August 2002
Travelling about 70mph on the A4 motorway out of Paris earlier this month, the gearstick of my 18 month old Peugeot 406 HDi estate jammed in neutral. After a fruitless hour on the hard shoulder trying to contact Peugeot assistance I finally escaped the Paris rush hour traffic wedged in second gear with a police escort (take back all I ever said about French cops) to a local hotel.
The next day a helpful freelance mechanic (all Parisian Peugeot dealers were closed for vacation!) revealed that the clutch fluid had disappeared out of sight. It hasn't lost a drop since being topped up, but my local dealer here suggests I replace the master cylinder 'just in case' at a cost of £420 (my warranty only covered 12 months).
I don't believe in the supernatural, nor pointless bills. Does anyone have an idea as to what may have caused this, given that the car was serviced 3 months ago?
DickCD
Read more
Hi All,
After reading some other posts about alloy wheels I decided to take a look at vauxhall spares.co.uk for alloy wheels for my ex-police omega (2000 model).
I am very confused about this whole alloy wheel thing. You can get them with tyres? Vauxhall spares only have one alloy that would fit my omega - the 16" x 6J (ET44) 5 Stud one at the below web site.
www.vauxhallspares.co.uk/alloy_wheels.html
The guy that I spoke to say they "will go on, just a couple of mm out - they will be ok" - mm ok, been to background web sites on alloy wheel in general and they say they have to be exact or you could b***** up the alloy and other things! You have to go check them after 50 miles? my typres are 195 but these are 205 - is that a problem?
Can I fit alloys myself? Who do I get to do them, since they have to be weighted and everything... confusing :-(( Read more
Before you buy any wheels, you need to know the effect on rolling radius, and thus the profile of your replacement tyres.
This summarises it visually:-
www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html
Today's Evening Standard headlines the fact that the average speed of traffic in central London has come down to an average of 3 (yes THREE) miles per hour which they blame on road works and rephased traffic lights.
Highest is 4.1 mph, lowest is 1.6 mph.
Looks like with that and Red Ken's bus lanes we are on target for total standstill soon. Read more
No tube strike this week so the Standard has to fall back on another dependable, with the added bonus of a Red Ken bashing link.
In all seriousness looks more like a survey of a few major thoroughfares Haymarket, Strand, Holborn etc than a the trumpeted Central London average.
Details on the Standard website at www.thisislondon.com.
I passed in December 2000 and got a fixed penalty a few months later.
I am now facing the possibility of losing my license (well, returning to provisional) after getting caught by a police radar doing 46 on a straight, quiet and seemingly hazardless stretch leading away from a roundabout on the A5025, Anglesey.
The car was facing the oncoming traffic and was under the full sun, so was barely recognisable as a police car. There were no signs warning of Police Speed Checks. There were a number of camera warning signs and I'm sure the car was parked far along the road from one. Quite obviously a case of the supremely intelligent North Wales Police raking in fixed penalty money. This opinion is caused by the shocked, then angry face of the Mum they pulled after me, and the fixed penalty I got near Barmouth, N Wales for doing 51 on a straight downhill stretch. This one was before the start of whatever village it was; I was actually starting to slow down and had somebody right on my tail.
The police officer who issued my ticket suggested that I may not actually go back to provisional 'yes thats the law but it could be down to whoever deals with your license at DVLA.'
**First of all how likely is it that I go back to provisional?
Are there any routes of appeal available to me other than facing a speed limit obsessed magistrate?** Read more
I missed the post about insurance/6-8 points for not having any... I've done this once, drove my mates Panda round the block to see if he had any reason to worry about his gearbox (he did, it is grinding into each gear.) Interesting to know I'd get maybe 8 points for this. Silly thing to do. Punishment hardly consistent with other examples is it.
Sorry I'm feeling bitter about anti-driving laws today. I got a parking fine in the swimming pool car park.. the signs are hardly clear and you assume the parking fee is included in the £2 off-peak charge to swim.
The rear Brakes on the Bike aren't feeling very sharp.
Is it possible for brakes to partially sieze in such a way that braking is only slightly worse?
What should I use to clean the pistons? Is there anywhere else they bind?
--
Parp, Parp!
Note: All Toad posts come with an implied smiley. Read more
This is a bit like talking to myself but:
Tried to clean the pistons. They are in no way smooth. One has a rusty patch. I freed them to the point there they moved easily with a large pair of pliers but still can't move them with my hand.
Am now bleeding the brakes. There was lot's of air in them before but no obvious sign of leakage. It strikes me that the rusty patch on the rear caliper *must* leak.
Am still hoping for the best. May well need to get new pistons and an overhaul kit.
--
Parp, Parp!
Note: All Toad posts come with an implied smiley.
Hi, I've got a 1996 420 sld and want to put a CD player in there. Anyone know if I'm limited to certain models? Someone in work is selling a goodmans for £25. Will that do me? Thanks. Read more
If you have an R770 or better radio you can buy an off the shelf phillips multichanger (the same spec as the factory fit model) which will work with the built in unit - I looked around a few months back & saw one new with a fitting kit for 150 notes on the net - might be a bit steep???
Most car stereo places can provide after market stuff which interfaces with factory fit stuff & will work with steering wheel controls etc.
Depends on your budget!!!!
Are there any private buyers out there who buy new cars? If so why - it seems to be a complete rip-off or am I missing something? Why pay £15,000 for a good family saloon when you can buy a much better used-car for the same money? Surely after 6 months the new car looks just as dirty as the used car. Read more
What do you buy?
As has been mentioned previously in the Backroom, driving in the USA is normally a much calmer and more relaxed experience; and I would generally agree with those sentiments.
Yet the accident rate is higher in the USA, despite their slower speeds, than UK.
Well at the risk of offending our American cousins, and despite the first sentence, let me say that I think some aspects of their driving are appalling.
Firstly they have raised tailgating to an art form. Even at 80+mph cars and especially huge trucks, travel a few feet behind the next car. If you drop back even 3 or 4 car lengths you will be overtaken/undertaken and have the gap filled. On heavily congested freeways cars are weaving from lane to lane in an attempt to gain 1 or 2 car lengths advantage. It doesn't matter what lane you are in, you will be cut up.
I drive regularly in the States and I am amazed at how many vehicles veer from their lanes and sometimes simply run off the road. It seems that the combination of large, easy to drive automatics with cruise control encourage inattentive driving. The use of the dreaded mobile phone, which is now endemic, doesn't help.
Read more
>> A quick search of the web gave the following statistics:-
www.bast.de/htdocs/fachthemen/irtad/english/we2.ht...l
Which shows that the per capita death rate is about two
and a half times that of the UK.
But that the per mile death rate is almost the same.
Except for "motorways", where their rate is more than double ours.
Perhaps they have a 140mph limit on theirs?
Bogush,
Thanks, an interesting set of statistics.
Being pedantic the death per mile rate overall is 20+% higher in the USA. It is the per mile death rate on motorways being 2.5 times higher than the UK that I find staggering.
I fail to understand why with generally lower speeds, larger cars - which are supposed to be safer, less aggressive driving and less crowded roads, there is such a difference.
Could the reason be that they don't use our wonderful gatsos? Only joking - honest!
Marcus
My K plate 1.9 Turbo D Citroen ZX has a duff speedo, but I've got hold of a complete binnacle assembly from another car. It has an extra oil pressure gauge and the rev counter red lines higher so I reckon it's from a Petrol but the speedo is calibrated to 150mph so I reckon at least that part of it is right. It's quite a pain of a job getting to the binnacle as the steering wheel and a sizeable chunk of the dash has to come out just to get to the speedo cable. Does anyone know if things like the connections will fit and a petrol rev counter work on a diesel if I just try a straight swap, or shall I just transplant the speedo head alone into my old binnacle? Read more
Hi would you have any idea why my 1.9td zx has a rev counter that cant stay still, at certain speeds it wobbles more than others but it always wobbles.
Chatting to a mate about Valve Clearences the other day. [1]
He reckons that on highly tuned shimmed engines with firm valve springs that the valve itself becomes elongated. He also reckoned that Cam followers and cams don't wear.
Now I think that cam followers *do* wear because there's metal on metal contact.
I'm not so sure about valves getting longer. Do they? Is it really the spring?
What makes valve clearences go too tight? What makes valve clearences go too loose?
[1] Yeah - I don't get out much. ;-)
--
Parp, Parp!
Note: All Toad posts come with an implied smiley. Read more
Too tight - Valve seat recession.
Too Loose - Cam / Follower wear.
Browse
.jpg)
Volvoman, it's a well known fact that dealers don't make any money from selling cars, so it has to come from somewhere else, and servicing is the main area. Plus manufacturers aren't in the business if making cars, they're in the business if making money. The best way to do it is to sell the lowest quality product for the highest price, and to tie customers in for as long as possible. Not to mentioon the fact that most everything is designed for ease of manufacturing by machine, not ease of servicing by humans. Can't really blame them I suppose. The other benefit to the manufacturers is that 2nd hand values get depressed by expensive servicing and replacement parts costs, thereby forcing many to replace uneconomical to repair vehicles into new ones. And of course, the more people that say 'the repair costs more than the cars worth', the better it is for them. What we should really do is compare what an existing vehicle is worth to us, and not what it's worth on the open market, and make a repair decision based on that. You only have to look to Japan to see how cars are almost throw away items, and the mindset is simply to keep replacing them just as you would a mobile phone.
The block exemption rules are supposed to be coming soon, which in theory will give everyone access to technical data etc. But no-one really knows how this will work in practice, if indeed it ever will work.
As I said before though, we happily go and buy the fanciest thing we can lay our hands on, with the most gadgets we can get, and it all costs money somewhere along the way. It will be interesting to see how things change as the number of company cars reduces, as I'm sure this has an effect.