August 2005
Dear all, after discovering the hard way the space limitations inside my Vectra hatchback I have decided I need to get an estate car. I will have about £2k to spend (I know!) and I rather like the look of the Volvo V40 - I've seen a fair few 97 and 98 models around at that price mark. Most of them have between 90k and 150k on the clock but I'm not too worried about that as I know most of these should be good for 200k of looked after.
My question is does anybody have any advice regarding what to look for on this car, particularly one around this age and price. If I get one with a FVSH, I'm guessing I should not run into too many expensive problems.
What is the cost of servicing/parts like? How about MPG and what are the best engines to look for?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Finally, anybody want to but a hatchback Vectra (very well looked after, you know I am a member of the backroom after all!!) Read more
My car has a good factory fitted sound system (Dolby ProLogic surround) but the MW reception is appalling. The only thing I want to listen to on MW is the Ashes commentary (I assume it's only on MW?), but the inteference is so bad I can't hear a damn thing.
Any ideas?
(CD and FM are working fine).
{Moved from the current IHAQ thread as motoring related. DD} Read more
1. Radio only on (ignition off), LW and MW reception fine.
2. Radio on and ignition on (still engine off), LW and
MW terrible reception
3. Radio and engine on same result as '2'.
So it works with ignition off. (FM is fine in all
conditions).
This happened a lot on older cars. One way to help with the problem was to connect a wire between the inner wing and bonnet where the hinge bolts to it. This gave the bonnet a better earth and help screen out the interferance from the engine a lot better.
It might also pay you to connect an additional earth wire to the stereo in the car as well.
I recently bought the above high mileage (153K) C5. It has the fairly common, so it would seem, crank pulley ticking noise.
Had a look yesterday and found the auxillary belt bottom pulley seems to be comming apart internally. From previous posts on here I thought the usual problem was with the Timing belt bottom pulley ?
Anyway, tried to undo the 22mm pulley bolt with breaker bar & hexagonal socket without success. Was wondering if this is a left hand thread ?. Also cannot see how the auxilliary belt is tensioned. If anyone can advise on these two issues it would be much apreciated. Am off now to Eurocarparts to collect a replacement & will check back on here later. Thanks. Read more
Thanks Richard. You're right, it was verrry tight. Once I knew it was a normal thread it was just a case of brute force. I managed to wedge a screwdriver into the slot on the pulley against a block of wood on the drive. Then with about 2 feet of 1/2 inch extension I was able to get a lot more force standing at the side of the car with a T bar and 18 ins of lever at both ends. Even so it was still a strugle. As you say, an air gun would have shifted it in seconds. What I meant about the aux pulley/timming belt pulley was that the timing pulley is behind the aux pulley. The timing pulley looked to be steel so no chance of that breaking. I couldnt see why the aux pulley breaking up should affect the timing belt as others have reported. Unless the break up was so catastrophic it tore into the timing covers and caught the belt. Still I don't want to go there. New pulley fitted & now all quiet again. Thanks for your help.
Philip.
I have got the e-mail that is going around, the idea being that if motorists boycott the two biggest oil companies then they will have no choice but to lower their prices, in the mean time there are no disruptive protests etc, we are all, supposed to buy from other suppliers.
Now this e-mail says that it should be BP & Esso that are boycotted (who its says are now one company which I was not aware of) but why BP & Esso, is there a conspiracy going on here?
Also the guys that run my local BP garage seem like nice people, they run a great local service by way of a Spar convenience store, I would not want to see their livelyhood jepordised by such action.
Futhermore there is a fatal flaw in the whole argument, if I ran a BP or Esso station and sales dried up for a few days, yet alone months, I would be on the phone to Shell, Texaco, etc to see who could offer me a favourable contract. The result being damage to BP and Esso as businesses with little effect on the street price of fuel.
Could be worth buying a few shares in Shell.
Regards. Read more
My local Esso garage used to suffer from very occasional demonstrations protesting against greenhouse gasses/clubbing baby seals/destroying rainforests etc.
They also did not have many customers.
I see that they have closed down in the past week or so.
I wonder why they shut?
--
I wasna fu but just had plenty.
Yes, I know, brave indeed to mention the "caravan" word on this website, but I need some help.
I have a fwd car automatic car. It's usually okay when it gets a bit slippery as it has a winter mode which locks the car in to a higher gear when it gets slippery. However I'm going to start towing a caravan and reckon that a wet muddy grass field, courtesy of our exceptional summer may be too much.
I don't want to buy a 4wd just for this rare event. I remember seeing mats/grates that 4wd cars use when they get stuck and wondered if anyone knew of such a device for cars, or if any one had an idea for a substitute? Can you use snow chains in mud?
Cheers
WipeOut
Read more
Wouldnt it be nice if the caravan was left to sink in the mud?
One down.................
My car insurance renewal came through recently, with elephant.co.uk, at £360. This is for a 10 year old Mercedes W124 E class diesel, fully comp with a boringly normal driver. Up a little on last year, partly beacuse I changed my car. I also noticed that £28 had crept in as well for "hire car cover". I decided to look around a few websites and came up with £259 which I was very pleased with. My BIL suggested I tried confused.com and I got it down to £223 with only a £50 excess and including legal cover, this is with Norwich Union through Peoples Choice. BIL is even tighter than I am and also suggested I check out moneysavingexpert.com and as a consequence of advice there I have also reduced the cost of broadband (from BT) by £5.40 a month as well. Well worth a look.
Cheers MGs Read more
fully agree about moneysavingexpert.com.
I used the deal checker and dropped my insurance with direct line from £315 to £168 (a saving of ..........drum roll........£147) Phoned my previous insurers and they couldn't be bothered about it: the young lady suggested that I go online and see if they quoted me cheaper as a "new customer"????
When I asked if she thought that online would be cheaper than the £168 already quoted she just laughed and said "no way!" and then hung up. Oh, that's what I like, good old fashioned customer service and going the extra mile to retain the business!
The cabin filter for the air-con on my 04 Kangoo seems blocked after a very dusty holiday. Air flow is way down and it smells !Problem is that I can't find the filter and don't want to visit the main dealer until I need to at 18000mls ( I change the oil and filter myself at 6000 ) . I can find the engine air filter which I imagine will also be full of dust but can anybody help with the cabin filter ?
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Not sure if this applies to yours, as applies 1999 onwards, and no idea if the Kangoo has been superseded by a newer model or not since then. Anyway, info here:
www.puravent.co.uk/filters/dispfilter.pl?id=270&mo...T
Well, I've wanted one for a while, and now I've finally got it, a gleaming Focus TDCi 3 door in black! :-)
I LOVE it! Picked it up yesterday (sorry, that's why I missed the NW meet people) from Shropshire, which meant quite a drive but my god it was worth it.
Very, very nice car, and the bit that I'm most devastated about is that there currently isn't anything on the market that I could imagine replacing it with in 4 or 5 years time, I'm going to have to take extra special care of it as I doubt I'll be able to get another like it!
The seats are very supportive and the suspension is very firm which allows it you to chuck it into any corner and it barely gives a trace of body roll, it's actually far more fun to drive than the 3 series, and I bet it will be more predictable in the wet.
Overall I have to reckon it's one of the best derivatives of the original Focus that Ford ever made. The only thing that I have noticed is the usual clouds of smoke from the engine if accelerating under load, particularly in second gear, I'll be writing something in Technical Matters about that in a minute.
Anyway, fairly pointless post, but I thought it was only proper to announce my latest marriage publically!
Blue Read more
Y2K - No, the car has actual real leather from real cows, not that plasticky stuff they usually stick on the doors! :-)
The difference between a TDCi Zetec and a sport probably aren't theat great but basically they are:-
Even firmer (and I mean much firmer) sports suspension that the Zetec
Half leather seats that I think are slightly more "buckety" than the Zetec
17" Alloys instead of 15"
ST170 front bumper (notice the fog lights?)
I suppose that's probably about it, but it makes for a totally different package from the Zetec, it's cosmetically different from the outside and it drives totally different due to the suspension. I've got to be honest the suspension borders on too hard for normal driving, just like it is in the ST170, but at least it's more fun to drive like that!
Blue
Apparantly the government are considering extending SORN to cover vehicle insurance. Any vehicle which does not appear on the central insurance database will have a form sent to the registered keeper asking him/her to explain why.
Failure to complete and return the form will incur a £1000 fine. Read more
But a car that is declared as SORN but is actually on the road will already be picked up on the licence database as a potential evader.
If they catch the driver at all then any insurance offence will get picked up then. I don't see how having a double record of tax and insurance will help to catch the car in use on the road.
The point about SORN is that there is a requirement for all vehicles to be registered, even those off the road. But there is no equivalent requirement for off-road cars to be insured, let alone registered as not insured. You can register with the DVLA as not taxed. But you can't register non-insurance with anyone, it is meaningless. The two cases simply are not analogous.
A colleague of mine is a mad keen cyclist and wants to watch the Tour de France at first hand. To do so you need to camp on the mountain halfway through a stage, so he wants a camper (doesnt fancy towing his caravan up the mountain).
He has looked into renting a camper, but has been quoted £900 per week. Does anyone think it would be feasible to buy an old camper, holiday for, say, three weeks, and then sell it again, preferably without losing any money (apart from fuel)? Read more
The one downside with the plan is that you'd be buying the camper at the start of 'the season' when prices were high and then selling at the end when the market is depressed at the end of the summer.
Plus you'd probably have to pay for a year's worth of insurance no matter how long you own the 'van.
Was the £900 quote from a British or French company?
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I've been following this thread with interest as I've always liked the S40 and V40 range, but then I've been guilty of owning a couple of dutch built Volvos. I notice from various guides that the 1.9 diesel fitted to the last models can do an impressive 50mpg. The engine seems to be available in both 102 and 115bhp variants. Anyone got any experience of driving either of these? Is it a Renault engine?