June 2004
Could somebody please inform me of the average tread depth of a brand new tyre. I have a figure in my head of 9mm, but would appreciate confirmation. Thanks. Read more
Hi, Is the petrol sold at supermarkets the same quality as branded fuels? Several years ago rumours circulated that supermarket fuel was inferior to that sold by the oil giants, BP, Esso, Shell, etc.. Any one have any thoughts on this? Read more
About 1 mile: the gunge doesn't block the valves until you've done 100,001 miles:)
I need to help sort out an intermittent starting problem which a friend has with her 1998 Saxo X 1.1i.
Often it fails to start. Her solution is to wait and try later. This has always worked eventually.
The problem has been mentioned to various people who have serviced the car. No one has yet come back and said Yes, I have solved that little problem.
A typical scenario is when she starts the car from cold, does not drive it far enough for the engine to come up to temperature, stops for half an hour, then tries to restart.
More recently the car fails to start when cold. Again, if you are patient enough to keep going back, it will eventually start on the first turn as normal.
The car is mainly used for trips of less than 10 miles in rural Scotland.
Our questions are:
1. We are reluctant to go to a dealer with an intermittent problem, especially as the warning light on the dash has never lit. Does the latter mean that fault codes have not been recorded by the ECU?
2. We have got a Haynes manual and can see that several sensors and actuators are involved in starting the engine. Anything got any suggestions about this particular fault.
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same problem here, but turned out to be idle control valve on the throttle body needed cleaning with carb cleaner, been fine ever since. hope this helps
sam
Anybody know what is the minimum tread depth required for Germany? I am currently on 2.5 mm and have been told that I need a minimum of 3 mm. Anyone Know? Read more
nor me
Before I start, this is completely my fault - you know how it is when you get a new car - you fiddle - I dont' know what I've done but I've broken it.
The long and short of it is, when you push the button on the key to lock the car, it locks, then unlocks straight after. If you lock it with the key, it works fine. HOWEVER, if you unlock it with the button it unlocks all doors apart from the driver's one.
I have since discovered if you are inside the car and try to lock it with the handle on the passenger side, the car locks and then unlocks again straight away but locking it with the Driver's handle is fine.
I remember ages and ages ago a Ford dealer saying turn the key to ignition 2 4 times and the car will dong but I forgot the rest. I get that far and push either the unlock button and it will dong or the lock button and it will dong but I don't know what to do after that.
Any help at all on this would be most appreciate and I will stress again, nothing is broken, I've simply prevented it from working!
Many thanks
Adam
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hi I have had the same problem with this lock bounce thing, however mine does work in extremes of cold or heat so usually its ok in winter or the heights of summer. This led me to think it has to be mechanical as the mech must be expanding or contracting, today I was fiddling around with this to no avail. I came on this site for hints and tips and found about the kick panel thing. I took it off and seen all the wires behind it pushed some connectors and just by co-incidence tried the fob to lock- I have now a fully working system, it would appear the kick plate plastic thing was pushing on something causing the fault. Hope this helps !
I have had my 03 reg Saab 9-3 TiD for about 6 months now. After 2 months the engine management system warning light came on. Saab Assistance (aka the AA) plugged in the diagnostic set and came up with a Glow Plug circuit problem. Saab dealers said it wasn't a serious problem and the car was driveable (apparently the glow plugs are only needed if the temperature is below 5°C) but it should be checked out sooner rather than later. 2 weeks later I finally managed to get the car to a dealer, who confirmed a faulty glow plug relay and ordered up the part.
This was eventually fitted at the beginning of June (don't ask about the delay - vandalism and incorrect parts delivered to the body shop kept the car off the road for 5 weeks!). So far so good, for about a week, when the warning light came back on again.
My next visit to the dealer confirmed the same error message, but this time the "technician" said it could be caused by one of two problems - either the wiring of the glow plug circuit was faulty or the diesel pump was about to pack up. The latter is apparently a megabucks job, so not surprisingly the car is booked in for a wiring loom check next week.
I am also worried that the fuel economy of the car is nowhere near the manufacturer's quoted figures and dropping. I'm only getting 35 - 38 mpg brim to brim on mainly motorway driving, compared to the quoted figure of 42 for combined cycle.
I guess this 2.2 TiD engine is not exclusive to Saab but is also in other GM stable makes. Has anyone else experienced this problem and is it really serious? I am concerned about driving the car with a warning light on permanently - it might actually mean something serious is wrong and I'm ignoring it.
Many thanks for any tips.
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One other thing, a lot of the early cars have horrendous software bugs that cause all sorts of weird problems. Upgrades are available for some models, but you have to hassle the dealer to do them. Might be worth investigating.
Try www.saabcentral.com for help.
The police tell me this is illegal and will invalidate the insurance on the tow-car as well.
Therefore if I want to tow my old SIII Landy to a garage for repair work, prior to an MOT, can I just get a short term third party insurance cover and nothing else?
Obviously I cannot get a tax disk prior to a successful MOT, and what if the garage where I'm having the repair work carried out is not an MOT centre? Read more
Yes, obviously, but then I can't work an insult to Penzance into the post.
A petrol scenic 2 I drive when hot took several attempts to start the other day,then spluttered and missfired with no pull at all untill it died then was a so and so to start for 10-15 minutes. When it did finally start for several miles it missfired terably.Eventually it settled down, I have driven it for about 250 miles with several starts hot and cold without any further problems. Renault main dealer took a look at it today and found nothing wrong and as no warning measage or fault log recorded they could do no more.Now I have heard lots of stories of coil packs packing up and wondered if this could be one of these coil packs failing and would not necessarily show a fault on the vehicle log.I would be interested in any comments from any one with experiance in this area.
rust bucket (the original) Read more
Hi, I've had a few Scenics in my time and when I lived in France I had a coil pack go at 80,000km - the guy said the cars were very reliable indeed; they all went at 80k !
About 6 weeks ago I turned 52k miles on the current version 2 Scenic and guess what - yes the first one went.
and last night, the second one went.
I got the garage to do the first one but I'd like to do this one myself - anyone know the procedure? Where can I buy the Denso or Sagem ones?
thanks
Who's using what oil in their VAG TDi engines?
I've got a VW Passat 1.9TDi 110bhp (1999), and am about to service it myself. I've come across all this chatter about oils meeting VAG standards (505 00/01 etc), and am a bit sceptical.
Does anyone share my opinion that the whole thing is a ruse designed to get people to have their oil changed only by a VAG dealer? After all, the owners manual does even try to convince you that you shouldn't attempt to change bulbs yourself, so it isn't like they won't try anything!
Spoken to a couple of independent mechanics, and they tell me that anything marked 'for modern turbo diesels' will do absolutely fine.
I can see a general trend towards manufacturers attempting to make cars entirely non user-serviceable. We take some stuff in the owners manual with a pinch of salt (the bulb-changing stuff for instance), so why does the waffle about using the correct £15-per-litre oil carry such weight? Read more
Halfords actually stock 506.00/01 oil for PD's now.
I think its Castrol, but not sure now. They have it listed £39.99 for 4 litres....gulp
Last year I bought a Renault Megane 1.9dCi and was told by the service technician at the dealership from whom I bought the car that i should only use a full synthetic 5W-40 oil for top up. At 9000 miles I had the optional oil change in France using this grade of oil at a local Renault dealership ( by the way the price would make you smile ! ). When I brought the car in for its first full service at 18000 miles the dealership now tell me that a 10W-40 semi-synthetic is fine and that is what they use for servicing. Now that the engine has bedded in I intend to change the oil and filter at 6000 mile intervals.
Is a B3 spec oil OK for this engine if changed at 6000 or should I go back to a B4 synthetic. Is this just a ploy by the dealer to stock just the one oil or are they really saving me money ?
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Not sure why it's really necessary to change the oil every 6k miles using a synthetic unless manufacturers specify it. Big advantage of synthetics is that they stay in grade longer and degrade less quickly than mineral oils so it's quite safe to extend the drain interval to 10k. Also modern common rail diesels put less soot in the engine oil than older diesels that needed very frequent oil changes for this reason.
Using the old 6k oil change interval seems to me like taking the head of an engine of a modern car at 50k to do a routine de-coke and valve grind like in the old days. might give a marginal increase in performance but not really worth doing anymore. Just my view.
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