June 2005
This is a strange one, diesel 2.0 307, when turning right get a knock from underneath, this rarely happens when it is dry but in heavy rain (and indeed after going through the car wash!) i get a knocking sound on nearly every right turn.I have heard about problems with anti-roll bars on 307's, could this be it? Motor has been into dealers but they couldnt find anything wrong. It has been suggested that the exhaust could be knocking something underneath but this doesnt really explain why it only happens in the wet?!? Only happens at lowish speeds and in 2nd or 3rd gear, no problems on long right hand bends etc just right hand turns.
Any ideas?
Cheers
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Drink Lager, Talk Piffle !
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Walking behind a bendy-bus parked on a slight slope t'other day, I noticed that it was leaking diesel, and a fair amount of it too, which was heading off down the hill.
Strolled up to the front of the bus, where the driver was enjoying a cigarette, and mentioned it to him. Driver goes to back of bus, looks at the diesel on the ground, sticks his cigarette in his mouth and gets down on his stomach to wriggle under the bus for a look-see.
I know diesel isn't technically supposed to burn from a naked flame, but I did get out of the blast range pretty quickly! Read more
Right, where I'm at now is that the front rises and falls spot on, whereas the rear falls ok but will only rise once I start to jack it up on the tow bar so I'm guessing something is getting stuck at the rear? Anyone got any ideas at all?
When The Going Gets Tough,
The Tough Get Going! Read more
The Xantia that has haunted me these past few days has finally been sorted and she works a treat. As if that wasn't enough joy for one day I took her for the M.O.T. and she passed first time!!!!
I wanna say a ..B..I..G.. THANK-YOU to you all for your help and time. I must've driven you mad, posting like a lunatic! Hope I can one day return the help in some way......much appreciated.......
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When The Going Gets Tough,
The Tough Get Going!
Does any one know of a cheap parts source for Nissan and Toyota in the Chelmsford area? Read more
I am thinking about buying a "54" Vaulhall Meriva 1.7 CDTi Diesel. Any thoughts ladies and gentlemen?
DangerMouse Read more
I have a 1.6 16v petrol Design.
I rented one of these a couple of weeks ago in Germany. The rental agent proudly said "100PS," so I thought it would be ok. Oh dear.
Slight niggles:
1) Forward visibility (as commented upon by What Car? magazine) is
woeful around the A pillars.
You really are not kidding. It was decidedly dangerous in this department, especially on unfamiliar roads, and especially on roundabouts.
Whilst the 1.6 16v is not hugely quick, it has a
reasonable amount of low rev torque.
No, it really doesn't. I didn't feel much happened below about 4000 revs and I found that annoying. Plus it was very noisy at speed; bear in mind I'm used to a diesel Peugeot Partner Combi, which isn't the quietest. The diesel should be much, much better, probably in all respects.
Making progress is not
a problem. I'm getting 35-36mpg for a mixture of short
/ medium / long trips at fairly relaxed pace.
This came as a shock too. I'd expected much better for a modern car this size, but I reckon your figure is about right.
Overall I thought the car was ok if you could live with the blind spot at the front end, but the engine was it's biggest weakness. It really felt gutless, needed plenty of revs to get moving, and the "buzzy" noise at speed was awful. I'd have thought the diesel would be far better suited to a vehicle like this and should give similar performance.
It is very practical though, easy enough to drive (apart from that blind spot), and comfortable on long journeys (apart from the noise).
Can anyine tell me the gross vehile weight of a latest generation 2.0 Passat petrol in mid spec as I don't seem able to find it on the VW website? Read more
What weight were you looking for as the kerbweight is a different weight from the GVW? GVW is the maximum permissable weight of that vehicle, the kerbweight is the weight of the vehicle with fluids but without passangers!!!!
I've had a slow puncture for a few weeks, but it got so bad on Wednesday that I needed to sort it out pronto. Went to two different national trye fast fit centres, both of whom said they had no time to look despite being empty of cars or customers.
A few days earlier I had gone to National to have an oil change, but they would not do my Subaru as a) they would not use the Subaru branded oil filter and sump plug seal I had bought and b) oil filters were in a very strange place on Subarus and the job took too long as they needed to dismantle a suspension member.
So, eventually, I ended up at a little independent off Oldham Roadm in Newton Heath in Manchester. They looked at my car in five minutes, found two nails!, and ordered the identical tyre for the next day (it was by now 5:20pm). I went back the next morning to find the new tyre already on the rim I had left with them and balanced and they readily changed the oil using my filter. I asked how easy it was to change the filter. Come and have a look they said. So I did. Easy peasy is the answer. In the under body tray is a flap that says 'oil change here'. Undo the plastic screws in the flap and there is the sump plug and filter readily accessible.
So thumbs down the multiples and a big thumbs up for the independent. Oil change did cost more than the £20 National wanted, but a proper job was done (I saw all the oil drain out of the engine) and the new synthetic oil was poured in via a funnel; so no spills.
I shall use them again and will happiy recommend them to people who are in the Manchester area. Just ask me for the name if the mods will allow?
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive? Read more
JH - I agree and will recommend them for the good garage guide.
Espada - Its Cleworth Motors, Unit 7 Phoenix Industrial Estate, Cheetham Street, Failsworth.
Its just past the Salvation Army Church which is on the right hand side of Oldham Road heading from Manchester. You pass the Police station which is on the left and its the next right.
With my car not being remotely new I use them for everything, or go through them to get jobs done which they don't do e.g. body work & MOT's etc. They are still very reasonably priced compared to others I have heard of in the area
A week ago I had a text message from BMW offering a free day?s driving tuition at Prescott Hill, for Wednesday 3 rd June, using one?s own car.
As I live less than half an hour from Prescott it seemed too good an offer to miss.
Unfortunately Wednesday turned out to be a wet day on the hill but none the less was a very enjoyable day.
There about 12 of us on the course with a variety of cars mainly BMW, my 320d was probably the lowest powered of them all!! Following an introduction and talk about safety and the correct racing line through the corners we were allowed to give it a full blast ourselves. Whilst we were doing our runs, about eight each as we were a smallish class, they were videoing our lines through some tricky corners.
The video was shown after the lunch break. This was the source of both mirth and embarrassment !!
In the afternoon we had 6 or 8 more runs each. Also in the afternoon we all had ride with the instructor Russ Ward in a bog standard Cavalier?.. truly unbelievable. Superb car control and to keep a car on the limit of adhesion through out shows the standard of class winners for events at hill climbs.
Again the runs were all videoed but this time everyone in the class was getting closer to a correct line.
All I would say is if anyone offers you a days tuition at any of the hill climbs in the country it is well worth rearranging the work schedule for a day !!
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My late father & I used to spectate at Hillclimbs all over the country. Brilliant if you're into motor racing. Purpose built single seaters with either F1 or F2 engines, all very friendly and chatty. Cars ranged from shopping tin tops right up to full blown stuff. Russ Ward is one of the top drivers as are people like Roy Lane who is past retirement age and still B quick.
James Thompson in Touring Cars is the son of James Thompson Senior who hill climbed through the 70/80s.
If you get the chance go an see it.
Jim
A quick scan down the first page of Technical matters revealed:
Ford Focus Aircon
'02 Mondeo aircon / climate
2004 Ford Galaxy Air Conditioning
Clio 2001 Aircon problem
Vectra Climate Control
Seat Toledo AirCon Problems
Oh for a long hot summer.
Chris M Read more
dosent matter for me.
Just got a 320ci convertible in silver, mmmm nice.
but can you not just turn it to cold or has that broke too?
if its on, and blowing cold (like the wife sometimes)
thats ok?
or just pull the fuse to the heater, make sure it dosent supply juice to anything else first, like brake lights.
they are useful ! :-)
Hello all
Sorry to burst straight in with some quesies.
I have a 95 reg 405 td estate. The problem is upon starting it smokes like hell until the engine is warmed up.
I have tried leaving the glow plugs on a bit longer this did not help at all. The engine also runs very lumpy.
There is a valve on the side of the intercooler that is blowing air out and the haynes manual shows two pipes on it. However on mine there is only one the bottom one. It clearly looks as though a pipe has come off however i cannot find one or the place this pipe connects to after the intercooler valve.
Any help would be very much appreciated. Picies even better "monkey see monkey do".
Thankyou Brenus Read more
Hi,
Really need more information such as mileage, colour of smoke and oil consumption. Seems unlikely to be the pump timing unless this has been disturbed. Could be that injectors need cleaning and setting up or valve clearances are too tight.
Valves tend to sink sometimes after 100k on these engines.
The pipe from the intercooler connects to a diaphragm on the injector pump that increases fuel delivery with boost pressure - would cause poor performance but not smoking i should think. Others may know better.
Browse
I would like to put myself forward for the award from an incident in my youth.
I had a Suzuki ZR50SL 2-stroke Moped (custom styling that even then looked a bit ropy but when your 16 and mobile for the first time anything feels cool).
A regular thing to keep it as quick as possible (i.e: trying to get it to reach 31mph rather than just 30.......) was de-coking the cylinder head and cleaning the exhaust out. I had read that taking the exhaust of and rinsing it through with a mixture of petrol and parafin did the job. Not having any parafin I put put a pint or so of petrol into the exhaust when taken off the bike and duly rinsed it through by turning the exhaust one way and the another.
I think I read that to get rid of the fuel you had to set fire to it which I did. So I am holding the exhaust which is effectivly one long tube with a tight bend at one end coming back on itself where it joins the engine and I am holding the long bit upright with a small fire being at the curled up end near my feet.
After what seemed like 10 minutes and being frustrated I thought that maybe the best way to speed things up would be blowing down the big pipe to increase the flow of petrol into the flames.
Can anyone see what's coming?
Sure enough the petrol is blown up into the flames and a big fireball leaps from the bottom of the pipe straight to my face and head setting my hair on fire.
I run round like a headless chicken with my mate in complete fits of hysterics and the stupidest thing he has ever seen in his life. Luckily I excaped without serious injury but I had to cut most of my hair off as it had melted into big clumps on my head.
Apart from taking the radiator cap off an overheating engine and getting plastered in boiling antifreeze a few years later (major acid and heat burns meaning big hospital visit and multiple scars to face and body - all gone now after 17 years thank god), I have been pretty much accident free.........
Ho hum, you live and learn!