May 2003
First, thanks to all who helped me on the shrieking noise - new fan belt cured it.
Now this one may be more difficult, both to explain and to solve - nice if I could attach a sound file.
The car generally runs fine for its age and mileage its at 116800 miles now and I have recently serviced it. New Rotor Arm, Dizzy Cap, HT Leads, Spark Plugs, Oil and Air filter Change, Cleaned out all breather type hoses. New Thermostat, water pump and cambelt.
However it is burbling at idle. The tickover speed seems OK and if a normal engine note was:
Dt-Dt-Dt-Dt-DT..............etc
Mine sounds like:
Dt-Dt-Phut-Dt Dt-Phut-Dt-Dt-Dt-Dt-Phut (this is impossible aint it)
Coincident with this burbling- the exhaust pipe shakes.
One other factor the engine block area (at the gearbox end) is often wet (beaded type wet rather than flooding type wet and it is water not oil) - is this early signs of head gasket failure? (I am not losing anything significant from expansion tank - nor is there any oil in the expansion tank). The engine oil is clean and bright.
Andrew fancy a trip to the coast?
Any advice appreciated.
NormanB Read more
Does anybody know who supplies Morrisons with their petrol? Is it one of the major suppliers: Shell, BP, Esso etc? Read more
Every Morrisons I've seen has been Texaco CleanSystem3 - good quality fuel.
I know the usual old chestnut:
My insurance says I can driver a car belonging to someone else (TP only cover), but what this really means is that car ALSO has to have insurance.
However, I have just noticed that my new Tesco insurance, while saying the usual bit about driving another car not owned or hired etc, explains in the policy that this only applies if ?There is no other insurance in force?.
This would appear to be saying that I can drive another uninsured car, but not an insured one. Does it really mean that?
If so, it would mean that I could drive another insured car only if I were entitled to on that car?s policy.
Also I could go and buy and drive home (via a pre-booked MOT if not taxed) an uninsured car, provided legal ownership was transferred only at the end of the journey.
(That is quite a likely scenario ? I recently bought a friend?s car for spares, but only transferred ownership at the end of the month so that he could recover the unexpired tax)
Can any insurance expert explain ?
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Meaning... you've insured car (a) in your name and car (b) is covered under the 'driving other cars' extension?
You now want to tax car (b) with the insurance certificate relating to car (a), even though there is no mention of car (b) on it?
You can see where this is going, can't you? Incidentally, try Tesco insurance for your son ( tinyurl.com/e1f5 ) as AFAIK they don't differentiate between provisional and full licence holders.
hi my mk3 astra 1.7td tends to jerk (kangaroo) in 3rd gear when its warmed up or under pressure ie going up hill or on low revs any ideas Read more
as above , plus try an injector cleaner for diesels first , for about 4 to 5 pounds worth trying first, double what they say on the tin when adding to the fuel , sounds like pump or injectors to me , go to a scap yeard and get a set of injectors before buying new ones ,chances are this will work
good luck ,
rob
My brother bought a car and discovered later that it had been
burnt out & a write off. It was converted to LPG and head gasket has gone! (been fried?)Trading standards are on to it but I want to know what other action should he take? He has no computer so
I would like to help him sort things out.
Thanks
Jamesed
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Since April this year the law has changed and the onus is now on the seller to prove that faults discovered in the first 6 months were not there at time of sale.Trading stds are enforcing trade sales with this amendment.
Easy remedy.
As far as private sales go, Caveat Emptor ie buyer beware. If car was sold at giveaway price didn't buyer suspect he was buying something in need of work?
As far as write off. NO, there is no legal duty for seller to declare, but if asked, he must respond honestly.
Many write-offs are perfectly roadworthy, but needed parts from Japan that came later than 6 weeks, cosmetic damage that would cost ££££s etc.
Not a fault just to say it was written off.
Just came back from a short trip to Iceland, where Shell have spent 250,000 (£ or $, not sure), installing their first real life hydrogen filling station.
Suitably powered vehicles arrive next month & get the fuel free, for an unlimited trial period!It will be mainly busses & other public sevice cars/vans, initially,but still, perhaps a good idea, from a forward thinking government.
Generally cost of living is double UK prices, but unleaded is about the same, with diesel just 1/2 our price!!
VB
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Hydrogen as a panacea for cleaning up road vehicles is about 30 years away.
Iceland uses geothermal energy to generate the electricity for hydrogen production. Nice if you have it.
Let us look at the UK. Govt report suggests that wind power is the best source of renewable energy. The report also reveals that wind power will first be used to replace the nuclear power stations that are to be phased out over the next 10 years. But nuclear power generates ~ 20% of UK needs which means that most power >70% will still be generated by fossil fuel. Wind power only generates ~4%.
Therefore even with an explosion in wind generation it will be long time before there is a surplus of wind energy for hydrogen generation for vehicles. Otherwise you have to use fossil fuel to generate the electricity to generate the hydrogen. DOH!
Of course hydrogen can be produced by reformation of natural gas. This is cheaper than electrolytically produced hydrogen, but with only a small net reduction in C02 its not that good a solution. Plus of course still dependant on a fossil fuel.
There is just no environmental case for accelerating the introduction of a large scale hydrogen fuelled fleet ahead of the availability of surplus renewable energy sources
But then this doesn't take account of the environmental lobby; or as Bogush used to put it; environ-mental ;-)
Hi,
Sorry, minor rant coming up here.
Was just driving home when I nearly had the front of my car taken off by a double decker!! And I'm annoyed!
Now, I ALWAYS give way to buses, and always obey the 'let the bus go first' thing. And I know most bus drivers are very courteous, and I like it when they give the thumbs up sign out of their window when you let them go.
BUT how far does this 'let bus go first' thing go? I was maybe 2 feet from the front of the bus, overtaking him at a bus-stop, when he just veered out in front of me. And if I hadn't been concentrating we really would have collided.
As in all walks of life, I suppose, some bus drivers just get above themselves and feel since they are usually the largest vehicle on the road they can do anything they like, and the rest of the road beware!
Oh and while I'm ranting, did the 'bus go first' rule ever become part of the highway code, or is it just that most of us polite non-busdrivers choose to exercise a bit of courtesy?
Rant over, thanks for listening!
HF Read more
There will be journeys that simply do not pay.
Now I think about it, ISTR they actually said they had to make a certain %age profit on each journey, not just make them pay.
Generally, though, the local council
can be approached to help subsidise the cost. That happens
a lot around here.
It happens far too much in Manchester TBH. I also wonder how they apportion Megarider revenue to fairly reflect usage of these quieter services. It seems to me that Stagecoach try and get every journey to make a profit - which means busier ones will make a lot of profit, then scoop more profit from council tax payers via GMPTE subsidy. I know they are running a business, but surely a slight degree of subsidy over the whole day wouldn't hurt that much?
And as far as the wages thing goes, Stagecoach Manchester do
offer a good rate of pay, although the hourly rate of
pay would have to be £8.38 to achieve the £17k you
mention.
I'm afraid I can't find any adverts at the moment so can't verify the figures for you. I'm sure the figure was around the £17-18k, and I can't remember if that was before or after training. The only think to bear in mind is that, as I mentioned, there is a shortage of drivers in the Greater Manchester area and there has been a lot of poaching between companies, which will have driven wages up. I know that at one point, Stagecoach Manchester were borrowing quite a few drivers from Stagecoach Ribble and still had to withdraw some services due to shortages. (This was a good few years back - the reason I got the car was that I was fed up of the 3 mile journey to work taking a good half hour or more, and then on the way back having a regular 25 minute wait for a bus that was supposed to be every 2 or 3 minutes.)
Took my V reg Mondeo into an independent garage for a 60k service. Upon collection I was told that considerable effort was needed to remove the rear brake drums and it was considered that they had probably never been removed during the life of the car. All previous services were carried out by a Ford Dealer. Upon scrutinising the Ford Service Checksheets, I noticed that the wording adjacent to the tick box says "check rear linings for wear using inspection pad inspection holes" In other words the drums need not be removed. Is this good practice? I understand that certain other manufacturers follow the same procedure of never removing such items until a problem develops. Surely prevention is surely better than cure! In my car's case, the drums were clogged with years of dirt. Read more
they get paid off Ford to do warranty work anyway, so why be
so obstructive?
I beleive when it's warranty work, the labour rates paid for by the the car manufacturer to the dealer are less than if it were a customer having to pay for the same repair.
Like most new cars today, the top of the engine in my vectra is covered by a plastic clip on cover - that apart from making it look neat and tidy - as far as I can see serves no other purpose.
The reason I am posting this is that a number of pipes and wires run out from under the cover to other parts of the engine bay, and as the edge of the cover is quite sharp, there has been chafing to at least two pipes and one set of wiring. This has necessitated the liberal use of black insulation tape to cover the pipes/wires and protect them.
Given time I have no doubt that material damage would have been caused by this cover - all for no other reason than aesthetics - under the bonnet !!
Steve Read more
I pulled the engine cover off my 2000 diesel vectra as like you say it served no useful purpose whatsoever. There was some foam attached to the underside of the cover which I presumed was some sort of acoustic barrier. having the cover makes little if any difference to the engine noise. I like to see whats going on under the cover anyway, makes it easier to spot any leaks etc.
This weekend only at Safeways:
Every time you shop at Safeway and spend over £10 in a single transaction you will receive a till slip coupon valid for seven days. The coupon may be exchanged for up to 40p off every litre you buy from the Safeway Petrol Filling Station.
(Half price petrol is based on saving 40p per litre when you spend £150 in-store.)
See:
www.safeway.co.uk/cgi-bin/search.cgi?000009000006&...9 Read more
Their fuel offer is permanent but this weekend, up to the end of Monday, its doubled up, so instead of getting a 2p coupon for spending a tenner in the shop, you get a 4p coupon and so on.
I bought a cd and then saved £2.50 on Diesel for my Scenic!!
Not to be sniffed at!
Cats are tougher than you think, the reason it was so hot was the unburnt petrol was actually igniting inside the cat. Providing the cat hasn't physically melted you will probably have got away with it as you had the good sense to stop driving it. Thanks for posting the 'fix'.
Andrew
Simplicate and add lightness!