where the pollen filter is on my Avensis 1.8?
I've looked in the handbook but nothing...

thanks

MB Read more

HJ has steered me firmly away from the V40TD and made some alternative suggestions, including the Focus, Civic and 323. My head does the sums and agrees that these are all worthy suggestions. I have to admit the FocusTDcI will give the 45+mpg I'm seeking, is a fairly handsome car and will be given due consideration. Not sure about that 323 though.....

At this point my heart takes a firm grip of my head and draws me back into Autotrader, pointing out a 156JTD Veloce Sportwagon (19k on an X with leather and all the trimmings) which I can get for £10k from an Alfa dealer if I apply enough pressure in the right places.

I know Alfa haven't had the best reputation, but I've also heard that the JTD ain't a bad lump and this car is dripping with equipment.

Should I be sectioned? Am I doomed to buy this car and live with it's "features" (aka breakdowns) whilst admiring its gorgeous lines? Should HJ take a large plank of wood and batter me until I accept the futility of this line of thinking and buy a Mundano or a Forgettable Focus? Will I be barred from further discussions?

The answers lie with you... cos I can't make my mind up!

No Dosh (because form beats function every time)

Read more

I. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per household, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each.

II. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever crappy snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second --- 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour.

III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them --- Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch).

IV. 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance --- this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 G's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo.

V. Maybe Santa needs a BMW? Read more

Hello all,
I have a 94 astra diesel turbo.
It is refusing to fire now the weather has become cold.
I know its not my battery as I took her in one night gave her a good charge and put it back on in the morning and my car still refused to fire up.
If I disconnect the feed of the glow plug rail and attach a 12-24v test screwdriver this should tell me if its getting feed and if the relays ok??
what feed should they be recieveing? 6v? 12v?
what else could I try as its done this for the last four days now but fires up once I have charged my battery again in the afternoon.

cheers all Read more

We have just bought a Fiesta 1.1 J Reg. We have had it 3 weeks. When we bought it we where not told it had a car alarm. We have been using it all this time without problems BUT this morning the car alarm (which we didnt know we had is sounding!). Does anyone know if there is a way of swiching it off. There is no keyfob button. Would there be a switch somewhere?? HELP!!! Read more