[IanE]

I've recently bought myself a 1.7 Puma which I've enjoyed driving so far and I'm looking forward to taking it on track days.

When I was driving the car in heavy traffic in the dark yesterday I was having a problem with the dash lights dimming, the rear windscreen wiper was slow and the heated rear window didn't seem to work. The car had been in traffic for a long time and I'd been using the wipers and opening the windows, so I was wondering if it was an issue with the battery or whether it's more an alternator (or something else) issue. Does anyone have any thoughts?

If it needs a battery then good, because I was thinking of getting a new one anyway as I think the one in there at the moment is quite old. I was looking at batteries on the Halfords website and there are three that seem to suit the car, the HB075 (standard), HCB075 (calcium) and HSB075 (silver). Does anyone know if these batteries are all the same size and is it worth getting one of the fancier ones, or is the standard one fine?

My car came with a set of winter tyres on it, but as I am planning to do quite a few trackdays in the Puma I am looking to get some replacement budget tyres for track. What tyres do people recommend for the track that are also okay for on the road as well?

[Ian G]

Dimming problem may sort itself with the battery so if you're planning to change it anyway then lets see.

075 are all the same size and terminal layout so yes, any will suit and they will all do the job in hand, personally I've never seen the benefit of anything more fancy.

Toyo Proxes T1-R is popular and cheap, although R1R looks more interesting for track use. Twice the price though -

http://www.blackcirc...o&tyre=34719424

[IanE]

Thanks for the reply, Ian.

I'll try getting a new battery and that will hopefully fix the issue. It's good to know that all of the batteries are the same size, I've had issues with other cars before replacing the battery and finding that they don't fit in the tray.