June 2005
and a really daft question occurs to me:
How obvious are the speed limit signs in various European countries? Taking my own as an example, the motorways do not have a 70 sign on them. If the same is true in France, Belgium, Germany, etc. how am I supposed to know what speed I am allowed to do? Read more
{This follows on from Volume 1, which can be found here:}
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=32780
DD
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To add to F1's woes in America, Bernie made a spectacular gaffe live on US TV during the weekend.
When asked what he thought of Danica Patrick, who had this year achieved national acclaim by becoming the first female to lead the Indy 500 before finishing fourth, he replied,
"Women should be dressed in white, like all domestic appliances"
His ready wit has has gone down like a lead balloon in the land of the free. Read more
Michelin flew those tyres in and ran tests on them, only
to find they too were unsuitable.
Oh. Now wondering if the pair of Michys on my car will be OK for the trip to the supermarket on Monday.
More than once I've checked out the rough value of a car up for auction at BCA on Autotrader only to find the self same car up for sale at a dealer. The registrations tally exactly. However, they are entered in the auction under one of the larger vehicle leasing company sales.
How can this be? Is this a speculative punt by the dealer who may obtain the car at auction or do some dealers have an arrangement with the leasing operations? If the latter, it slightly clouds the provenance of such cars. After all, there are dealer direct sales already. Have I misunderstood how the lease co's operate? Read more
Morning all, how do you and how easy is it to remove the plastic wheel arch insert ? I need to get at a dent just above the bumper and just behind the indicator.I do not want to use too much filler. Read more
Cheers dave. That's this weekends task then.
Where there's talk, applying more charges and taxes on top of we already pay for using our road network.
They should look at applying charges to those who hog empty lanes on Motorways and Dual carriageways, not moving over when space is available to allow others to pass. Whether they are travelling below or above the speed limits.
This is where tempers rise and rage where you get idiots, staying in lanes causing convoys, afraid of losing their place or don't like travelling behind someone else.
These are the ones who should pay extra. Read more
rtaylor, One of the major aids to staying safe on the road is observation. The title of this thread is "Lazy motorway lane hoggers". If you had observed this then you would not have posted about driving on the right on an empty road approaching a blind left hand bend and easily pulling back in if,as implied, something is coming.
For a period of about 13 years, up until recently, I used to cover 50000+ miles per year, all weathers, all conditions, all types of road. In that time, to be honest, I never normally found the left hand lane to be in the conditions described by several posts on here. Tyre debris, usually from hgv's doesn't tend to stay in the left hand lane only.
The position chosen by any driver, on any type of road, should be the one which maximises both their own, and other "local" road users safety.
If you chose, for your own, and others, safety, that the middle lane is safer, under the prevailing conditions, then that is your choice. If an incident happens then you have to give your reasons for your choice.
Just changed car to a 1.6 litre Fiat Multiwagon. Can't decide whether to run on premium or super unleaded. Old car, 2.4 litre Mitsubishi, ran well on Optimax. Is new engine too small to justify extra cost? Read more
Well the point, which has been done to death, is that all crude in to the refinery is within a set specification so is for all intents and purposes identical. All petrol that comes out is within a set specification and so for all intents and purposes identical and as the tanker driver says it comes out of the same tank.
The ONLY difference is these 'detergents' IF you run a high performance car or you do only short start stop journeys maybe you need these 'detergents' and maybe you don't but even if you do a quick shot of an additive like Redex now and again will do the same job much cheaper.
Nearly all my experience was upstream but I had some exposure to downstream with Mobil (and a very nice pay off thank you Exxon). The bottom line is that the oil companies have been trying to brand petrol for decades and have always failed.
306 pug interior clock works but dim light any advice thanks dave Read more
>..released from the dash to replace the 2 bulbs..<
Not sure this will be possible - may depend on age. Haynes says the bulbs can't be replaced (tho I find this unlikely). My 99T car had a dim clock (left) bulb while the temp (right) one was OK. Dim one came back to life a few months ago and is still OK, probably until the winter.
Hi,
I've just noticed that off-side outer CV gaiter has got sort of groove in it, presumably rubber has started splitting. It doesn't leak, but I wonder how long it could go for before it does split and lets all the grease out and dust in ?
I ask, cause although I will probably replace it now, a friend of mine who's got the same car had had similar condition on a CV gaiter for a year before he replaced it. It never actually split.
I'm going to phone around for quotes, but could anyone give me an idea of how much it should cost ?
Thanks
Kostic Read more
Never heard of a CV boot with a lifetime guarantee. Who makes them, Davey. Looked on the web unsuccessfully. Is it one of those which you stretch over the CV?
Let me start by saying I don't want tis to be apolice bashing thread, would like some constructive feedback, especially from any boys in blue on here.
Brother discovered his S Reg Vectra had a blowing exhaust today. Phoned his pal in the garage and booked it in for 2pm. On driving into the Ind Estate that the garage is in, traffic police pull him over. He tells them if its the exhaust, I am just taking it into the garage which was 200 yds away.
Police check exhaust and serve him with a prohibition order telling him that he cannot drive the car in that condition even though he assures them it is already booked in and to phone them if they don't believe him.
They then check the car out fuller, lifting the bonnet and say that it has a faulty bonnet catch and serve another prohibition notice. Each of these take a while to write up.
They then give him another notice, allowing him to drive the car to the garage under police escort which they do. Police advise him that if it is repaired by 3pm, to phone the policeman (gave him his number) and they will still be in the area and they will come back and check it out. If not ready for 3, he has to get it MOTd and provide this as proof of its roadworthyness.
Garage couldn't get it ready for 3 so he had to pay for an MOT as well, which it failed on , something to do with a rear spring, so he now needs to wait for this to come in tomorrow and then get his car MOTd again before its allowed on the road!
Is this procedure been correct? Read more
So in summary your brother was driving a seriously unroadworthy vehicle
with a bust spring.
You'd have to go some to convince me that it was "seriously unroadworthy". An MOT failure, yes.
There is some pressure from within the road transport industry to introduce 60 tonne MPW, 25.25 metre long double-articulated lorries in the UK
See:
www.tnn.co.uk/IndustryNews/plonearticle.2005-06-08...9
Such vehicles are used in Scandinavia and are being trialled in the Netherlands. Doubles are commonplace in North America and elsewhere.
I would think such vehicles would be a good idea but should be strictly limited to the motorway and trunk dual-carriageway network. A network of depots adjacent to these routes would be necessary, so that these doubles could be split for travel on other roads.
When a large goods vehicle is travelling at 56 mph, a considerable proportion of its energy consumption goes in pushing it through the air. These longer vehicles would have the same frontal shape so the second trailer would travel virtually free, aerodynamically speaking.
I don't think anyone is suggesting these doubles should be allowed on normal single-carriageway roads. Overtaking them would be hazardous because of the extra length, for one thing.
Predictably, Transport 2000 is running a scare story about monster lorries clogging our city streets and country lanes without examining the facts.
Cheers, Sofa Spud Read more
see previous thread
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=30701
Browse
If you make it to Spain beware of very rapid changes of speed limits at entrances to industrial estates and housing complexes, road junctions, etc. For example, on a normal two-lane road with 90kph limit, in very quick succession you'll get an 80kph, then 60kph sign only 50m apart. The radar cars will be on the verge, and remember its payment on demand for non-residents.
Also drink-driving limits are lower than UK.