September 2005
Regly-errs may 'ave noticed a certain lack of do$hle$$ne$$ of late, with a correspondening increase in smokiness. Well it's true. No Do$h is no more. 'e 'as shuffled off this mortal coil and gone to join the choir eternal. 'e is an ex-moderator. 'e his not, for clarity, sleeping or resting. 'e is gorn, so 'e is.
A combination of work and home pressures had taken their toll on the amount of time I could commit to this asylum, to the point where I was firing from the hip rather than applying reason to my moderating decisions. In short, I was getting a bit gung-ho and wasn't enjoying it.
So that left me with a decision. Did I quit as moderator and continue posting as ND or did I kill ND off? If the latter, was it to be a clean death or was there to be a little bit of sunshine desserts to ND's demise?
Looking back over recent months I noticed that ND had become bored, under stress, had begun to behave very oddly. Just like dear old Reggie. So that was my decision made. Off the beach I would wander.
A pile of clothes will shortly be found on a Dorset beach, complete with empty wallet and the keys to an Italian diesel sports estate coupe thing.
With one final tribute to Reggie; it's been super HJ.
No Do$h Read more
I've always set my driving position along the lines suggested here :-
www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/cd/docs_dandt/research...f
but having done two 250+ mile drives in the last two days, I found myself feeling incredbly tense around the shoulders. Any idea how to avoid this ?
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I bet there was also nowhere to put your left foot in the 307.
Whils I was at the dealer regarding the air con condensation, I asked about the cause of the slightly uneven tickover, which occurs sometimes (mainly when starting from cold). It tends to run in little surges, basically, and is more noticeable when the air con is on.
It was suggested that the particle filter may be coming to the end of its life (the car has now done almost 43K miles) and that it could be the cause of the uneven tickover. The car seems to be running OK otherwise, the fuel consumption having improved recently since I fitted a new air flow pressure sensor to the turbo intake (the previous one having been broken).
Does this dianosis sound feasible? There have been no fault messages on the car and it has been checked out on diagnostic equipment. I did have to have the fuel additive replenished ahead of time and I am wondering if the same will apply to the particle filter, which is due for replacing at 50k miles. Read more
I am happy to report that the uneven tickover seems to have disappeared as suddenly as it appeared. I have no explanation why this should have happened but there is no sign of it, whether the engine is hot or cold, air con on or off.
...than they used to be? In the last 6 years I have had to have 4 new ones due to stone damage. In the previous 25 years precisely zero! Read more
I wonder if it has anything to do with that cars nowadays tend not to have mudflaps fitted? No mudflaps means more stones get thrown up.
Was sitting next to the aforementioned car in traffic yesterday, it was on an 05 plate and it sounded like a bag of nails ticking over (louder than my 2.0dti vectra), is this right for a bmw? Read more
But this was an 05 car, it pulled away ok, just ever so noisy, like a transit.
Hi - I have my eye on a car being sold privately. Would some kind expert tell me how I should pay - say Bankers Draft - do I then have to wait for this to clear the vendors bank? Advice would be very much appreciated. Read more
As "pd" said, use the CHAPS transfer, it costs £20 (at the royal bank of scotland) and is an INSTANT trasnfer of funds, they do the transaction there and then in front of you, and give you full reciept of the exchange of funds. I've used CHAPS many times and never had any problem.
What should it be ?
Zarquon's Mondeo thread provoked this, as there is a reference to FoW, where I bought my previous car
at FoW, or Fords of Winsford, you turn up, get a trade in price for your current car, and that holds against the window price of any current car they have in stock. Nobody hassles you, you can ask for the keys of about 1/2 dozen cars at once, and nobody has tried to sell me finance I didn't want, and you can get a stock/price list updated four times a day
Contrast with the local Nissan dealer, where I've had the 'sales manager' offer a test drive in a Primera, only to turn up at the appointed time (the day after !) to find he was on holiday and his junior wouldn't consider a drive in a Primera, only an Almera. Still interested in the later Primera, whilst looking at the cars on the forecourt at the same garage, i was approached by a salesman who was only interested in how I was going to finance ny new car. When I told him I wasn't ready to discuss finance, he told me to go away and stop wasting his time.
That was 2 years ago when I changed the Bora for a Skoda. 2 years. Amazing to think the local VW dealer hasn't has any more Bora TDI 130's in in two years, or the Honda dealer any more Civic VTEC's, because they both promised to let me know, and I'm still waiting for the call
And if you thought things at the 'bottom end' of the market were any better, think again. I spent last sunday afternoon I accompanied my nephew around a couple of traders, as, as a result of personal circumstances, he needed to buy a car that day, with a maximum budget of two grand. For two grand, it appears to be too much that the car (a) doesn't have a flat battery and (b) has more than a sniff of petrol in it. The jewel in the crown was a trader with a load of cars in the 3-5 grand range who directed us to his other site. There Ant saw a Polo he fancied at £1995. Would it turn over ? no. With a booster pack, would it start ? no- no petrol. What was the best the salesman could do ? 'Can you come back on wednesday ?' Now I appreciate that if you have two dozen cars on a pitch, one or two may have a flat battery, which is why you have booster packs, but by the same rule, one or two will have bone dry tanks, so wouldn't any dealer who was not bone idle have a gallon of fuel around ?
He actually bought the one and only car that (a) he was interested in and (b) had the necessary battery and fuel to enable a test drive. Did he not deserve more if he had £2000 to spend ?
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It's not so many years ago that the industry operated a cartel based on areas: Peugeot dealers in Stoke on trent could offer 5% discounts to cumstomers with a SOT postcode but not with a Crewe (20 miles away) code. Area protection. I had that experience some 10 years ago.
On the other hand the Toyota dealers in Chesterfield knew I was looking for a car and phoned me 3 times in the next 4 days.. mind you they did take over 30 mins to give me a quote on my pex.. surely a 5 minute job.
Generally my experiences have been bad : poor service, new cars delivered with faults, agreed repairs to second hand cars not carried out.. shoody presentations etc.
Judging by the general standard of salesmanship the car industry is selling more cars than it can acquire. I'm sure that is not true but the attitudes to customers suggest it is.
I traet all car salesmen as politicans regarding the truth of what they say they'll do.
madf
What is delivery mileage, like whats the limit?
Thanks Read more
Some cars, particularly those with electronic instruments (most of them!) can have the odometers reset by the dealer. I used to pick up Mercs at Stuttgart and they had under 10 miles on them, just a test drive round a track at the factory. On Alfas it was possible to reset the odometer once, back to zero, so long as you did it before it had exceeded 200 miles. Some deal with turning the ignition on and off twice while holidng the reset pressed, or something like that.
Was following a new shape Focus for several miles today and its number plate was of the format AB02XYZ (not the actual number, of course).
How could this be registered with a 2002 plate when the car was only introduced last year i.e. 2004. I suppose the owner could have asked for an old plate to be transferred to his/her new car.
Am I overlooking something obvious here?
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Yeah, the XYZ bit will probably have some sort of personal meaning to the owner, there's no way there were even prototype models registered back in 02, they'd only just facelifted the old model at that point!
Blue
Looking to get a current model Golf GTi but, even though the brochures show the handbrake next to the driver's seat with the 'cubby-cup' thing next to the passenger's seat, the dealer's demo is the other way around. Is this common to all Golfs, i.e. the handbrake is next to the passenger's seat? The dealer couldn't offer an explanation on this one!! Why does the brochure show the handbrake next to the driver's seat I wonder? Read more
Same on my Peugeot. The two buttons for "sport" and "ice" are left of the gear selector. Perfect for LHD but I can?t even see them let alone press them.
Hi Alan
Thought you had been quiet lately. As mentioned many times previously, thanks for the moderating.
Did you make Dorset? Did you see THE band?
Drop me an e mail when you have time.
--
Alyn Beattie
I\'m sane, it\'s the rest of the world that\'s mad.