December 2004
A little something that happened today.....
A colleague explained to me as we were leaving the office that her Saxo (1.1 petrol) had been overheating with steam everywhere. I offered to have a quick look.
Turns out there was little or no coolant in the system - though I couldn't immediately identify where it had all leaked out from. Drove it round the corner to a petrol station and filled up with water - it all flows out again from a smallish hose on the front of the engine (the spring clip wasn't holding the hose onto the stub properly). The car had recently had a new engine after total failure of the original block (I don't know what happened to it), so I'm guessing that this clip wasn't properly attached when they reconnected the cooling system. She said that they mentioned something about being unable to attach some clip or other properly.
At this point I'd like to big up Mark Tempest Autocentre (Ind. VW Audi specialist) of Welwyn Garden City. Maybe I have a honest face, but when I nipped round the corner to them to beg a 5 minute loan of a pair of pliers to reattach the spring clip, they gave me not pliers but the correct tool for operating these clips, and reacted to my enquiry as though I was their best mate! And I thought trust in strangers didn't exist anymore.
Anyway it's all sorted now. Interesting experience to say the least - does anyone know whether the 1.1 Saxo should be using blue/green coolant or red coolant? Read more
Look at that, all in black, AND a '64½ Mustang on the trailer.
www.fordvehicles.com/suvs/excursion
6.8 litres of V-10 gas, or 6.0 of V-8 diesel.
All those Secret Service guys in dark suits, raybans, thin ties, white shirts and jar-head haircuts leaping out menacingly to protect Harrison Ford....
I just got behind the wheel of one today (account to follow). Oh boy is that an SUV or what.
Just a pity Santa couldn't get it down the chimney.
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Hi,
I'm posting this on behalf of a friend who has a weired problem with his 1992 Mk 3 Golf GTI.
It is suffering some undiagnosed electrical fault. It's happened twice and he has taken it garage can find the fault. The symptoms are as follows:
Hot engine (normal long run) under deceleration the car stops as if there is a fuel stoppage, in actual fact the fuel pump fuse has blown. When the fuse is replaced the car will start and run OK below 2000rpm. Above 2000rpm the fuse blows again!
On both occasions it has gone to two different garages who disconnected the ECU and took it to VW to test out. No fault was found with it and when it was replaced the fault goes away... until the next time......
I've got a mk3 golf also and looking at my Haynes manual it seems the fuse for the fuel pump shares the same circuit as the lamda heater.
Any ideas? This is a weired problem!!!!
Thanks
Rob
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Thanks for your replies. I'll pass the info on!
cheers
Rob
Hi there. Posting this question for a mate. He got an intermittant starting fault with his R-reg GTi 8v. Any common faults?
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Does anyone know where I can get a good contract deal on a 4X4 double cab such as Isuzu, Toyota, Nissan or Mitsubishi. We have business and we are VAT registered.
Thanks Read more
this is a standard profile that most advertised contract hire rates use.
3 payments down as deposit followed by 35 monthly payments based on 10k per annum with no maintenance.
One from the risks digest:
BMW series 5 disables Dynamic Stability Control and ABS
>
Mon, 8 Nov 2004 23:59:42 +0100 (W. Europe Standard Time)
After two accidents involving police cars of Berlin, Germany, at first the
drivers were blamed and appointed to a security training. But taking into
consideration the driver's nearly identical reports, which claimed that the
cars on-board drive dynamic control systems had failed, BMW took on and
inspected the case. The result was: Yes, after an emergency brake exceeding
a certain preset pressure on the pedal, all stability systems are disabled
and can only be re-enabled by switching off the ignition for five seconds...
Originating report (German only):
www.daserste.de/plusminus/beitrag.asp?iid=254
Follow-Ups (German ditto):
www.autobild.de/aktuell/neuheiten/artikel.php?arti...8
www.autoservicepraxis.de/sixcms4/sixcms/detail.php...=
Stefan Lesser, Muenchen, Burda Digital Systems GmbH, Am Kestendamm 2,
77652 Offenburg, Germany +49 89 9250-3433 www.burdadigital.de
teabelly Read more
Doubt it's intentional. Might just be a sensor signal so high it's treated as faulty and so turns the lot off.
The braking techniques we oldies were taught to avoid skids we'll now need to relearn to avoid terrifying the traction computer. Plus ca change, or whatever the German equivalent is.
Can anyone tell me what an ASR button in place of a traction control, on the Mark IV means??? Read more
ASR = Antriebsschlupfregelung, it's the German name for traction control. I'll get my coat.
Having now disposed of Mrs ND's late Laguna to a chap a little over 6' tall (is he in for some backache) I got to thinking about car seating. The Laguna was a classic example of bloomin' awful seating, whilst my 156 has a superb seat that allows me to arrive refreshed after 800 miles of motoring (and no, that's nothing to do with it being on the back of a breakdown truck).
I recently took a Saab 9-3 for a test drive and was extremely impressed with the seating. Ditto the Touareg. On the other hand the seats in a Merc ML were awful.
Nominations please, for the best and worst seats out there. Read more
Best ~ Ford Focus Ghia
Worst ~ Ford Ka. I don't know which variant because the three samples that I drove were all courtesy cars and in each instance I was more interested in getting to my destination as soon as ever possible (and getting out of the car) than I was of taking note of which variant they were!
I know that a lot of you will disagree with me on both counts, so I can only assume that one's shape and size are highly relevant factors.
--
L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
True excuses from the last year
www.safespeedforlife.com/readnews.asp?id=25
1 I had passed out after seeing flashing lights, which I believed to be UFOs in the distance. The flash of the camera brought me round from my trance.
2 I was in the airport?s flight path and I believe the camera was triggered by a jet overhead, not my car
3 I had a severe bout of diarrhoea and had to speed to a public toilet
4 There was a strong wind behind my car which pushed me over the limit
5 My friend had just chopped his fingers off and I was rushing the fingers to hospital
6 The vibrations from the surfboard I had on the roof rack set off the camera
7 I had to rush my dying hamster to the vets
8 A violent sneeze caused a chain reaction where my foot pushed down harder on the accelerator
9 There was a suspected case of foot and mouth and I had to rush to see the cow concerned
10 The only way I could demonstrate my faulty clutch was to accelerate madly.
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in the spirit of Hospital A&E: and has a car link.
Waiting at A&E for a friend to have something removed from his eye, my attention was drawn to a car skidding to a halt outside. Man leaps out of car and runs into A&E holding up his arm, wherefrom blood was pumping out at a prodigeous rate. He rushes up to the desk and stops, a growing pool of claret round his feet, face visibly going white.
The receptionist looks him up and down, idly pulls the computer keyboard nearer to her, presses a key and says "Name?"
When we left I looked at the car and indeed the inside was a mess. I pointed this out to the Parking attendant, but he still carried on writing the ticket.................
The air conditioning on my Accord (2001) has gone wrong recently.
I took it to the garage (twice) and they diagnosed a faulty pipe connecting to the condenser.
I brought it in to get fixed the second time, only to find they had ordered up the wrong part. I didn't have any more time to waste, so I've taken it to a specialist, who also diagnosed the same fault.
Apparently (so I've been told) Honda have acknowledged this as a manufacturing fault and have put an extended warranty on it - mine is just out of warranty.
I will get the specialist will fix it, because the garage were dithering. Can I send the bill to Honda and ask them to re-imburse? Read more
Can I send the bill to Honda and ask them to re-imburse?
You could do, but I would ask Honda first before commiting yourself.
Browse
Not too keen on the yank SUVs (I'm on a very extended business trip to Northern California at the moment). But the Infiniti, Acura and Lexus SUVs that are available here but which you don't (yet) see in Europe are really awesome. The roads here are generally so badly surfaced that you want something comfortable and with ground clearance. Plus, in California, you spend one weekend fishing in the bay area, next weekend skiing in Tahoe so a bit of versatility and boot space for all the beer is called for.