October 2003
As from yesterday, BP Ultimate is available in the UK.
Starting in Hammersmith and eventually available just about everywhere.
Should be better than Optimax in my opinion.
If you look at your local BP service stations you will see a white sheet with a question mark on it and underneath is a sign for BP Ultimate.
More info as soon as I get it...
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I was driving into my local town in the C-class at just before 9am this morning. Sitting at the 30mph speed limit, but with a dark green Jeep 'Grand Cherokee' (with 'private plate') hanging on my rear bumper.
Turned into side road and Jeep followed me, about 30cm behind. All I could see in the rear mirror was the chrome grille. Slowed very slightly for a big 'speed bump' and felt a 'thud' from behind!!
Pulled over, together with Jeep. Jeep front bumper had a hole knocked in it by my towbar ball. My back bumper had some minor damage.
Jeep driver (small bleached blond in a black trouser-suit with a 'beauty-salon' tan - honestly) was very aggressive and said it wasn't her fault. After a while she calmed down and admitted she *had* been following too closely and finally agreed to pay for a new bumper cover once I get a quote. We'll see if she does eventually pay up.....
Totally unecessary incident caused by agressive tailgating - makes you want to weep. Read more
Send 'em to the Philippines. Our boys'd run rings round 'em.
First time, so all help appreciated.
I have a Rover 218SLDT 1995, 136,000 trouble-free miles, until now. Two questions:
The metal pipes to the coolant expansion tank are beginning to rust and metal replacements are a ridiculous price of £56!! Any reason why the whole run shouldn't be rubber compound, as some stretches already are, so long as I don't trap it, let it catch etc?
The injection pump is leaking oil across the front of the engine, messy. My excellent local dealer is making gloomy noises about the cost of a replacement.
With a value of £700 on this car, has the time come to move on?
Martint
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More likely to be a camshaft oil seal.
Tried a decent (independant) repair shop? You might save a few ££'s into the bargain and get an accurate diagnosis, too!
Hi
For tax purposes I need to declare the value of my car at the start and end of a given tax year, can anybody point me in to a good web site, or similar?
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As a first step, I suggest you look in the papers, auto trader etc for vehicles the same make, model, year and spec as yours,
then repeat the exercise for the same, but a year younger.
B - A = depreciation
Hugo
Okay guys:
Car is a 2000 Pug 406HDi. It went in a couple of weeks ago for a service, and emerged with a new tyre on front offside. Tracking and balancing were also done at the time.
However, I now get a nasty vibration at anything over 60, turning into steering wheel wobble at 75-80.
Is this anything to do with there being one new, and one old tyre on the front? I would have thought it would be best to replace both at the same time - but what do I know?!
Any advice I could get would be great - so I can visit the dealer with a bit of knowledge.
Cheers guys and gals. Read more
Here we go again.....
I've been to and fro, and nothing is wrong with the balancing. Also have changed the new tyre for the spare, and it has no effect.
Is there anything else that I haven't thought of that may be contributing to this? It's got to the point now where I'm thinking of leaving it and carefully monitoring for premature tyre wear. Or I could just drive at 60mph everwhere instead of 75-80 where it is most obvious.......
Thanks all.
I want to buy a new shape megane but am confused by which is the best route. I have been offered a 1.4 authentique A/C with CD and metallic paint from Motorpoint for £8699, however this is an import with uk spec. and comes with 1 or 2 year manufacturer warranty dependant on the country of origin. The nearest comparable price via a dealer is approx. £8900 for a 1 year old with 12,000 on the clock with no air con or CD but it will have the rest of the warranty on it and two years AA cover. Would I be better going for the import and buying additional warranty how much wolud this be or going via the traditional route? The main uk dealer indicated that I would have problems with resale and getting insurance on an import but is this just a ruse. I did read reports that deadlocks are fitted uniquely on UK models but have not been able to get this confirmed, would this effect things.Any advice or thoughts welcome. Read more
..and another thing to consider is that if you get any unusual fault or fault just outside of warranty, Renault UK will almost certainly not entertain considering paying you anything towards a cure if the car is an import (see various stories in motoring mags - and this is not just confined to Renaulkt but other importers too). Best to stick to genuine UK car if at all possible. You could consider an independent extra warranty though for added peace of mind (but would this not eat up your saving on purchase price?) Try haggling with Renault dealers too - I did and it worked.
I have a couple of problems with my 306TD 1996 'N'.
1. It struggles starting sometimes, but once it is going it's fine. I have replaced the glow plugs, tried injector cleaner but nothing seems to work. After a failed start (Won't fire up after engine has turned over serveral times) I had to switch off the ignition, switch it on again wait for the glow plug light to go out for a second time and it would start almost straight awway. I have found something though through experimenting. If I wait after the glow plug light has gone out for a few more seconds it starts almost straight away. Is there someting that needs adjusting? I am not very clued up on diesels!!!
2. The front windscreen wipers don't work properly, the single wipe when you push the stalk down won't do one sweep it only operates while you hold the stalk down, and it wont repark itself, also when you operate the squirters it does three swipes and then stops at various positions, again no auto parking, I presume these faults are caused by the same thing. I have to select intermittant wipe to park the blades correctly.
Any suggestions would be great as I might be able to fix it and stop my Girlfriend wanting to get rid of it!!!!! Read more
I would certainly agree with MM. I used to run a ZX TD. If you tried to start it from cold as soon as the glowplug light went off, this was accompanied by rough running and smoking. Waiting a further five seconds or so always resulted in excellent cold starting in sub zero temperatures.
Hope this helps to effect a cheap fix!!
Hi,
I have a company Alfa 156 which is due to be changed at the end of the month. When picking the car up new the airbag light was on. This was corrected but came on again 6 months later but was fixed again. The airbag warning light has just again come on. Took to the dealer. They said it was the wiring under the passenger seat sqab, wiggled the wires and deleted the fault code. All OK untill this morning and the warning light is on again.
I telphoned the dealer and they said they will need the car for the day. Next time they can book in in and provide a Courtersy car is the 24th October!!
I understand that when the light is on the Airbags will not fire in an accident.
Where do I/Dealer stand legally. What if I give someone a lift, have a crash and they are injured due to lack of airbags?
Any advice please. Not a lot I can do as have to wait for dealer to fix it and problem reported?
Kind Regards
James Read more
I own a 156 which also has the airbag warning lights
on. No amount of seat-wiggling helps in my case - they
claim its the ECU which needs replacing. Sadly I cannot afford
the £250 the Alfa dealer is quoting to replace it!
From the Alfaowner.com forum, it\'s clear the 156 is particularly prone
to this problem. One of the Alfa\'s many \"quirks\".
Find a different dealer and get a second opinion. It is nearly always the wiring under the seat, although not always fixed by wiggling your seat. I post on Alfaowner from time to time myself.
Damian
Glad to hear you\'re still in one piece.
There\'s a road test of the RAV4 on the site, and also the Avensis which shares the diesel engine, and probably the petrol ones too for that matter.
With a low mileage, petrol might be the way to go - get a bike for the urban journey - will save petrol and engine wear :-)
Personally I\'d go for the diesel as a real world performer, but in reality with a Toyota you won\'t go wrong with either way. Read more
I had the use of a RAV4 petrol (auto) for a couple of months, I haven't driven the diesel so I can't comment but the petrol engine is too buzzy for the gearing.
Diesel would suit better, given the short runs, a petrol engine wouldn't get off choke.
I always read HJ's auction reports with interest and it seems that for a couple of grand you can pick up some really interesting cars. Obviously you need some expertise to minimise the risk of buying a lemon.
Anyway looking at the Classified section on this site I see that there is a 1996N BMW 523i SE Auto with all the bells and whistles, but 106,000 miles, for sale privately at £7,500. I must admit I thought it a mistake but looking at Autotrader it would appear to be a little pricey but not outrageously so.
Now the 5 Series was unanimously considered to be a fine car. However for the life of me I cannot see how a 7+ year old car can command such a price.
It surely cannot make economic sense, and I would not have thought it rated highly in the performance/status stakes.
Just what is the appeal of such cars? Who buys them?
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looks as tho' it will get even tougher to sell a car privately - according to today's Sunday Times, car manufacturers are soon to flood the new car market in UK with even more, better offers/gimmicks to shift more metal. All cos this great island of ours is the shining light of Europe car sales. Repeating my point: so will not used car values go down even further?
Browse
I went to buy a bit of the diesel to try. Despite the two garages being listed on the bp site as stocking it, there was no clut to this at the forecourt other than the 79.9p price? So I returned home, in any case, it may be the first delivery that's mixed with the regular stuff in the tanks.
Funnily enough, they claim that diesel engines will be much quieter and less dieselly, and I run my car on ASDA vegetable oil and white spirit with a bit of diesel cleaner 90% of the time and that is MUCH quieter and smoother than dino diesel.. It's like a sewing machine on vegoil (BMW X25TD engine)