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I think that's the reason I like driving our Ka sometimes. No abs, no esp, just bluebottle responses and most of the time it's all happening at legal speeds. Proper driving.
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>. "You have been taught to abuse the clutch by your driving instructor and are too damn thick to stop doing it."<
That's interesting, isn't it? In 1967 I went out for a lesson with a driving school instructor, using my father's trusty old Austin A55 Mk 2. After half an hour of 'abuse' of the clutch I said to the instructor 'if we are going to go on doing this, can we please go back and get the driving school car'.l
Maybe I was an arrogant little s*d all those years ago, but I never murdered a clutch in best part of a million miles.
Mind you, the only clutch I use these days is on my friend's C3 and I don't know how I'll explain it away if it fails. I guess, being an oiler, it probably has a DMF as well...
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"oilrag, nah. It's just that we're all descended from the survivors of the crash of the "B" ark."
I always assumed something pulled the chain in low earth orbit JH.... Apart from road-kill the average animal could likely be better trained to operate a clutch using a little operant conditioning.
How come driving instructors turn out `clutch incontinence` ` in Homo *selfservicus.
* Best known for the motto of "Why should In deny myself" (Be that plonkering the clutch or stuffing in another double greaseburger with fries and sugar drink)
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* Best known for the motto of "Why should In deny myself" (Be that plonkering the clutch or stuffing in another double greaseburger with fries and sugar drink)
We are going to start a new club here, I know it, I really really do.
We shall forthwith, on this day, become the LUDdites and state our case and the facts as we see them and if the Magistrates decide to ban and fine us so be it and just as an aside...
If my name were Alastair and Darling in one breath,
I'd buy a gun, track down me Mum,
And shoot the Cow to death!!
Yours, embittered (Abbot Ale)....MD.
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>>Yours, embittered (Abbot Ale)....MD.
Don't be so blinkered, get down to Wetherspoon's ale festival.
I did earlier tonight, hence these incoherent posts.
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ive not been but i like the idea of 3 tasters for the price of a pint
i hate it when in a strange town and have to ask for a pint of mine hosts most popular ale as they always think im nuts
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Wetherspoons in the a motoring forum, I though drink driving didn't mix :p
I must admit a couple of years ago we would all shun wetherspoons but I am going there a lot more often now, yes its full of old smelly men but it has a good selection of booze at good prices that is all that matters after a few pints.
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am going there a lot more often now yes its full of old smelly men
>excuse me
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Hehe, I live in a fairly trendy area with lots of wine bars, trendy bars etc and then in all that there is a Wetherspoons as its the only pub that dosn't play music it attracts a lot of OAPs who live in the pub from 11:am in the morning till midnight.
I actually quite like it but I miss the livlier places, I miss the clubs in town but it has become apparant I am too old for that at the grand old age of 26 :(.
I am motorist now anyway so my blood alchohol level has to stay down.
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We were at the Trafford Centre yesterday (first time in 3 years) and there were flakes of rust on the Manchester ring road.
In the coffee bar a group of twenty somethings were all discussing their brake lines and metal fuel tanks and advocating Castrol CL waterproof grease. One of them said " I`m going to get out and get under" and they all burst into song.
I woke up then and it had been a dream (maybe...) the latter as opposed to the former - for who knows the true definition of reality? (or even the true meaning of true) and whether the human brain can only grasp infinity in the simplest sense - perhaps like a motorist contemplating the clutch and having a mental image of a lemon flan.
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I don't think many motorists contemplate a clutch,don't have a clue how it works and wouldn't know a DMF if it fell on their head,otherwise they would not be bobbing up and down on hills to save themselves the bother of doing a hill start.
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Knowledge of how a clutch works isn't essential for car ownership or driving. I have no idea how a TV works but it doesn't stop me using one, and I bet I'm not alone there.
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First thing my driving instructer taught me were clutch principles and how to get it to just bite on a hill start as an example
Im sure ive said it before but the standard of driving instructers these days is appaling as is the standard of beat car bobbies
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First thing my driving instructer taught me were clutch principles and how to get it to just bite on a hill start as an example Im sure ive said it before but the standard of driving instructers these days is appaling as is the standard of beat car bobbies
And spelling.
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>> have no idea how a TV works but it doesn't stop me using one
Yes but with all due respect, smokie, you don't drive a TV set, you just turn it on and off and press buttons to change the channel. Opportunities for TV abuse are few; opportunities for car abuse come thick and fast once you set the thing in motion...
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Oilrag, "We were at the Trafford Centre yesterday".
My commiserations :-) I've only been 3 times since it opened. The worst visit was with the in-laws. She gets excited and wanders off. :-(
JH
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Happier in buses and cars? Hmmm. I was beginning to wonder.
With the daily drudgery of a long commute, during which I encounter chronic traffic problems, multiple SPECS stretches, ANPR, and road surfaces that wouldn't look out of place in Beirut, it is easy to lose track of why I love cars and love driving. The commute is something to be endured, not enjoyed, and consists of probably 80% of my mileage nowadays.
Then, on the spur of the moment, and for no reason in particular, I went out for a blast last night for the first time in many months. I took the Golf, mostly because I haven't really driven it in anger yet, and to get to know it a bit better. Getting in a fair to middling handling, diesel "warm hatch" last night, and giving it some beans on some empty local B-roads put a whole new slant on driving again. Or more accurately put an old slant back on it that the doom mongers would have us believe has long gone.
The car was good, but not perfect. The ever present, stupid VAG engine management software that can't handle left foot braking or heel and toeing, the chassis that doesn't ride well, or resist roll particularly effectively, the ever present DMF waiting to grenade itself, but you know what? On the right road and in the right mood, just being in a car and driving it hard and for the hell of it is still all you need to feel good. The Golf has decent steering, excellent brakes, and slightly nose heavy, but good enough balance to entertain. And wow , it's quick between the bends! Who says diesels are no good for this kind of driving - there's even sharp enough response to the accelerator to let you balance the car mid corner.
But in that kind of mood, I suspect anything would have done, even a disastrous modern DPF equipped, Euro IV contraption with a knackered flywheel. Driving is still fun, and there are plenty of us that still love it. And last night I reminded myself why I'm one of them.
Edited by Webmaster on 21/05/2009 at 01:46
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Quite right DP. I have in the past been lucky enough to have long term use of some cars with very powerful engines, sporting pretensions and with the fuel paid for by someone else. What could be better ? I'll tell you what, a modest car on an open road where you can drive the doorhandles off it without getting too illegal, that's what....
;-)
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Lud is one of a few posters I'd buy a beer....
I suppose we've all got what we asked for - cars that are unstressful to drive for hours at motorway speeds, quiet, strong, smooth - this means that when you're loafing along on A roads at less than half the car's top speed it all feels dead.
Motorcycles usually feel more alive, and the threat of being killed tends to keep you on your toes too. Otherwise, I'd encourage everyone to try a driver's car on a good road just to see how good it can be. If you can dodge the traffic and you're in the right car, even the commute can be fun.
Then get back in the bland-mobile and get in Lud's way ;-)
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This thread has wandered quite a way from Lud's original point, but I think it was a good one. I'd like to suggest that the Golden Age of Motoring was not in the 1920s or the 1950s, as some would have it; rather, it lasted from about 1987 to 2002.
Consider the evidence: by the late 1980s we had most of the features that make modern cars so much easier to live with than their predecessors - non-rusting bodies, electronic ignition, fuel injection, central locking, tubeless tyres... I bought my first car, new, in 1989, and neither it nor its four successors has ever had a mechanical failure - or even a puncture - that left the car unable to get me home. I've never even had to add oil to the engine between services.
Contrast this with the earlier 'Golden Ages', when one was ill-advised to leave home without a full toolkit, spare belts and top-ups for just about everything, and a sound knowledge of what to do with them - and still the engine would overheat in a summer-holiday queue on the A30.
While I've never taken the Car As Appliance view, nor have I been a mechanical obsessive. I've checked tyres, oil and washer fluid regularly (although not as regularly as I should) and kept a careful record of my fuel purchases and consumption, but otherwise I've trusted the car to do what I required of it.
Contrast that to today, and people not much less mechanically sympathetic than me find that - as Lud describes so piquamment - simply owning, maintaining and using a car are no longer enough to keep it working well. Perhaps this is the price we now have to pay for what we now recognize as a privilege - whatever The (Mythical) Motorist might say - but whatever the reason, things ain't what they used to be.
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