April 2005
The handbrake on my wife's Clio has become ineffective to the point that it's dangerous. I've taken a drum off and there is 5 mm left on the shoes and the wheel cylinder looks ok. This makes me think the handbrake needs adjustment or new cable? How do I go about adjusting the handbrake? Any advice appreciated. Thanks Jon Read more
Can anyone give us the pros and cons in relation to using the usual handsfree car set up compared to a bluetooth headset please and what your prefernce is? Read more
I'm going to invest in the Parrot 'rhythm n blue' headunit replacement, with built in bluetooth. seems a good way of getting bluetooth functionality!
Following on from the back page article in Saturday's DT Motoring and other comments on another thread...
The reason why many people, especially women, drive these large 4x4s is that they are doing the school run, so 'need' to transport loads of children at one time, they like to sit high to see over the other traffic and these cars have presence. They are usually driven badly, have lots of scrapes and bangs on them and make other people really irate.
Can I compare this to MPVs. These are mainly driven by women who have to drive lots of children to school, they are higher than the average car, and therefore have prescence. They are usually driven badly etc etc etc...
There is also limited difference in economy unless the MPVs are derv drinkers. So why is there a much greater backlash against the 4x4? One way around the problem is for Merc, BMW, & Volvo to produce prestige MPVs which are far more acceptable to the masses and Livingstone, unless of course Livingstone is simply a jealous ********* who won't let nayone else have what he can't have for himself.
BTW there is no excuse for anyone to parallel park in what I would call the Tunisian method - Once saw an excellent example on the the main street in Sousse many years ago and the parker, moved both cars either side of him at least 1.5 feet to make room!
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive? Read more
www.maximog.com/images/sublevel/veh_side.jpg
YYESSSSSS!!!
Cheers, SS
WOW!! Have you seen the specifications on that thing!
The climate control on my 04 Audi Avant seems to behave very strangley compared to other cars I have had with CC.
On cold mornings with the CC set at 20 degrees and AUTO, for quite a few miles, the system just gets hotter and hotter, almost unbearably so, and then settles down to 20 degrees.
I have had loads of cars with climate control, but none have acted like this. The Audi dealer says there is nothing wrong with the system but I was wondering if any other Audi drivers have experienced this. It is the one annoyance on an otherwise great car. Read more
It could be that the little rubber tube behind the grille
on the aircon unit has come off or is blocked.
This draws air in from the cabin and through a temperature
sensor - if the pipe comes off, the sensor sees air
from behind the dash as well, so overheats the cabin to
compensate. Just an idea...
El Dingo.
Yes, this would be my suspicion. Common thing to happen. Sometimes the little suction fan stops working.
>>We have murdered our car industry because of it
Stuff and nonsense.
Our car industry committed suicide because it felt that it knew what cars the punters would buy even in the face of being shown different.
It doesn't actually matter if Rovers are ugly, lose money, badly equipped, rusty, unreliable or beautiful, an investment, higly spec'd, stainless steel and totally reliable.
It matters only whether or not sufficient people want to buy them., And guess what...............?
Just as BSA knew that nobody would want electric starters, Triumph knew nobody wanted a horizontally split crankcase, Norton knew nobody wanted unit contstruction, BL knew nobody wanted electric windows and central locking, Rover knew we wanted to buy their car in the face of the competition. Except we didn't want to, and we didn't. Or at least, not suffficiently. Read more
According to a new report by the "the Cambridge-MIT Institute", Rover collapsed because of "a persistent inability to develop products that hit the right markets at the right prices" -- see www.cambridge-mit.org/cgi-bin/default.pl?SID=6&SSI...6
Go on, try to look surprised ...
Probably discussed before, and I was aware of £61 admin fee on that Car Giant among others. Somewhat taken aback however, when the salesman at AutoPlanet casually mentioned the £200 "admin fee" . Is this normal for Car Supermarkets, or is it an extra they'll waive under pressure to give the impression of giving a better deal? Read more
It does sound like a way to have a low window price but then load the price of everything else in the deal to make their money. I very much doubt that they will waive it.
An observation -
Turtlewax 'Black in a Flash' 500ml spray.
Asda £1.97
Halfords £4.45
Discuss .... Read more
Jumping on the bandwagon I know but in my last car, I decided to put a cd player in (the one that got nicked).
I was looking around and saw a really really nice one in Halfords for £249.99. Even I draw the line for gadgetry in cars there so I looked elsewhere.
Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across a very good website I'd used before for electrical goods selling the exact same cd player for only £140.
You can guess where I bought it from.
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Adam
My dads Cooper S is just over a year old and when he rang the local dealer that he bought it from they said it didn't need it's 1st service until the car had done 10,000 miles. Bearing in mind that it has only done 4 - 5k in just over a year that will make the car over 2 years old before it has a service.
Is this standard practice or should he book the car in for a service against their recommendations for the usual checks (oil etc)?
Cheers!
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If at first you do succeed, try not to look astonished Read more
By way of comparison, recent model 911s are subject to service every 12k miles or 2 years, whichever is earlier.
However, there is an "annual check" that should be done at 1 year old regardless of mileage, if it has not been serviced yet. This consists of the visual inspection from the 12k mile service together with a fluids check (but not change).
I think the idea is that low-mileage cars at least get a check after the first year to see if anything has shaken loose or become blocked. I'd be nervous leaving it for 2 years, I have to say.
HI
Can anyone advise if the warranty on an import starts from the day of manufacture or the day registered in the UK...or other criteria
Thanks
alan Read more
If the car is not registered anywhere before it is registered in the UK then I believe that the warranty starts from the UK registration date. It certainly did for my imported Fiesta.
If in doubt just ask, but I would go armed with your log book, especially bearing in mind that the oldest "new" Mondeo I have seen was nearly 2 years old when it was handed over on a shiny 05 plate. It was gate released in 2003! :-)In a case like that you would really have to fight it if they tried anything on, although I sincerely doubt they would.
Needless to say that after so long in the open air, the paintwork on this particular car was damaged and needed a lot of rectification to bring it up to standard. However, the customer got the car at a huge discount as naturally huge customer savings had mounted up on a car with a 2 year old gate release!
Blue
Have noticed recently how many people purchase cars which are longer than their drive. A lot of the houses around my way are terraced victorian with small frontages. Quite a number of these owners park the car on the drive with the back end taking up most of the pavement. I'd rather they took their window bay out and stuck the snout of the car into their living room! Read more
I always believed that it depended on where the wheels are positioned. If they were all on private land, then you are legally parked. I know this was the situation with parking meter bays when they first appeared. An overhanging vehicle cannot be then be illegally parked, but it might still be causing an obstruction. This should have been the offence that the ticket was issued for, not illegal parking.
Browse
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Make sure the rear shoes are adjusted before H/B/cable..I would also advise giving the brake drums/shoes a rub with medium grade emery cloth.As they may be glazed where the shoes rub on inside of drum.
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Steve