June 2005
As you may or may not know the British car show as of next year is to be held at the Excel centre in East Londons docklands instead of the NEC which lost it's contract from the SMMT.
Apparently the Excel centre has about half the capacity of the NEC in terms of square feet for stands and half as much again in terms of car parking spaces.
Over last few years big manufactuers such as BMW Mercedes etc have ditched these type of shows for simply being too costly. With million pound budgets to put on a 9 day show they simply felt that the money would be better spent elsewhere.
I fear for the Britsh national motor show. I'm sure it's days are numbered.
Are these huge motor shows becoming a thing of the past?
Read more
Ive a new vectra type c 2.0dti and have the occasional erratic starting and smoke from the exhaust. The injector seals have been changed on warranty but it still does it sometimes, mainly when parked on a slope.
Can anybody offer me advice to the cause?
Read more
Quite possibly your leak off pipes, common problem and cheap to fix.
I have a 52 reg Vauxhall vectra c which has Bridgestone Turanza tyres. All the tyres have excessive wear on the inner wall, vauxhall says there was a fault on the tyres but dont want anything to do with them, and say ring Bridgestone. This is on quite a few vectras in the 02 52 range.
Can anybody offer any advice
Read more
The cars done 23.000mls but ive seen lots of vectra c's
with abnormal wear on the back tyres on 02 52 reg
and 03.
My friends son's Signum also experiences tyre wear on the inner edges on the rears. I *think* that maybe some of it is down to the suspension geometry, in that to improve the handling the vertical camber is bias outwards at the bottom of the track; the downside being inner tyre wear though.
As I previously stated though, I would find somewhere that does 4 wheel laser allignment.
Just arrived this evening, purchased on behalf of my elder daughter, a 1994 Citroen AX Spree 950cc, sunroof, one lady owner, no tax, new exhaust, good tyres, exterior straight but with a couple of dents, chips and scrapes, back bumper cracked, interior like new apart from the vanity mirror falling off the sun visor and the heater fan switch broken, 2 months MoT, Citroen service history to 60K miles, recorded 68K miles, handbrake adjusters believed siezed and car pulls to the left on panic braking, head gasket believed sound, trace of mayo in the rocker box, £450.
I'll knock the brakes into shape, service it with a change of fluids, put a high-level brake light in it and run it for a week or two before handing it over to daughter who lives 100 miles away in Nottingham. I'm hopeful that it'll turn out to be a good first car, what do you lot think?
Hawkeye
-----------------------------
Stranger in a strange land Read more
Sounds good - BUT............... was it blue??
Metallic blue with patterned blue upholstery. Even bluer now that we have given it a coat of Auto-Glym as a reward for passing the MoT :-)
Hawkeye
-----------------------------
Stranger in a strange land
I had a quick look at a friends Mondeo because the front washers were not working. The pump motor appears to be running in that the sound it makes is consistent with a normal pump sound, the nozzles are not blocked, the pipe from the nozzles back to the resevoir is clear and connected (and pump) because I have blown low pressure air back into water resevoir to check. There are no puddles beneath car when it is operated. I have flushed the reservoir copiously with a hose.
Any other suggestions please? (PS it is still within 3rd year (dealer?) warranty and currently abroad for an extended period so that option is not available at the moment. If I had to bet on on it I would say the impellor is no longer fixed to the pump motor shaft. Is that a possible known problem?
What I did not check is if the rear washer works, could that tell me something? Do they use separate pumps (interchangeable?)
But access to the pump and reservoir appears to be just about impossible inside the front os wheel arch!
--
pmh (was peter)
Read more
One pump does both front and rear washers. Either the pump is faulty , or the plastic tea strainer in the bottom of the bottle is all blocked up. Access to the bottle is needed to clean it out. Not too difficult. Usual access from front corner , below bumper. Some cars have a plastic stone guard fitted. Sorry , missed that , 14 year old thread
OK - been mostly looking for a Volvo V70, 2 children, 1 dog, typical family. Anyway - been going to auctions and well, Volvo V70, fits the bill nicely. But a mate of mine, mechanic just mentioned to me ref a relative can get the Rover 75 dirt cheap as also in the trade and they got to dispose of them from all the old franchises that have all gone belly up -basically, flog them for what they can get.
Anyway - got to admit, do like the Rover 75 Estate styling, and then I saw at Blackbusche auction today, MG Rover sale next Tuesday, closed sale mind, all online - so was thinking, I either spend my money on a V70 or get rover 75 estate - if I can Bargain as much as I can. Will or course try nad get as top spec as I can. Bear in mind, dont want to pay more than £5-6K.
The pros I see, should be cheap, relativly newish, depending on model - will try for SE Connesiour, and perfect for my needs.
Cons, resale value - uknown even though that Chinese company look like producing them in the coming months, Parts - are they going to be freely available in 2 years time and the dreaded one again - resale value, which maybe zilst - used to that i suppose as current car a Daewoo Nubira Estae - not worth anything.
Any opinions apprecitaed and if anyone has actually bought a Rover since the collapse, have you been able to haggle and by how much.
Scott
Read more
V70. It won't be as new but it removes the question mark about parts / service / further derpreciation.
Also the load area is huge on the V70 and very very compact on the 75, almost as small as the boot on many hatchbacks.
A Mondeo estate boot is as big, if not bigger than the Volvo so if you want something as new as possible with lots of load-carrying capabilities as well as ongoing parts and service provision, consider the Ford. A Ghia X is equivalent to the Conn.SE Rover spec and actually has more goodies AND is a better drive.
You will also get a relatively new one on your budget with the lions share of the depreciation already done by previous owners.
Would love to know what you go for in the end.
Ok all
I really really want an automatic however as I do 20k miles pa the maths tells me I have to get a diesel. Now I know lots of people on here say you need to be doing > 30k pa to make diesel a better choice than petrol but from my spreadsheet I just can't see how this adds up. 42mpg vs 32mpg for a typical midsized disel auto vs petrol auto adds up to a LOT of money over 20k miles, and I can't see too may costs going the other way (servicing maybe £100 tops and bank interest on having to take out a bigger loan perhaps £200 tops).
So I've looked long at hard at the different mid-sized diesel autos and have found the following:
Volvo V60 D5 SE - Nice car, mpg sapping gearbox
BMW 320d auto - Very nice interior, drives well, 40mpg bit low for the size of the car
BMW 525d auto - Bit 'old man' in the styling. Pricey.
Audi A4 1.9tdi auto - Too new to fit into my £12k budget
Audi A6 1.9tdi auto - Seriously considering but what is the gearbox? Regular tiptronic auto (=mpg killer) or multitronic (=very efficient)?
Ford, Renault, Citroen, Peugeot. Worried about putting £12k into any of these due to depreciation.
VW 1.9tdi auto. Not very efficient gearbox.
Merc 220cdi auto. Nice gearbox but drove one and think the interior is rubbish for the money.
So what do you think? The frontrunner for now is probably the Audi A6 but I need to know if the gearbox is the naff VAG autobox or the Audi Multitronic?
Also am strongly looking at the BMW 320d auto but all my driving is motorway so I feel I'd be buying a needlessly well-handling car - rear wheel drive is irrelevant to me (I used to have a 330d manual and it was wasted on me)
Cheers Rich
Read more
Volvo V60 D5 SE - Nice car, mpg sapping gearbox
I've got an S60 D5 automatic and get around 40 - 45 mpg and that's mixed driving. For a 2.4 ltr 5 cyclinder engine with good performance 42 - 45 mpg seems excellent.
All ready for a laugh?
My dear son went and gently ran the handlebar of his bike along 10" of door - right next to the handle where I can't ignore it. Having 'dropped his bike so many times the rubber grip was gone and a sharp end did the rest. Its a deep scratch but not to the metal and there is no dent.
Local paint shop want £170 to belnd it in over 2 doors and local chip remover wants £120 to beld it in over 1/2 a door. SWMBO is off to a well known vendor of motoring stuff and plans to return with their triple pack citroen metalic silver touch up kit. I figure £10 to have a go myself is not a bad plan because if I bodge it local paint shop will still want £170 etc. and the paint will be handy for stone chips.
Some internet articles stress the importance of thinning the touch up paint.
Words of wisdom please........Including but not limited to recommendations on a good thinner.
Read more
Your car will last for ever Graeme and nobody will pinch it either - seems like a good idea.
I am VERY wary of arosols. I have tried them before and never done a good job. If the builders opposite stop filling the air with dust I will have a go with a pin to put tiny drops of paint into the scratch, build it up and sand it back. Wish me luck - the weather is pretty good and I have a good audiobook to listen to.
Although french car manufacturers seem much maligned in general, I have noticed that your average 10 year old french motor has very little or no rust compared to the equivalent age Ford/Vauxhall offering...opinions?
P.S. I exclude Renault from this as they tend to rot IMHO... Read more
Storm Autos also come highly recommended by several members of the Peugeot Sport Official Owners Club - for both general maintenance and also modifications.
Quick dullard question!
I get an average of 18mpg out of the Jag using 95 octane petrol from Shell usually. Will running it on Super give me better mpg? I'm after the most cost-effective solution, so is it worth the extra 6ish pence a litre (bearing in mind it swallows about 75 litres a time...)
I'm aware of the issues about supermarket vs brand petrol, but I'm after what works out cheapest via any route.
Ta!
O
--
Jaguar XJS V12 - comes with free personalised oil tanker. Read more
>But the first four letters of...
Ahh, I'll have to tell my SO to call the XJ an old-furts car then.
Peter,
You can try Optimax but I doubt that you'll see any difference unless you adjust the timing. I think that the XJS didn't get electronic timing until '89 when they went to the Marelli unit.
Kevin...
PS. 18mpg sounds pretty good for the V12, my 3.2 XJ8 averages around 22mpg on the daily commute.
Browse
Yes, but Britain no longer has major "national" manufacturers; merely hosting plants for the big global companies. Geneva is the obvious international/"safe" choice and Frankfurt has many large national players who are going to be showing off to the "local" market.