November 2003
Can anyone help me please?
I've just driven from South Yorkshire to Manchester and whilst sitting in traffic, at two separate places, I have seen two vehicles with CD's hanging from their rear view mirror.
Have I missed something? A new trend perhaps??
Apart from the fact that I thought it was very dangerous, the sun was very low and all I could think about was the glaring dazzle that could come from one of these things, why on earth would you want to dangle a CD from there or anywhere else in your car!!?
GC Read more
dear all,
I got a 1.4 1997 polo and occassionally it cut out . about 7000miles ago i had a same problem and a friend had a look at the distributors and it has lots of metal filing in it .
A new one bought from vw and the car ran find until now. the problems seem to be the same again ( slowing down to a corner and clutch it in and the idle would flicker unsteady and the engine would die. restart and its ok for awhile. )
Any suggestion please .
tango Read more
Check inside the distributor cap and see if the filings are back. The problem is caused by a slack timing belt and seems to affect the Magneti Marelli distributors more than the bosch ones. If all is ok in the distributor then clean up the throttle butterfly. This is a common problem. Finally if that fails to help then you may need a new throttle body which will have to be adapted to the ECU.
Andrew
Simplicate and add lightness!!
Hi,
Does anyone have any experience of having a bus lane outside their property and thus incurring Penalty Charge notices, every time they access their property? I have been advised by Transport for London (TFL) that when they install a bus lane and camera they are only obliged to talk to the local council and the police, and not the residents they affect (for obvious reasons!).
TFL have suggested an absurd way of accessing my property via the bus lane which I want to contest. It consists of me cutting across the bus lane only when I am parallel to the entrance of my drive. This may work in other situations, however I have a busy dual carriageway outside the house and 20 yards down from my house is the Target roundabout in Northolt, which has access to the very busy A40 running in either direction. There is a lot of congestion in peak times during which the camera operates (7-10 am and 4-7pm) on the road with motorists speeding up as they get to the roundabout not slowing down. I am scared that if I follow TFL?s generic advice then I risk injury to myself and other motorists.
Otherwise I have no issue with the bus lane or the camera, I only want the ability to access my property safely.
I would welcome any useful comments or suggestions (moving house isn?t an option). Is there some law which states that every individual has the right to access their property in a safe and secure manner (hope against hope!!!).
I will also be going to the CAB but am waiting for a reply from TFL about their recommendations for accessing the property.
Many thanks in advance to any useful suggestions/comments! Read more
Next time I drive up that road (A312 to Northolt) I'm going to make sure I have a camera with me. This way, if by some miracle I do happen to see a bus using the bus lane, I can take a picture and have it framed. You never know, one day it might be worth something for its rarity value.
Ok,
This is something that has been annoying me for months now, and i really can't think why this phenomenon occurs.
My morning commute takes me from Watford to Slough, using Jcn19-16 on the M25. The M25 is, of course, hell at this time of the morning (8am), and the 25miles to work takes 45-50 minutes in normal traffic.
WHY then, is it the case that EVERY Monday, without fail, the same journey takes at least 1hour 20minutes, ie. 80 minutes, nearly twice as long?!?
Surely there is a logical answer to this somewhere? Read more
It's carp every day on the M1.
I was wondering if I could whip off my non airbag steering wheel off my 306 and replace it with one with an airbag from a breakers.
I believe the sensors and firing and airbag are all contained in the wheel, so it would just be a case of checking the red plug is there in the steering column?
or would this be too dangerous....
Read more
I reckon it's dodgy enough playing with airbags on a car designed for them, never mind one which wasn't!
Has anyone seen the recent TV adverts encouraging people to get their cars taxed?
For those who haven't, they basically feature Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, been driven untaxed, the powers that be catch the car on camera and then clamp it and prevent it from flying away to escape.
Would anyone like to have a guess why this is a ridiculous advert and not at all realistic? I'll post the answer later on. :-)
Blue Read more
Speaking of adverts, but a bit off subject. Has anyone seen the benefits ad where the girl trys to dye her friends hair and gets it wrong, and then she can take her money out of a cashpoint?
Is it just me or does this advert just state that people waste their benefit on rubbish and have nothing better to do with their day but play hairdressers, when in fact they should be out getting a job. Irritates me every time....
Does anyone know when a Focus Diesel was first released? I've seen a W reg 1.8 Ghia TD for sale with 72k on it.
Is this the TDci I've heard that's so good, or, an older diesel that I'm best off avoiding?
Can anyone supply a list / link that tells me when the diesels were released for the Focus?
Thanks Read more
TDCi is kind of fun, but the power curve is VERY peaky, so you really have to row the gears to get anything like maximum performance. that done, it really is quite fast, though when the performance is used it becomes quite noisy.
TDDi is also typically turbo-diesel peaky, but nothing like the TDCi. It is also less refined and less powerful, but more than adequate for most purposes IMO.
TDCi returned over 40mpg when I used it very hard for 200 miles.
Intersting subject on talksport at the moment, speed cameras. 1089/1053AM now (tues 12th, 10am!) Read more
oops, sorry, (thats what working shifts does for you!) Thanks Mark!
The Evening Post recently reported that the town [Reading] has a street junction that is unique in the country ? the meeting of Pell Street, Elgar Road, Katesgrove Lane and Berkeley Avenue is, we believe, the only one in the country where an avenue, road, lane, and a street all meet. So far nobody has challenged this claim. (Reading Post 12 November 2003)
www.getreading.co.uk/story.asp?intid=8223
Anybody able to challenge this - or can we claim it as a dubious honour for Reading?
D7 Read more
Hi Mark,
(I think) The canal you are thinking of is the Kennet and Avon Canal - couple of meters away from the junction in question - but not far off!
I've got a 1999 Volvo S80 2.9 Auto, bought earlier this year. Its great except for two clunking and thunking noises.
Firstly, there is connection between the footbrake, handbrake and gearlever which must be related to the interlock. When you press the footbrake you can hear a switch clicking down below and you can feel mechanical movement through the handbrake and gearlever. - Why? Is that right?
Secondly, the steering wheel has a slight movement (as if taking up slack) when the car starts from a standstill. HJ suggested balljoints a few months ago, but my specialist Volvo mechanic couldn't find anything wrong. He even got a Volvo service manager down, but in both cases said that 'they're all like that'. Are they?
Thanks Read more
Hi camphilip,
the car was bought privately from a known source with FVSH and is now serviced by my cousin who is a Volvo specialist who genuinely goes on all the courses. He knows more about Volvos than most service managers. He says that its becuase of the size of the engine and the torque generated. I think he's doing his best and I know he has been all over the driveshafts and suspension bushes with nothing worn worth mentioning.
I like the S80, but HJ says that the 2.9 and T6 ride more harshly than the smaller engines. I haven't driven the 2.4, but the 2.9 does have a harsh ride over small road imperfections, but its a superb long distance cruiser and economical under those conditions. I wnet down to London from Manchester a few weeks ago in the evening; steady traffic all the way and still averaged, well lets say something high and got 27mpg with four people on board. My next car wil be an S80 D5 auto hopefully.
Browse
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half the cars and other vechicles in Morocco have the Cds hanging for the reason stated in an earlier comment (radar)