November 2004
got a chance of a 1993 2.0litre 20 valve 850 se.any owners out there with good or bad points about this car.all advice welcome.it has 100000 miles and full history and a years mot. Read more
I have just been promoted and am now entitled to a company car. The company I work for has a deal with Audi, Vauxhall, Saab and Ford but I have no idea what to go for!! Some of my collegues are recommending the Audi A3 diesel as the CO2 emmissions are low and this I what I am taxed on. I have up to £19k allowance but need some advice so I can make a decision. HELP!!
Read more
My fuel consumption fluctuates between 57mpg to 45 mpg, the average seems to be ~54mpg. I check by filling the tank to full and doing a calculation against the miles travelled. I travel over 100 miles/day so I have monitored the situation over several weeks.
I fill the tank to full but one question I would ask, is there a possibility of an airlock during the refuelling. There is a noticeable swishing and gurgling when I drive away. Following a full refill I drove 137 miles and filled it up again, on that calculation I achieved 66mpg.
Or is there a defect in the fuel metering system, I am not familiar with diesel technology. There does not seem to be any engine fault, it runs and pulls effortlessly with no sign of engine distress.
Thanks in advance. Read more
My 218sld Turbo has done the same. Though I would expect this due to cooler air. Ie winter. Nothing wrong with engine
--
Steve
I've seen a Ford dealer advert (complete with photograph) on the internet for a low mileage June 2003 Focus, and so far (on paper) the only thing which I'm dubious about is the colour ~ Blue Print. It's not a current colour and I don't recall ever seeing a car that colour. Has any Backroomer seen this colour, and, if so, what was your opinion of it? I can't help wondering why Ford dropped the colour ~ was it because the buying public shunned it? If I kept the car 7 years or so, would the colour significantly affect the PX value anyway? (As far as I can see from the photograph it's a solid colour.)
--
L\'escargot by name, but not by nature. Read more
Looks as if it's about even stevens so far on the question of the colour.
Now what about the mileage vis-a-vis the age?
--
L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
Hi all,
I'm the driver of a fairly new company car (~3 months old, 6600 miles), a 1.5l turbo-diesel Renault Scenic 2004.
This is an ongoing saga and I would appreciate any advice anyone can give!
Back on the 24th September, I was travelling to Reading when the car started losing power, hesitating and "chugging" at a certain throttle position, accompanied by clouds of smoke from the rear of the car.
The car was towed back to a Renault garage, where they diagnosed a turbo fault and two weeks (!) later a new turbo was shipped in and fitted.
I took the car home, and brought it back the next day- exactly the same fault.
The garage kept it for another two weeks, constantly telling us that because there was no fault code showing, they couldn't find the problem. Eventually I got fed up, and took the car out for an ~80 miles journey, as it only seems to do it after being on the road for about two hours minimum.
The problem re-occured, and I managed to get an "engineer" to come out with me to experience the fault. This he did, and they kept the vehicle in, and made a "Technical Report" to "Renault Technical" (sigh). *Two weeks* later, we get a call to say that the car's ready, and they've replaced the throttle potentiometer and one other item, the name of which escapes me.
Picked it up Friday just gone, took it home for the weekend, no problems. Excellent, I thought, they've finally fixed it.
Fast-forward to today, where the car does exactly the same thing again, in Hertfordshire. I was able to nurse the car home to the South (I travel a lot, mobile engineer for a computer company, so this car is our lifeblood), and, furious, demanded that someone came out from the garage with me to experience the fault again. Apparently they're all at lunch, so I logged with them that it's happening *again*, and the mileage of the vehicle.
I won't bore you with the details of what's happening with the lease company, but suffice to say that Renault UK, IMHO are being a bunch of useless idiots.
I'll summarise the problem below:
(After two hours minimum continuous driving, the speed doesn't matter)
Pushing the accelerator ever-so-slightly beyond "cruising" level results in a hesitancy in the car. Pushing the pedal a little further causes the hesitancy to worsen, and a loss of power is experienced (not a great deal, but definitely noticeable).
Gently and slowly pushing the pedal to the floor results in a large loss of power- if you're on the flat, it's okay, but anything more than that and you find yourself slowing down. At this point, clouds of what look like grey/black, sometimes blue-ish smoke appear in the rear-view mirror. It's difficult to tell what colour it is, to be honest.
Jamming your foot down hard the last inch or so causes the car to "wake up" and off it goes; turbo spools up and the power returns.
However, once the problem has occurred, it's almost impossible to get the car to stop doing it, short of pulling over for half an hour to allow it to cool down.
Can anyone offer any help? I'm at my wits' end here, and right now I'm contemplating taking a fire axe to it, and the garages "engineers"!
Many thanks,
Phil Read more
It is the 50% extra torque that is the key, the 1.9 produces 300nm against the 1.5's 200nm.
can anyone suggest,why when i turn my lights on, i have no lights on dash board, making driving hard work at night, as i cannot tell what speed i am travelling.
Is it as simple as changing a fuse or bulb? if so do you know where they are located.
also when i indicate left,my indicator starts normally,and then suddenly increases it's rhythm. can you help Read more
Another possible common factor may be the dimmer control, if one is fitted to this model.
number_cruncher
I have a Fiesta 1.25 1997 with leaky power steering rack and leaky power steering pump.
Rather than throw a shedload of money at it I would consider dropping in a manual rack and ditching the pump.
Other than sorting the wiring to the ECU switch and fitting an aux belt from standard non assisted car, is there anything else that would need to be done. (No jokes about spinach please!!!)
I thinking perhaps if different length track rods etc? Read more
Maybe you would need to tell the insurers too, could be loads of hassle.
Look on Ebay for a Ford TIS and EPC software if you like, the manuals and parts catalogues will tell you what parts ore different.
Hmmm. 160K miles with FSH. Is this likely to be worth looking at, or running away from? Read more
> I'm going to phone up the man who drove this car... the
> person selling it does not seem to be the same person.
Well, I called, & got his wife, who said Mr. Taxi would call me back at 8 p.m. He did. He had been about to retire, but as his wife *had* retired, and our fine Gvt. wasn't paying enough pension, he'd traded in his car for something else, an offer he couldn't refuse under the circumstances, he said. The place he traded the car in to gave him 2K. When I said it was up for £3.2K there was an audible hiss (as of someone "done" out of money!). No skin off his nose if he told me about the car... it was a reliable machine, no cutting about inside, holes for plate had been drilled on the back (now presumable blocked as not obvious in pictures). It had been in one crash where he rear-ended someone, had been driveable and taken to be fixed. Had gone through two Taxi tests since then fine.
The vendor has e-mailed me with a load of pics. of documents, taxi test certs., log book, etc.
I'm going to e-mail him back with my info "from the council" and see what he says.
Recently, my best mate, who has a 2001 registered Mondeo LX, parked it in a local village in the evening, close to busy public houses.
When he returned about two hours later (he drinks Coke by the way) the remote failed to unlock the car. To his surprise, he discovered the door handle was missing and that the car was, in fact, unlocked.
Still bemused, he tried the remote and the car locked as normal, including the deadlocks. At this point, he decided to open the driver's door via the front passenger side and discovered the Ford 6000 radio/CD unit had been carefully removed, along with items from the glovebox and the boot. The door handle was found a short distance away.
After reporting the matter to the police (barely interested), inquiries next day revealed that there is currently a spate of thefts of this particular Ford ICE unit from both Mondeo and Focus models. In fact, it turned out that a nationally based windscreen replacement company has run out of side windows for the Focus in my area.
Now he is waiting with some interest to find out from whoever repairs the door handle just how anyone could get into the vehicle with so little damage and without setting off the alarm.
Anyone else come across this type of theft from a Focus or Mondeo? It seems that police in another area about seven miles away have been warning residents about such thefts.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What\'s for you won\'t pass you by Read more
Aghhh,,,,
Almost exactly the same thing happened to me earlier this week......
Step-son has a FIAT Panda 4x4 Sisley (H Plate) and had a tyre shredded at the weekend. Spare fitted but that appears to have a slow puncture. When I took a look at the state of the tyres this morning it looks like it needs new all around.
Problem is I'm not sure what size should be on there. Front and rear tyres are different size (oops). Tried FIAT dealerships and customer support and they don't know what size tyre this car should have!
Anyone out there know what size tyre this should take on 13inch rims? Tried ATS Euromaster web-site and it suggests 145/80 R13 but that's different to the current front and rear sets!
Any help appreciated.
Rob Read more
My wife had one of these new in 1986 (not the Sisley which is identical to the usual 4x4 bar the trim, bullbars and roof rack) and they are a great little machine which is probably why so many are still buzzing around the Pyrenees and Alps. Ours was rear-ended by an Allegro which was stove in back to the radiator while the Panda had hardly any evidence it had been struck. The 145/80 x 13 is correct but those Pirelli Winter 160 tyres were never very good in snow although they were great for grip in slippery fields. The Q rating sounds a little underspecified but I don't recall the rating. I'd suggest looking at www.mytyres.co.uk for suitable M S replacements (Continental winter tyres are relatively hard wearing and effective throughout the year) but also check one of the tyre info sites for another tyre with similar dimension characteristics in a more readily available size if there are problems. If the intention is to use the car on-road most of the time, then don't worry about getting an M S tread which is slightly noiser than a normal tread anyway. Definitely agree that all tyres shold be the same size, particularly since the Panda has no centre differential.
--
Harmattan: Lots of wind, but cool.
Browse
"The 19k that I have to spend takes into account that the comapny buys the cars at a good price so I do get more for my money than I would from a dealer."
Nope you dont. You pay tax on the published full list price including extras (everything) regardless of how much your company paid for it.
so for example if your car had a list price of £22k and your firm paid £18,999 the Inland revenue will add *25% of 22k to your final salary each year and tax you on that. That in turn could put you over the 40% tax threshold.
(* if that is the co2 rate of that car)
Also, your company is buying. Indicates its not a big fleet user or they would be using a leasing company. That in turn means you could probably negotiate a deal just as good if not better.
It very very very rarely works out financially better to take a company car over the money (you did include the mileage money you can claim back from IR in your costs case?)
The one thing that Co car driving brings you is piece of mind. You dont have to worry about paying for servicing, road tax, insurance. If it breaks you leave it where it is and phone Hertz. Thas why I do it.