July 2005
Hi,
I have just (last friday) bought a 306 D Turbo P reg, very nice car too. I drove it for 100 miles back from where i picked it up and I enjoyed every mile.
I went straight to my friends to show it off, the engine being quite hot now, however, when my friend and I got in the car to take it for a spin, (on friday) it had to turn over about 15 times before it started. This was of great concern.
I then left it for the weekend until sunday, and trying to start from cold, its not having any of it. I have turned this car 30 times at a time, and its not firing. Its a sitting duck, with plenty of diesel in it.
Completely gutted and feel helpless, can anyone tell me why:
1) it didnt start when it was warm
2) it now doesnt start at all
I have heard possible reasons could be glow plugs, fuel pumps etc. If anyone can shed any light on this, I will love you forever more. Kind regards, Damien Read more
We have a couple of intermittent problems with a Renault Megane (1996) 1.9 RXE,Turbo diesel. Starting can sometimes (not always) be associated with a feeling of "choking" followed by a large volume of exhaust smoke (whitish/blue). Also when sitting idling the engine appears to struggle followed by an increase in speed (w/o touching the accelerator). Is this an age thing (86000miles with orignal injectors etc)? Or is it more sinster - perhaps collateral damage frm blown cylinder head gasket ?
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hello,
I've just taken delivery of a 1969 Alfa Romeo 1750 Berlina.
To my amazement it's (factory/dealer) fitted with an LPG duel fuel system.
I know absolutely nothing about duel fuel and it would appear that my googling skills are not what they once were. :(
I'm after someone in the bedfordshire area that can service/check it out for me.
Does anybody have any recomendations?
TIA
JaB Read more
Finding the LPG system was a complete surprise to me. It was fitted as a dealer option when the car was new 36 years ago.
The Berlina has a HUGE boot and the tank fits very nicely along the back of the boot between the rear wheel arches.So all in all it's still a good practical car, complete with full size spare.
Until I've had the system checked/service I'll not be putting any gas in it. Popular opinion suggest this system deliver 80% of the petrol potential/power but at an esitamted 30p/Litre I'll live with that.
Unfortunately I found the guy recommended by Greenfuel.org (not their fault!)as my "local" garage offensive in the extreme so I'll have to wait until I can find someone else locally to have a look at it.
Thansk for the heads up re: the forum. I'll pop in and have a look/chat
:)JaB
A couple of weeks ago a conrod failed in my engine. Car was a peugeot 306 D Turbo P reg (built registered April 1997). It have the DHY code in the engine code.
The car had cover 71K, FDSH until 54K, regulary serviced since I owned it, just had new timing belt.
It happened on the motorway in morning traffic, the result was the car behind was minorly damaged by parts that came out of my engine. the third party has claimed against me.
Churchill have agreed that there was nothing I could do to prevent the incident from occuring and the failure wasn't through a lack of mainteance. My insurance company have informed me that if I can prove/have Peugeot admit it was a mechanical failure the blame would be deflected to them and I would be able to keep my 2 years NCB,(at 65% and insurance due for renewal shortly this means alot) although there will be a claim against me.
The lady at the churchill spoke of another incident where a handbrake cable had snapped on a newish car damageing someone elses, the dealership was contacted by the driver and they admitted there was a fault on this particular car wrt to handbrakes.
I am not getting my hopes up but I am looking for published and reported information that may help me to prove my arguement(newpaper articles, tv programmes etc). Frined have advised me to get in touch with Top gear and watchdog and similar, but i'm not sure how much they can help or how to go about it. I doubt writing to dealerships will help as I am sure they will deny any knowledge of such a thing happening.
Any help would be great
Martine
(sorry for rambling) Read more
Trying just the '.co.uk' address works though:-
www.peachorlemon.co.uk/
A colleague of mine has asked me to take a look at her 97 Micra 1.0 as someone had told her it was burning oil due to a layer of black dust over the tailgate. Car is approaching 90k miles but passed an MOT about 5 or 6 weeks ago, and the car is serviced anually.
I've had a look at it and I don't think its burning any significant amount of oil - the level hasn't dropped and revving the engine doesn't produce blue smoke, its a light grey colour. The exhaust is quite sooty and if you let the exhaust gas run over some paper whilst revving the engine it leaves a fine mist of soot all over it. Plugs are also a bit sooty but I've seen worse.
I've checked everything I can see on the air intake side and it seems fine - air filter is clean and all the air ducts are tight. This seems to point to the fuelling side which is of course all electronically controlled. I'm thinking it could be the Lambda sensor - is there any easy way I can test it?
I've had a look around and apparently the throttle bodies are a chronic failure point on these and cost about £200 for a recon replacement, but the symptoms seem to be misfiring and uneven idling - this car seems to run reasonably smoothly and the fuel consumption is still >40mpg.
Any thoughts on any other checks I could make or anything I might have overlooked? Read more
Coolant temp sensor could be the problem (there is a wiring loom mod too - ring the Nissan dealer for parts information).
Throttle bodies can be had for not much more than £100 now. You can fix for free if you're handy with a soldering iron.
I'm thinking of buying a Mini Cooper S convertible, but don't know whether to have Dynamic Stability Control (Automatic Stability Control is standard) and limited slip differential. I am going to enjoy the sharp handling, but will not be pushing the car to it's absolute limit. What are these features and do I need them?
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I have a MINI Cooper S (hardtop) with the Chilli pack and standard ASC+T traction control.
The traction control is absolutely dreadful: cuts all power at the slightest hint of any loss of traction. So, if you try to pull away quickly on a damp road, instead of going forwards, the car justs comes to a halt. I had a BMW compact with DSC as a loan car and the system didn't seem much better. The ESP fitted to my VW Touran is vastly superior: subtle, progressive and uses electronic differential lock up to divert power to the appropriate front wheel.
However, the difference is that the Touran needs ESP whereas the MINI doesn't really need anything:the chassis and roadholding are so good that the traction control justs gets in the way. The first thing I do when I get in the MINI is turn off the ASC+T. I think . If you lose a little traction, just ease off the accelerator and feel the car sort itself out in no time. The best place to really get the feel for this is on the race track (where they permanently disable the traction control for obvious reasons).
So, whilst I felt upset at first that I didn't upgrade the traction control system, I now think that even DSC would have been a waste of money.
Looking for a replacement for our old Volvo 440 auto. Seen a 01Y Megane 1.6 16v auto and an 0202 Astra 1.6 8v auto both at around £5500 with around 20k. The Megane is a nice car (Dynamique spec) but I've read bad things here and in Parkers about the auto box. Anybody got any experience of this car?
The Vauxhall is newer but with a slower engine but perhaps a more reliable box, however SWMBO isn't keen on Vauxhalls.
Anybody got any other suggestions? Car must be small/medium sized, five doors and with a conventional auto (no CVTs, tiptronics or other such things)
Thanks Read more
>>>The Vauxhall is newer but with a slower engine but perhaps a more reliable box, however SWMBO isn't keen on Vauxhalls.
Is it a conventional auto gearbox or is it the easytronic gearbox?
If its an easytronic, you have to ask yourself how long it will last as i think HJ does on the car-by-breakdown, unless you do low milege or course?
--
Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-)
Hello Mods,
I started a thread earlier today questioning HJ over comments he made in Saturday's DT, subject; Audi styling. I noticed that it appeared twice initially though has now isappeared altogether?
Regards. Read more
1) Nothing to do with me. I'll ask the others later.
2) as I have said, a LOT of times, please do this stuff in e-mail.
Just bought a Focus CMAX 2.0 TDCi Zetec, 8k, one year old from Ford Direct via a Ford dealer.
I've had it for about a week and the fuel consumption is about 30mpg on average for 50% town/50% motorway. Is this right? The specs for this car on the Ford website state 50.4mpg, should I expect my car to do this? Could there be something wrong with the engine? There are no performance problems or signs that there is a fault.
Also, I'm not sure if this is connected with the above but just after I bought it the sales man drove with me to the petrol station to put 1/4 tank of diesel in. Just as I pulled into the garage a big cloud of white smoke came from the back of the car. I queried this with the salesman and he said that it was normal and down to the self-cleaning catalytic converter. Has anyone else come across this? Is it likely to be the cat? I've heard that this type of diesel doesn't have a cat but I'm not sure if this is true or not.
Thanks for any info anyone can give me!
Ben Read more
I have nearly 6000 miles with my C Maz 2.0 TDci and I am delighted with it. My fuel consumption has improved significantly of late and responds well to motorway driving. As for the white smoke be alarmed as our previous Galaxy Tdi went up in white smoke when the secondary heater gave up under the car on the passenger side. I have heard this working on the C Max too so ther must be one there too. Ford quoted £480 to fix it but I followed advice on the Galaxy owners website and just removed the fuse, removing power to it. We kept the cat another two years with no ill effects until traded in for a very under rated Mazda MPV TD (why oh why did they stop making them?). hope this helps!
Can any of you guys who know about insurance help with this one please?
My mother in law is confined to a wheelchair. My wife and her two sisters are considering purchasing a wheelchair friendly vehicle between them.
The vehicle would be kept at MiL's house and driven by whichever of the girls happens to be visiting to take their mother out.
If we buy the car in the name of one of the sisters and add the others as named drivers, will an insurance company object to it being kept at a different address?
One of the girls has suggested that the car is registered and insured in MiL's name, I have said that I doubt that we could do that as MiL is 78 and no longer has a driving licence, am I getting that right?
I would welcome any suggestions as MiL is keen on the idea and we are going to look at suitable vehicles this weekend. Read more
Thanks for the replies. We are looking for an already converted vehicle where we can load wheelchair with MiL still in it. Probably end up being a converted Kangoo / Berlingo or similar as these seem to be the most popular on the second hand market.
I will let you know how we get on
Browse
Hi thanks for the batteries part no etc, very helpful. Well I had the car fixed and just drove it 30 miles trouble free. Started from cold first time, started when hot first time, excellent.
However, the 'Stop' warning light and the red dot at the right of the temp gauge came on after just 5 mins of driving and stayed on. Also, had to wait for 20 mins with the engine ticking over waiting to get out of a car parking space and smoke was coming out of the engine through the bonnet. ARGH.
Do you think this could be oil thats spilled on the engine whilst being repaired, or linked to the STOP light etc? Seems to me like fix one problem, creates another.
Off to ASDA to look for some batteries. Cheers all. Damien