Evening all,

We have a 3 year old Grundig widescreen telly (just out of warranty oddly enough) that has refused to work. Switching it on produces nothing. No noise, no lights, nothing - essentially as if it's not plugged in.

We changed the fuse to no effect and the fuse that was in it does work in something else.

a) Any ideas as to what the problem could be,
b) if so, how do we fix them or is it as I susect,
c) They're pretty much sealed and so a new one is on the cards.

If it's of any relevance, recently, whenever any text has been appearing on the screen whether it be the Sky bit at the botton, credits of a film or anything like that, it's been getting wavy which has been getting progressively worse - only when text is on screen. Now I have a Grundig tv purchased at the same time which has a wavy screen when text appears.

Just to discout it, it isn't the aerial. The downstairs one just as a Sky feed - no aerial and mine uses a set top aerial which produces perfect quality for the most part.

Any help would, as always be much appreciated.
--
Adam Read more

Insurance companies like to ask where you keep the car overnight. In my case, some nights its on the drive and others its parked outside the house (very much depends on if the wife needs her car before me in the morning) - we live in a cul-d-sac so no through traffic problems. From a quote point of view, its the same premium if I specify either location. My concern is that if I specify on the drive and its damaged/stolen when its parked in the street then the company may not pay up and equally if its pinched off the drive and I've told the insurance company I keep it on the street, they won't pay up either! Anybody got any thoughts on this ? Read more

Rover 600, 6 years old. I was driving it at the weekend on a motorway with the aircon off & fan off, when I used the screen wash, a few seconds afterwards, a horrible smell of stagnant water came into the car.
I put this down to the screen wash bottle.
What is recommended for removing the smell, I've thought about adding some Milton sterilising fluid or some steradent denture cleaning tablets to the water bottle, leaving it to soak for a while & spraying the screen wash until empty to flush it out. (I wondered about adding a dilute solution of bleach but am worried that this may damage the paintwork or window seals) Then hosing the car thoroughly to wash anything nasty off the car.
Does anybody have any experience of this and suitable fluids to use? Read more

I have just been under my recently purchased 1998 Saab 9-3 2.0l attempting to remove the sump plug to drain the oil for a 5000 mile change. Unfortunately some idiot in the garage which serviced it last has either enormously overtighted the plug (it is steel going into an alloy sump) with a large breaker bar or they have stuck it in with some kind of threadlock type compound having maybe wrecked the thread. Even more unfortunately the garage I bought it from is nearly 500 miles from where I live (remote scotland). Last time I buy a car without examining it myself.
Even worse the plug was already damaged before I had a go at it

Whoever serviced it at deleted might want to practice tightening bolts before they cause too many of their customers this infuriating problem. Also, the plug is a 1/2" imperial size rather than 13mm which is probably how a previous numpty rounded the corners on the plug.

Any ideas on how to remove it apart from brute force, heat, tight hexagonal impact sockets, a quality pair of large molegrip type pliers (an excellent & very aggressive Teng Tools pair), release oil and a lot of swearing (all of which have failed) before resorting to stud extractors?

(yes I do have a replacement plug - must be the world's most expensive short bolt from a Saab main dealer - £8.85 inc. a new copper washer)

{Garage details removed. No naming/shaming - thankyou. DD - Moderator} Read more

Hi All,

I drove a Golf GTI on Friday that claimed to have traction controll on the dealership's website - it is from 2002 which is when that model had traction introduced acording to HJ - however it was registered in Jan so was probably built before this became a standard feature. I was pulling away from lights fast on the test drive and the wheels spun a little - does this mean that it doesn't have traction controll after all? I didn't think about it at the time but am getting worried as this is a big step up in power from my Fiesta and Traction was something I really want to have.

The site is still advertising it with this feature (and a sunroof that it doesn't have) so if it hasn't got traction, where does this leave me regarding the deposit of £250 that I paid?

Read more