August 2005
87 posts and the northerners are still nowhere near deciding where to meet - swaying between Manchester and Alston on the Cumberland / Northumberland border. Far too much democracy. It clearly wouldn't help suggesting they organise it in a brewery.
It wouldn't take that long in the South - either we'd be more efficient, or we're all so anti-social that we wouldn't want to meet anyway.
If we did, a good central place is East Ilsley on the A34 between Newbury and Oxford: there are two pubs - one's called the Swan and the other....isn't.
Is there any enthusiasm for a meet down here? I don't feel that strongly and won't be upset if not, but would turn up if there is. Read more
New thoughts on annoying TV adverts!
1. Those ghastly fat kids advertising the Zafira.
2. The E Sure mouse is even worse than the male/female M Winner
It doesn't annoy me but I think they have changed the voice of the Churchill dog and the new one is not as good. Read more
They're not giving them away as far as I know Vansboy, but they are selling them! 19,90 euros each......
you guys have dealt me some good advice in the past,so here's me asking again.
I'm test driving a 120ps Laguna Priviledge on a 52 plate tomorrow. It's done 86000 miles, which the owner says are mainly motorway miles.
What should I be particularly wary of? I've read HJ's rundown of potential problems and got those noted, but do any of you guys know of anything more I should look for? (Or even if I am wise considering this car considering it's been pretty low in most reliability surveys in the past 3 years?)
I will get an HPI check and I think I will pay to have a mechanic look at it before I buy as it's a private buyer - any suggestions? - are the AA or RAC checks worth the money?
Thanks. Read more
The first sign of an EGR valve playing up is usually slightly lumpy running. You have obviously driven this car and are happy with it so I wouldn't worry about the valve.
Incidentally, Renault dealers are being issued with a new tool to help assess the operation of these valves and to clean them out. So if it has a full service history, this might have been done.
I would strongly recommend that you have the oil changed more regularly than the specified 18K, unless you do a lot of miles in a short space of time. Also a good fully synthetic oil is best. Euro4 dCi engines have reverted to 9K services although this may be due to tighter emissions.
Otherwise enjoy the world of diesel. You should get approximately 50mpg out of it.
Hi all,
1st post...Ive just had my 108,000 mile Golf Estate from its 1st 10k service in my ownership. I'd asked the Indy VW garage to look at a coolant leak I had (loss of coolant once the engine was warmed up).
They've come back to me saying that the car needs a new pump and radiator costing £260 plus VAT in total . I'm not totally 100% with car and was wondering what people thought ? Have any of you had similar problems in the past, do you think the money is too much ??
Cheers
Richard Read more
From what I've read, you should NEVER mix the G11 and G12 coolant even if all the G11 has been drained out beacause they react inside the engine and clog up all the wather pathways. You can replace G11 with G12+, but not G12. I should get the G12 drained out ASAP and get some G12+ in there.
Sounds like you already have problem if the light was flashing and your engine overheating. The garage have made a big blunder.
After so many people complaining about bikers undertaking on motorways, I did an experiment.
When a car is sitting in the outside lane bang on the limit and is not actually overtaking anything I will undertake. I was told quite comprehensively that I was wrong for doing so and should wait behind it, since undertaking is illegal.
Well last night on my way to work, at around 9.30pm I took my bike out onto the M77 (2 lanes, 50mph limit, almost dead at that time of night) and sat in the outside lane at 50mph (1st gear, god I was bored, but I sat there regardless).
Anyone wish to take a guess at how many cars sat behind me compared to how many undertook me? Remember if it was the other way around and a car was sitting at 50 in the outside lane and I undertook then I would automatically be "some wreckless biker whos gonna get himself killed"
Answers on a postcard please
.
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or force people to be more alert.....
If someone undertakes me I'm in the wrong lane - aint that the truth
My car alarm of its own accord will start sometimes in the middle of the night. Its a W merc c class and I am told that looking the door with the key will do the trick. I am getting embarrasses with neighbours looking out of their curtains in the early hours to see who the noisy culprit is. Their is also a switch on the dash with a tow hook symbol which effects the alarm but no instruction on how to use it. Read more
The tow hook switch is used to stop the alarm going off when the car is towed away! I think it is the same switch to isolate the movement sensors inside the car, but you switch it in the opposite direction. Use both just as you turn the car off I think.
Its about three years since I had a C-class, so may have forgotten the details.
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
On a previous Volvo when you opened the door with the key fob the seats automatically adjusted to the settings for that key and are supposed to do that for 2005 V70's.
On my current Volvo the seat settings are registered, but 98% of the time the seat does not adjust automatically to the key fob which opened the door (my wife and I have different seat settings and individual key fobs) and to adjust the seat for the relevant driver you have to push the manual button in the seat to get the correct setting. A Volvo franchised dealer said it found no problem.
Any suggestions for anything I can do or anything I should specifically ask a Volvo dealer to look at would be gratefully received.
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what did the dealer check ? Did they vadis it ?
I think you get codes like PSL112/PSR112 if the motor moving the seat forwards and back has a problem, they have a current limit so if the motor has to strain it should show up. But it should be easy to demo the situation to the dealer - why didnt they see it?
Help required please if possible.My T reg 1.8 TD keeps blowing the engine management fuse and with it taking out the blower/air con head lights and all instrument lights.However the individual fuses for these remain intact.I've got it booked in with an auto electrician tomorrow but any advice would be appreciated,thanks.
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The auto electricians had the car this morning and said they had contacted Ford for help as they couldnt solve the problem.
All the company could do was to suggest they take the dash out looking for a bad connection but this would take about seven hours with no guarentee of success.
John had given them elekies commnents but he said they didnt seem too interested in these.
Will no doubt be trying to help myself in the next day or two so welcome any further suggesions.
Taking the management fuse seems to me to be a short to earth on some wire whilst on the move and John thinks that bumps in the road sometines causes this to happen although not every time.
(Header edited to make clearer what DaveKent wants. HJ)
Hi everyone.
I'm looking for a medium/larger size diesel car for about a grand.
What would be the best one to go for, Mondeo, 406, RENAULT LAGUNA, ford escort turbo diesel, CITROEN Xantia etc?
Whats best and whats the worse diesel.
Remember I only have £1,000.
Cheers for any help. Read more
Actually, a grand gets you more of a 406 than I bargained for. Around here, anything from 70k upwards on a 1996 - 1997. That's from 700 quid too.
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Adam
I read on many forums about 0w and 5w oils being too thin. I will try to explain it without getting over technical and we'll go from there.
0w-40, 5w-40, 10w-40 and 15w-40 are all the same thickness (14cst) at 100degC.
Centistokes (cst) is the measure of a fluid's resistance to flow (viscosity). It is calculated in terms of the time required for a standard quantity of fluid at a certain temperature to flow through a standard orifice. The higher the value, the more viscous the fluid.
As viscosity varies with temperature, the value is meaningless unless accompanied by the temperature at which it is measured. In the case of oils, viscosity is generally reported in centistokes (cst) and usually measured at 40degC and 100degC.
So, all oils that end in 40 (sae 40) are around 14cst thickness at 100degC.
This applies to all oils that end in the same number, all oils that end in 50 (sae 50) are around 18.5cst at 100degC and all oils that end in 60 (sae 60) are around 24cst at 100degC.
With me so far?
Great!
Now, ALL oils are thicker when cold. Confused? It's true and here is a table to illustrate this.
SAE 40 (straight 40)
Temp degC.........................Viscosity (thickness)
0..........................................2579cst
20..........................................473cst
40..........................................135cst
60..........................................52.2cs t
100........................................ 14cst
120.........................................8.8cst
As you will see, there is penty of viscosity at 0degC, in fact many times more than at 100degC and this is the problem especially in cold weather, can the oil flow quick enough to protect vital engine parts at start up. Not really!
So, given that an sae 40 is 14cst at 100degC which is adequate viscosity to protect the engine, and much thicker when cold, how can a 0w oil be too thin?
Well, it can't is the truth.
The clever part (thanks to synthetics) is that thin base oils can be used so that start up viscosity (on say a 5w-40 at 0degC) is reduced to around 800cst and this obviously gives much better flow than a monograde sae 40 (2579cst as quoted above).
So, how does this happen, well as explained at the beginning, it's all about temperature, yes a thin base oil is still thicker when cold than at 100degC but the clever stuff (due to synthetics again) is that the chemists are able to build these oils out of molecules that do not thin to less than 14cst at 100degC!
What are the parameters for our recommendations?
Well, we always talk about good cold start protection, by this we mean flow so a 5w will flow better than a 10w and so on. This is why we recommend 5w or 10w as the thickest you want to use except in exceptional circumstances. Flow is critical to protect the engine from wear!
We also talk about oil temps, mods and what the car is used for. This is related to the second number xw-(XX) as there may be issues with oil temperatures causing the oil to be too thin and therefore the possibility of metal to metal contact.
This is difficult to explain but, if for example your oil temp does not exceed 120degC at any time then a good "shear stable" sae 40 is perfectly capable of giving protection.
"Shear stability" is important here because if the oil shears it thins and that's not good!
However, if you are seeing temperatures in excess of 120degC due to mods and track use etc then there is a strong argument to using an sae 50 as it will have more viscosity at these excessive temperatures.
There are trade offs here. Thicker oils cause more friction and therefore more heat and they waste power and affect fuel consumption so it's always best to use the thinnest oil (i.e. second number) that you can get away with and still maintain oil pressure.
There is more but this post is too long already so lets keep it to basics.
Cheers
Simon
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deja vu
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=32...8
" Oil, a common misconception (viscosity) - oilman "
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Moving to Devon next year. Up for a meet then ......