November 2003
Hi,
Last weekend I changed the dash clock in my focus as the other one had not worked properly for the past 2 years!! The LED display was not showing the hour figure correctly. I refused to pay the £60 odd pounds for a new one from Ford so got one from a car transplants place. It was all done over the phone and cost just under £20.
Well everything was working perfectly when it was fitted but a couple of days later it all went funny. No it wasn't funny it was worse than my old one which was now in the bin. The LED display doesn't even show as much of the time as the old one did. I am now wondering if it is something else other than the clock itself, possibly the wiring to the clock??
Can anyone help or give me advice? Has anyone elses clock gone wrong? I'm pretty fed up now and dont particularly want to pay Fords prices so please HELP :-(
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These have been introduced on a stretch of the M56, which I use quite often, and I have to say I find them very useful. I admit I don\'t always leave the correct distance between me and the vehicle infront so I try really hard to keep to the \"2 chevrons apart\".
On the whole most of the traffic around does the same, apart from the odd car/van that nicks your space, but what really facinates me is that as soon as the chevrons have finished everyone goes back to the single mindedness of \"I\'m going to drive right up the rear of the car infront\".
As for what I do? Well it makes me think and if only for a little while I try and keep that safe distance.
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Re the two second rule, surely the chevrons in lane 3 should be further apart than in lane 1, where the average speed is slower due to lorries?
Until I went to the International Classic Motor Show last weekend, I didn't have a best-looking car of all time in my mind. Now I have: the Maserati A6G 2000, particularly in its Frua guise, as shown at
tinyurl.com/uz2e
tinyurl.com/uz32
Somewhere on the Web I found a photo of it from the show, but I can't find it now. However, the very same car can be seen at
tinyurl.com/uz4g
It appeared in the mid-1950s, designed I think by Zagato, coachbuilt I think by Frua; fewer than a hundred were built. In relation to its time, I reckon it is an absolute stunner and it remains so. The best view is from the rear, where the exquisite sweeping curves are seen to best advantage. One was sold in 2001 as a shell and components needing reassembly and restoration -- for £283,000.
Before seeing this car, I would have had the E-type in mind, but that was 6+ years later and I now think it comes second in the beauty stakes.
But your opinions will differ, I'm sure, and I'd be interested in what appeals to others and why. Read more
Shelby Mustang GT500 KR 1968.
For those of you who are interested some folks have gone to a lot of trouble to organise an anti-scamera, safer roads petition. Please see saferroads.co.uk Read more
This is worthy of a standalone thread. However, if you wish to generally discuss speed cameras plese do it in the appropriate thread.
Only discussion specific to this petition should occur here.
Thank you.
With the winter salt + sand season approaching, can anyone reasure me about a phenomena I noticed last year on my 1999 peugeot boxer based camper van - at the end of the winter, the white paintwork was speckled with tiny "rust" spots - so tiny you had to gt on your hands and knees to see them. They covered the area from the mid door downwards, and I'm guessing they are the result of ferrous bits + bobs either in the grit or in the general road spray. A days T-cutting removed them, but my worries are:
1) I've never noticed this before on previous white cars.
2) If left, are these specks liable to burrow down and cause damage to the bodywork (presumably if I had a darker vehicle, I would not see them).
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Hi all,
Boyfriend came home the other day with some new car polish,
Zymol its called, I have always used auto glym and found it really good but boyfriend thought he'd try out something else.
First impressions are good, its all made of natural stuff and
smells like coconuts! really nice!!
Anyway having not used it before he read the instructions and
decided to send off for this free booklet about it, some of the stuff in there is a bit of a joke mind you, some of the waxes come in silk pouches inside little wooden boxes!
But it says in there before using the wax for the first time you should use this stuff called HD cleanse to clean the car first.
Has anyone else used it and what do you think??? Or is it all a ploy to squeeze us for more money?? Read more
Thanks for that Longdriver, I bought some of this Carplan Triplewax Mirror Finish for £7.99 and have tried it three times now, and very impressed! I have always seen it in the shops and cocked a snoot, and thought it was something for people who can't be bothered to polish their car and it would be rubbish. But I will now use it as part of my weekly car washing routine.
It make the water bead much better than similar products like this, and leathering off at this time of year can be a pain, but not after this, most water beads off , and the leather glides more easily.
I also like the thought of it getting into all the nooks and crannies and hopefully preventing detergent corrosion.
Back on the favorite subject of many BR's. Does anyone have any views on Texaco Havoline 15/40 diesel oil,which is reasonably priced at a well known supermarket for use in a 1994 diesel car,or can someone recommend another good oil. Read more
Millersoils.net website will tell you where it can be bought. It's cheap at various Bradford parts suppliers, probably because the Millers plant is just down the road in Brighouse.
I won't pretend I can tell any difference between XFE or any other oil used in my 5-year-old Citroen XUD turbo engine. But I don't top up between 5,000-mile changes and the oil takes about 500 miles to go black after a change - which suggests the detergents do their job of keeping the engine clean.
I've used it for 45K miles, and at £12.75 and £2.50 for a Citroen filter, changes are seriously cheap.
Plus, it's highly regarded on various message boards.
This is being launched in the U.S. ...
"Cross Lander USA announced today that it has completed the purchase of Romania?s Aro 4x4 vehicle manufacturing facility that is located 60 miles north of Bucharest. With the plant now under the operational control of Cross Lander, the company expects to begin immediate production of its new sport recreation vehicle (SRV) that will be introduced to the U.S. in March 2004.
Acquisition of the 8.5 million square foot facility completes the Romanian government?s efforts to privatize its auto industry. Cross Lander has committed to an investment of $12 million during the next several years to enhance the production capabilities at the facility.
Cross Lander USA chairman and CEO John Perez said, ?The agreement concludes a nine-year effort by him and his investment group to solidify its commitment to the Romanian government, plant management, and the 2,200 employees working at the plant.?
?We firmly believe all parties will benefit greatly from this team effort,? added Perez, a thirty-year veteran of the automotive industry.
Perez said the first year of production will reach 10,000 with 6,000 four-wheel drive SRV's already sold to a U.S. dealer network that presently exceeds 90. He expects to have 150 dealers by the time the vehicles start arriving in March 2004. The remaining 4,000 vehicles will be sold in Latin America and Europe. Year two production is projected to reach 15,000 vehicles.
Cross Lander?s new 4x4 SRV is designed clearly for those drivers who want to take their vehicles off-road and not worry about ?keeping them pretty,? Perez said. ?Off-roaders, hunters, fishermen and campers will find the vehicle fits their needs in the SRV segment.?
The first vehicles are expected to sell for under $20,000. They will offer a 6-cylinder engine and high durability powertrain system."
Thing is - it looks like a Land Rover Defender ??
Anyone any ideas. Under $20,000 should mean £12K here ! Read more
Why do I see "Perez" and pronounce it "DeLorean"?
The Omega MV6 is a little over 70k miles now and had new tyres all round in the last 5k. N/s front wheel bearing replaced (unnecessarily, as it happens) by Vx dealer at 20k-ish.
Whether it coincided with the tyre change I'm really not sure, but I now have a mechanical whiney kind of noise which to me seems to emanate from the front, probably o/s. There is also a small amount of judder noticable very occassionally , which is magnified sometimes when braking gently at slow speeds. The noise is hard to describe. It isn't a harsh noise, more a kind of "resonance" noise (I mean by that the kind of noise when something isn't spinning true, or two things are spinning at nearly the same speed, so the sound goes in and out of sync - sheesh - hard to describe - I know what I mean!!).
I know it could be two (or more) unrelated problems.
I took the car back to the tyre fitters and sure enough the front o/s was "well out" in balancing. But presuming it's now correct, the problem remains.
I'm guessing the following are possible:
Tracking
Wheel bearing
Something to do with the driveshaft??
but there must be some other options. There is no performance issue and it definitely sounds mechanical. Oh, and is speed related.
Any thoughts anyone?
I'm inclined to get the tracking checked (not sure if that was done with the tyres), but if that doesn't cure it then leave it until the noise gets worse, and probably more identifiable. Would that be a reckless thing to do? Read more
I was going to get the arms done in their entirety, it was the next step after the tyres. Yep, £45 from the trade catalogue, also from AutoVaux I think.
When I had the wheel bearings done I could have just got the bearings, or the bearings with hub. Price differential was quite large but my mech said he'd go for the full assembly as it can sometimes be impossible to break them apart.
I have owned a Citroen Xzara 2.0HDi for over 4 years. The car has always started without problem, usually at the first attempt. However 2 days ago, after leaving the car for approx. 20 minutes (shopping) the car refused to start. After the last lengthly attempt all the 'checking/warning' lights went out apart from the 'diagnostic' light. On returning approx. 1 hour later the car started instantly and has done so ever since.
Although I am pleased that the car runs OK I am somewhat concerned about its future reliability.
Has anybody experienced problems of this nature and can you suggest what may have caused the problem. Should I be concerned with the cars future reliability? Read more
I've got a '99 Xantia TD that did the same thing to me while I was in France. My heart started pounding as I saw the bills flash before my eyes as well as some light on the dash to which I'd never paid any attention before! But I took the key out and it started fine once I'd put it back in.
Have also had probs with glow plugs etc, but they 'APPEAR' to be fixed now..!
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I would have thought the wiring was pretty simple.
If it is just a 2 wire connector then expect the pair to be the 12v power supply. If you have 3 or 4 wires, then these extra wires will probably feed the lcd dash backlight (via dimmer possibly).
Simple check with voltmeter should be sufficient.
If its an LCD display, sometimes condensation can get into the rubber conductors above and below the lcd panel, causing the blurring (non-display of digits).
I would only open it up as a last resort.
Good luck