April 2004
Even trickier than don vito's question is when the boot is on the other foot.
1. Turn up to view car, no road tax. What do you do?
2. Buy car. Need tax. To get tax need insurance cert. That takes 2/3 days. Do you really want to leave the car you've bought, off road at the vendor's house?
3. When you do get all your paperwork together, and go into the post office, you then sign a form. It asks you:
a) When did last tax disc expire [not known], or when did you buy the car, if later [say 8th April].
b) From what date do you want licence to start [say 1st April]
c) If date in 'a' is before date in 'b' Has the car been used between date 'a' and date 'b'.
As you're buying road tax from the first of the month anyway, This therefore implies that they're not too fussed if you drive the car during that month, provided you do buy a licence disc in the end.
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(Title of thread changed to more accurately reflect what the thread is about.)
I\'ve recently used both Shell and BP Ultimate diesel and have been impressed with the additional mileage.
The BP Ultimate was noticeably smoother and gave about 10-12% additional mileage whilst the Shell isn\'t as smooth but gave about 15% extra mileage.
This is in my 60k Passat 130, I was wondering if VAG PD engines respond particularly well to premium fuels or if this an across the board benefit?
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My new bank manager drives a Corrado VR6. Swears that BP Ultimate is far superior to Optimax. Not tried it as I like Shell points!
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
the last time I've been up to Fisher's (the scrappie in the goods yard in Hendon station it has been closed and empty. this makes me think that praps they've gone bust or somesuch.
this is a major bummer as they could always be relied upon to have two or three golfs lying around in disrepair.
Anyone know of a good scrapper in the area? I live in Kilburn so anything in the North Circular area would be good.
Stevens motors in Walthamstow is excellent but a bit of a hike and ebay is so expensive these days Read more
Try:
London Spares, Alperton Lane, Alperton (next to the railway bridge).
Metro Breakers, Colindeep Lane, Hendon (just off Watford Way).
My 99T car has two feet of unused multicoloured wiring emerging from the nearside trim and ending in a blue 12-pin (2x6) connector, loose under the rear seat. It doesn't seem to aim at anything I can think of - what's it for? Read more
ND : towbar, don't think so. CD changer, don't think so either, but I'm sure you are right. Should have thought of that as they are commonly 'hidden' in the boot. And the connector looks more like audio than anything else. Thanks.
Any ideas anyone?
My son's H reg Nova Merit has a cooling problem.
I've flushed out the cooling system and there seems to be a good flow of fluid into the expansion tank so I think the fault lies with the fan not coming on.
The temp goes down when he drives the car.
The cooling fan doesn't come on when the gauge gets into the red.
The Haynes manual says to test the thermo-switch by connecting the two wires feeding it together, turn on the ignition and if the fan starts then replace the switch as it's knackered.
This I've done but the fan still doesn't work.
I tried the test on the new switch and it is the same result as the old one, so is this one faulty as well or has Haynes got it wrong?
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As a temp measure until you get another thermo switch, get a heavy duty switch and fit on the dash somewhere. Couple it up to the 2 wires and you can switch on the fan as and when you need to. Failing finding a man enough switch, add in a relay controlled by the switch and let the contacts of the relay take the brunt of the current drawn by the fan.
This story may have appeared already on this site, but I didn't notice if it did:
"British newspaper report:
Four youths from Dunedin, NZ, pulled off a trick of breathtaking bravado in order to gain revenge on a mobile speed camera van operating in the area.
Three of the group approached the van and distracted the operator's attention by asking a series of questions about how the equipment worked and how many cars the operator could catch in a day. Meanwhile, the fourth musketeer sneaked to the front of the van and unscrewed its number plate.
After bidding the van operator goodbye, the friends returned home, fixed the number plate to their car and drove through the camera's radar at high speed - 17 times. As a result, the automated billing system issued 17 speeding tickets to itself.
Go kiwis!!"
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This story may have appeared already on this site....
Yep.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=19...4
Anyone got any ideas on this? My X-Trail is used by the dog for the usual stuff like taking me for walks, expensive trips to the vets etc. When I got the car I had a black plastic film applied to the rear bumper to protect it from damage from the dog's claws amongst other things. I didn't think Nissan's own protector accessory was up to the job as it didn't cover the edge of the bumper.
Needless to say I managed to drop a wheel clamp on the bumper a few weeks back and its gouged a little chunk out of said bumper. I'm now looking for something a little more resilient to the punishment that is part and parcel of life in our family. Anyone have any thoughts on what I could put there? Read more
Nissan actually offer something like this as an accessory on their Middle East website. Rather strange its not offered here in the UK. Yes the large metal object scenario was a bit of a one-off but I can't see how manufacturers don't offer something a bit more substantial on the expensively painted bumpers of estate cars when its likely that such cars are going to come in for a fair bit of punishment in the loadbay area.
I am selling one of my companys pool cars and would like peoples opinions on what to sell it for please.
It is a silver Vectra 1.8 SXI Y Reg. 60,000 miles and fairly standard, air con and so on but nothing special.
Any guides would be appreciated.
Thanks
Marcos Read more
I don't see a difference. If someone buys a car, goes
over it very thoroughly, services it and re-sells it, then fair
enough. They have added value. But if someone is just selling
a car I don't see any difference between the price they
should expect for it from a trader or from a private
punter.
Whilst I agree with you HJ, and would personally not want to pay over about trade price for a car (Which I've not done for either of my last two cars), it would seem most of the market disagrees. Hence there being several values given in most reputable guides - the 'Private Sale' value often hundreds, sometimes thousands, more than the 'Trade' value.
It's reasonable to expect to fetch more for a car if you sell it through Autotrader to a private individual, than if you were to auction it to trade punters, or trade it in at a local independant garage, don't you think?
I have a XK8 jaguar automatic.
The car has just developed a fault, which is, when drive is engagaed, nothing happens then all of a sudden "bang" and it drives off.
I thought it was short of hydraulic fluid, but Jaguar say's it is a sealed unit and cannot be topped up.
Any help would be appreciated.
cheers
Dave Read more
I have an R reg XK8 (101K m) I've had the same fault,this problem got more frequent and then just before Xmas the transmission completely failed with no warning. The result was a new box. Everything had got so hot the connections had fused onto the old part and I had to have most of the pipework replaced. Jaguar had the car back a number of times because the automatic transmission didn't seem to be moving from gear to gear smoothly they just kept telling me everything was OK.
Also I had a regular Engine Fault warning. Again Jaguar had the car back a number of times but told me there were so many warning messages on the print out that they couldn't work out what was going on. Eventually the throttle body had to be completely replaced.
All in all the bill was over £4k.
I've got a car that I'm selling and want to declare it off the road to the DVLA so that I can transfer the tax to my new car. Does this prevent me from providing test drives to potential buyers or can I get away with it as dealers do? Read more
Before I posted to (or found) this site I emailed the DVLA with my original question. I've received the reply this morning and found this line quite interesting:
"It may help you to know that you can drive your vehicle unlicensed on a public road so long as you are going to, or from, a pre-arranged test and you are insured for the journey."
Surprised the hell out of me!
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Hmmm...
Still, I'm sure over the years she's done allright :-)