Dear Forum,

While under the car, I noticed the front discs are past it, and I need to change them. In the past, I have had great difficulty getting rusted discs off - especially Fords! Does anyone have a good technique for doing this, preferably without potential wheel bearing damaging violence :-)

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As I was going down Poynton Park Lane I passed the row of cars which always park on my side, about ten of them. I saw a Morris Minor approaching the other end, but the road is just wide enough for two cars to pass, so I proceeded. As I reached the ninth car, just one more to go, I realised that the MM driver was insisting on his ?right of way?, and stopping me. He quite angrily indicated that I was in the wrong. I politely indicated that if he moved three feet further toward the kerb there was room enough for both of us. After much fury and gesticulation he swerved across and passed me. A number of other drivers behind him obviously were wondering what I had done to upset the gentleman.
Next, in Cheadle Hulme, the road had been stripped for resurfacing and the near side half was coned off. At the end is a narrowish three way junction with painted white blob island, refuges and bollards. The workmen had red and green lollipops to control the traffic, but we didn?t seem to be going anywhere because a double decker bus was stopped. Eventually the lollipop man was seen trying to guide back a well coiffured silver haired lady who was insisting on her right of way at the roundabout and stopping traffic either way. It was raining heavily - the bus driver had a difficult task and went through painfully slowly. Two cars and then my turn, only to be blocked by another well coiffured silver haired lady who saw her chance to pass the waiting queue of cars by asserting her precedence on the island. She was incredulous and furious when I led a convoy of cars the wrong way around the island and across her front end. The lollipop man was almost in tears.
Have they all got it in for me? I insist that I am not guilty of ageism, because if you look around at the back of my head you will see a little silver hair there too! Many more days like this and I won?t have any.
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Why are "traffic calming measures" so called. In my case they have exactly the opposite effect ~ they positively wind me up!
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L'escargot by name, but not by nature. Read more

I would appreciate any thoughts or comments on my query.
The car is a 2001, X reg. MB 320CDI (W210, I think it's called) with 103,000 on the clock.

The problems are these - I will list them separately, as they may be unconnected.

1. for some months, under normal, fairly gentle acceleration, the gearbox has, it seems, changed back down a gear, causing the revs. to blip. Not a major problem as far as I am concerned - something I can live with.

2. A few days ago, when I decided to blow the soot out of the exhaust. I floored the accelerator from a fairly low speed, the revs. went round to the red line, just as though the gearbox had slipped into neutral. As the car slowed,I tried a couple of times to drive on, but there was no drive at all. I stopped the car, fiddled with the gear lever, put it into drive and the car drove away normally and since then has behaved normally - I haven't tried flooring the throttle since then, though.

Any ideas or suggestions, please?

regards drbe Read more

A little bedtime reading swiped without conscience from pistonheads:

Ian Eveleigh ponders on why motorists are letting themselves be demonised

Cue a montage of overlapping news sound-bites: "...nearby residents presented a petition of over 500 signatures demanding traffic calming measures...", "...demonstrators blocked the road for a total of eight hours...", "...since its installation last year the camera has caught 40,000 speeding motorists...".

Where did it all go wrong? There was a time ? not that long ago, even ? when motoring in the UK was not just a means of getting from A to B, but was also something to be enjoyed; something we were allowed to enjoy. Great stretches of road were built for our convenience and pleasure; our mobility was positively encouraged. But somewhere we took a wrong turn and lost our way.

Evil!

Instead of being applauded as a means to visit and explore, the car has become derided as a destroyer of communities. Instead of being seen as a wondrous tool for efficient door-to-door transportation, it has become an artery clogger that we should abandon because it is too slow, yet simultaneously a ruthless ground-coverer that should be reined in because it is too fast.

We are waist-deep in an anti-car age and struggling to find a branch to haul ourselves out by. But how did we get here? How is it that a nation so clearly in love with its cars ? almost regardless of cost ? can also hate them so much? 85 per cent of eligible males and 60 per cent of eligible females hold licences, and teenagers are still tripping over themselves to get mobile by motor at the earliest possible opportunity, so who exactly are we fighting? What is this massive force that makes us feel such guilt for daring to enjoy our cars, that makes us almost ashamed to declare a passion for them in polite company?

Utopia

Sure, there's a handful of small, extremist groups, occupying their time dreaming of a car-free utopia where children can play in the high street and where you can leave your front door unlocked at night. They inflict their vision upon the rest of us a couple of times a year by blocking a main thoroughfare or two (always when the weather is nice, you will note), but they are a minority, nothing to worry about, a small fraction of the population who never got the chance to learn to drive, or whose circumstances mean that they can't afford the unfortunately high cost of car ownership. Their numbers will never stretch beyond that. After all, have you ever heard of anyone who's had a taste of motoring turning their back on it?

Then we've got a government that chooses to lash out at the car. Not through any conviction that it is doing The Right Thing, but because it knows that it can exploit our weakness if it can make us feel bad about our habit. Motorists contribute £42 billion to the economy each year, but in return only £9 billion is spent on transport. Yet guilt buys our silence and our acceptance, and disproportionate reporting that favours sensationalism over education keeps the fear topped up.

Apathy

But the real threat to our motoring pleasure starts much closer to home.

Unlike those small but passionate anti-car groups, ignorance and laziness mean that when we are under attack, we motorists fail to organise ourselves and fight back to redress the balance.

And why is it that councils think we want lower limits, more cameras, restricted access, speed humps and "home zones"? It's because we're asking for them! Sure, we want freedom and rapid progress on our journeys, but in our own street we want everyone to slow down. Well, everyone else , that is, as humorously situated speed traps in response to residents' complaints often prove.

Small Minded?

OK, so you and I, motoring enthusiasts, probably aren't that small-minded, but Mr and Mrs Ordinary Average Car User are. Unthinking drivers taking their mobility for granted. And despite never giving a second thought to improving their own driving skills and behaviour, they know for certain that every other driver out there is under-skilled, inattentive and dangerous, and they want protecting from those reckless individuals passing their doorstep. Trouble is, everywhere is someone's doorstep. So the petitions start, the street furniture moves in, and we all have to tackle the obstacle course. And once one neighbourhood gets it, the next neighbourhood wants it: they need protecting too.

It's this frightening lack of thought from so many, mixed with superb propaganda from relatively few, that has led us to this position where cars are perceived as the root of much evil, and to invest more than is strictly necessary for basic five-seats-and-reasonable-economy transportation makes you best mates with Lucifer himself.

It's a sad state of affairs, but what's even sadder is that a large proportion of the blame lies at our own feet. It seems that when it comes to motoring, we're our own worst enemy.

Discuss!


teabelly Read more