July 2003
I'm trying to price my 206 1.4LX 5 door with air con 1999 (v)and 17k miles. I've looked at the valuations in Glass's online, Whatcar and Parkers and the prices they are going for in Autotrader and exchange and mart. There appears to be no consistancy between any of this, with prices varying between £4750 and £5600. What price should I pitch it at? Is £5500 too much?
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Does anyone know of a firm in Sheffield,Rotherham or chesterfield that does on car wheel balancing,thankyou in advance.
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There are two ways that a wheel can be out of balance. Side to side (lateral), or up and down (dynamic).
An off the car balancer will correct lateral disrtortion by in effect splitting the wheel down the middle. A weight is applied to both sides of the wheel to correct if necessary.
An on the car machine or finish balancer corrects dynamic distortion. With a pickup placed under the suspension close to the wheel the wheel is spun in the normal direction of rotation, and if there is a heavy spot it will act on the pickup and a strobe lamp will flash. Under the strobe lamp the spinning wheel will appear stationary. A gauge shows how heavy a weight is needed. The position of the valve under the strobe lamp is noted. The wheel stopped and rotated by hand until the valve is in the same position it appeared under the strobe lamp.
A weight is placed at 12oclock and then spun again. If the weight appears before 12oclock the weight is either too far that way or too heavy. If after 12oclock it is too far that way or too light. The procedure is repeated until either the strobe lamp doesn't flash or the gauge reads zero or near to it. Weights are applied to the front of the wheel only.
This method will also balance the driveshaft, brake disc and hub.
So have the wheel balanced off the car first, then without disturbing any weights have them finished balanced.
Hi,
We are emigrating to Canada soon and as such will need a new car in Canada.
We really like our present car (a Renault Scenic 1.6) and were wondering if anyone had any experience of cars in Canada.
Ideally we would like an equivalent car. I guess the engine will be bigger but apart from that we really don't need a car bigger than the Scenic.
Any advice will be appreciated
Thanks
/Philippe Read more
You've got cheap gas, great empty roads, proper size parking spaces, long distances. On my Canadian odyssies I invariably rented the biggest V-8 I could find with cruise control. Well worth it. Last thing you want on those long highways is some little buzzbox where you have to stir the gears.
I am going to get a handfree system put in the car as I'm forever out of the office and wondered what veiws/experiences people have had with these.
When I bought the car in November I made the silly mistake of not opting for the Merc built in kit which you basically either operate by voice commands or by the buttons on the steering wheel. All you phone book numbers come up on a display in the dash and it is absolutely brilliant, now I feel a right muppet.
To have this system installed will cost 1,700 quid.
To have a basic system installed that is not intergrated with the car will cost about 150-200 quid.
Now I know you will all say go for the cheap one but I have used the Merc kit on another car and it is just effortless and brilliant.
What would you do?
Bear in mind that my company will pay so I look at it as less profit, so less tax for Mr Blair to collect. Read more
I have the Nokia full duplex kit installed in my car
and it's great. it does all the things you need -
mutes stereo when it rings or when you dial out, my
Nokia 6310i has voice activated dialling, it answers itself after a
couple of rings. I recommend it. I installed it myself and
the kit cost £120.
I have a Nokia kit installed in my car that takes my Nokia 6210. It is pre Bluetooth. I am looking to upgrade to a Nokia 6310i as I have been informed that is the last Nokia phone produced to fit my in car holder.
>>Wildfire is brilliant
I assume this is a joke. It may be brilliant for kids but I would be very reluctant to do business with anyone who had this awful system answering their phone.
Hi
I have a Passat 1.9TDI(90) which has suddenly had a loss of power. Acceleration has really dropped in all gears. Its booked in at MD for a diagnosis but I was wondering if it could be a busted Turbo. How could I check? Read more
I had the same problem with mine, a mere 1.9 td. If you find a little servo with a vacuum pipe going in and another coming out, on to the wastegate ( diaphragm operated thingy above the turbo) test this for leccy supply at high revs and if this is ok see if you get suction from the pipe which joins the wastegate. If not then your wastegate isn't opening. I'm replacing my little servo "changeover valve" at VW ( £23.25) and hope tomorrow will see a rennaissance for this, the most dissappointing and newest car I've ever had.
As expected my Sat Nav (CoPilot running on IPAQ) indicates a different speed compared to my Octavia's speedo.
Sat Nav 28.5MPH Speedo 30MPH
Sat Nav 38.0MPH Speedo 40MPH
Sat Nav 67MPH Speedo 70MPH
Can I presume the Sat Nav is more accurate?
PS on travelling in a Seat Ibiza 1.9SDI
Sat Nav 63.5MPH Speedo 70MPH!
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Yes as said its very very likely your speedo will over read by design. The sat nav will be more accurate, accuracy being greater the more satelites you have lock on.
Sat nav will respond less quickly to speed changes as it requires time and distance traveled to work, rather than wheel rotation (ie 6 revs of a wheel will give you a speed on the speedo. sat nav needs up to about 30-50 yards. (depends on satelite locks)
You now have the best of both worlds, you know - with certainty -the accuracy of your speedo.
I need to replace the electric motor for the engine cooling fan on a L reg 2 litre Ford Probe. Does anyone know if any other Mazdas or Fords use the same motor, a new one being over £300?
The motor that I have removed is made by Siemens and has the codes "FTS 1017Q", "33332" and "FS15-150 Canada" on it. I'm sure breakers will not charge as much for a "Mazda" fan as they will for a "Ford Probe" fan. And if it is a common part it will make finding one much easier than it is currently proving.
Regards
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So Professor Begg has now noticed that the govt is unlikely to meet its transport plan targets. He says that, by 2011, car transport is likely to be 20% cheaper than now, and rail 20% more expensive. Therefore, the conclusion is...: make the more efficient mode of transport more expensive!
In 2001, 93% of all passenger movement was by road, 6% by rail and 1% by air. Of the road traffic, 6% was by bus. These proportions have been quite static over the last few years.
So now for a sanity check: if we could double the use of rail, road traffic would decrease from 93% to 87% of the total, i.e. it would reduce by 6.5% - you might not notice the difference. If on the other hand, we totally abolished all rail services, road traffic would increase by 6.5% (assuming no former rail passenger went by air) - and you might not notice that difference either!
There is of course one big exception, where the difference would be noticed, and that's commuter traffic into the big cities (and even then, it's mroe or less only London commuters that make significant use of rail).
So, logic would seem to say - let's forget about long-distance rail services and put all that money into commuter services, where rail makes a difference to congestion!
But no - we are to spend £10 billion on upgrading the West Coast mainline. Just think about that money for a moment. It is more than one and half time the total public expenditure on all roads in all of Great Britain in 2001. It would pay for 40,000 nurses for 10 years. Or, if you had it in £10 notes, you could cover the entire surface of a 55 ft wide, 400 mile long dual carriageway with them.
Alternatively, think of it in terms of repayment: suppose that you ask each rail passenger on the line to pay an extra £10 fare. That means you need a billion passengers to repay the investment. That's something like 30 full trains a day for 150 years!
Does any of this make sense, or have I missed something? Read more
I think Bill has given an excellent real world example. I don't understand the issue of congestion charging. The government are unhappy that the roads are congested because that slows journey times and increases pollution. So they introduce bus lanes and phased lights that increase congestion and congestion charging that taxes the low paid as much as the well off. Hence the 'riff raff' are 'encouraged' onto the buses. Clearly they would not have gone on the buses before 'congestion management' as they are less convenient. So they have made travelling less convenient for everyone except the rich who can afford congestion charges. The only winners are the owners and directors of the bus companies.
Hi guys, i have a '88 1.6 scirocco, which has just been fitted with a new weber 32/34 dtml. When trying to adjust the CO content, it jumps from 5% to -2% with a eighth of a turn of the mixture screw. Figuring it to be an air leak, i removed the intake manifold and replaced the gasket, but the problem is still there.Any ideas? Read more
Well done for dealing with the mounting block and the servo hose, but please don't ever try testing a distributor vac unit by spraying anything combustable at it - you were very lucky not to have a nice little bonfire there, as the dizzy is just full of sparks looking for something to set fire to !! Test the vac unit by applying vacuum (either from a vacuum pump, or by sucking on an appropriate piece of rubber pipe) - you should see the baseplate rotate and it should hold vacuum indefinitely.
Wouldn't worry too much about the water vapour, so long as coolant level is stable. Does the engine rev freely to max (on the road, NOT at kerbside !!)on full throttle? If so fuel supply problem less likely than partial blockage of primary main jet. This can happen due to manufacturing swarf, and it is worth removing all accessable jets and giving everything (jets + drillings) a severe going over with aerosol carb cleaner. Also worth checking float level - if you need spec for this contact a Weber dealer.
If you do decide to call in some help, where are you geographically? I or someone else on the site may be able to recommend.
Regards, Adam
I have a Nissan Almera 1.6 SLX Auto, 1997 model. The car is great all round.
However, the fuel economy, even for an auto, is weird. Can someone please shed some light ....
On motorway (or on a run) the car is remarkably economical, doing 40+mpg. However, around town it only does about 15mpg. I have checked by refilling and recalculating several times. Around town you can virtually see the fuel gauge drop.
The car's engine and gearbox are silky smooth. No hesitation, pinking, stalling etc. It has 50k miles with full Nissan History. The cat was ok during its last MOT a month or so ago.
Anyone got any ideas or similar circumstances. I would expect 25-30mpg around town - the car is driven VERY gently indeed.
Thanks ! Read more
If the brakes are binding careful touching around that area after 10 miles of little braking driving will let you know. And often a smell.
Might be worth jacking up and spinning wheels to see if spin freely. Remember handbrake off for back ones.
Browse
IMO £5k is a lot to be asking for a close to four year old supermini when a new one (but not necessarily a 206) can be had for about £8k with almost the same spec.
However, it is a 206, a car so cute that it defies the normal laws of economics and small automatics are generally bought at a premium so I reckon £5250 should shift it, at least as a starting price with a bottom line of about £5k.
The fact that it is very low mileage probably won't help you to shift it. Most people on here don't like low milers at all and certainly wouldn't pay a premium over so called 'average' miles - it's not as if cars have a set limit of 100k and then they die. Age will get them too just as effectively.
Oh and irrespective of the mileage, FPugSH is an absolute must on this car.