Hi all,

Opinions please, just turned 25 and looking around for my next car and narrowed it down to these two. Audi is the sensible car, plenty of miles and all very economicial around town too, BMW is the car that ive always wanted especially the Sports version, but i know even with the huge tank it isnt going to be as economical as the Audi locally. Which one would you choose, go with the heart (BMW) or head (Audi)?

Thanks Read more

I've subscribed to auctionview and have found I have the option of 'tracking' certain cars that go up for sale. What does this option actually do?

I was hoping it could then tell me the price that the car sold for after the auction is over but can't seem to find this information? Is there any other way of finding this out except for hoping HJ's auction reports cover the car I want?

Cheers
Richard Read more

A post on the technical matters forum got me wondering ...

Is a semi-synthetic oil at the top end of the quality spectrum (assuming there is such a thing), better* than a fully synthetic oil at the lower end, or is fully-synth oil ALWAYS going to be better than semi-synth?

I suppose in other words, is there an overlap in the quality spectrums of the two or not?

* I'm not sure quite how you'd define "better"(?) - but leave that up to you. Read more

Hi,

A friend of mine has just bought a '99 V Citroen Xsara 1.4i Forte with (I think) 68,000 miles on it. He collected the car on Saturday (with a 1 year warranty) from deleted. This is his first car. I received the following email this morning.

"On cold, the engine starts and no problem. Around 60 miles onward, the problem starts. The engine start giving problem like when we driven uphill road on motorway, the car speed reduced from 70 to 50 on full power. I keep hold to full power, but no improvement. As soon as downhill road reach, the car picked-up the speed, but its not looking good and I realized that the car not doing well.

Around 80 miles I have to take exit to reach my destination. Then the real problem myself, Mohan and my wife felt. The car start shaking even the car stopped fully, handbrake on with neutral gear. I find the better place to stop the car and open the brunet. I saw the engine shake and vibrate too much. We continue with this problem and spend few hours with my friend house.

When we return to home, the engine was cold and again without any problem we driven around 60 miles. After the same problem comes and the car start shaking even the car stopped fully, handbrake on with neutral gear. Some time the shake goes off if I raised little power when the car stopped fully. But I can feel the difference about change the gear and pick-up. Its totally nightmare."

Sounds pretty major. Does he have to try and get it fixed under the warranty, or is he within his rights to take it back to the dealer and ask for his money back? The car clearly isn't 'fit for purpose' in it's current condition.

What advice should I give?

{where he bought it from is irrelevant to your question. DD} Read more

After going through deep water some 2' deep during last weeks heavy showers the engine on my 'Y' reg mondeo Tddi became very lumpy and started emitting loads of blue smoke out of the exhaust. This smoothed out after a couple of minutes.
I managed to nurse the car home on what I suspect was 'Limp home mode' as there was no power or any turbo boost.
After drying out the air filter I started the car the next morning to find it very lumpy with more blue smoke. This smoothed out after a minute or so and a test drive revealed that I had full power and tubo boost back again.
The car runs fine now but it is still lumpy on a cold start with loads of blue smoke.
There is no evidence of a cracked head or dodgy gasket in the water or oil.
Could it be that I have maybe bent a con rod or just wiped out a glow plug. Any ideas would be welcome. Read more