July 2005
There's a strange whistling noise coming from the rear of my Xsara. It's a cross between a whistle and the sound that two unlubricated surfaces make. You can hear it in the cabin at any speeds above about 50mph. It's not the engine (still comes if you put your foot on the clutch) and it happens in 4th and 5th gear.
Both the rear brake drums are the same temperature after a long journey, so don't think anything is binding there. It does change slightly if there's a strong gust of wind, but that might be because the balance of the car is thrown off slightly.
Any suggestions, or should I just turn the radio up? ;-)
Many thanks!
David. Read more
A friend of mine has an 04-reg Vauxhall Corsa 1.2 Sxi (unmodified), as he lives outside Chester, he occasionally drives through the mountains the over the Welsh border.
One day he was driving through this lane in the mountains, when he got stuck in a ditch (as you do round mountanous hills!) He revved the hell out of it to get unstuck!!! As he got out of the ditch, there was a clunck from underneath the floor pan, the engine sounded a slighty different tone & the Corsa performed quicker then before!!!!!!!!!
Does any backroomers have any ideas what this can be & why?
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-) Read more
Hey guys do you think this topic would be more suitable in the technical section? {Done - obviously. DD}
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-)
My 1990 Honda Prelude has an immobiliser which I think was fitted by Honda as an optional extra. You push a chip which is on your key ring into a socket on the dash. The chip has three diagonal contacts and these touch their corresponding contacts on the dash. The problem is that the contacts are wearing down and what will happen is that I will have to press harder and harder to make contact. Has anyone had any experience of these? I believe the immob. is wired into the ignition,alternator and fuel pump. How difficult is it to overide the immob? It looks as if you can renew the immob. socket if only they made the spares still. I saw a similar arrangement on a VW Golf. Cheers.Any help appreciated. Mike Read more
Help needed please guys , Im on the look for a new (used) car . Must be diesel , for the money I have Im looking at either a 2004 mondeo tdci 130 , or a mercedes C class diesel new shape . The merc will have a lot more miles than the mondeo , but will the merc be more reliable as Ive heard the Ford diesels can be troublesome . Another choice is an Audi A4 new shape 51 plate again pretty high miles .Help please . Read more
I am on my second c class diesel and can say that apart from one bill they have been very reasonable to run. Mercedes have taken a bit of flak recently from the likes of Mr Clarkson but many taxi firms in europe use merc diesels. These cars do starship mileages and taxi firms are pretty good judges of quality, some of the drivers of these cars in Madiera etc give them the foot to the floor treatment day in day out....get the Merc ...it will do the job for you.
Evening all,
After the rather sharp learning curve of the Fiesta, I'm super super careful when it comes to tyres and potholes/kerbs etc. So it's with more than a little annoyance that I think my tracking needs sorting.
A few weeks ago, I noticed that around the 85-90 mark, the wheel began shaking - not too badly but certainly noticable. It now does it at 70. The thing is, it only got sorted a year ago so I'm thinking if something else is up. Whilst I don't touch potholes or kerbs in it, I do ask a lot of the wheels. I'm quite enthusiastic on the bends but surely this doesn't have anything to do with it?
Also, when I got the car, I had a similar problem. I took it to a fairly large outfit who charged 30 quid to balance all four wheels and it never solved it. A few months later I took it to a more backstreet type place (who we go to now all the time for tyres seeing as they're very good) who diagnosed an odd tyre and all was well.
Do you have any thoughts on this? Should I go to this backstreet place who've seen me right - even though I know full well they won't have any laser gadgetry or do I go somewhere else to get it done "properly".
Any input would, as always be much appreciated.
Cheers,
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Adam Read more
Might be worth paying a tenner to have the tyres swapped, front to back and/or side to side to see if the problem moves. Not always discernable though.
Many years ago I clouted a kerb hard while on full lock in an Escort (I blamed the ice!). That caused a wobble at 70ish which turned out to be a bent something in the wheel or suspension gubbins - can't quite remember what - but it wasn't cheap, partly due to the time taken to identify it!
Went on holiday 2 weeks ago, all smiles as i'd managed to negotiate a company car on my last day before going away. I'd spent all that day looking over the list, and had decided on a vw golf 2.0 td gti.
Came back today, and i have to take an unallocated car first, until it's lease runs out. trouble is, it's a turquoise vauxhall corsa 1.7 diesel on a 54 plate.
is there anything i can do to solve this problem, without turning to drink? Read more
>>I calculate this stuff for a living
But seemingly not very well.
I don't calculate it for a living, but I do calculate it to protect mine.
It doesn't matter what was paid for the car, the tax is based on list price.
There is always an alternative to a car, which is usually cash.
A car you have bought yourself can be sold, the residual balancing what you have paid in insurance, tax and maintenance/repairs. [bit of a gamble there].
If you include fuel for private motoring you will find that the break even point is an awful lot higher than you think - I seem to recall it was at least 15,000 private miles, although obviously it depends on the fuel consumption of your car.
Depending on your fuel consumption expensed business travel can do well for you.
I've fairly recently sold my manual 525i and bought an automatic Mitsubishi Galant. Only when I'd had it a week or so did I notice that it had a kickdown button. Now I've driven quite a few automatics and I've never noticed this on any others. Maybe I'm really unobservant, I dunno.
Basically, this button sits under the accelerator pedal and when pressed it shifts the car down a gear (as long as you're not going to break the rev limit by doing so). Basically, it means that if you're overtaking or you want a boost of power and the gearbox doesn't kickdown when you want it to, you can force the issue by pressing the accelerator a bit harder (you're aware you're doing it) which hits this button and gives you a lower gear.
Do all automatics do this? Have I been missing out on all the others I've driven? It's one of the handiest things I've ever seen in a car. Read more
HJ wrote above that the kickdown is aggressive.
Personally I have always found the ckickdown to be somewhat sluggish,
and prefer using manual selection of a lower gear as
the result is more prompt. I was inspired to do
this by a thread about 15 months ago.
This may be a reflection of driving late 1980s or 1970s
technology - my autobox experience being limited to W123 Mercs and
an Audi 100.
In some cars kickdown can be very agressive - I suppose the main factor is going to be how much power you have at your disposal.
My (ex)Omega 3.0 was certainly quite agressive if "full" kickdown was used, especially if in the box was in sport mode.
Incidentally, if CC was in use and you used the "resume" function after slowing (considerably), it would use kickdown to accelerate very agressively back to the set speed.
My (ex) 3.5l 5 series, though not as agressive as the Omega, was pretty quick on kickdown too.
This is follow up to my post that evaporated over the weekend.
On 20th June, I ordered a Grand Scenic via a large service provider who my firm have outsourced such things to as part of the demise of the company car arrangements. Although they advised the car was on order, they were very slow in advising me of an estimated delivery date.
Your helpful responses suggested that waiting time should be no more than 6 - 8 weeks maximum but should be wary of the Renault factory shut down in August. To back this up, last week I called a local dealer who advised that orders were currently taking around 8 weeks.
I've been chasing regularly and during my call today I was advised that the dealer has advised that delivery is estimated for early October which is 15 weeks!!! I have strong suspicions that the order has only just been made and I have asked the provider to query this date with the dealer on the basis of what my local dealer has advised. They have promised to get back to me ..........
Ultimately, the deal offered is very good (being a no fee, no deposit, maintenance included lease type deal which runs out much cheaper than my previous company car) so I suppose, apart from moaning, I can't do much about it. I'm going to do plenty of moaning!
Will advise you how this progresses. In the meantime the family car is a 99T Micra!
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Thanks Xileno. Renault allowed us to test a car for 5 days and we went for the 1.6 Expression. It's a bit gutless but don't think the expected mileage justified the 1.9 dci. We had one of the old 1.6 scenics (1998-03) and covered 70k trouble free miles with it. That having been said this one is a big improvement.
On test (mainly M11 on a 120 mile run) I recorded 44 mpg overall which was pleased with. Suspect 30mpg around town will be a good result.
Hi,
Appoligies if this has come up before but I can't seem to get the search engine to come back with anything.
I'm having problem with the accerlation on my Mondeo and even after replacing the complete exhaust (including the Cat), Distributor, Plugs & Leads did not fix the problem (thanks a lot). Just been to another garage today and they said no fault on the ECU but it "might" be the Throttle Sensor. Any advice before I fork out more money.
Thanks in advance. Read more
Thnaks for that Andrew. Yes after speaking to a few people I've come to the conclusion that the best mechanics are really people who know how things works (like yourself) rather than people who can plug in equipments and takes readings. I've booked the car to a local chap who has a long waiting list (due in on 5th August) but hopefully he will be able to sort out the problem, fingers crossed.
Megane will shortly needs some new boots on the front. Current Continentals have been fine but I was wondering if there's another make which might make the ride a bit softer.
Or am I stuck with the ride unless I change the wheels? You couldn't say the ride was bad but there's an underlying firmness that's a bit surprising for a Renault. It's the sports alloys I think, previous Renaults have had normals alloys or steel rims. Read more
I've lowered each tyre by 2 psi, seems to make a difference.
Thanks
Browse
I've taken a wild stab in the dark that yours is the turbo diesel David. If so, £43.50. Can't stray too far from that turbo or not.
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Adam