November 2001
In the Jargon Buster in Honest John's column in todays Telegraph am I right in thinking that a slight error has been made in relation to the particular year and the suffix used on that year? It should be:
January 63 to December 63 - Year Suffix A
January 64 to December 64 - Year Suffix B
January 65 to December 65 - Year Suffix C
January 66 to December 66 - Year Suffix D
January 67 to July 67 - Year Suffix E
August 67 to July 68 -Year Suffix F
etc
The 'year' that had the suffix E was a lot shorter than the others and this is when the 'new' registrations jumped from January to August. Read more
Top gear described this as an aweful car some years "even Nissan dealers dislike them!".
Comments please ...... Read more
Used one in Ireland on a fishing trip some years ago.Possibly the worst 2wd vehicle I've driven in years.Not even roomy.
Sequel was that they seemed to be fetching amazingly high prices when a batch went through an auction earlier this year.Not as high as Sharalxys,but they were just surreal,like 2k back of book jobs not making reserve at book money!
Hi
Anybody got any experiences of 'The Car Partnership'?
(www.carimportsuk.com) Read more
Not impressed with the detail on the website. Every car in stock has done 50 miles and every car on order is due in in October 2001. They sell VW GTis with a 1.8 16v engine and have on order the GT version of the diesel with the 115 bhp engine.
Bob H
Just spent a wasted morning being ignored by the dealers of Salisbury. I want a medium sized petrol hatch / estate with a decent spec - was going to look at Focus and Golf.
Bored to tears, still haven't tried anything. Best ideas for £15k budget and can anyone recommend a decent dealer in these here parts - i.e. one that recognises that some of us only have weekends to look at cars? Read more
Absolutely, but don't forget to test drive the TDI 110 variant!
i was watching "scienec shack" on beeb two last night ( daughters homework!), during the show they had a section on running a car on "bio diesel" ie cooking oil. the guy was driving a big merc around. He mentioned a "conversion kit" that is needed. Unfortunately, no details were given of what thsi was, where to get it from etc,
Any body got any ideas?
he reckoned that it was costing about 40p/litre, as he still has to pay tax on the stuff that he puts in the car.
newbs Read more
i shall get back to you all on this.
i'm thinking of doing something with my company along the the lines of a small biodiesel plant for home use.
not sure yet, depends on a few things, like having some spare time!!
now if i could sell "people spare" time, i think i'd be quids in!
newbs
I've heard that I should take my passat tdi for a good run before it's MOT.
Is this true, what exactly should I do and why am I doing it? Read more
Hey Chris R - if you think there is no need to thrash your diesel to within an inch of its life then you can't have witnessed a smoke test being performed for an MOT.
Instructions for MOT: Rev the living hell out of the diesel and hold. Repeat x3.
Hello
My sister has an Astra belmont 1.6 and she has been told by her garage to get a new carb from a scrapyard to replace the existing one because it is knackered. hers is one of the last Astras of this type to be made, therefore the probability of finding a decent carb at a scrappers is low. does anyone know whether we could use a carb from a more recent Vauxhall ie a Cavalier or whether the one fitted is specific to this model ?
Incidentally I wish she would scrap this car due to its flimsiness and get a Vento. Would appreciate any thoughts on the matter.... Read more
PS. And don't forget to check for all of these faults on the carb you get from the scrapper, as it will probably have most of them, and maybe a few more beside if it has been sitting around doing nothing for a nice long time !!
Adam
Can someone tell me why the emissions for the automatic versions are so much higher than on the manual versions.
As the only difference is the auto box the raising of the VED catorgory by 2 levels in most cases seems a large increase.
I guess the same thing applies to petrol as well but what causes the emissions to be so much higher, particularly as we now have tiptronic boxes which are surely similar to manual boxes.
please enlighten me.
Keith Read more
I would guess at inefficiencies in the engine due to transmission losses.
An auto-box takes a large amount of power from the engine to run, even today, and this is bound to increase engine loading.
Posted this on Motley Fool too.
boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=6843620
This lunchtime, my fiancee and I were on our way out shopping (I am on holiday).
As we turned into a side road, a great big black S-reg volvo estate reversed out of a drive and hit a red L-reg fiat 3 door hatchback just behind the driver side door. It made a huge dent, probably £1,000 worth.
Anyway, I flashed at the volvo to stop. It did not stop. I beeped, nothing. We had proceded half a mile and nothing was happening. I had no choice but to overtake, and in doig so I hemmed the volvo in.
I got out of the car and confronted the old lady driving. Said that she tapped the vehicle but that no damage was done.
I told her that she did a lot of damage to that car and said I was going to inform the owner. Upon saying that, I started to walk the half-mile back to the damaged car, leaving my fiancee and our dog in my car.
Just as I arrived outside the house, this volvo appeared and the middle aged lady passenger told me it was none of my business, to **** off and that it was none of my business. I said it was my business as I saw what happened.
Anyway I knocked on the house and unfortunately got no reply. I told the two ladies that I would return later that day to speak to the householder. I was told not to bother, as it was none of my business.
ANyway, I went back to the house this evening. The car belonged to a friend of the householder, a hairdresser, who had just left a few minutes earlier, upset at what had happened to her car.
I asked the householder if she knew what had happened. She said she did not, nothing was on the car and nobody had come from the house opposite to explain the accident.
I left my number and a few minutes later the girl phoned me up. She was very upset and I told her what had happened. She told me she would confront the guilty parties tomorrow, with her friend. I said I, and my fiancee, would be witnesses on her behalf should she need us. Luckily I made sure I took the full registration number of the black volvo.
I have no doubt that those two women in the volvo had no intention of admitting that accident and I am glad I was party to justice actually being done. Why should the poor hairdresser be out of pocket as a result of poor driving by an old woman and her fishwife passenger.
Anyway, I am not normally worked up by this sort of thing. It's just that somebody dented my previous car in a similar way and I was left out of pocket. I am glad to try and ensure that this girl does not suffer the same fate.
The volvo would have probably been driven better had the two labradors in the back been in the driving seat.
Rant over, sorry. Read more
Must get one too.
Only cost about a £5, could be a good investment!
FfwlCymraeg
Halfords and other outlets now offer a huge choice of oil options, but there is little technical data to assist Joe Bloggs in the high street make a quality judgement about which is appropriate for his/her needs. A very brief review of the choice indicates that as these products significantly increase in price their working viscosity range falls, and subject to the appropriate rating standard, will help tighter tolerance modern engines handle cold starts and greater mechanical loadings on the road.
I notice in earliar correspondence on the subject that bods tend to migrate to the more expensive fully synthetic products as being best for their needs, but so far, I have not seen any argument to balance this apart from price and conjecture. I know from reading HJ's books that fully synthetic oils scour engines very effectively, and that care is needed when changing from mineral to fully synthetic to avoid gallery blockage, that they last perhaps 2K longer between service intervals. and that Mobil ran a BMW for 100000 miles using it, with sevice intervals of 7K. On the other side of the coin few people achieve that milage within the life of their car, perhaps with several owners.
Now that cars last a little longer before permanently falling foul of the MOT test, I keep my cars a longish time. My two cars, until recently an Astra SRI and a Cavalier (owned simultaneously) are 11 years old and 107K and 190K respectively. My younger daughter, who is at Southampton Uni, has now extracted the Cavaliers keys permanently from my palm, and I am now the proud owner of a C 200 K, and hope to keep it for a similar length of time. At a guess, I think a quality semi synthetic will do admirably, but this of course is gut feeling. Ideally I think I need to source a "paper" on the subject, but maybe their is an expert out their who can be equally illuminating ---
Kind regards
Julian. Read more
Hi Julian,
I hear all that you say, It would appear that we have similar backgrounds & jumping the generation gap on car technology! I will post again in more detail in a few days time -when I conclude a complaint with MB.
regards
Simon
Browse
And under 50 Andrew!
Afraid our newsagent didn't give us the Motoring section...but we did get two Weekends, two Arts and two Gardening sections.
Someone else in the village is going to be mad.
What did I miss in the Motoring section, anything crucial?
David