When a 2000-vintage car TD reasonable size estate car with 80k can be found for just a few hundred pounds, you have to wonder why.

Why? Can they really be THAT bad? HJ mentions 'lousy build quality' and 'timing belt changes every 3 years/36k.'

Is there a single Fiat driver on this board?

(My mother had a Cinquecento (early 1970s vintage) which rusted before her eyes. Father once tried to change a wheel on it when it was about 3 years old, and the jack just went straight through the bottom of the car.) Read more

Nothing to discuss but I thought this might give some amusement on a dull,wet Friday.I must credit it to Peter Egan via swapmeetdave.com.

Hammer: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate expensive car parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.

Mechanic's Knife: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door; works particularly well on boxes containing convertible tops or tonneau covers.

Electric Hand Drill: Normally used for spinning steel Pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age, but it also works great for drilling rollbar mounting holes in the floor of a sports car just above the brake line that goes to the rear axle.

Hacksaw: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

Vise-Grips: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense welding heat to the palm of your hand.

Oxyacetelene Torch: Used almost entirely for lighting those stale garage cigarettes you keep hidden in the back of the Whitworth socket drawer (What wife would think to look in there?) because you can never remember to buy lighter fluid for the Zippo lighter you got from the PX at Fort Campbell

Zippo Lighter: See oxyacetelene torch.

Whitworth Sockets: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for hiding six-month old Salems from the sort of person who would throw them away for no good reason.

Drill Press: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against the Rolling Stones poster over the bench grinder.

Wire Wheel: Cleans rust off old bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light. Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar callouses in about the time it takes you to say, "Django Reinhardt".

Hydraulic Floor Jack: Used for lowering a Mustang to the ground after you have installed a set of Ford Motorsports lowered road springs, trappng the jack handle firmly under the front air dam.

Eight-Foot Long Douglas Fir 2X4: Used for levering a car upward off a hydraulic jack.

Tweezers: A tool for removing wood splinters.

Phone: Tool for calling your neighbor Chris to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack.

Snap-On Gasket Scraper: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for getting dog-doo off your boot.

E-Z Out Bolt and Stud Extractor: A tool that snaps off in bolt holes and is ten times harder than any known drill bit.

Timing Light: A stroboscopic instrument for illuminating grease buildup on crankshaft pulleys.

Two-Ton Hydraulic Engine Hoist: A handy tool for testing the tensile strength of ground straps and hydraulic clutch lines you may have forgotten to disconnect.

Craftsman 1/2 x 16-inch Screwdriver: A large motor mount prying tool that inexplicably has an accurately machined screwdriver tip on the end without the handle.

Battery Electrolyte Tester: A handy tool for transferring sulfuric acid from car battery to the inside of your toolbox after determining that your battery is dead as a doornail, just as you thought.

Aviation Metal Snips: See Hacksaw.

Trouble Light: The mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin", which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, its main purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during, say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

Phillips Screwdriver: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your shirt; can also be used, as the name implies, to round off Phillips screw heads.

Air Compressor: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty suspension bolts last tightened 40 years ago by someone in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and rounds them off.

Grease Gun: A messy tool for checking to see if your zerk fittings are still plugged with rust.

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I've bought a 2.0 110 406 HDI 2001 X, and the aircon doesn't blow cold.
1.0 The cabin panel works (display, temp. selector etc.)
2.0 The system responds to asking for a cabin temperature rise by blowing warm / hot air
3.0 The system responds to asking for cabin temp. fall, but blows outside temp. air, not cold
4.0 The A/C button illuminats the A/C on the display - all seems to work

The stock amswer seems to be "re-gas" , but I can't hear any relay clicks or engine load changes when the A/C button is pressed/ depressed

I looked at earlier postings suggesting relays / wiring / fuses / gas pressure sensors & switches, but no indication as to where these are on this model.
Someone said they'd bypassed the system and found that the compressor worked directly connected to the battery, which indicates other faulty components.

Problem is, where are all of these components so I can check them.

Or any other suggestions or very common faults on this model? Read more

'allo all,

First time HJ'er here after some advice from any Ford Focus buffs out there.

I'm thinking of buying a 1999/T reg Focus 1.8 Tdi Ghia and it seems a good buy - in good nick, well looked after, full service history, decent price according to parkers and glasses but the mileage is high at around 150k.

I'm no stranger to diesels as I've run peugeot diesels for a good few years and if this was a Pug, I'd not bat an eyelid about this sort of mileage as I know they just go on and on, but I know nothing about ford diesels other than the fact that this early model TDi engine was replaced by the TDCi a while back.

So, I guess my questions are:

Should I be concerend by 150k miles on a TDi focus engine or not?

Is the TDi engine any good? or at least better than the Astra DTi/previous ford diesels?

Anything else I should watch out for on this model?

Any thoughts out there?

Tony

PS. Yeah, I know the TDCI is a better engine, but I ain't got that sort of cash about at the mo! Read more

Seeing as it's Friday and Ant and Dec's gameshow marathon finished last weekend... would anyone like to play this game?

For a 1996 1.4 polo, I need an estimate of how much this would cost, parts and labour at an independent garage, not VW:

New shock absorbers
Front wheel bearings (definitely one, possibly two)
Remove/replace small rust patches in one wheel arch, a bit on door sills and two tiny spots on the roof. (This has all appeared in the last six months!)
Four new tyres (continentals, I reckon around £220 at Micheldever?)
Refurbish one badly damaged alloy wheel
Remove dent on passenger door caused by a fence post encounter. The paint is damaged around the dent too.
Realign drivers door so that it locks/unlocks properly every time.
New battery
Replace the bulb behind the speedo so you can see how fast you're going in the dark.

That is everything Polo needs doing to him to make him a happy car. He will turn 100,000 before November is out. I may have fallen in love with a Civic at a bargainous price, and am trying to decide whether to:

1. Bite the bullet and part ex polo as he is.
2. Put Polo right and part ex/sell him (but will I be able to recoup the amount spend on putting him right?),
3. Put Polo right and keep him for another year or so, hoping that after all that money has been spent, he will be ok for the winter and beyond.

Name your price and pick your option!

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