June 2003
After recently changing insurers, i think i may have a few problems any advice on where i stand would be appreciated.
Started my new policy on 21/4 phoned the old brokers, and requested my no claims certificate. This still hasnt arrived. My new insurers have told me they will cancel my new insurance if this isnt supplied next week. Is there any way i can get them to send my proof of no claims?
Also i managed to get the number of the insurers off the brokers yesterday, and managed to speak to somebody they still have me as living at my old address for some reason. All documentation for the old policy came to the new house (moved almost three years ago), they are now saying that as i didnt notify them my insurance was not valid, i told them the broker obviously knew about it as they kept sending me renewel letters etc. Where do i stand on this if they do retroactively cancel my insurance?
Thanks
Tone Read more
Can any serving police officers please explain why it is ok for you to drive on blue lights at excessive speed in built up areas with one hand on the wheel and the other using your radio? I witnessed this in Eastbourne the other day. Also, this was beatifully displayed on the recent BBC1 series on the Met Traffic where the in car camera showed the officer to be exceeding 80mph in an residential street chasing a white Sierra driven by a schoolboy. The narrator told us that PC XXXXX was trained to the highest level. Really! By the way I don't approve use of phones while moving. Read more
No, I would like Utopia! where the police force is properly manned and you can have two officers in the car all the time. I know this is fantasy but hey!
A slightly complex situation and I need some advice. I don?t have the full story at this stage but I?d like to get some first thoughts from Backroomers.
In May 2002 (last year) my son was stopped by a patrol on the M23 doing over 100mph. (Don?t let?s have a debate on the rights and wrongs of this :-). He knows he was in the wrong and it's certainly slowed him down)
He didn?t have his licence with him at the time but was told he may be reported. He didn?t get any slip to tell him to produce his licence within 7 days. Time went by and he didn?t hear anything at all, so assumed he?d got a sympathetic plod and hadn?t been prosecuted.
A short time after this, he moved house but probably didn?t notify the DVLA of his new address at the time. He didn?t get round to this until about a month ago. He did however put a 3-month re-direct with the Post Office. This morning his licence was returned and he found that there was an offence on the licence dated 23 December (don?t know the code at the moment) with a 28-day ban and a £250 fine. Nobody?s chased him for the fine and he obviously didn?t know about the ban so he has been driving while disqualified.
I?ve told him he must tell his insurance company but some of the questions that arise are:
· Should he have received an NIP within 14 days?
· Why wasn?t he asked to produce his licence within 7 days?
· Does he have any grounds for appeal in that he was prosecuted without being informed?
· What should he do about the fine? Are the court bailiffs likely to appear on his doorstep now the DVLA know his address?
And I?ll bet there are issues that I haven?t even thought of. So any help, advice, recommendations are welcome.
Thanks chaps (and chapesses)
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Techno
I see what you're saying but frankly, Jnr can do without the hassle. And as you say, there's no guarantee that the process won't start all over again.
He's put it behind him and that's it.
Hi
I would appreciate any help or advise that any of you may be able to give.
I have a Omega 2.5 V6 petrol CD that is miss-firing. I have had the spark plugs changed whilst being away from home on business by an autotune company - they noticed that one of the spark plugs had water on it (this was the only one) obviously, this was the cause of the miss-fire, the car has been fine for the last 1000 miles but then it rained!! I now have the exact same problem and the car is awful, the guy who fitted the sparks said that the head gasket looks o.k. - could it be the HT leads?
Any help or suggestions would be appreciated - I don't want to keep spending money until I can get to the root of the problem.
Regards
SPS Read more
I suspect most aftermarket leads are now OK. A few years back they were not very accurately impedance matched to OEM. This led the ECU to believe that one of the plugs had gone down and it shut off the relevant injector (to protect the cat.).
Education rather than persecution? Never!
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/2956008.stm
PS - isn't it time the BBC updated their picture library? Read more
Pulling the threads together
those pesky inlet manifold tracts that are meant to open at 3500rpm or WOT but often fail for various reasons.
The little motor that opens these butterfly valves has failed on my 98 2.5 Si. I have pegged the actuator in the open position. Now they are either open or closed in a working system, there is no variable position.
Question is : what effect would it have on MPG or otherwise if I leave them open and how much would fitting a new actuator thingy cost ?
btw the difference is incredible ! before it wouldn't rev out in 4th and maybe creep to 115mph; now it bangs off the limiter in 4th at 120+ and was still edging up past 142-ish when I ran out of (private, honest !) road. Read more
I'll confirm that over the next tankfull, no doubt.
Can't say I actually notice a low rev torque difference. Still counts 12s or so from 31-62, as per the Ford website. It does have 105000 on the clock !
BTW the actuator motor is £109+VAT and fitting is .8 hours, so £190 odd in total. What I need is a bicycle brake cable to the underside of the steering wheel for manual actuation !
Last year I sorned my car instead of taxing it. I was lead to believe that this only lasted a year and I would be sent a renewal notice. Suffice it to say this hasn't arrived. Is this normal. I know I can get a form and send it off to Swansea but if this is lost I know it can cause problems.
Thanks
JohnL Read more
Sorry frostbite that should have said that *my* local Post Office wouldn't accept them (they don't do licences either).
In our area there is a nominated major PO some 30 miles away who does the "MVL" duty and is detailed on the V11...so I post it to them.
Well spotted.
M.M
Over the past few months I have been reading with interest the horror stories of members local councils, who for no sane reason decide to produce some truly ludicrous road layouts. I think we should start a thread detailing the worst of the worst.
Here's my input to get things started?.
Dumfries & Galloway Regional Council Roads Department decided to remove a roundabout in Dumfries and replace it with a set of traffic lights to ease congestion at rush hour. After a couple of months of mayhem whilst it was being built, they switched the lights on and sat back. The traffic flow is now ten times WORSE than it was before.
So what have they done?
They've switched the lights off and erected a temporary roundabout made out of traffic cones! They are now planning to remove the lights and rebuild the roundabout in the original location. All at tax payers expense!
This is in a town of 40,000 people split in two by a river with only THREE road bridges over it!
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In Bromley in kent there is a road called homesdale road and on that road is a DUMP. So particularly of a weekend the que is massive and because it is a reasonably busy road people go speeding down the other side of the road trying to get past the line of cars. The council had a brainwave and stuck a sign up saying NO QUEING BEYOND THIS POINT or something similar and guess what....You may have had more success with a dont urinate on the floor sign on the wall of the gents in your local pub. apparently there are two other entrances and I dont know why one of these is not open but one goes past someones house that is on the council and that is why they dont open that one. Only what I have heard I am afraid but the queues are definately there.
NB
When turning corners (ie turning off/T junctions) at low speeds (10-15 mph) I get a creak from the front end drivers side as the car turns. Is this a problem with the suspension/damper/roll-bar? If so is it serious?
Thanks Read more
Only real problems with 306 front suspension systems are the front lower wishbone rearmost bushes (known as 'P' bushes and the anti roll bar drop links.
Drop links are easy to change - P Bushes are not!
On HJ's page in the Sat' telegraph last week, was the advice section on what car to buy.
A punter had a '99 {?} Volvo V70 pertol {owned from new / hence worst of depreciation over} and wanted something sexier / cheaper to run, but still with lots of storage space / room for dog etc.
HJ suggested {'98} BMW and Merc estates, both of which would cost more / would be older / higher miles etc.
Both are more hatch back than estate, with v sloping rear end.
HJ even suggest a Rover 75 Tourer {2000 plate}- OK, the diesel 75 may do 10 mpg more on average than the Volvo, saving perahps £250 tops per year, but the 75 will be just about worthless at 5 years old, but be Volvo would still be worth a good few grand - the Volvo is a bigger, safer, faster, 'sexier' and more realiable than the 75. The 75 has v poor rear access / loading -and of course, its sad to say i know, Rovers still fall to bits.
Each day I walk past an S Reg Rover - the front edge of the bonnet has rotted away - I find that disgusting on such a young car - what does it say about how it will stand up in crash?
I think HJ should have said Keep the Volvo - or gone for his stock answer - A Mondeo {estate}.
Certainly - don't buy a Rover 75, new, or almost new, with your own money !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
An Aston Martin would cost less to run when the 75's depreciation is taken into account!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Paul {Forest of Bowland} Read more
Marcos said: "I know what the ZT is but not the ZT-T. Any ideas"
You got the serious answer (that it is the tourer) and sniffpetrol.com have another spin on it:
www.sniffpetrol.com/issue003.html
"The MG name confusion has even hit top record producer Trevor Horn. "I returned from a month in the Caribbean and decided to call into the offices of my record label." said a clearly furious Mr Horn, "As soon as I arrived I knew something was up. The office was much smaller than I remembered and all the chairs were a different colour. I was about to call my assistant and demand to know where all the staff were when I realised what had happened. The cabby had got confused and instead of taking me to ZTT records, he had dropped me off at a ZT-T, the estate version of MG's new large sports saloon. I think they need to sort this stupid name thing out," the man behind Frankie Goes To Hollywood warned. "Mind you, good chassis tuning," he added."
pat
Browse
What's all this fuss? I've changed insurers loads of times and never been asked for proof of NCD. I assumed they all have access to common information and can look it up for themselves. Likewise car details. Give them the reg no. and they immediately know what make and model.
Does your company still use quill pens by any chance?