April 2003
Could I have some opinions please on what the current trade view is on the value of used imports - are UK spec imported cars worth less than UK supplied ones? I suspect the answer could be they will give you less in part exchange if your selling but charge the same if your buying!
Thanks Read more
Just bought a Saab 9000i 92J white 180k with MOT and a month tax for 50 pounds. No rust, very straight, everything works and 1/2 tank of petrol.
He wanted 100 minimum, I offered 35, he dropped to 75, I went up to 50, he went in and asked his wife, his wife agreed, I rang my girlfriend, she agreed. Find a cash machine, exchage cash, fill in V5, make a recipt, cup of tea, drove it back to college.
All done is one hour. Very hassle-free, isn't it? Now my girlfriend has a banger to drive around London in (do not tell her that it only costs 50 though).
PS:
Apparently his wife want to scrap the car as they now have two company cars. She was told she would not get anything if she scrap it so she told him to put "any offer" up on the news-group. Read more
It's still got plenty of life left in it, the 9000 will go well over the 200k mark if it's looked after (and in many cases, even if not!). Best of luck, and certainly look at joining the owwner's club.
What's the recommended approach for loading an estate (Volvo V70) when you want to have the following configuration:
driver and two passengers - one in the front and one in the back
Is it to keep the luggage below head height - even if that means it spills into the passenger compartment (via split fold rear seats) or is it pile it high in the rear and use the nylon cargo net to stop luggage breaking through under heavy braking?
The V70 has curtain airbags which shouldn't be obstructed but I also don't like the idea of an obscured rear view via luggage piled high and I prefer to keep it low down.
What's the best bet for safety? Read more
"Too much weight too far back and the rear end will get skittish"
Of course - I didn't mean to imply otherwise. However, the physics also kick in aerodynamically, and the maintenance of the horizontal in a Citroen estate does make them much better behaved at speed with a load. I had a humble GS for a few years, and it could hold 100mph fully laden with a mere 65bhp, whereas my later Peugeot estate, with 50% more power, could barely manage 90 with a similar load, although much faster unladen. The GS was much more stable under those circumstances, too, and I always felt (still do) that Citroen made far too little of this advantage - not to mention the fact that the floor was lowered for you when you switched off...
Hi
was just wondering what kind of a problem my Passat might be experiencing. I was knocked quite hard on the left wing by another motor which made the steering wheel massively out of sink with the column and since then the car has always tracked off to the left unless i constantly hold the wheel to compensate. I have fitted new Michelin\'s since and do not want these to prematurely wear. What mechanical faults can my Passat have developed because of this accident? Can I fix these myself using a trusty Haynes manual and dedication?
Many thanks
MG
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If your steering wheel has gone off a lot to one side after the thump, then I reckon something is considerably bent - maybe a track control arm/wishbone or something.
Probably goes beyond normal tracking adjustment - normal misadjustment of tracking tends to course vague steering/wandering or poor self-centring rather than a strong pull to one side.
Maybe you need to have a full inspection of the front suspension unless you can see something obviously bent...
Working outside the house this evening, with spanking new V70 outside, I heard a bang.
Looking up, I saw the young lad from a neighbouring house picking up his bike...next to the offside rear corner of the V70.
Uh Oh. My heart sank.
"I didn't hit it mister.
"Are you quite sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure", he said as he pedalled away.
Of course, he had hit it, so I calmly walked to the offender's house, where I met Mum, and explained the problem. She called matey.
"Did you hit this man's car?"
Over the next minute we went in stages from outright denial, to "It was my hand". Some knuckles he must have!
With this, the three of us walked to the car, and when the damage was seen, his Mum asked him again if he had caused the scrape.
At this, he copped.
Now the best bit:
"Well count yourself lucky it's only a Volvo and not a Merc like ours", says Mum. "At least it'll be cheap, so we won't need to take your pocket money to fix it".
The cheek of it.
The scratch is quite long, but I think most of it will polish out, which I would prefer to a resprayed (pearlescent paint) wing.
The section that won't is the fuel flap, in which the scratch is indeed a scrape, horizontally along the middle.
Hopefully Volvo can sell a prepainted fuel flap, but if not, repair (fill and feather spray out to the shut line) should be easy and 'invisible'.
The reason I parked the car where I did was because when I left the previous car on the other side of the house, it got scraped by either a skateboard or bush bike, as well as assaulted by grit laden footballs!
I can't win! Read more
My job relies on informed fact, not hearsay, but in this case what you write, and that I might just end up with a bigger non-matching area, despite 'feathering in' is my worry, Neil!
I have owned a black non-metallic BMW coupe from new for the last 6 years, but cleaning / waxing / polishing is a pain.
If just washed & leathered water marks appear especially if warm.
Have tried using 'finish' to rinse before leathering, and tried using 'deminerilised water' at an upmarket self carwash, but neither give a good result.
So mostly I wax & polish to give a better result, but having tried 'MER' and all the 'TURTLE WAXES' the only one to give a deep shine is the 'Colour Coded Wax' in black as all the others show up any white spots not polished or leave a white dust. Even this does not give the deep shine I would like for the effort involved.
I have 2 other cars, one a solid red & a metallic dark red, and both give a perfect finish using any wax product.
If no solution is found then the beemer is up for sale!
Anyone out there who can recomend from personal experience what to do or use ?
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Kev why do think there are sooooo many silver ones?
Seriously though, Orwellian logic for black cars: -
Big cars, lots of panel to polish - bad.
Small cars, preferably with drop top or targa - good!
Does anyone know if it is possible to either retrofit a CD player to a Yaris, or fit an after-market unit? While I normally just listen to the radio, it would be handy to have one and preferable over the tape.
One thing I did wonder is whether it is possible to access the audio inputs to the main unit. I'm assuming it must have something like a line-in on it. I was thinking that if I could fit a pair of phono sockets, I'm tempted to buy one of these portable MP3 / CD players, so I could just connect that up when on a long journey in the car. Any suggestions?
TIA! Read more
Except that looks expensive. www.empiredirect.co.uk has the same autochanger (though maybe minus an adaptor) for £117!
There's one of these on eBay - it's going round for the second time and no-one has bid on it yet.
It looks interesting, with its gull-wing doors, but I've never heard of it before, certainly never seen one.
Any backroomers have knowledge of these? Read more
Thanks for the links, very interesting. It's a nice looking motor and still no bids with an s.p. of £1300.
It's only taken me 3 months to put two and two together...
My 2001 Omega 3.0 radio has been playing up nearly every morning - just static hiss. By the time I've driven for about 15 minutes it suddenly comes back to life.
The upshot is it's the heated rear window (which I've been using most mornings) which causes this problem...this switches itself off after 10/15 mins and hence the radio springs back to life.
I assume the aerial is part of the heating element (the stubby one only used for Sat Nav?) - any suggestions as to what has gone wrong?
Thanks
Paul Read more
The reason you are getting a hiss on radio with hrw switched on,is that one or more of the heating elements has a hairline fracture which causes minute arcing across elements.This can be proven by running youre finger across the element lines (while hrw &radio are on)as you reach a fracture you should hear a change in noise/interference as the finger remakes a circuit.These omegas are notorious for poor radio reception due to hrw faults (changing the aerial/hrw amp makes no difference).The best cure is an external aerial.
I read further down where someone said - go into the Fiat Showroom and bang on the counter - here's what I did.
Fiat Seicento - 2 years old - paint bubbling around trim on sunroof. Fiat dealer says 'not our problem' - the paintwork warranty only covers 'body-panels' - and anyway even if it were to be done (which it won't) the Fiat Warranty fella has to come along and ok it (which he won't). So I insist that this man from Fiat sees the car and book an appointment for when he next visits.
Go home and check small print of warranty - which does indeed say body panels - what a cop out!
Phone trading standards for advice - they say that my contract is with the dealer and they agree that a 2 year old car should not be showing such signs of corrosion. They advise to ask again and if nothing can be agreed I should write to the Dealer Principal stating that you will give them 28 days to rectify the problem or Trading Standards will become further involved.
Go to see Fiat warranty man - he does indeed say no. So then I turn on the Dealer's service manager, and tell him nevermind my contract is with you anyway so you sort it - he says he won't -- I say yes you will and I'm going to write this letter - write your s**ding letter he says...
So I did and a week later the same gentlemen phones and books the car in - it now has a whole new sunroof asssembly (and it was only a few bubbles on a bit of trim). Read more
It's the 'Sporting' model - wife's car bought for £5950 brand new. It's now almost 3 years old and apart from the sunroof it's been fault free (so far!). The only thing that bothers me when I drive it - apart from seeing all those mums in X5's with their bumpers at the same height as my head - is that you have to select reverse nice and slow with the clutch flat on the floor (or graunchhh). I think I'll just carry on being careful for now and hope it never gets worse.
Browse
I don't think there is a definitive YES or NO on this. It depends on what it is, how old it is, to whom you are selling it. There are too many variables to give an answer. I've sold my UK spec. imported Yaris's to private buyers and have told the buyers of the ones that had only done 200 miles or so the vehicles history and had no problem and made good money. My Auto was a year old when I sold it and didn't get asked whether it was imported and didn't tell them. All were as new and undistinguishable from UK models and I've not heard a squeak from any of the buyers - it was painless and profitable.
Some dealers may ask whether it is imported and make a price adjustment - others won't. Search on this site for a detailed thread on this very topic - ie. should you disclose the fact it's an import to a dealer.
If it's over 3 years old it's not going to make any difference and the older it gets the less of an issue.
Imports have dropped by 40% since last year due to strength of pound/euro and due to UK brokers and dealers discounting more aggressively. Importers are admitting to making less money and it's thought the practice will fade away from the very enthusiastic levels reached in the last year or so, with buyers going for the best UK sourced vehicles due to the absence of savings abroad and the issue of lower resale values as you describe in your question. Also a UK model does give increased security during purchase against distinct from some dubious importers - some of whom went broke taking punters money with them and maybe this will be more and more the case in future.
You'll have gathered that I won't be buying abroad unless/until things improve. There are still savings to be made on some models but not for me at the moment.
KB.