December 2005

kevls

a friend of mine told me his brother had water in his fuel filter on his car. the dealer told him sometimes you can fill up at supermarkets and have this problem he filled up at tesco. do they use the cheapest petrol around and dont check there tanks for water.
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mfarrow

You're bound to get some water in a tank at sometime, nothing can be 100% sealed from the elements.

www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=32700&...f

was a good thread about getting water out of the tank using isopropyl, if your mate's worried about it rusting.
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Mike Farrow

R75

I have just had the ABS and the 4WS lights come up on our 2nd car (you can tell it's xmas, cars start to cost money :o( )

Rang the local independent who did not really want to touch it as his diagnostic equpitment will not read this car. So rang up the dealer, they have quoted £35 per diagnostic (2x 35 = £70) and the car will need to be with them all day!!! Rang up another dealer 3 miles further away in the other direction and they have quoted £25 for full diagnostic and a while you wait service either tomorrow or Wed's. Now ok, I know where it will be going, but, both are the same main dealer, just happen to be 25 miles apart!! Not sure how it can be justified for one to charge £70 and one to charge £25 for the same work!!!

(name of car and dealers intentially withheld as per forum rules) Read more

bikemade3

It's nothing to do with overheads, it's to do with free
market pricing - or in other words what they think they
can get away with screwing you for.



Local Vx Dealer in Taunton tried it on, £160 for the first year service on Zafira, same service in Street 15 miles away costts £99 and a you get a FREE courtesy car: Guess where it's going next year!
kevls

vauvhalls usedto use a dual ram intake system on the vauxhall senator why did that get shelved. what did the counter balance weights do on the senator where they on the crankshaft abd do any other car makers use them. is drect injection better than injection outside of the combustion chamber
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barneybee

I've been suffering an occasional problem with my 53 plate Mitsubishi Carisma Diesel for the last few weeks, where when applying the throttle during a corner the front wheels begin to slip making the car unstable. This has started to knock my confidence when going around bends, especially if going around a multi laned rounabout! The front tyres have in excess of 4mm of tread so I'm a little confused why I'm suffering with this.

I can think of two solutions:

2 new 'high quality' tyres (recommendations please).

or

Put larger alloys on with new tyres to increase contact patch with road (currenty 15's). Read more

Malcolm_L

Check the tyre pressures, over-inflated tyres will lose grip a lot faster especially in the wet.

What brand and model of tyre do you have on the front wheels?

Are the front tyres wearing evenly - if your trackings out you may notice that your car goes round left handers better than right handers (we know it doesn't like right handers).

kevls

what is the difference between mineral oil part synthetic oils. i use part synthetic in my vw golf. how do hydraulic tappets work i have noticed when i start up theres a little bit of rattle but when the engine starts to warm up it goes away.
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Armitage Shanks {p}

While the car is standing the oil leaks out of the hydraulic tappets pipework but is replaced by high pressure oil when the engine is started. The effect is not immediate and, for a few seconds, there is an unusual noise. Also, if the engine has a chain tensioner, powered by engine oil pressure, that too will allow slack in the chain, until the pressure builds up and the tension is corrected. So long as it is only a few seconds there is nothing wrong, in my experience.

kevls

i want to wish everyone a very happy chritmas and a peceful and happy new year. bye for now.
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Citroënian {P}

Merry Christmas one and all,


--Lee .. Get out the Aluminum pole-Happy Festivus!

ric22

My car Mazda 6 Diesel,has an intermitant fault which causes it to keep stalling it is as if it can not find its idle speed and sometimes it sounds very rough for a few minutes like its with incorrect timeing then after a while it runs ok again until the next time. anyone had a simular fault.
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turbo11

Blimey!.Glad mines a petrol one

wannabe mechanic

Hi there.

The timing belt snapped as i turned the key and attempted to start the car. Needles to say it didnt even fire so i think no damage will have been done. Am i right?

Ive stripped it down and removed the existing snapped belt and went and bought a new one ready to fit tonight. But ive never done a timing belt before and dont really know how to line everything up. There is a notch or arrow on both bottom and top pulleys. Do i just need to allign both of them at the top of the cycle i.e top dead centre? Then when the new belt is on do i need to put the car in 1st gear and turn one wheel in the air to make sure it all turns freely? Once its all done will i need to do the timing again? Read more

Dynamic Dave

From memory (distant) when I changed the cambelt on my old 8 valve Cavalier there was a timing mark on the camshaft cover (right at the top) which the notch in the camshaft sprocket has to line up with. At the crankshaft end there was a small peg sticking out from the engine in which the mark on the crankshaft sprocket has to line up with. IIRC, the marks on the sprockets were just a dot that were most probably made with a dot punch.

Forum TOMTOM 3
Chris75

I have tomtom 3 with an ipaq.

Are the european maps it comes with any good, or should i splash out and buy country specific maps (namely Italy).

Thanks Read more

Pugugly {P}

Bought a TT5 for SWMBO as a Xmas pressie. Having ripped it out of the box within a couple minutes of getting it home, I set it up in my car. For the money, certainly locally, it knocks BMW's standard kit into a cocked hat. No doubt the euro-mapping is just as good. Brilliant - especially if you have a Bluetooth phone. Excellent. Hope she appreciates it.

pullgees

There's an RAC ad that warns not to even start your car if you accidently put unleaded in you diesel car, but it doesn't tell you why or how your car would run if you did drive off and goes on to warn you of horrific costs for repairs. I wonder if they are being a bit alarmist here. I would have thought that it depends on what percentage of petrol you have mixed in the diesel already in the tank, but I'm not an expert on the matter. Just what is the risk of putting petrol in a diesel? Read more

Armitage Shanks {p}

I think that, even with modern common rail engines, you can get away with some petrol in your diesel. I put 5 litres of petrol in and topped off with 40 litres of diesel 10K miles ago in a Pug Hdi and no problems to date. However, I think that if this becomes a warranty matter all components of the system will be chaged at your expense or you can do what I did and hope for the best. If you decline to have the components changed then the engine aspect of your warranty will almost certainly be suspended. I shok is correct in saying that years ago petrol was used to thin diesel which had gelled in low temeratures. However both the fuel and the engine technology have moved on since then and I don't think diesel thickening up at low temps is a problem any more