August 2004
All new land rover freelander being built at halewood from late 2006 5 door only. Quality will be lot better than the current ones being built at silihull due to more modern working practices and more stringent audits. Will the fact that a land rover will no longer be made at the "home" of land rover affect your buying decision ???????????????????? Seen pic looks very tasty better than new discovery not following styling trend as seen in range rover, discovery Read more
I know there has been discussion here in the past about the charging of little used car batteries using trickle chargers that are designed to be connected to the battery for long periods without disconnecting the vehicle's positive and negative leads. Does anyone have experience of the Draper Battery Master? The reason I ask is I was considering buying one of the more expensive chargers, but my annual subscription to Practical Classics magazine is due and I see today that the latest subscription "free gift" is one of these Draper chargers! Read more
Was at local Audi dealer looking at a lovely A4 Cabriolet, recently offered for sale...
Test drive went well, part-ex discussions seemed tough, but then I do have a well-used 12-year old BMW 318!
Salesman hinted that if my figure was accepted would we have a deal and I said yes. Even though he was a senior salesman he went away to speak to some 'Mr Big' character.
Came back a full ten minutes later to say there had been a mistake with the price and it was actually two thousand pounds more!! He showed me a stock printout confirming this and blamed a minion who must have confused his fives with his sevens when putting a price display on it.
I walked away of course as the car was now only a few grand off the price of a new car, despite being 18 months old.
Has this happened to anyone else, and did I do the right thing? Read more
Happened to me once - I was trying to buy a second-hand Merc SLK from a large (Jaguar) dealer near me.
Agreed a price to change with my part-ex of 19k and shook on it. Salesboy then goes to fill in the paperwork and it has a price to change of 21k. Thankfully eagle-eyed girlfriend spotted this just before I signed. Salesboy goes away and comes back and says "Sorry, 24,999's the price [that was the screen price], take it or leave it".
The other salesbloke sat next to salesboy agreed with us that he had heard 19k as the agreed price to change but we walked rather than argue over it.
mike
Item on the radio tonight, from Monday Direct Line will not decrease the no claims bonus of any policy holder who is hit by an uninsured driver. Nor will it charge the excess on the policy.
Apparantly the government are also working on a solution to the problem of those who refuse to insure. Read more
I think that would read better if it said
"to allow no claims bonus *to remain intact* where a claim on MIB for uninsured losses"
Insurance companies are *required* to give a minimum greencard cover of "third party only" *OR whatever the legal minimum of cover is for a particular country, whilst the car is outside UK.
Some companies will give free comprehensive cover (on a comp policy) for 14 days, 30 days, 90 days, some will do it only once, some will do it twice, some will have no restrictions on the number of holidays you take.
Some will charge for the comp cover green card. Most of those who charge will not tell you you have the option to go with minimum cover green card free of charge, saying "you have to have a green card and it costs XXX"
An example of this was my taxi insurance company, It was an old Vx Carlton, I had TPO cover for UK, I asked about going to Europe. She said "Oh You'll need a green card and it costs 15 pounds". "Hmm" I replied - ended the call, found out that they are *required* to give me TPO cover in France.
I phoned them back and mentioned this to her saying "so I don't need a green card afterall because I'm allready covered"
She said Yes you're right the 15 pounds is just if you want to take a written certificate with you, it's our charge for writing one out." But I don't need it, so why would I want to pay you for it?
I always ask when I get a quote what the green card cover is. Because I always goto France. But you have to be careful to make them specify what they mean. Some of them will say
"We give a free greencard cover",
"How often?"
"Unlimited"
"Comprehensive cover?"
"Oh no you have to pay extra for that"
AAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!
On my Renault Premium 44tonne truck,which is 10 months old,my fuel tank is aluminium.
However,even so soon,it looks like it is 10 years old,never mind 10 months,and is starting to pit.
What can I use thats inexpensive to polish it,bearing in mind it's me that's having to fork out,because my company won't,so I don't want to pay a kings ransom?
Ken. Read more
mother used to have aluminium pans in her kitchen, used to be cleaned to a high polished shine using nothing more than hot water and a "brillo" pad. once cleaned, you could go the extra stage further and wax polish it.
billy.
I noticed that in the USA and many other countries they don't charge for metallic paint. Many cars only come in one or two normal colours here(some really horrible) so in many cases you have to pay extra for metallic.
Is metallic more costly to manufacture or is it just the car companies trying to make a few quid extra ? Read more
My last car was white (not through choice) and I quite liked it. You'd think it'd show every mark but not so - many problems like bird lime damage, smears, sticky fingerprints and calcium deposits hardly show, if at all. Other things like squished bugs show up almost as much on a dark car as on a white one. Even minor paint imperfections, dents/ripples and the like seem to be masked by white. I do like most of the dark metallic colours but the experience of many friends has been they show up everything and only look really nice when they're spotless. Black seems to be worst of all to keep looking at it's best. One of my brothers has a black 850t5 estate which is a nightmare to keep clean.
Co-incidentally I saw a brand new white Mazda RX8 the other day and it looked fabulous! Much better than I'd have thought it would.
I've got a problem with my VW golf mk 2! A few weeks ago when i got out of my car i heard a sound like someone crushing a plastic bottle before noticing lots of water on the floor under the engine. After all the water had drained out, i put some more in and noticed it leaking quite rapidly from the back of the engine. Some of the hoses were changed which seemed to do the trick. However, the other night after a small journey a fair bit of water appeared underneath the car from the same place as before but it wasn't coming out as rapid as before. The following day i checked to see how much water was lost, this was approximately an inch of the expansion tank. I thought it might be the head gasket but there is no oil in the water e.t.c. Have you any ideas what it could be? Thanks
Read more
Were the connecting joints clean.usually when a leak occurs a lump of carp is left behind.would suggest take off hoses and clean the joints hoses connect to.any amount of dirt left on the joint will cause a prob unless more serious ie cracked.joint.?
--
Was mech1
Go on then, you know I fancy one of these. Can the backroom recommend to me the ideal Sat Nav system. It must:
1. Be portable from car to car.
2. Run European maps.
3. Run good software.
It should ideally:
1. Have a facility for re-routing round traffic jams.
It would be amusing if it:
1. Included saf e t ycamera sites.
I guess it wants a portable PC. In which case, whatever is the difference between an IPAQ 1950, 4150, etc. etc.? It looks as though you can get a fully set up one on eBay for about £300, including Tom Tom.
If it has real-time re-routing around jams, how much does it cost? (Extra & running costs)
Many thanks! Read more
oh right, the question :
1. Be portable from car to car.
Yes
2. Run European maps.
Yes, comes with basic, can purchase (cough) others
3. Run good software.
Yes, easy to use and from version 3, fast
It should ideally:
1. Have a facility for re-routing round traffic jams.
Yes
It would be amusing if it:
1. Included evil revenue raising devices.
Yes
I guess it wants a portable PC. In which case, whatever is the difference between an IPAQ 1950, 4150, etc. etc.? It looks as though you can get a fully set up one on eBay for about £300, including Tom Tom.
Anything with bluetooth is good, you tend to pay more for WiFi built in. Unless you've got a network you use this on (i did use my 5450 at home, it's not really worth the extra. If you can get one with a phone built in XDA2/iMate/upcoming hp6340 it makes traffic updates a lot easier. Otherwise you'll need to connect to a phone via Infra-red or Bluetooth which is a _lot_ more complicated.
If it has real-time re-routing around jams, how much does it cost? (Extra & running costs)
49Euro/year and then call costs (hardly anything on GPRS)
My iMate (XDA) comes with 128Mb of RAM (full UK Maps 101Mb), but really you should think of an additional SD card (256Mb-£35 /512-£60) for maps etc. Be careful not to buy a 64Mb PDA which has only one slot and no bluetooth. If you rely on the slot for GPS connectivity then you can't then put extra storage on for maps.
HTH,
Lee
--
Lee
MINI adventure in progress
I have always driven fairly dark coloured cars but now I drive a bright red Getz and have noticed a fairly sharp increase in the number of bee/wasp visits into the open windows. Has anyone noticed this sort of thing or are the bees in Yorkshire just becoming more inquisitive? Read more
Not wishing to think about orifices in that way, but do admit to absolute panic if a wasp (never had a bee so far, so probably will tomorrow) comes in through the open window in this weather.
I'd imagine they must have been responsible for a fair few accidents in their time. I know the ideal is don't panic, but it's pretty hairy trying to find a place to stop and leap out of your car in self-defence, with one of those flying round your face.
One of our cars, a 15 year old Volvo 760 could do with a new sunroof seal. It's just breaking up with old age. I wan to replace it before the winter. Does anyone know of a sensibly priced retail source for these i.e not Volvo themselves? Read more
Browse
I use something called a Delfan \"battery tender\" I bought in the US some years ago for my motorbike. Which has a sealed battery anyway.Cost about $39 from Sears IIRC. Battery is into its 5th year (not bad for a bike) and I always get a full charge of power when I crank it up.
It has a red light for \"charging\" mode and a green one for \"storage\".
I swear by the thing.