June 2004
hi there
i wonder if any 1 can enlighten me.i had a 1993mondeo lx with ABS then i had a 2000 mondeo lx which also had ABS now i have a 2001 focus ghia tdi which has no ABS.i thought ABS was standard on ford these days,especially as this car is a ghia and not the lx's as before.or does it mean that you have to sacrice such a safety feature for a few little extra goodies in the car.
thanx for any feedback Read more
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3835747.stm
First rise in road deaths in some time but the rise is confined to motorcyclists (big increase) and car drivers. Pedestrians and cyclists escape.
There is no indication of the relative risk of death eg if motorcylists increased their mileage by such an amount that the relative risk remained stable.
I wonder how many of the increased motorcycle deaths are as a result of the lastest fad for heavily tinted windows?
teabelly Read more
>>>>>>>>If you live up to your name SS you'll have heard today's report on the horrific proportions of the hospital superbug, and I was thinking motorcyclists just might prefer Growler's scenario here in an accident to lying in an nhs bed with gravel rash...
Skin Graft City certainly sounds slightly less worse than superbugs!
People will always have accidents, that's it. It's because they do things. Like riding motorcycles, climbing ladders, wrestling alligators, putting their leg in the wrong hole in their underwear and falling over in the bathroom.
Unless they stay in bed all day, and even then they might fall out and hurt themselves.
Mastif's thread about rejecting a new car because his dog didn't fit in it (see www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?f=2&t=23...5 ) eventually prompted him to suggest that his dog should be responsible for buying the next car.
Sound thoroughly sensible, so maybe we should try to devise some guidelines for the discerning canine car-buyer?
Here are some suggestions from my dog.
* Must be a saloon, or preferably a car with no boot at all. I'm not getting stuck in one of those cages in the back of an estate
* low side windows, so that I can see out
* electric window buttons on the centre console please: much easier for me to operate
* lots of powerful dog-controlled airvents, for the benefit of my friend who insists on travelling with her shout glued to one
* no rear legroom, 'cos the gap ahead of the back seat is merely a hole for me to fall into
* soft ride please: I want some control over when I throw up
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Upholstery colour must contrast with coat colour so that the hairs
stand out. After all, it's either that or "mark" it as mine by some
other means. And you don't want me to do that, do you?
You're patently right, that's a crucial factor -- though some dogs are cunningly equipped to circumvent any human attempts to sabotage the fur-marking duty, by shedding hairs of more than one colour.
My dog has several difft colors of hair, but even a jet black labrador manages to shed a lot of grey downy hair to ensure that even a black seat is properly marked.
Of course, as I'm sure you know, the wise canine car-buyer selects a color which contrasts with all the different colors of hair he might shed. It's important to reserve the other territory-marking equipment for areas requiring rapid property-labelling, such as friend's houses or their human's favourite garden plants.
I am try to weigh these 3 up and was wondering if anyone out there has had any experience with either of these cars.
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I can think of better ways to spend £60k on motoring!
I spent ages wondering which was best, admittedly before the Verso came out.
One of my main reasons for buying a new car was to get a good sat nav with a colour screen. The VW has a system derived from the Blaupunkt Pilot DX with a 6.5" screen. It is excellent and has impressed all my passengers. By contrast the Grand Scenic is only available with a turn-by-turn Philips Carinmat system which is annoying. I chose the Touran and, 3000 miles on, am very pleased with my choice.
I guess the answer is to find what is most important for you and choose the car that does it best
e.g.
absolute reliability - probably the Toyota
very large sunroof - Grand Scenic
powerful diesel engine - VW Touran
Hope this helps
I heard on the radio the other day someone saying we should all be encouraged to live near where we work, and not indulge in a long commute.
Out of interest, how many miles do those BRs in work regularly commute? I do a 62-mile round trip.
Apologies if this has been done before: I couldn't find anything. Read more
Apart from the monetary expense, think of the quality of life
- 1.5 to 2 hours each way means up to 4
hours travelling. When you think you spend 8 or 9 hours
at work and another 8 in bed (if you're lucky!), that
means about half of your free/leisure time is wasted on the
road. Half your life is being wasted!!!"
Which is exactly the conclusion I have recently come to and I'm doing something about it....
IMHO it's worth taking a hit on salary if your QOL improves, not that I intend to take that much of a hit on salary :D
JaB
Hi Folks,
I'm going to see the RedHotChiliPeppers at Hyde Park tomorrow evening. I need to get from South West England to central London. Four travelling, so we have discounted going by train on cost grounds. Can anyone recommend a suitable station where we can park up and train/tube into Hyde Park Corner? I was thinking somewhere on the Piccadilly line but my knowledge of the SouthEast is limited. Any advice would be very gratefully received.
Thanks in advance.
Ed. Read more
Cheers for all the detailed advice folks sorry I missed your posts! West Hounslow's cctv car park swung it in the end.
Ed.
I?m looking to buy a car/mpv but cant find out where to see if the car is gonna be low to insure or high,gis sum advice pls people,many thanks john .sorry bout the caps,but i broke my keyboard.
Be sorry no more, good Mr Mash. Your caps have been banished by the mod fairies. ND
No sniggering at the back. Read more
well in mpv land sum motors are 5 and sum are 16 ,so it does matter ,now i know all the bands,i now know which cars to do searches for init
My Golf Mk2,Driver 1.6,Greg-is getting harder to start from cold in wet weather.It splutters,backfires,and sometimes the battery go`s flat from the turning over.Ive tried spraying wd4o on the leads,coil and distributor,which sometimes makes a difference,but I usually have to hold the starter on with throttle right down;when it eventually starts,it splutters for a few miles before running smoothly.It starts and runs fine in dry weather,so,any ideas what the problem is?Leads?Coil?
Tony Read more
New plugs cannot harm, either.
[Andrew - 'mower'. Are you comparing the golf to a mower?]
I have a problem which is driving me mad - if anyone can help save what is left of my sanity, it\'d be greatly greatly appreciated.
The brakes on my escort are binding and the passenger side brake disc keeps warping (had 4 new pairs of brake discs in the last 12 months). I have even had a new caliper fitted with no success..... any ideas??
~James
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I would suggest changing the flexi pipes on all four wheels.if the fluid ie brake fluid hasnt been changed.would suggest it is done.brake fluid breaks down if not changed.the new DOT 4 I think a bit more tolerant.Dont quote me on that.but would suggest new flex pipes instaled/fitted.will mean new brake fluid.think you will find it worth your while.often not taken into consideration.just my thoughts.
Was mech1
The various speed cameras and speeding threads shed much heat, but also a little light amongst the smoke.
One consistent theme that emerges is demand for higher speeds on motorways, so I thought out might be interesting to explore an area where there might be room for agreement. (That's partly because I've been pleasantly surprised to find that I can reach several points of agreement with patently, and I think that this could be explored further)
I'm not trying here to stake out a position, but rather to see if there a chance of agreement, by asking a rather different (and much narrower) question:
How could we create roads which safely permitted speeds well in excess of the current limits? (say 100mph)
Discussions in the back room and references to external sources have reaffirmed that motorways are the fastest existing roads, and also clearly the safest (at least per vehicle mile, tho maybe not so clearly by other measures).
Lots of drivers want to go faster than the 70mph limit. There are some good reasons to support this, not least that modern cars can safely proceed much higher speeds than their precessors. However, there are problems in permitting this on existing motorways, including speed differentials and too many difft types of traffic.
Let's leave aside the wider questions such as energy use and pollution (where I have deep reservations), and concentrate instead on the narrower question of safety issues involved in creating roads where drivers could legally and safely proceed at 100mph. (We could consider other figures, but 100 seems like a useful gain over 70, and still achievable by the average mid-sized hatchback)
It seems to me that there are a few crucial features of this safe 100mph road. I'm just throwing them out as ideas :)
1/ Reduced speed differentials. Differentials create bunching, lane-changing and overtaking.
2/ Upper and lower speed limits. Reduced differentials means resticting speed, so no trucks in the slow lane, and no doing 105 either: maybe a range of 90-100 would be required.
3/ Strict enforcement of the upper-and-lower limits: they are crucial to the road's safety, so we'd need either lots of cameras on some new in-car technology.
4/ Anti-congestion measures. Access to the road would have to be limited to prevent the stream of 100mph traffic piling into the hold-up.
5/ Restricted access: the 100mph road would be unsafe for a clapped-out Mini or even a brand-new Smart car! So only approved vehicles would be permitted -- most mid-sized and larger newish cars should qualify.
6/ The standard driving test would probably be inadequate, and special permits (such as an enhanced driving test on IAM lines) would be needed.
7/ Junctions would need to be massively upgraded to allow drivers to safely join a stream of 100mph traffic; the 100mph road would probably have far fewer junctions than most current motorways.
I'm sure others will have difft ideas on that list of points, and may even dislike the whole lot :)
But one thing immediately strikes me: some drivers just want to be able to proceed very quickly from A-B, but others want excitement from their driving.
Maybe this safe 100mph road, with its limited overtaking would end up too much like a very fast but very boring convoy to appeal to many drivers?
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Pete, I experienced something similar a few weeks ago on the M60. There is a section of the clockwise carriageway which drops to 50mph near Bredbury. I was at 50, lane 1, and a lorry came up behind me. He pulled out and was at the side of me when the limit reverted back to 70. I accelerated leaving the lorry behind in lane 2 and he flashed me several times.
Browse
I've tidied up this thread and removed LeePower's patronising and arrogant comments.
Lee power - take note before upsetting other people.
In tidying up this thread, I *might* have inavertantly removed some worthwhile replies as well. Apologies if I have done so.
DD. BR Moderator.
mailto:moderators@honestjohn.co.uk