February 2004
On my alloy wheels the tyres are 195/60/14. What are the implications of fitting 195/65/14 tyres? (apart from the speedo reading slightly low) Read more
Here is a site I found recently.
Of particular interest is the automotive and perhaps the chemical engineering section.
I have no connection etc etc.
www.eng-tips.com/
Read more
Thanks: quite useful, if I ever get back into my former line of work!
afternoon all,
my monitor (ctx ultra screen17") appears to have developed a problem that i don't seem to be able to correct. i have re-installed the drivers, re-installed the graphics card, tried adjusting the picture using the monitors own controls,but the problem remains.
the problem is: the sides of the screen are pulling in at the middles, giving the picture an hour-glass figure that the wife would be proud of!! any body know of a "fix" or is the monitor about to die!.it's only 3yrs old.
billy. Read more
...all good advice. But stick with checking what you can see - open up the case and make sure the fans are turning - bog ones to dissipate hot air out of the case and smaller ones on top of the processor and possibly the video card. Intermittent stalls can be caused by heat related problems, and while they will USUALLY be fairly consistent, some operations are worse than others for generating unwanted heat.
When I went out last night I saw two kids riding micro scooters on the road and two on bikes without lights. The ones one scooters looked about 13 and were at least just going along the road keeping to the left. The ones on bikes who looked a couple of years older were weaving about getting in the way of traffic and then went the wrong way up a one way street. I don't know if it will take an accident for them to learn. Read more
>>he made me push it two miles to the local cop
shop ...
Ligher note
One of the funniest things I've ever seen was the local constabulary questioning some 'lads' in a shopping trolley in the wee small hours...
"we found it"
'Well, take it BACK to where you found it"
The lads were handcuffed to said trolley, and had to push it a fair way to the supermarket (about 1.5 kms!).
Plod left them to it, and returned later, to undo them, at said carpark!
On a serious side
This was posted BY ME on a local motoring site ... Now, many folk may see it as racist, but I can assure you it is REALIST.[to settle the argument before it starts, my missus is 'of colour'....
Many of the indigenous people from the poorer areas of the old T'Kei and C'Kei [tribal areas - ed!]have probably never seen a motorway/main road before. their sole experience of traffic will come from witnessing tattered old pick-ups grinding along a potholed gravel road. The fastest thing they've ever seen is a horse doing 30km/h.
Comes the trip to the 'city' - a bit of a culture shock for them! - and they haven't a clue.
To dilute the race issue, imagine if YOU, as an experienced 'city slicker' here in good-ol RSA found yourself in the New York of 2055 ... sounds silly? Yep, but that's what you are dealing with.
I have had, in that neighbourhood, several near-misses with people clueless as to speed/distances etc. I have also witnessed several pedestrian/car encounters - each time when the pedestrian 'just ran in front of me'...
My brother hit a woman once - ran straight in front of the car. Nasty mess - fortunately she survived.
Maybe these kids are still of the 'indigenous' mindset? And haven't got a clue about sppeds/distances/stopping distances etc.
Sorry for the rant...
Anyone out there know why the passenger electric window on my daughter's 1999 Fiesta slows right down as it comes within inches of closing. She's just bought the car and is obssessed with having everything work just right. Told her I thought it might be a safety device to prevent trapped fingers but she won't buy that because the driver's side window does not do the same. Read more
Thanks to MV and pastyman, the silicon spray worked a treat.
Flicking through some road tests on The Indpendent web site and I came across this brief description of the Laguna estate :-
Renault Laguna Sport Tourer 2.0T: £21,645
Supercharged, front-mounted 500bhp V8 makes this a near-dragster, helped by ultra-responsive automatic gearbox, and folding metal roof is neat. Very desirable.
I didn't realise the Laguna was such a powerful motor...... should have got one of this for the same price as my new Outback !
jd
Read more
You too NB in you go.
Occasionally the engine immobiliser will not deactivate (the red light on the dashboard still flashes after the ignition key is turned) causing the car not to start, What component is causing this to happen ?. Can it be fixed or replaced ? Any advice would be most welcome, its already been to a Renault main dealer who can't find a fault and charged my wife £30 to re-program the Remote Control ! Read more
Whiner,
Several ideas for you in this thread on Renault electrics...
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=18744&...f
Good luck,
Ed.
The subject of driving while tired has come up in the news again. I wasn\'t going to go into the figures and except that there is a danger in driving when you havn\'t had enough sleep. The trouble is sometimes you don\'t have much choice - so what do you do?
I live about 50min drive away from work along a motorway (it was halfway between my wife\'s and my own workplace) My wife\'s having our first child in 6 weeks and so I\'m likely to end up without much sleep. I can\'t afford to move and I have to go to work, there\'s no public transport (couldn\'t afford it anyway) and so I shall have drive tired. Does anyone else feel forced into driving tired despite what would be safest? Read more
*government
Oh, and wear your seatbelt too!
I was talking to a lad the other day who's a bit obsessed with 'modifying' his car (in competition with his brother) The latest mod is to fit a spark plug inside the exhaust. Apparently (I didn't ask for a demonstration) when he floors it you get a 6 foot flame out the back! Has anyone else seen modifications like this on the roads? Anything more extreme?
The guy did say he put a switch in to disable it so as top avoid any unwanted attention form plod...:) Read more
>>for a moment I thought this thread was going to be a pop at Alan, Dave, or Mark!
So did I ! I came cruising in here ready for a serious delete session and left feeling rather silly.
Morning all!
Sorry - this is long!
On Tuesday, the city council did this groups.msn.com/honestjohn/pologirlsparkingnightmar...5 to our car park, meaning that where you used to be able to get around 15 cars around the central circle and many more around the kerb, less than ten people can now park.
The other option is to park around the front, on the roads that go around the flat complex. As you can kind of see in this photo groups.msn.com/honestjohn/pologirlsparkingnightmar...6, the kerb is cut away a bit at one point and sunken in the middle. Now, sensible people pull onto the curb and to either end of the cut away bit, to allow other people to park there too, and also ensuring that their cars aren't clipped by the numerous ambulances and dial a ride buses that come to see the old folk.
But.. there is one Ka that always parks right in the middle of the cut away, and not on the kerb at all, meaning that noone else can park there, and they have to bump up onto the kerb or find somewhere further away. Trust me in this area you wouldn't want to be too far away from your car. Admittedly the Cavalier in the photo is doing exactly what the Ka does but he doesn't live here, and well, he drives a Cavalier so it's not his fault! ;-)
Wednesday night I left this note on the Ka's windscreen: "Sorry to ask but if you pulled onto the kerb and further forwards/back, other people would be able to park in this bit too. At the moment your small car always seems to take up space for 3. Thank you." Nothing happened so last night I left "Please pull on to the kerb. There's just not enough room now for you to take up this much space. Thanks." This morning she has left a big note on her own car saying "DO NOT TELL ME WHERE TO PARK MY CAR!".... which she took off and threw on the floor when she went to work, which just shows how selfish and inconsiderate she is. I don't know which flat she lives in otherwise I would have asked her personally in the first place, and I don't think she knows it's me leaving the notes.
What next? It's only a little car - is it criminal damage to just rock it along a bit?? ;-) Read more
PG - when it comes to guarding their adored vehicles, just about everyone has an evil streak - and there's no better way of showing how rules for oneself are different from the rest. There's no easy answer to the problem of the space cars take up when their owners aren't driving them (or when they are, for that matter).
The Englishperson's castle has now spread to include his/her car, but unfortunately parking space for it isn't seen as part of the bargain. I think the point has now been reached in most towns where cars take up so much public space that anyone who decides to buy another 10 cubic metres of plastic and metal should be able to show that it won't be an obstruction.
Browse
2% is 2% at any speed, surely?
2% of 30 mph = 0.6 mph.