June 2003
My Airbag light remains on after it's initial test sequence my main Seat Dealer tells me I need a new clock spring @ a cost of
£100+ and 1 hours Labour all in all with VAT circa £185 ouch.
Car is a Seat Cordoba 1999 anyone had any experience of changing/repairing clock spring and if I do it myself will the
ECU/Controller for airbag need reseting.
I know that Practical Mechanics are doing an article on this very subject next month but this cuts it a bit fine for my MOT.
Read more
Herald 13/60, 1969.
Clutch has failed.
Can anyone talk me through what I have to do to replace it.
And in what order.
Thank you. Read more
It's good when people respond;with so many problems,you never find out what happened.Thank you.
I would be very interested to hear if anyone has experiences (good or bad) with buying or selling cars through E-Bay. Read more
I bought a mk2 golf gti off ebay & admit i never saw it before bidding. Got the car & it's a good example - no problems. The car was advertised as being in excellent condition - so i would have used this as my get-out clause if i had turned up & it had been a shed.
However, i doubt i would buy another car from ebay this way. If there was a car i was interested in, i would definately go & view it first before bidding.
If you bid on a car & don't want to buy it for whatever reason, you may get neg feedback, but who cares about that when you've not had to shell out for a heap! i doubt you would get taken to court & you could always say the ebay item's description was mis-leading\false.
Just as a matter of interest, we have all (well most of us) done crazy things with our cars which after we done it we wondered how the car didn?t fall to bits or rather blow to bits. One thing that I never forget is that last year I had a long running dispute with my opposite neighbour on parking issues and meanwhile I was doing some building work so I had things come and go. One day I had a skip (midi size- ones about the size of your normal car) and the driver could not steer the truck into my drive so left it of the left hand side of my drive gate. Then surprise-suspire, within microseconds, the said neighbour comes out saying that in order for him to get into his drive he has to ?bank? on the side of the road on my drive to get clearance on his entrance and that the skip was blocking his way although the skip was on my side of the road!!. and he was bragging on and on and on and on about the skip blocking his way. I had to go to university fairly quickly and had no time to call back the skip driver and yet had to do something about the skip, so in a moment of utter madness and stupidity, I did the only thing that came to my mind, used an ?adequate? rope to tie the skip to the back of my (tiny, rattly, flimsy, and frankly glued together with spit , but for some reason adorable and cute) AX Diesel and was absolutely determined to move the skip. For some initial several minutes nothing was going on except smoke coming out of EVERY ORIFICE of the car and the car feeling as if the front end was being stretched and any minute I would see it peeling away (of course at the time none of it mattered, the thing was to get the skip moving), then the diesel torque prevailed and the clutch held it together and the driveshaft did not warp and the head gasket remained loyal and alleluia, the skip started to move together with the most loud noise of metal being pulled on tarmac !! I pulled the skip about 20 meters to take it to the other side of my drive gate. The skip was empty but it was big enough to put the car inside it and of course being on no wheels and made from 5mm steel I can only guess how much it weighed. I think I got away with it because so many things could have broken/snapped/melted/burnt (for one, the cam belt that was in the car whilst I was doing this ?operation? had done 70k already!!). anyway, its over to you, have you ever done anything with your car after which you thought to yourself ?was I lucky or was I lucky? :-) cheers - Amin Read more
Just remembered another funny thing with one of my ?old bangers? (of course on a much less grand basis than other sorties floating about in here!). Years a go I had a 78 VW Polo coupe, with the 850cc engine and when I got the car the reverse gear was not working. I didn?t think much of it and used the car for almost 6-7 month without the reverse, or so I thought. When I finally had enough of having to open door and reversing with pressing my foot on the road, I decided to have a look to see what is the problem. Then surprise suspire, I found out that not only I didn?t have reverse, but 1st and 2nd where gone too!! The linkage joint had gone from the gear stick to the gearbox rod, and the gearbox was not changing column, so all the time for about 6 month I only had 3rd and 4th!!! No wonder its was making noises comparable to a jet engine every time I was pulling off from rest!! I always thought the clutch had gone or that the engine was just too small. After that I was surprised nothing had gone wrong with the car after such abuse for so long!! Good old German build quality !!....
Firstly the update. My time in NZ has come to an end. Hence the little bomber I have bought is to go to a good new home. It has driven on beaches, on off-road courses and along some of the worst and steepest and scariest roads I have found yet. I paid $1700 and sold for $1400 after 9 months and 40000km (yes 40000km). The bomber was a 1987 Daihatsu Charade 1.0 CX. Utterly reliable. I had the cambelt changed when I bought it, and apart from one CV boot, a headlight adjustment, an oil pressure switch (I think), a door knob (a relative broke it off when they came out here) spark plugs and fuel and air filters, it has only had oil and filter changes every 5000km as per the manual. Thanks to everyone who helped me with my questions when buying it. Also, I can report that it is fun driving a car with low levels of grip enthusiastically (but within the limits of the law)
The question has come about due to the car. The oil pressure switch ( I think) was replaced because it was peeing oil everywhere. All over the drive of the rented property. Has anyone any ideas how to get oil off a driveway (tarmac) and a garage floor (concrete)?
Thanks in advance.
Paul C Read more
Paul
As it's a tarmac drive, for heavens sake don't use Gunk or similar degreaser! It will strip the binder from the drive and leave a hole full of stones.
Try leaving some oil absorbing granules on the stain for a day or two (cat litter will do if you can't find the real thing), and then a wash with detergent and hot water.
Regards
John S
Does anyone know why Morris Minors make that dreadful but unique honking noise when their drivers lift off changing up a gear? I used to wonder about it as a kid, but had forgotten about it until I heard one today! Read more
We have a Morris 1000 saloon which has become louder in this respect than it was, since the mild steel exhaust was replaced with a stainless one - for the princely sum of 49.25 UKP
The box is quite close to the engine and is followed by a straight section of pipe, in excess of 1 metre long, about 25 mm inside diameter, before it takes a gentle inverted u shape over the back axle to emerge by the bumper. (It is the same basic dimensions as the mild steel ones, but was supplied in 2 pieces)
I don't know if it's a Helmholtz resonator, or just a boring old pipe, but it snorts on the over-run at about 40 mph the way these things do, and also on rapidly closing the throttle during a gearchange "up".
As it's only 38 this year it doesn't have the semaphore indicators, but it does still have the starting handle, and also a heater, which wasn't original equipment on this model... now where's that nostalgia thread gone??
My 1992 Mercedes 230E automatic has a problem with the bulb failure indicator lamp on the dashboard. When side or headlights are used, it always comes on even though all the exterior bulbs are fine and working. It happened once before, and was caused by using a 10 watt not the correct 5 watt rear bulb. When replaced, all was fine. It is driving me crazy. Any ideas? Read more
Hi MW
Sorry I suggested those coz they are easily overlooked!
Bit of a bummer and I tend to agree with above post you are probably going to have to hunt this one down and it is more than likely to be an 'iffy' earth connection somewhere.
I would suggest doing a search on the following forums listed in order of preference. Shame that the Yank one is top of the list and no shame on the Brit sites but the sheer volume of traffic on their site makes a useful resource to search on.
Here you go and good luck - let us know how you get on:
www.mercedesshop.com/shopforum/index.php3
194.154.162.24/forums/index.php?s=
forums.mercedesclub.org.uk/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonb...i
New to the pages, enjoying the discussions and have written a couple of reply's so far. We have a 99 T mondeo 5-door and have noticed some slight water ingress to the n/s rear section of the boot. (This has arrived while the car stood during a thunderstorm and not through driving the car in the wet).
Is this a common problem, and can anyone shed any light on the problem? IMHO I think it could be either a faulty rubber seal or possibly a blocked drain hole.
All help gratefully received.
Paul Read more
Should have gone to a DIY store (B&Q Homebase etc) got the bathroom type silicon sealant (even in the colour you want) and a sealant gun. Can then be used to fix the leaks round the shower!
Does anyone know what the electrical part is called that the boot release button connects to on my 1999 Mondeo. Boot wouldn't shut properly so the garage disconnected the part from the button and I now use a key to release. I know it used to whirr when you pressed the button. £40 part and £40 labour from Ford, so will try a scrappie I think. Read more
It could be a simple switch - the key barrel is on the OSR below the lamp isn't it?
With summer upon us, does anyone know of any quick & easy ways to remove squashed insects from the front of cars. Mine was covered in them after a long trip on Saturday & it took ages and lots of elbow grease to remove all of the traces,
Thanks for any advice Read more
Just use a more powerful screenwash - I use something called cleen green, which shifts muck off everything! As soon as there's a splat, on go the wipers, and the remains are away.
Also, because bug strikes normally occur at speed, the residual screenwash is blown away in the slipstream, so no damge to paint.
Stevie's smiley clingfilm idea isn't such a joke - I know many locals invest in 'car bras' which they use on long distance drives.
Another joy of the local bug's is that, like Growler's, they come in "king size"... it's amazing that after just a few days, the accumulated splats can cover an entire number plate - which always gets overlooked during the cleaning process. I can't imagine why ...
Browse
Regardless of whether it's MOTable or not I still wouldn't like to have no working airbag, the car will have been designed with an airbag in mind, not having one may have a nasty effect on safety...
It's not quite the same, but my airbag clock spring used to squeek on my MK3 Fiesta, the main dealers ony charged £10 to remove the steering wheel and lubricate the sring. If it's that easy to do the job I can't see how they can charge hundreds to replace it...
Blue