June 2003
On a \"C\" registered Vauxhall Senator 3.0 CD the dash is all digital apprt from the mileometer . My problem is that where the gauges show fuel,oil,battery,water temp , they no longer light up when the ignition is switched on , speedo and rev counter are fine . Is the problem just down to a bulb , or has the whole dash got to be replaced ? I need advice fairly quickly as im intending on buying the car .Help me please ........?????
You might find more people will be more interested in your thread if you mention in the Subject header the problem you\'re having, rather than just \"Help Needed quickly\" That is why I changed it for you. DD. Read more
Has anyone any experience of fitting automatic gate openers?
I converted my garage door to a remote automatic system and now fancy having a go at the twin wrought iron gates at the end of my drive.
I am not concerned about the security aspects as any unwelcome visitor could easily avoid the machine gun posts with their automatic line of sight firing. I want the convenience of not having to get out of car - open gates - get in and drive through - get out and close gates - get back in car and drive off.
I also want postman/paper boy etc to be able to open/close the gates without disturbing my much needed beauty sleep. It is not an option to have a separate narrow pedestrian gate
Any ideas?
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If security isn't a concern, why not er, leave them open?
Keep the dog in.
Keep the kids in.
Stop every Tom, Dick or Barry using it as a place to turn round.
Etc, etc.
have been told by my garage to replace the shocks on my Passat, which does have some serious problems relating to steering wobble, tracking etc. Have been quoted £300 for all four, which considering the milage on my passat (160K) may be a reasonable amount to pay for a wearable part!
what do the BR lot think?
cheers Read more
After phoning round a few other garages I found the following quote:
Euromaster will change all four shocks and do wheel alignment and balancing for 320euros, which is 200E cheaper than my last quote at Midas. Should I be suspicious of this? Seems odd that prices should fluctuate so wildly from one garage to another.
Euromaster does have a good rep in France however, so perhaps my suspicions are unfounded.
Anyone else experienced such massive price differences for the same job???
Mercedes engineering must just get better and better - according to HJ's road test of the latest CLK cabrio, for an extra £1250 you can have one with an electronic glass Sun Roof !!! :-)
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I expect it is just an addition the standard electric windows that any old cabrio seems to come with nowadays. After all, with the number of days when you can drive with the hood down are so limited - you need the sunroof to create a through flow from the windows to the sunroof to achieve the wind-in-your-hair-look.
After 40,000 miles I have just found out that the fuel filter on my diesel Seat Arosa has never been removed from the vehicle and never drained of excess water. The car has a full Seat service history and was last serviced in April 03. The car was very rough after starting it up one morning and since I had a similar problem on Vectra diesel a while back I attempted to open the fuel filter drain plug.
I found that the securing bolts and filter canister were seized and had clearly never been removed; I then managed to get a good half cup of water drained out and the car then ran OK.
So do main dealers really just kick the tyres and change the oil (and charge you £3.00 for filling up the washer bottle even though it was already full)? I certainly think so!!!
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In all the years I have been driving 10 year old sheds serviced and maintained by the 'Good old boy' under the rail arches I have hardly had to take the car back or complain. Probably a handful of times in 20 years.
Took the plunge and bought two brand new Citroens, one for me and one for my GLW. Everytime we had to take them back to the dealers for minor warranty work and scheduled servicing, it has always been a case of one step forward, two steps back. Extremely frustrating and time wasting. Completely unecessary if they could only be bothered to take pride in their work.
Draw your own conclusions.
Regards,
Alf
I have a 1993 Golf GTI and have a persisting problem where it cuts out for seemingly no reason , it's usually when the revs drop and it cannot fight back and keep it idling but it's not all the time. I have taken it to a friend who works for VW who has run it through the computer diagnostics and can find no fault. He suggested I replace the related sensors that manage the fuel/idling as one of these may have been giving a false reading. So started to replace these but it's running expensive, the next one is over £100 and there has been no change so far. I'm now reluctant to spend any more money on it without being sure it's going to be fixed. I could take it back to VW and ask them to identify the problem but they charge £70 per hour. My friend at VW says they will do nothing more than he's already done and I'd end up with a £200 bill for the time they've spent on it!! Has anyone had this problem before or got any advice on where I can go, what I can do! Pleeeease help!!! Read more
With apologies for sounding like a broken record, whenever I see such problems reported I suggest using the the VW fuel additive (part number G 001 700 03) before getting involved in more costly work. I've used it ever since HJ put me on to it and it cured my Audi 100's cool-running problems overnight; it also improved starting significantly, such that one feather-touch of the key was all that was needed. Those problems were almost certainly caused by short trips. I've also heard the VW dealers attribute to it the very clean emissions readings of my Golf VR6 after its MOT test.
Has any one heard of this device.
Extract from advert:
"This unit allows you to save up to 20% of fuel costs, by aligning the particles of the fuel, thus improving oxygen flow making combustion easier and more efficent. The unit comes with full instructions and is easy installed as it is secured by 2 tie clips to the fuel pipe."
Does this work or is it a con because it only costs £5.00? Read more
No sorry mate can't help you. My brother bought a few at a booty and I've used a couple of them that's all.
I am confused about the ACEA specs. for diesel engine oil. What is B3 and B4 ? Which spec is right for new common rail diesel engines with extended drain intervals ? Handbooks always sppecify the highest spec they can and many garages put in the same basic iol in everything ? Can anyone shed some light on this /
Thanks.
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Reading the mail this morning and it turns out that car your least likely to have a fatal accident in and with the lowest risk of having a any injury or any kind is a Land Rover Defender???!! The most unsafe car apparently is a mini which wasn't a suprise though. The research was done by the department for transport examining about 180,000 crashes.
I have just mentioned this because it has been stated in previous threads that 4x4s are more unsafe than normal cars yet 7 out of 10 cars which were found to be the safest were 4x4s. The general concensus was that the bigger the car the more safe it is.
Although it makes me a bit worried about what would happen to the drivers of cars hit by 4x4s. Since a defender has a steel ladder chasis and i think it would cause massive damage to another vehicle. Read more
Drive defensively - buy a tank....
In the 2003 International Engine of the Year Awards, I see BMW have won 3 awards. In the 1.6 to 1.8 litre category, the winning votes went to the 1.6L MINI Cooper S, - In the 2.0 to 2.5 litre it went to the 325i engine as will be fitted to the new Z4, - and in the 3.0 to 4.0 litre category, it went to the 3.2 litre motor as fitted to the M3. Read more
No arguing with the latter two; nobody does six-cyclinder engines better. The 3.2 was absolutely stunning in E36 S52 guise, I haven't experienced the higher-revving variant in the E46.
Browse
I too had a C-reg Senator which lost half of it's display. Suspecting bulb failure I bought new bulbs from my Vauxhall dealer, very specialised and expensive but cured the problem when I dropped the display whilst taking it out.
So try checking all connections behind the dash and then hitting it!