Hi,

My golf has just started being a bit of a pain to start in the mornings. Essentially the engine turns over but it takes a few times to get going and a bit of throttle sometimes helps. It's only just started doing this - is it just old age!

I had the car serviced a little while ago and they replaced the cambelt. Would the timing be out and causing this? I've not noticed any problems with MPG?

any clues appreciated, thanks in advance

noz Read more

I recently purchased a Fiat Punto 55 (1.1L) N reg 91k miles for my sons birthday tommorrow 28/10 this being his first car.Yesterday I went to move it off the drive & it failed to start.I charged the battery overnight thinking this was the fault but when I refitted it today no joy.I decided to call the AA & it turned out to be a jammed starter.It was freed by a light tap with a hammer whilst firing the engine.My question is the starter likely to be a problem now it has failed once or should it be replaced.
I would appreciate any suggestion give my son is a student on a tight budget,
thanks in advance,
Millers57. Read more

okay my g/f has just rang up from her sisters house, our mk2 1988 polo has spat out number 1 plug and theres no threads left on the head

im hoping to attempt to helicoil it in situ

can anyone offer any advise, what tools will i need, how long should it take, how should i keep swarf out of plug hole etc

any advise at all, never used or seen a helicol before

what thread do i need? Read more

We keep hearing about the damage done if you put petrol in a diesel car (makes me wonder why they don't just make the diesel car pumps & injectors out of the same materials as those in a petrol car then they wouldn't get damaged , but I digress...) , but what happens to a petrol engine if it gets a mouthful of diesel? Read more

A family of four went on holdiay to America to board a cruise liner. It was a requirement that passports were retained by the crew who then returned them back to the travellors at the end of the cruise.

So single mum with three children boarded said liner, only to find that youngest child's passport had gone AWOL!

OK so they couldn't travel on the liner, they sourced a temporary passport from a British Consulate office after some questioning. A few days later they joined the liner at another destination and boarded for the rest of the cruise, so all was not lost.

When I asked how the mother could have lost it it seemed suspicious. We could all be wrong but it appears to her to have not been handed back at an immigration checkpoint on their travels into the US.

Their usual practise is for the mother to hold all passports and each child is checked off by immigration officer. However, mother thinks that at some point in the process only three passports may have been handed back. The one that is lost coincidently belongs to the youngest child who did not need to be finger printed, unlike the rest of the party.

Several possibilities exists. It could have been dropped by mother or another family member carrying them, it could have been fumbled by a member of US immigration with good intentions or it could have been retained by deliberate slight of hand.

Furthermore, mother thinks she can accurately determine the last point at which she was able to show all 4 passports.

I personally found it strange that only one out of 4 passports that were being carried together actually went missing. I would have expected all 4 passports to go missing, or none at all, remembering when we went away recently SWMBO kept all ours together, as this mother did.

Has anyone else heard of this happening? I have suggested that this lady actually reports her suspicions to the US immigration service, rather than just rely on the Passport Office to file another missing passport report.

I hope her extra travel costs will be reimbursed on her insurance. Read more