September 2005
Thinking about replacing our old Vitara with a new 4x4 pick up such as a Mitsubishi L200. Any idea what are the best lease prices for one of these. Must be 4X4. Thanks Read more
Hiya all, first time so take it easy!!
I have a peugeot 406 1.8 LX 97 which i have had since new, it is a delight to drive but has recently started to idle erraticaly!Its intermittent, but seems worse when the car is hot. Normally it would idle at around 900rpm but over the last month it is anywhere between 800 and 2000rpm taking the needle a long time to come to a rest!!!
It is serviced regularly(due Nov)and has already had a Map sensor replaced last year!
help? Read more
If a novice and not too serious wait until service. Some are quite sensitive (I'm not familiar with 406s ) and can be damaged easily..but no doubt a more knowledgeable rply will come along:-)
madf
I have got to the stage of needing to replace the Civic Tyres fairly soon.
The tyre size is 195/60/R15 88H and I can replace the existing Bridgestone Potenzas supplied with the car for £57 a corner all inclusive of VAT balance , valve etc.
However there are a number of cheaper tyres around and I wondered what the team think of the following cheaper brands .
Nokian which I can obtain at £49 a corner.
Jupiter at £40 a corner.
Woosung available from Just Tyres at Just £29 a corner.
Most of these seem to be Korean or Chinese origin but any feedback on your experiences of these brands would be of interest.
Read more
The tyre tests usually show that 'expensive' often means money spent on Branding, advertising and sponsorship and not ernest tyre development.
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Sorry for any typos Im very long sited
Hi,
First posting, so go easy. Service indicator has started flashing on my 52 plate SLK, which happens to be major service (first service on the car me since purchased last year).
Ring up the local merc garage in North London and they quote £520 incl.! Now I'm no mechanic, but that sounds very high to me?? Partiuclary when Merc garage in Leeds charges £400.
Without affecting the car value or affecting re-sale potential, does it make any difference if I took to an independent merc garage for servicing?
Any suggestions most welcome. Just want make sure I'm not being ripped off. Read more
Living in London, £520 for a major service is really reasonable, especially if the price include VAT. Stripping out the VAT element is £443. London dealer charges £150 + VAT per hour and if the major service takes 2.5 hours, that is already £375. Then you have to add the parts, sundries, etc.
However, though £520 is not expensive, brace yourself if the car needs any repair works!
G
Hello.
I was hoping somebody could help. I already have a car (Thanks to everyones advice here), but it is too big and expensive for my son, 17, who has just passed his test, to insure.
I am hoping now to buy a small (< 1 litre) car, and insure him on that as a named driver.
So, the question is - who will be cheapest, remebering I can't use my (or my wifes) no claims bonus again, and my current insurer won't let me.
And secondly which car - At the moment the cars we are thinking of are Fiat Siecento/Cinqucento, Seat Arosa considering we only want to spend up to £1000 - do you suggest would give the lowest insurance, and general running costs.
Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated - along with any other ideas to reduce the cost of insurance.
Many thanks in advance to you all. Read more
Many many thanks to you all.
Thanks to your suggestions, I am sure we will be able to sort something out now!
I have a 1993 2.2turbo-diesel Espace with a peculiar starter motor fault. When it is very hot or after a long drive the starter motor will not turn over. If I leave the engine to cool (this may take an hour) then all will be well again. The engine itself is fine - provided I can turn it over it always starts first time.
I have swapped the starter motor and still get the same problem. I thought I had it tied down to a poor contact on the connector which goes to the starter relay (wriggling this usually allowed me to start), until last month on a very hot day when nothing worked except the "cooling-off" period. I now think it was just the act of opening the bonnet and allowing the heat to escape more rapidly which was helping.
A friend has told me that TVRs (which also have a fibre glass body) also have this problem. Has anyone else heard of this? Is this a well-known problem with Espaces, and if so is there a fix (apart from only driving in cold weather)?
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Sounds awful but one cheap improvement is to replace the steel nuts on the starter terminals with brass ones. I have neticed a huge variation in the price of Espace starter motors from the same firm, Bolk (Chinese?) seem to be the cheapest whilst Bosch are the dearest at about five times the price of the cheap ones.
What I do know is that the cheap starter motors on the engines used to power 5KW generators normally have moulded commutators (the copper segments are just stuck into plastic) Prolonged cranking can cause the segments to become unstuck!)...
Hi all.
I have a W plate 1800 Vectra and have just had to have an air sensor replaced (£167) as the engine management light came on following a series of serious judders and stalling. 'The Computer' said that was to blame.
When the car was in the garage, they advised that the throttle body also needed replacing, as that was also to blame for cutting out when revs reach sub 1000 and hesitant acceleration.
As I have quite a daily commute, I agreed to this at a cost of £320.
Is this a well known or common problem on the Vectra? It has done 68k and regularly serviced and well looked after. I can't help feeling that I have been taken for a ride (just out of cynacism as opposed to anything else), but I can't argue about this with the garage as I simply don't know enough.
Any views or comments?
Cheers.
TT
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Top Turkey - the fastest hands in Brum Read more
Well, the air sensor was replaced on Saturday and when I picked the car up, I was told that the throttle body was faulty and would need to be replaced to get over the problem of poor idling.
Again, showing my ignorance, can this happen through a certain driving style?
Cheers.
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Top Turkey - the fastest hands in Brum
Dear all,
Apologies if this has been asked and answered before, but I couldn't find it in the forum search.
I live in the UK but for the next 12 months I will be spending at least 50% of my time on the continent - in France, Belgium, Germany, Holland, etc). My insurance is up for renewal and I want a policy that will cover me while in Europe *at the same level* as I am covered in the UK, i.e. TPFT. Also, I'd rather not have to phone my insurers every time I go away/come back, as my trips are rather frequent.
I know that UK inserers are legally obliged to provide you with minimum cover in EU contries, but that's not good enough for me as if my car gets nicked in Belgium, I'll be up the proverbial without a wotsit.
Every insurer I have contacted says you can be out of the country for 90 days per year, no more, which for me isn't adequate.
So to the question - does anybody know of any insurers who will be able to give me the cover I need? Has anyone else been in a similar position and what did you do?
Thanks in anticipation. Read more
Try a search on international vehicle insurance & it will probably return links to major brokers - I saw axa, alexander forbes at a glance.
If a large part of your time abroad business-related, check with your company's insurance broker first, as the premiums will almost certainly be lower.
I am currently insured via screentrade with NIG for class 1 business use UK & Europe.
Class 1 became essential as I have no single place of work.
Note that the cover with most insurers is subject to a consecutive 90 day limit.
iirc, European law dictates the insurance cover must be taken out in the country where the vehicle is registered.
A useful tip: if you have your car "routinely" serviced in Germany, many garages will include 12 month European breakdown/recovery. I had this with citroen & friends take their Opel to Germany twice a year, where the dealers do not charge extra for essential work identified on service bulletins.
Let's say hypothetically, someone with a reasonbly powered RWD car had some new rear tyres on order, and en-route to have them fitted, say this lunchtime, that person finds a spot of derelict land, away from any residences and would like to "burn-out" their current tyres, perhaps with a series of doughnuts, staight line and static burnouts.
Obviously it would be a noisy business, but what crime could this person be committing, should a police car roll along and see the huge clouds of white smoke, hypothetically speaking in the Leeds area of course? Read more
KITT didn't need to worry about laws of Physics Bobby.
He was....well - he was KITT!
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Adam
I've just purchased an old K plate Astra for my son to learn to drive in. If I put the handbrake on and let the clutch up the car willstall so the clutch appears to be ok BUT I noticed that if on a rise (on ramp to motorway) and I floor the throttle the revs rise sharply before the speed increases. The clutch action is heavy and feelingless. Does anyone know how easy/difficult a clutch change on these is (I've done it on mk2 Escorts and mk 3 Cortinas before - yes I am that old) Could it be something as simple as the clutch cable? is that a simple job to replace? Any help most welcome.
Norm Read more
Thanks Caveman, I'll have a go at replacing the cable at the weekend.
The price on the website makes no mention of 4wd or double cab so i'd presume it's the lower model.