. So I had to get creative. This is what we normally will charge up our cameras and stuff using Jackary. So let's give it a go. How do I start it? Input. No. Gone. It's charging. So if you get one of these cars, you need one of them. After 10 minutes, it looked like the car had gained two miles of range. But despite this, it kept switching itself off and it wouldn't go into drive. It seemed like the battery had got so low that it wouldn't accept any charge. And if the onboard electronics had failed as a result, this could be the end of my little Mia C. However, there was a slim chance I could still fix it. Perhaps our portable charger wasn't powerful enough to wake up the car's charging system. So, to find out, I call for backup from our new camera car. So, this BYD CLU is a plug-in hybrid, but it can also do vehicle to load. So, we're going to use it battery to charge this battery. Here we are. Will it work? Oh, it's done that thing again. It's turned itself off. I wonder if we've broken it. It's saying 4 miles now. I think if we can get it to about five or six, we've got to get it to my house and charge it from the mains. Hopefully, it's not going to keep on doing this thing where it says heater and then turns itself off because it could mean that we buggered the battery. Oh. Oh, hello. If it says six miles, we might be good. Five miles. Should we risk it? You ready, guys? Here we go. Come on. Come on. Work. Get into eco mode. I was tempted to floor it to get home as soon as possible, but that could mean I'd run out of charge and break down again. Would I make it? Go. The power steady down. Dropped to four. It's already dropped to four. Got bloody hill to go up. So, I'll just keep it at this speed. Ah, got the flashing lights of doom. Come on. This hill is not welcome. Come on. Can't get up this freaking hill. This feels further than I thought it was. I'm tense. Don't change lights. That's what I didn't want to happen. I don't know if it'll move from here. Got to do the slowest pull away. People are getting annoyed. Oh, we got permanent mark. Still at four miles. Might just disappear in a second and have no miles. This is so tense. made it. Better yet, I got home in time for my call with Patrick and Philipe from Foxy Mobility, who are part of the team building a brand new MIA. I figured that if they didn't know how to fix my car, nobody would. You are now making a new Mia C. What is your relationship to the old Mia, the company that did the old Mia C? As you know, so Mia is born in France, but unfortunately the French MIA company went bankrupt more than 10 years ago. And now the idea is to build on the fundaments of this old Mia to bring the new MIA to the road. It's obviously been inspired by the original car's boxy design, three seat layout, and sliding doors. However, Felipe explained that the new MIA will have to have range of up to 280 mi, and it should be significantly quicker than the old car, too. He also revealed his firm bought all the patents from the old Mia company when it went bust, which came with loads of technical drawings. If Patrick and Felipe could share these with me, I might discover how to fix my car's dodgy steering. In terms of getting at these parts, have you got like anything we can see about how like my local mechanic could get at the steering rack? No. This was a disaster. Even if the parts I'd ordered earlier that day were correct, we might never be able to fit them. But then Patrick threw me a lifeline. The best you do, you get in contact with Mr. Kobe. Okay, Mr. Yakobi is, let's call it, the MIA guy. Not only does he organize a huge MIA club event in Europe, he also repairs these cars. Unfortunately, he's based in Germany. But the next morning, I emailed him to see if there was anything he could do to help. But while I waited for a reply, I got word from Riaz at QCD that the parts we had ordered had arrived. So, I headed back over to his garage to see if I could fit some of the simpler components myself. Okay, RZ, let's go through these parts one by one. So, in here, I guess it's the rear shocks. I mean, well, first problem. It's too short. Too short. This is not a good start. What's in here? Drums. There's only two options for showing. Yeah. When they crossed it over for a saxo. For a saxo. And it was a three stud or a five stud. Yeah. So, we said the three stud. We got three stud. That's right. But it's the diameter of it is completely wrong. That's completely wrong. It's too small. It's way too small. Look at that. That means the shoes and the fitting kit, everything. No. Going back. So, it's for the same setup. I mean the thing that's really critical is the control arm, isn't it? That's the outer track rod ends. So we can check them ones. Okay. So this is But we don't need the outer track. It's the inners. That's the problem. Well, we haven't got iners. Doesn't No. No inners in the box. So they either they couldn't find it and they supplied everything they could find. No, they don't look the right length. No. The thread's too short. Yeah. What's the chances that we are going to get the right size brake disc? The box looks about the right size. You go for a no. It's a yes, mate. It's a yes. So that's what was that off? Saxo. So Saxo Saxo is wrong. So the disc and pads the pads are wrong though. The pads are wrong. Yeah. So there's a different caliper then on this. Than on the Saxo. So all we've got is some new discs. And that's it. That's it. This was the worst case scenario. But it wasn't GSF's fault. It was my fault for using AI to try and identify the parts in the first place. So I got in touch with a company called First Line Limited who supply retailers like GSF. They have a gigantic catalog of new parts for all sorts of vehicles. So, despite there being fewer than 10 of these mirrors left in the UK, I hope they could help me source everything I needed. Hello, how you doing? Thanks for taking this call. I know it's a weird one this, but I'm just like hoping that you can help me out with parts for my Mia C. I know it's super rare, but in particular, I could do with rear brakes. I could do with rear shock absorbers and definitely tie rod ends. The brake pads, brake discs, that's something we should be able to help you with. any steering items like steering rack gators, uh, track rod ends, we should be able to help you with those. So, you've definitely got track rod ends for a Mia C on your on your parts catalog and in stock. So, not definitely, but we should be able to identify those. Bit of a problem with the steering rack is that it's very hard to get to. I'm going to have to basically take the car to bits and Okay. Because you'd need it out the car to be able to measure it. Yes, correct. And even then, right, it could be that this part is a bespoke or something weird and we just might not be able to get it. If we can't get it, can you like build stuff? There's a lot of tooling involved. So, uh, we can do it, but we can only give you a price and then you decide. Things weren't looking good. This mirror was supposed to be a cheap little runaround, and now I was faced with the possibility of having to get special parts made from scratch. And this could cost thousands and thousands of pounds. But if you're looking for a cheap electric car that won't be such a nightmare to maintain, I found loads on CarWow, including these secondhand Teslas, which are only a few years old, but come with tons of kit, and they cost a lot less than this Mia did when it was new. However, I was determined not to give up on my little car. I was still waiting to hear from Mr. Jackabe about how to access the steering rack, but at least the guys at QCD could remove some of the suspension parts. We've got mechanic Will working on the car now. He's never worked on a MC before because hardly anyone ever has. So, he's just going to have to figure it out as he goes along. You enjoying it, Will? Yeah, I am. Totally. Come on. Yes. The real men have done something. So, we looked on some forums and we've identified this shock, haven't we? Uh, yes, we have. Made by a French company. It was for sale 6 years ago in Germany. €275 a piece. Okay, that's quite a lot. These are special shocks. We're not going to be able to get these. No, I don't think so. The company that made it also makes parts for aeroplane suspension and military vehicles. Okay. To special order. There is one thing I can change on this car, which I really should change, and it's the tires because these they're all cracked. They've had it. Now, I want to get some Michelins again cuz that's what this car seems to have had from factory. So, I've got the tire size 1556514, but Michelin don't sell that size tire anymore. You can get other brands online, but I wanted Michelin, so I actually thought I'd give 165 65 14 a shot. The only problem is is that um this tire is slightly wider and it's got a slightly higher sidewall. I think there's enough room in the wheel arch that it'll fit. But let's just fit them and see what happens. Blime me. It's never going to hit that, is it? Look at that. We're good. We've had some success with this car for once. Do you know what? When we bought this car, we made a school boy error. We didn't do a car vertical check on it. So, I'm going to run it now and I just hope it doesn't come back with anything bad. Checking my own car cuz I've already bought it. Oh, thank goodness. It's clean. I also checked some of the used cars I showed you earlier and they also came back clean. But this Tesla, which is not for sale on CarWow, hasn't been so lucky because it's been flagged for damage. Then it was repaired and put back on the road. Knowing this information gives you options. You could either just walk away or use it as a negotiation point for a better deal. Now, if you're thinking about buying a used car, probably one a little bit more normal than this weird me see thing. Make sure you do a car vertical check. Don't be an idiot like me and do it when you already got the car. Or if you haven't done it, then you can check your own car just to make sure it hasn't got a hidden past. Now, if you want to do that, there's a link in the description of this video. And when you get a car vertical, use the code car wow for 20% off. Right, let's decide what to do with this car next. Unfortunately, we hadn't managed to identify any of the parts besides the rear shock absorbers, and I couldn't find them for sale anywhere. My last hope was the mysterious Mia guy, Mr. Jackabe, but he still hadn't replied. All I could do was reveal my car again and head home. But then I realized I might have made a mistake. The new tires I just fitted with their taller sidewalls might affect the accuracy of my speedometer. And that was one of the few things on this car that actually worked. Right, I'm going to check this speedo with a specialist timing gear. Gonna get up to a steady speed. Hopefully it doesn't underread. Overreading's fine. Underreading is bad. I want to see what it's doing at 50 miles an hour. So, I'm not going to drive this past 50. We got 50 on the clock and we've got 47 there on the specialist timing gear. So, that's all good. No risk of accidentally breaking the law. So, the MC was still legal to drive just but the ABS light alone would mean it would fail its next inspection, which was coming up very soon. If I couldn't fix it, I'd have to give up and scrap my little MIA. And that means I would have wasted £3,000 on a useless, broken electric car. But then, less than 2 weeks before the MOT was due to expire, I finally got a reply from the elusive Mr. Jackabe. And he told me he knew someone in the UK who might be able to help. Hi, Alex. How are you? I'm good, thank you. Good to meet you. This is Alex Pierce from Going Green. His company does all sorts of electric car repairs, but back in the day, they actually used to sell Mia C's. You're my only hope, right? I've been trying to find people to talk to about the Mercy and how to fix it. And I understand that you guys have the ability to fix these cars and you're the only people really in the country that can do it. I'm sure there's someone else, but we haven't met them. So, I need some rear shock absorbers. There's a bit of shipping and import duty in between us getting them here, but they are available. Thank God for that. Also, the ABS warning light is on the ABS doesn't work. You could take a shortcut and we just send you a sensor and you plug it in probably on the left hand side where the gutter is. probably at the back. Okay, try that. You know these cars quite clearly know these cars. The next thing is which is more problematic. It's the track rod ends with the steering cuz like playing them and like the steering rattles about. I know that we've done them before so it's doable. Uh but certainly we can get hold of them. These these parts are still made. We thought that but we weren't sure what car they're from and there's no there's no part numbers on them. It's crazy. Well, you certainly can't just call up GSF and order anything for them. No, you have to tried that and they got the some stuff and the news just kept on getting better. So you might know Michael, let me describe it to you. So the car I think has had an accident on the front right hand side door because the the original color is like this carbon fiber effect, but that replacement door is white and it's been wrapped red. Yes, I remember the car. And you you know this car then? I know this car. Yes, I know that I know the lady. She's a she she remains a good customer. But yeah, good little car that one. It was well loved by all of its owners. Thanks ever so much for your time. I can't believe that um this mad crazy journey with this MC, we ended up with the people that know it better than anyone else. We don't only know the car, we know your car. We know my particular car. Thank you very much, Alex, and I look forward to hearing from you with those prices. Knowing that Alex's team could actually do the repairs was a huge relief, but my joy soon turned to disappointment when I got a quote for all the parts I needed. Even Alex was surprised by the cost. A pair of tie rod ends came to £87, which wasn't too bad. But the rear shock absorbers were over £370 each, and shipping everything from Europe added hundreds of pounds to the price. But at this point, I had no choice. The MOT was running out fast, and I had to get my little car fixed. So, as soon as the parts arrived, I headed off to meet Alex to get the work done. So, I'm here with Alex. You got to have the car back. We've missed it. Already by bringing it to you, we've found a few things out that we didn't know. You don't think we need the brakes doing, do you? Thankfully, no, cuz there's not many of them left. Well, that being the case, shouldn't we buy some now just in case and then we could be sitting on a gold mine of brakes? Well, you could. Shipping and import duty is a bit of a stinger, so they're quite expensive. They come from France and Germany now. And obviously because of Brexit, there's shipping shipping and import duty is more than the cost themselves. But you can get them refurbished in this country. It's not so easy to refurbish shocks. Luckily, we can get the shocks new. And that's what we're going to do then. So, we're going to do the shocks. But there's a big thing on this car that we thought we were going to have to do that we're not sure that we are going to have to do. And it's the thing that was like completely stomping me. It's the track rod ends. So, I thought they were loose because of the steering is so bad. Yeah. Maybe a bit of play in the ball joints on the track ends. But we know the shocks need doing cuz one of them was leaking. So, we're getting to that now. And I've got my gloves on cuz actually what's going to happen is I'm going to try and do it. Let's get on with this um this shock absorber. See if I'm any good at doing this. And hopefully the test drive will reveal the car is fine. Now boring this is okay. Come on. Come off youer. It's off. Oh no it's not. I can't get this past the bloody liner. I should be doing this easy. There we go. That's one coilover removed and we're going to fit a new one. So, here's the new shock absorber. Compare it. Looks like it's the right size and the right part. Let's get it on. There we go. That's all good. It fits. This wheel arch line is giving me grief. And that's that done. Right. That's the right side done. Now for the left, which was just as simple as the right hand side. But while these parts would make the mirror drive better, it still wouldn't pass the because an ABS warning light is an immediate failure. Luckily, Going Green knew exactly what to do. The next job now is replace the faulty ABS sensor. We've identified it as the rear, right? That's because the guys at Going Green, they still have the old MIR software so they can interrogate the systems and find out um the diagnostics. So, let me just pull that out. Disconnect that. And this is the faulty part. And we have a replacement, but it's Well, I'll show you. So, you spot the issue. This what? So, we can't get the bespoke MIA sensor, which is this long. That is a generic one. So, we're going to have to use some cable ties or wrap it around some of the body work. You might be thinking, why not just cut the long cable and resolder it? While these wires are all shielded to prevent any interference from the car's battery or motors, and if you shorten them, you might damage its shielding, and that would stop the ABS working properly. I wasn't willing to take that risk. Now, for some cable ties, sort of bodgege, but still done. Another common problem with the MIA is that the rear brakes can seize because they don't get used enough. This is because the regen effect of the motor does most of the braking on the rear axle. So, the drums only get used when you break really, really hard. But rather than replace them, Alex showed me a way to check them and potentially save myself some extra cash. So, what you do is just give them a little test bike. Will it move? Yeah, it moves. Let's try the other way. Yeah, it moves. Look. So, that's all good. These are Oh, fine. And with that, I could refit the drums, bolt on the wheels, and move on to another new problem I've just discovered with this car. One of the things I've noticed on this car is this. Looks as if someone's taking a wee on the seat. That's from water. It's water staining. And this door doesn't quite fit fully against the seal at the top there. And so what we're going to do is just alter the screws just up here on the mounting bracket and slide the door a little bit closer and hopefully it will seal. No more leaks. Now we're going to go for a test drive. D's going to drive. I'm going to jump into the back. He's going to make sure that the ABS is all working properly and check out the steering. See if we really need to do those track rod ends. Hopefully we don't. A few moments later. So, verdict is that steering's absolutely fine. False alarm. I think I'm just used to kind of like my Porsche 911 ST or something. I'm used to brand new cars reviewing them. This is just how it came. The steering is a little bit off center, which you can sort out with a four-wheel alignment. That might help it a bit. There is one other problem that we absolutely need to get fixed to get it through the MOT. And go on then, Derek, turn on the lights to that one of the daytime running light bulbs is out. So, we just need to replace that. But you do have to take this cover off annoyingly. Right. Can I get in there? Oh god. What is in there? Right. He's got a torch. I felt something that didn't feel like car parts. Oh no. I know what it is. It's the sponge. Okay. Also, so I got to do it from the back, haven't I? I got it. Oops. There we are. Let's get a new one of these. New bulb. Right. And now I've got to get find the old We're just going to test it. See if it works. Let's have a look. Come on. Turn on. Yes, we're on. Do I try all the lights? Main beam. Dip beam. Yeah. Perfect. Indicator is good. Indicator. Let me check the backs. Brakes. Yeah. Reverse. Yeah. Fog lamp. Yeah. The side indicators. Yeah, that one's working. Have we got screen wash? No. What a way to fail your mate. Oh, wait a minute. We have a problem. It's full. Yeah. Oh, dear. This was the worst possible timing. If I couldn't fix this right now, the MIA would definitely fail its. We had to act fast. And luckily, Alex managed to find a spare pump from another rare electric car, a G whiz, which he thought might fit the Mia. We got it fixed. Now it can go for its mat. One eternity later. Right, it's good. The car is back. Hopefully, it passed. Let's find out. Pass with defects. Registration plate lamp inoperative. So, there's two of them. So, one of them obviously is out. I'll just get that done quickly before we leave here. Coral spring corroded at the front of it. Other than that, all good. Now, I need to go settle up. We'll get that repaired on the rear registration plate and then we can go. I've got the final invoices here. So, how much did it cost for all the parts ordered from Europe? Came to £1,3840 including VAT. And for all the stuff we've done here today and the extra bits and pieces to get it through the MOT and the MOT itself, that came to £33085. So, we're talking just over £1,638. You know what? It could have been a lot worse. But you know what? Since I'd spent all that money fixing the mechanical bits of my car, I think the bodywork deserved a bit of a makeover. Alex had already told me that the car used to be a different color before it was wrapped red. And that gave me an idea. So, I've come to Topaz because I want to rip off this film and find out what's underneath, but I need to be somewhere that once I've done that. Um, we can probably cover up whatever I And so, this is Neil. Yes. Hello. Coowner of Topaz. So, the idea is we'll rip some bits off, have a look at it, and then we'll leave the car with you. And your team will do something with it and we'll figure out what color we're going to do. We'll figure out what you're going to do. Don't Don't take the fist too much. No. I mean, you did bring me a McLaren F1. I did. Yes, that's true. It's the only clown F1 I'm ever going to bring you to be fair. So, can we start ripping some stuff off? Cuz I know if you look here, this is actually the bodywork color. This is what it should be. I was about to say, what color is it underneath this door? The reason it's been wrapped is cuz this door is white cuz someone smashed this door and I think this panel's white as well. And I don't know what else is damaged underneath. Okay. So, let's just have a little go. So, maybe we'll put one door being white, one door being there. Maybe purple, another door being do that. What do you think? I I think that's a that's a bit of fun there. No, but you know, I'm a bit worried about what you'll do to it, but it will be what it will be. Here we go. Oh god, it's all peeling. It's all peeling bit by bit. Oh goodness. My god, it's going to be nice and easy. Do you know what? Should I just leave this with you? Can you guys You're taking it on now. You said you Well, I'll leave it with you. Should I show you how to operate it? No, you just Oh, wow. That's exactly that. Oh, look at that. Here we go. Seriously high bit of technical. It is. That's yours now, mate. And I'll see you in a couple of weeks. Bye. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks. I assumed that because the Mir is such a small car, this would be an easy job, but I was dead wrong. We knew cutting the templates for the new colored PPF would be tricky because no one at Topaz had ever seen a Mia C before, let alone ppfed one. But that was just the start. The old red vinyl had turned into a brittle, crumbly mess that would take days to remove, and the team had no idea what sort of extra damage they might find underneath. But I was also in for a bit of a surprise of my own because I asked the team to choose whatever color they thought looked best and they then decided not to tell me until the final reveal. Hopefully I wouldn't hate it. Can you let me know when you're ready to see it? I'm ready to see it. Okay, here we go. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. It's that really good. I love the two-tone. I've never seen the flowers. Oh, yeah. The flowers are green. That is so good. This stuff just looks like paint, doesn't it? So, you got to tell me what color was mismatched on it. Bumpers were actually painted red. I think cuz probably it was easier to paint them red previously and then vinyl up the rest of the car. So, we had to find clever ways just to mask as much red as possible. Underneath it, a lot of the panels are this carbon with bit fake carbon to give you that Weissac look. It's so cool. It is. It's like we got the Visac kit on it. And then we just went for some complimentary bits. So, you know, the designers are in the same gloss to match the lower body section. So, I've got to ask you, this is had a bespoke job on it, right? What do you think this would have cost? I mean, if it was just a normal paint job cuz obviously you're doing this, you're doing this for free for ls. A bespoke job depending on what level you want to go to. And of course, by the way, we left some of this exposed. We haven't done door shots of returns. So this was about 10 days worth of work cuz we tried and tested and then we realized we needed a bit more adjustment here and there. How much is that? Seven grand plus fat, six grand plus fat, plus or minus here and there, do you know? So plus about we're talking 10 grand then. So basically, you know, you normally have like PPF to protect your car. I'm going to have to use the car to protect the PPF cuz it's more valuable. Now obviously on a smaller car less complicated, but this was more challenging because we have to remove all the old film. And that's where a lot of the time went. That's 2 days worth of removal. So, what bits are cracked on the car? Quite a few panels. Yeah, this one's here. Look, that one's had a bit of a life. There's a couple of bits on the floor. I think the distal you can see previous life. You can see it coming through. Yeah. So, that that's why you have like these little blemishes, it's because it's cracked underneath, but I mean, you have to be a real anorak to see that. This looks amazing. Honestly, the color choice, I think if it had just all been green, the one green, it wouldn't been as good. You wouldn't have been nice. This kind of breaks it all up. Um, it should. And also, don't forget the car itself has a split down the middle. Yeah. So, when you do color change, it looks symmetry. Oh, thank God. You've cleaned the inside as well, cuz it was nasty. We had a spare hoover. Did you have to remove any of this stuff around the windscreen? It's still a bit fresh. Oh dear. Okay, I've cocked that up. They'll be able to fix that, won't they? We'll get you. Okay. He's getting his hands on. So, so effectively, you had to resell the windscreen again cuz it was all over the PPF, wasn't it? So, what happened was the previous owner of the work that had been done, the one had gone under. The rubber. So, when we pull it off, it pulls. So, we just get a This is proper pressure. This cloth is now done. Okay. Sorry about that. It's all good. It's all good. Look at it, Louis. Have a look inside. Cuz you have some stains in it. Yeah. That that were just water stains. Okay. You're going to love this. Does it look better than the red one? Don't you think? It's just so cool. It's the weirdest thing you guys have done, isn't it? It's definitely the weirdest thing. And uh actually quite fun to be fair. Quite fun. Who Who's involved here? Uh that guy is not actually here today, but quite a few of us. He's probably broken, isn't he? His fingers are all pulling all the vinyl off. Listen, thank you so so much for doing this. It's been a bit of a laugh, but the result is incredible. It was already like a really quirky, interesting car, but now it's just taken it to a whole new level. Really, really pleased. Thank you so so much. Congratulations. Enjoy it. Enjoy it. Cheers. Well, it's great to be back in this little MIA city. It's been a right old journey with it, finding out about its history, fixing it up, getting it working properly, and finally making it look even more special than it already is. What a wonderful little car. It hasn't been easy, but I think the journey has been worth it. This little thing is definitely a keeper.