July 2004
It's quite clear that a reasonable number of BRers buy new cars & run them for 3 years until the warranty runs out. Very sensible. You always get to run a nice new shiny car (Huzzah!) & you know that you will never have an unexpected bill in the unlikely event that something goes wrong.
So there are lots of cars on the market that are just about 3 years old (some a month or two younger so that the new buyer has the confidence of some warranty, some a month or two older as the owner has 'chanced it' for a short while).
Therefore 3-year old prices are slightly depressed, relative to a straight line (or more likely a pure log curve), so it is a popular age at which to buy a second hand car.
Owner two has therefore an expensive car for half price, and can be all smug about depreciation, yet has to suffer the risk of premature bottom end failure/new gearbox etc. If he's really unlucky, both of these will fail & he will be really miserable with the car and have spent as much on it as it cost. Having replaced the engine/'box he will want shot of the car to owner three as he thinks it is a 'lemon'.
By the time owner 3 has finished with it - and has replaced the aircon & expensive rear shocks, it's 7 to 10 years old, and worth under £1,000.
Owner 4 is buying a 10 year, 150k car that has had lots of new, vital parts over the previous 3 or 4 years. Best of all, the replacement parts have been better engineered than were the originals - as the manufacturer has found that all his gear boxes go for the same reason.
So owner 4 runs the car. He knows that if the engine blows up or the gear box goes, he can have a second hand one fitted for £350. If the gear box has become dodgy & the engine blows, then the car is still worth £400 scrap.
So, of owners 1,2,3&4, which is the wisest, and which the most foolish. And of course, who is the unluckiest? Discuss. Read more
Any suggestions welcomed on how to free a seized spark plug in a 309 GTI before bowing to the inevitable new cylinder head. Garage noticed the seized plug when my daughter's car was being serviced and left it in a small pool of releasing fluid for a couple of weeks. Yesterday the fluid was still there and the plug still wouldn't budge and the only thing they can suggest is to try after a hard run when the engine is very hot. Unfortunately, I am 5,000 miles away and don't know what the garage uses for releasing fluid. Anyone got any last resort suggestions? Read more
Should have mentioned in the first post, but forgot.
If the sealing gasket or taper on the plug seat is working correctly, penetrating fluids won't be able to reach the thread.
My beloved just put some diesel in her Mazda, and while waiting for the tow truck, we got to wondering if topping up the tank with petrol (which would dilute it more than 2:1) would be survivable. One garage man says it would, and the other says definitely not! I think it would be OK, but I'd get into awful trouble if I was wrong...
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>>J Bonington Jagworth
BTW, it was good to meet you at the Ace, Henry.
Sorry we didn't get more of a chance to chat.
>>
Sorry I could not stay longer. I had to join the scrum at IKEA as it was a combined trip.
It was good to meet some of the faces behind the postings.
Maybe at some future meet.
I'm writing this on behalf of a friend who is the unhappy owner of a Fiat Punto Diesel X reg, which is just over 3 years old and done just over 30,000 miles. Bought from a private owner 7 or 8 months ago, the bottom end of the engine recently suffered a catastrophic failure with no warning, splitting the crankcase in 3 places... It did this out of warranty of course. The car has been serviced by the book throughout its life.
My friend has no grounds to approach the previous owner on this, and so has gone to Fiat UK Head Office. After 5 weeks, the response from Fiat is that they can offer no help whatsoever. Verbally, they have been told that if they were the original owner then the engine would be replaced at Fiat's expense. Fiat have not even made an attempt to inspect the vehicle themselves, relying instead on a report provided by my friend from an independant garage which concluded that engines should not self-destruct after such as short life.
What I would appreciate any assistance on is advice on what options are left to my friend to put pressure on Fiat to help resolve this problem. They are considering approaching BBC Watchdog, but what about the Society of Motor Manufacturers? Any other suggestions?
Thanks,
Charles
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Seeing I have been registered for longer (just) I don't see
why I should have to change my user name.
Do either of you really have a problem with this? Charles has a {p} and c h a r l e s has his spaces. Anyone? Problem? No? Good, everyone shake hands and back to your homework please.
No Dosh - Backroom Moderator
mailto:moderators@honestjohn.co.uk
Can anyone tell me why the Skoda Fabia 1.4. 8 valve engine was discontinued? Read more
I think it was the same old engine that was in the Favorit and then the Felicia
Not only that, but basically the same engine was used for Donkey's years before then in the old rear engined Skodas, too.
In short, it was the Czech A-Series.
Hi can anyone tell me how i can bleed a laguna2 clutch, i can\'t find any bleed nipples anywhere Read more
Er... you cant. Unfortunately the designers at Renault decided that the tried and trusted method of a master cylinder fed from a reservoir leading to a slave cylinder with a bleed nipple to expel the air was just soooo old fashioned. Instead you have an innovative plastic sealed for life master cylinder leading to a plastic sealed for life slave cylinder. All you can do is replace one carp system for another carp system although the third one i fitted to my Espace did have a reservoir fitted to the master cylinder to replenish the fluid that weeped out because the system isnt man enough for the application.
Rant over
Andrew
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Simplicate and add lightness!!
I've no idea whether this is any good, and it's not available throughout the country, but I know Lidl and Aldi sat nav offers have generated interest here in the past:
makeashorterlink.com/?E59112EE8 Read more
PS - I think Tchibo were doing the Aldi-type ('Medion' brand) outfit on their website for £279 also.
Hi all,
Both rear door courtesy light switches have gummed up on my Octavia, and the remedy seems to be to replace the entire latch assembly at some £100+ per side, as the switch is incorporated into it and is non-repairable/replaceable. By a process of elimination (turn inside light on, wait 10 minutes for it to go out, open door, see if it comes back on) it's apparent that the front doors still activate it correctly.
Is it possible to just snip the wires near the door pillar connectors to effectively remove the rear switches from the equation? What is the position of the switches with the door shut, ie are the switches open or closed? Therefore would I need to leave the wire unattached or would I need to earth it? And most importantly, what colour are the courtesy light wires at their point of entry into the doors?
I don't want to snip the wrong wire and risk, for example, irreversible deadlocking of the door in question. But I don't mind cutting the correct wire as a permanent solution, after all the car has very nearly covered the same distance as that from here to the moon.
Cheers
Dave TD.
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I have recentley fitted an alarm to my Octavia classic and I know beleive it does not have door switches, it has sensors that feed the CPU, the CPU then decides to fade the light in or out depending on the position of the doors / ignition switch. It was very difficult to find a suitable door open feed for the alarm. In the end I put a relay between the wires feeding the light (not to earth etc..) .
The door sensor is not in the door but near the sill where the door closes(black plastic hole), it seems to be operated by what I presume is some sort of magnetised metal fitted to the bottom of the door. If you remove the plastic trim panels at each side of the front footwells you will find different colour electrical connectors, one of these is connected to the sensors, you can see the pulse using a multimeter as you open /shut the door.
The wires from the door locks seem to be related to the central /dead locking, dont lock yourself out!
Bring back good old fashion switches!
Have the rear door plastic "hole" become full of dirt?
I have a VW MK2 Golf 1300.
Two weeks ago I put in a new radiator.
Unfortunately there is trapped air at the thermostat housing. I say this because the coolant temperature dial stays at zero and the temperature sensor for the dial is fixed at the top of the thermostat housing.
The coolant temperature dial has moved briefly to it's normal position only after parking the car on a hill though.
The radiator and thermostat works fine.
How do I purge the trapped air? Read more
Mk II do not suffer from air locks, suspect connections ? To put your mind at rest unscrew the sensor to let any air out. Regards Peter
As part of my Explore the Mondeo exercise.
I have removed an oily and dirty under tray.
It was oily cos of a power steering fluid cooler leaking
It had accumulated dirt in eack of the corners near the wings because water gets trapped there.
I have drilled a small hole in each side so the water can drain out and hopefully the dirt particles with it.
There was also the remnants of a strip of foam a bit like draught excluder sort of still attached. Plus one of I guess two small blocks of foam.
Assuming this foam has a purpose can anyone update me on their proper position and function.
I was a little concerned at a 13 Jul posting by Galaxy
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>>Unecessary rubber strip on plasic undershield which absorbs water then rots the air conditioning condenser and stops the aircon working.
>>
Galaxy. Can you tell me more?
Thanks
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henry k,
Sorry but I'm not exactly sure what more you want to know.
It sounds as if you have already found the rubber strip that I referred to in my earlier post. Unless I'm very much mistaken this is actually meant to be all in one piece. However, since it bends quite sharply at either end to fit the undertray I expect these ends have actually broken off, hence you find what appear to be separate pieces. I think it's all meant to be in one. On my own car this strip has completely rotted away, caused by what has leaked out of the air condenser in the way of dye, etc.
I am currently unsure whether this rubber strip serves any useful purpose or not. I suppose it just could form a sort of air-dam to force more air through the radiator and condenser, though my own car has now been running without this strip for several weeks now without any apparent problems.
The original comment about the air condenser rotting in this way came from a post by Dave N, who is one of the well informed air conditioning people who often appear on this forum. If you try doing a "Forum Search" I'm quite sure you will find his original post, and the others related to it. His suggestion was to give the bottom of the condenser a good coating of Waxoyl, which is probably very sound advice.
Out of interest you might like to have a look on Ebay to see how many of these condensers are currently being offered for sale. That, to me, is a measure of how great this problem really is. Do a search for something like "Ford Air Conditioning" and see what I mean!
I hope this will help you. If you want any further information then please post again,
Good Luck,
Galaxy
Browse
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Too right.
I'm lucky enough to have a fair bit of cash at the moment and could go out tomorrow and order a new 7-series or S-Class. But I won't.
I've been there before and I can tell you its a waste of money (not to mention additional aggro). 'Average price' cars are now so good that you are very much into 'diminishing returns' by buying a prestige model - in effect what you are buying is the 'prestige'. A new Mondeo will deliver 95% of what a new C-Class will deliver, and you probably don't really need that extra 5%. Couple in buying a 6-month old Mondeo/Vectra/Primera from a car supermarket (40% under new list, with 2.5 years warranty to run) and its a no-brainer.
One of my current chariots is a C-Class, but it will probably be the last prestige car I buy. I have better things to do with my money.