August 2005
I am thinking about buying a 98 mondeo. However it has a few faults and I wanted to know if anybody has any experience of them.
1) The airbag light flashes when the car is running. Most of the stuff on the net seems to point to a loose connection between the light and the sensor? Anybody have any experience of this?
2) The fan only seems to work in position 4. Is this just a resistor failure? Can this be fixed fairly easily?
3) The front bumper needs replacing. Does anybody know how much this will cost as trying to find car part prices at a weekend is impossible.
Thanks Read more
Just heard about the Volvo unaccompanied test drives that apparently are done by the company directly at selected sites.
Apparently they allow you to drive the car for a full hour without the presence of one of their reps sitting at your side.
Does anyone know about any other car makers which offer such test drives.Looked around but couldnt find any this far.
Any ideas at all welcome.
Thanks Read more
On my last car choosing spot I had a Ford for a long weekend, Renault for 48 hours, and a nissan for three days.
I wonder why most estate agents don't bother to measure the size of the garage before they prepare their brochure? If it's a single garage and the agent won't ring the vendor and ask them the size then I won't view the property. (If it's a double then the length is not as critical.) Incidentally, I've just seen a newly built house advertised which has a mere 14'6" long single garage! For anyone that wants to garage their car that is a complete waste of time.
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature. Read more
There is a development near Yaxley, South of Peterborough, with hundreds of houses and more to come where very few people can get their car into their garage and then open the car doors. Additionally, many families own 2 cars so there is one on the drive and one in the road clogging up the street; houses both sides and parking both sides = no access for fire engines and garbage trucks = nightmare.
Someone at work has a car fitted with large alloys and very low profile tyres and the subject of kerbing them came up the other night, he has recently clipped a kerb for the first time with them.
Now, he says that the tyres he has fitted have some sort of design to try and save the alloys to a limited extent from kerbing, he has Hankooks on the wheels so nothing extra special really but says that they have something he called Tyre ave or Tyresaver on them whereby they sort of overlap the rim of the wheel slightly so that if it just nudges into a kerb it's the tyre and not the rim that takes the damage.
Has anyone else heard of this type of tyre design before, he says that it only really applies to low profile tyres but that it's pretty standard.
Has anyone else come across thhis design before and is it much good? Sorry to be a bit vague in the description!
Blue Read more
The continental contisport contacts on the goona have them, kinda thick ridge. None of the the alloys is marked in 40k miles.
Obviously I've been having a play and once I'd managed to fully drain the battery, I decided to read the manuals. I've noticed that Active Sync is on the cd but am curious as to what this is used for.
I have a number of CDs including maps of Iberia which could come in handy so I'm guessing Active-Sync would be used solely to put them on the SD Card. In other words - should I bother installing it?
I'm also aware of the little trick to get at the Windows platform beneath it but I'm not going to do that. I had an iPaq and found the best thing was the remote control so I'll leave it just as it is.
What is amazing, is how far my speedo overreads. I know people say it and we all go "yeah yeah" but when my speedo reads 36, I'm only doing 31. In this day and age, quite a bit margin but thankfully it overreads and not underreads!
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Adam Read more
> is an unpatched off the shelf Apple Mac as or more secure than a Windows XP machine which has had AV,AS,FW software installed and regularly updated.
Yes. There are currently no Mac OSX viruses, no spyware, and no adware (if you run MS Office on them they are susceptibel to Office-based viruses, but you could use NeoOfficeJ or Pages instead). The system comes with all ports closed to the outside world and no services running by default. It has its own highly configurable firewall built in too.
In my opinion Mac OSX is by far the most easy to use and attractive OS out there (I'd put a pre-installed Linux second). The latest version also has some really great stuff that will appear some time in the future in Windows, such as Spotlight.
I'd install Firefox on it, but as far as I know Macs still come with Internet Explorer bundled, so even if Safari gives trouble (it won't), they can use that.
The switch to Intel won't be a problem so don't let that be a barrier--it will be several years before all Macs are Intel-based.
(sometime iBook user)
Would appreciate some advice to restore my sanity and bank balance following an ill-advised car deal...
Basically, two months ago I agreed to sell my car for £11,750 and they've only paid £10,000 and have now blanked me :-(
I know I shouldn't have released the car without full payment but I made a stupid error of judgement (there's was the only interested call to buy the car). They were tardy enough paying the £10,000 (they went on holiday, cheque bounced, problem over authorisation etc). All letters, calls and emails regarding the outstanding £1750 have met with no response or the phone hung up. They have all documents transferred, but we did draw up a written bill of sale outlining the amount payable. They are not claiming any faults or reason to settle in full, just not paying the full amount and ignoring me.
I live in Scotland and they're in England, with about 600 miles between, so I'm unsure where the legal remedies start to recover the money. Any help welcome on the best plan to resolve this?
Happy to provide further details as required and PLEASE, if you ever think someone is trustworthy enough to buy your car without full payment, THINK AGAIN!
Bill Read more
You gave him the logbook to complete himself?
If so get in touch with the DVLA *now*, it's meant to be you that fills in the logbook, not the buyer, and I could be wrong, but I think it's an offence not to.
If not an offence, you certainly are leaving yourself open to BIG problems at the very least as you are still liable for the car, and will also get the flack of any speeding tickets that it produces etc. etc.
Good luck.
Blue
He passed away unnoticed really. One of Car's crop superlative writers, his reports were pure prose and his travel stories intermingled with motoring legends amongst, if not the best, motoring tales of our time. The John Peel of the motoring world.
Will miss him greatly. Read more
I'm sorry to hear he's gone. As many others have commented, he was one of the band of brilliant contributors to Car in the 80s.
John
Made my monthly pilgrimmage from Devon to Leeds tonight - worst journey EVER! First off, I meet a massive herd of cows in the lane right after setting off. Despite reversing 1/4 mile to the nearest passing space, the cows still managed to scrape themselves down the side of the car when walking past.
Then in Birmingham a taxi driver decided he needed to have the exit I was passing in lane 1, and swerved across 3 lanes to take it. I had to really stamp on the anchors, and looking at the expression of horror on his passenger's face, I don't think he'll be paid for the trip either!
Finally, the worst bit. M6 northbound, just before Thelwall viaduct. Signs come on saying that two of the four lanes are closed. Everyone creeps along in lanes 1 and 2 for FIVE MILES until the lanes actually close, with no workmen around. You could count the braincells of the Highway Planning Agency on one hand. Read more
Hmmmmm whenever I used to drive from Basingstoke to Lancs or onto the Lakes on a Friday afternoon/evening, the traffic was always a nightmare. If it wasn't the A34, then it would be the M40, if not that then the M42 and I would always be Q'ing on the M6. Average journey time was about 7 hrs from Basingstoke -> Ambleside, sometimes more but never less.
The average speed on the trip made a nonsense of modern motoring. The 1936 MG NB that my father owned would have easily kept up with the rate of traffic flow.
So I moved to Lancashire and the problem went away.....well it became someone elses' problem. Davids' in this case (and a few thousand other people)
My bro-in-law showed me round his new Skoda Superb ealier this evening and very nice it is too. A bit like his last-but-one car, a VW Passat.
But a bit longer.
His only gripe (so far) is that the climate control display is in Farenheit and he would prefer it in Celsius. He claims that he has studied the manual but has not found a solution. I am unable to verify this owing to lack of reading glasses and immoderate alcohol consumption. Can any sober Backroomer tell me how to get the climate control display to work in Celsius (or Centigrade, if you prefer)?
Thanks in advance.
Hawkeye
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Stranger in a strange land Read more
Thanks, Hawkeye, I'll try that tomorrow out of interest, but problem has been solved already courtesy of Pistonheads www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=86&t=2...1
You need to press Auto and Econ together on the climate control.
The New Scientist ran an article this week about the spreading practice of having dipped headlights on during daylight. Along with the usual balanced NS treatment there is report of an organisation opposing it, saying that it is, irritating, irresponsible, and further, downright dangerous. The founder of the organisation says, ?I have heavily tinted glass placed in front of me to reduce glare.? ?I also no longer use rear-view or side-view mirrors?.
Discuss.
There are people also who refuse to use dipped headlights in towns at night because they feel that the street lights are bright enough anyway, and dipped headlights might dazzle people. I, myself, have had a couple of near misses in light rain when the road lighting reflected from the surface has masked the approach of a car running on sidelights only.
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They aren't legal for road use because the regs specify that
forward lights or reversing lights ( ie the lights that indicate
to you a vehicle is moving towards you ) have to
be white ; and rear lights red
Sorry; but there are various colours shown on Ebay. Are the white ones legal for road use?
Browse
hello mate im a new user on here, i used to have a 97 mondeo, and had similar problems.
the heater resitor is located in the passenger footwell mounted onto the blower assembly, new one cost me about 8 quid from the dealers and took 5 mins to fit.
the airbag light flashing was caused by a plug loose under the seat ,yellow one if i remember rightly, that attaches to the seat belt pretensioner.
make sure ign is off and dissconncet battry first, to make sure the air bag dosnet go off on you, probalbly wouldnt anyway but better safe than sorry eh ? make sure you got your radio code for your radio. im not certain if this is your fault but worth a look anyway!!
get a bumper from your local scrapyard, as i got a new one and then promptly bashed it a week later on a wall!!