About 8 months ago the motoring Section of The Telegraph mentioned a manufacturer of Ford Street Ka wind breaks. I foolishly did not keep this information.

I have carried out a comprehensive search on the internet looking for these wind breaks, but with no luck.

Ford dont seem to know either!

Can anyone here point me in the right direction? Read more

Hello all,
I've been trying to buy a C Max/ghia Tdi CVT from a mai ford dealer. They don't have any coming as there may be "problems" with it. I pointed out than the non-cvt versions still being built. He could not confirm if the cvt transmission was the problem.

Only the 1.6 Tdi comes as the auto/cvt.

Anyone shed light on this?
Thanks Read more

Just read the news at www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/index.htm?news_id=1402 , and echo what it says.

A friend of mine in the Czech Republic has one of the last \'old shape\' A8 W12 models, and it is one helluva piece of kit. I can but imagine what the new one is like. Performance is not in the SLR league that I was lucky enough to sample a few weeks ago, but it is by orders of magnitude the most impressive exec saloon that I have ever travelled in. A full bore standing start in deep snow on top of sheet ice gave drama free acceleration to rival my 2.4T Volvo in the dry, with nothing but chattering of anti wheel spin devices to say how hard the car was working to keep the driver out of trouble. In the dry, the way it serenely picked up its skirts and flew, totally drama free, was just as impressive. The built-in phone system is the best I have used of any car (though a colleague\'s Merc runs it close), and the list of gadgets would fill an encyclopedia. Remote controlled air conditioning and heating to prepare the interior environment before you arrive to get back in, anyone? Read more

Lovely morning, so I took myself out at some unearthly hour to change the gearbox oil.

Unfortunately the union nut (whoever designed it like that - you drain it by undoing the union nut connecting the dipstick/filler pipe to the box) won't shift. Obviously I'd like to get a ring spanner round it, but that just isn't going to be possible (!). What is the best tool for this job that's hopefully going to grip the nut on more than 2 corners, and so not round it? Read more

Inspired by a comment in another thread: "Really looking forward to buying one of these cars when it's 15 years old..."

Why are people so scared of electronics in cars, when electronic systems in general will last far longer than the car itself?

Yes, I know we hear about electronic engine management systems, etc, failing, at great cost, but it's a damned sight rarer than the failings in distributor-based systems. In fact, though I haven't got the facts to prove this, I'd be prepared to bet that the sum of money (including labour, etc) spent on the few electronics failures is less than the total spent on thousands of contact breaker/distributor failures years ago.

I'd always put my trust in electronics over mechanical for reliability. Anything than moves while touching something else WILL wear out; it's just a question of time. An electronic circuit tends either to fail upon switch on or to last longer than I will. In computers it tends to be disk drives (moving parts) that fail rather than processors, memory, etc.

I know there was a golden age when you could set the timing on a Morris Minor with a fag paper, a crowbar and a piece of chewing gum, but electronics have obviated the need for the timing being set at all - it doesn't go out of kilter in the first place. The price we pay for this is that when there IS a failure, we can't repair it ourselves. Is that so high a price to pay?

Why do you think cars are so much more reliable than they ever were? I remember spending hours keeping my Mini on the road. Constantly having to work on it just keep the damned thing running. Now, I bet you could buy a MINI, change the oil every 5000 miles, never do ANYTHING else to it and it would go on for tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of miles.

I remember trips to the coast as a kid (early 1970s) when there would be a broken down car every few miles. Now I drive tens of thousands of miles a year and notice very few broken down vehicles.

Yes, let's remember the great days of motoring, but let's also remember carrying a can of WD in the car for when it rained on my Mini, drying the HT leads in a low oven, setting the timing in the street, people regularly bump-starting cars down the street, overheated cars in every traffic jam, decokes at 50,000 miles, a bit of grit in the carburettor stranding me in Stoke (very personal one, I admit).

Comments invited,

V Read more