February 2003
Can you fit aftermarket SatNav, kind of along the lines of the system that the Mercedes have ?
Any idea who I would talk to ?
Mark. Read more
Neighbour has a v70 T5 Auto for sale owned by himself since new March 2000. It has done about 70k miles and he wants about £12k for it (says this is what the garaged offered as trade-in). Does this sound a good price? is Volvo servicing very expensive? I understand a cambelt is required at 70k is this likely to be an expensive (c.£500) job? I fancy the space and the pace combined. General v70 build, reliability and ownership advice much appreciated. Thanks, Ian Read more
Parkers is looking like 2k more!
Regards.
Has anyone tried or does anyone know if it is possible to fit an airbag to a car that did not have one fitted when it left the factory?
I have just bought an Audi S2 with no airbag. They were an optional extra at the time of sale. Can I go to Audi and get one fitted?
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Shouldn't an Audi of this age have ProConTen fitted, which pulls the steering wheel away from the driver in case of an impact anyway? It's not quite as good as a bag, but it's better than nothing - and would have to be disabled/replaced, even before you could fit an airbag - having both would probably make things worse.
If anyone out there could help me answer a any of the questions I have regarding my Mk3 VW Golf 2.0 8v GTi (1996 Nreg) it'l be much appreciated.
1) Having looked all over the engine i can't find the engine number anywhere. Any idea where i may find it?
2) I've had my tracking done a couple of times but find the steering wheel becomes misaligned withinn a couple of months, ie when going in a straight line the steering wheel isn't straight, it looks as if i'm turning slightly.
3) Tick over isn't as quiet as i believe it should be and sounds as if its 'hunting'. This also shows when travelling along the road in any gear around the 1500-2500 revs mark when it feels as if the car is juddering slightly.
Many thanks!
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Why are they so cheap? Autotrader has T Reg 35,000 miles for £8k. Read more
No image, no diesel and aren't they auto only? Good enough cars if you can live with that.
Hi
Car's a 1989 4-speed model and has done 50k. Usually take it on 10-12 mile journeys at ~60mph each time it's started up. Checked oil filler cap this weekend after about 3 weeks and noticed mayonnaise in the cap and in the breather hose. Shook the cap and hose and a few big droplets of water came out. Breather hose isn't completely blocked with mayo or other obstruction.
Any suggestions? Haven't been looking at coolant too closely, but before I took the filler car off I thought the coolant might had gone down a bit to what it was. No oil in coolant, or mayonnaise on dipstick. Also read on this site that it might just be the winter months doing this rather than a head gasket?
Any help would be appreciated.
Regards
Mike Farrow Read more
Hi
Thanks for your replies.
Haven't noticed any more coolant loss so have put it down to the cold weather causing the gasses to condense in the breather hose, even over moderate runs. Cleaned out the filler cap with parrafin and swilled out the adaptor under the air filter housing - couldn't find any sponge :-S.
Will flush and replace oil now winter is over and keep fingers crossed.
Regards
M Farrow
i was looking on a volvo owners forum recently and the subject of fake parts was being discussed, [a well known parts supplier] were mentioned as having been exposed recently as selling parts which they claimed were manufactured by the oe suppliers but in fact were from very dubious sources,does any one know if this is in fact true or just another urban myth? i have used this company many times and have always found the parts supplied to be of top quality(or have i been fooled as well!} Read more
I?ve no first hand experience, but heard of an incident in which an order of brake parts were returned to a supplier. The genuine articles had been taken and swapped with fakes put into the genuine packaging. It was noticed by a fitter, who was putting the fakes onto a bus.
Some of the concern may be generated by scare stories circulated by the manufacturers of the real stuff, but there are certainly fakes being made.
See www.autocluster.com/sa_history/id230.htm
I will shortly need to make a 150 mile round trip to work for up to 7 days a month. I need a cheap diesel car which will eat up these miles and deliver good mpg. As these will be mostly motorway miles I'd like somthing no smaller than escort size. I'm going to get rid of my current car and only run the diesel until at least the summer when I may get a second, nicer, 'weekend car'so I'd like something which is not too embarrasing to drive. As I will be piling on the miles I don't want to spend much on the car- under £1000 and preferably around half that. A tall order I know!
I've read previous posts recommending Montegos and Maestros but I'd rather get something a bit newer looking. Most people I know recommend Citroens and Peugeots but I'm worried about reliability and parts costs also some of the prices seem a bit on the high side. On Autotrader's website there are a number of Rover 218/ 418 diesels and turbo diesels eg M plate 218 TD with 130k and 7 months ticket for £600. This seems very cheap and appears to fit the bill exactly- why are they so cheap though? Don't they have Peugeot engines? Has anyone got one of these, if so what are they like, is the TD much better? Alternatively can anyone suggest anything else.
Thanks 9000 Read more
oops, I should have read that back to myself! I of course meant diesel pipes. Don't go looking for pies on the engine, they'll be rather overcooked if there were any!
I need to reset it. It is only on because I turned the ignition on with airbag removed. As far as I can tell my options are
Take it to a VX dealer for 45 pounds
Buy an Omitech meter (orange) for 300 pounds to read the code and reset the light.
Find a garage locally (Cardiff) who has one of these and will do the job presumably cheaper than Vauxhall.
What I really want to do is to understand how the Omitech meter does the job, presumably it plugs into the diagnostic port, if not what port does it plug into?
What I can't understand is why there is not more information about how to read the airbag codes in a DIY sense.
My car also has one 16 pin diagnostic port in the fuse box and one 10 pin diagnostic port?? in the engine bay on top of the suspension strut next to the brake fluid resevoir i.e. drivers side of engine bay. What is this 10 pin port for? I would really like to know.
It must be possible to do this airbag thing in a DIY manner, same as it is possible to read the P-Codes. Someone must know how to do this.
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This reply is a "bump" more than anything else, but I can report that I have found independant auto electrical garages willing and able to do this for 15 - 20 pounds.
I would still think it is possble to do it by shorting the relevant pins as a DIY effort.
Ok, stupid female questions here but I'll ask anyway at the risk of sounding dumb!
I read recently that the Power Steering Fluid should be changed every 2 years or so. Firstly what is the reaon for that? (it may have been within whatever I read but I don't know now)
The other thing is, how do I know if it needs changing? My car is about 4 and a half years old and I've had it for just over a year (14 months). Presumably the PSF should have been changed at 2 years and 4 years but I don't know if it's ever been done, it certainly wasn't done at it's 4th birthday as I had it then and it came without any service history so I don't know what's been done previously. I decided to check the PSF last weekend, more out of curiosity than anything else but I couldn't get the screw-cap off the container (helpfully labelled so at least I know WHERE it is even if I don't know anything else about it). I don't even know what it should look like if I did get the cap off so that was pretty fruitless anyway. What would be the symptoms I might find while I was driving if anything was seriously wrong with it?
Sorry that's so long and waffly, I just like to know about things and I realised this was one area of the car I know nothing about. As far as I'm aware there is nothing wrong with my power steering at the moment so this all these questions are really just a quest for knowledge and hopefully to be able to spot any problems before they become major issues.
I read it somewhere - can't remember where. Read more
Thanks for all that, so basically don't worry about the PAS fluid that's ok then. What's more worrying from my point of view is that I hadn't realised you were supposed to change the brake fluid every 2 years and also I only had a vague awareness about changing the antifreeze. This is my 2nd car but it's the first I've been willing to do any maintenance on so these things are starting to rear their ugly heads. I suppose I should get these changed at it's next service then when I've had the car for 2 years and at least I know then what's been done and when.
Another (possibly) stupid question, how often does the cambelt need changing? (something else I've read about) If that's car-dependent mine's a 1.25 Fiesta.
"I read it somewhere - can't remember where."
Browse
Has anybody heard of GATSO spotting system that can be downloaded onto to an existing in car nav system. I have just ordered car with navigation and it seems pointless to add on another GPS with associated dasboard clutter / wires / holes.
Thanks
Jim