April 2006
Taken from today's Birmingham Post...
"Cameron goes slightly greener in luxury Lexus"
David Cameron yesterday confirmed that he opted for a large luxury car, rather than a less polluting model, when he decided to ditch his Government-provided vehicle for environmental reasons.
His admission came as he announced plans to commit the Conservatives to targets to slash emissions of greenhouse gases from traffic on British roads.
As leader of the opposition, Mr Cameron is entitled to a Government car. But he has decided to hand back his Vauxhall Omega and instead lease commercially a more environmentally-friendly Lexus GS 450h with a "hybrid" engine which gives off less carbon in exhaust. However, he turned down a Government-provided Toyota Prius, whose emissions, at 104g per kilometre, are significantly lower than the 186g given off by the Lexus.
Mr Cameron said he had opted for the larger car because the Prius was not big enough to carry all his entourage, meaning he would often have had to take two cars on visits.
"My current car that the Government gave me is 276g, so the car I am getting is going to be a huge decline from that," said Mr Cameron.
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Hi guys, anyone got any advice to off on the above. Central locking is gone mad in that the doors will lock themselves at anytime without any notice!
This has already caused the car keys to get locking in twice and in one instance, it didn't happe outside the front door of the house.
The car has it's alarm disabled due to I have been told that the alarms on these models go a bit wonky after a couple of years so the main dealers switch them off whenever they are selling on a 2nd hand one..
I will endevour to describe a few scenario's in how I experience problems.
1. Driving a long and then suddenly the doors will just lock themselves
2. Open the door with the key, sit in, pull the door shut and the two doors (it is a 3 door) will instantly shut itself.
3. Drivers side door may lock but the passenger door will stay open.
4. Drivers & passengers doors will stay open but the boot will be after locking itself.
Any of the above situations will manifest themselves at anytime. Toi be honest, I just thought of it there, I have yet to check two if the fuel flap locks itself as well...
Any idea's?? Read more
One cold morning -6c drivers lock froze up so I tried passenger door. Central locking worked but immediately locked the door again, I never got the passenger door or windows to open, I unfroze the drivers lock to get in. The passenger CL then behaved the same way every cold morning. I don't have the boot lock on CL as I prefer the boot to be key only.
On warmer days +3c passenger lock would ONLY open passenger door but would relock 10 seconds later all by itself.
The would seem that the door vacuum unit needs to be removed from the door frame to fit a replacement micro switch, and this looks a fiddly job. I noticed that the VU micro switch wire connection was half apart and not clipped home to the switch. Pushing the connector fully home has cured all problems.
Hi all,
I can't turn off the Econ button on my audi A4 climate control. I remember having probs with it when I bought it last year.....didn't read the handbook but eventually got it switched off and got the air con to work. With the Econ button on the air isn't cold enough...Is this an indication that it needs re-gassing or some other fault ?
If it needs re-gassing, where can I go to get a good and cheap job done - not too keen on main dealers prices. The car's 4 years old 1.9TDi Avant. Many thanks, Underbonnet. Read more
we did have a warmish day last week and i set the levels to Lo on both sides but the econ button stayed illuminated when I tried to switch it off ? I spoke to the Audi garage who tell me it usually indicates it needs re-gassing....any further advice please ?
Does anybody know if it's possible to adjust the rear wheel camber on a Nissan Micra, please?
I'm interested because one of my wheels seems to be at a sharper angle than the other. Read more
wow,.........it must have been bad then
Hi,
Reading the car by car breakdown it says.
'Design' sacrifices some of these features for alloy wheels.
Does anyone know exactly what it misses? Wife currently wants one, but there are none local to look at and compare at the minute.
regards
Barry Read more
Hi,
Thanks...Thats exactly what I am after!!!
Thanks again
regards
Barry
Im in need of some new blades and have always used bosch super on my 306. Just wondered what peoples opinions are of the best wipers for cost and quality?
I notice the bosch dont fit perfectly on the edge of the screen but i can get them for £4 each at my local auto shop. Stick with these or go for something else?
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L'escargot - I remember replying to your original post about your Bosch blades months ago. I still don't really understand what happened there. All the Bosch blades I have bought over the years have been excellent in terms of quality, fit and performance.
Maybe they've changed the design/construction recently and I haven't seen a "new" pair yet, but I picked up a set for SWMBO's Toyota last Autumn and they were still the same high quality items that they've always been.
Were yours counterfeits from a car boot sale or something?!
Has any one used the services of a car auction buyer ? Read more
if you do a forum search its well covered .
I have been looking at these against BMW 120d.
According to the guides both should be worth 60% after 3 years
at 12 months BMW's are available for about £15.5k whereas GTI's are still £18,000 upwards.
How long will this last considering that Mk4 gti's are going for around £9k at 3 years old.
Could I buy one from a broker and recover most of the cost after 12 months - or will they plummet when the novelty wears off?
thanks for any advice. Read more
Have a mate who has a 96 VW Caddy with a 1Y engine ie not turbo is there any way of tuning it, has been told the enginer can't be chiped by main dealer but I'm sure something can be done
BTW mileage is over 150,000
Thanks
PS Any good UK based VW Caddy forums out there Read more
Car
The 64 bhp 1Y only has a tiny 18-pin glow-plug and pump-control ECU. It will run perfectly well even without it's influence; so there isn't much scope to make any noticable difference.
Given the mileage; the only way to make any worthwhile effect is to find a donor 110 bhp AFN-engined Golf and do a complete driveline transplant.
Could anyone please tell me if there are any advantages to
PCP for someone recieving cash car allowance..? I am struggling to see an advantage over taking a Co. Car. With my Co. scheme you basically choose the most expensive car within your allowance, which looks financially delinquent for low mileage drivers.
What happens with PCP if you wish to return the car before the end of the period...? Is looks like the employee would take the risk of signing to a 3 yr lease, rather than the employer, which doesn't seem so smart.
As I see it with PCP: you pay you own insurance (which is higher for business use) and have to stump up a desposit.
You have option to buy at the end but same is true with
Co. Car.
Read more
Thanks for the info.
Rough calculation shows monthly BIK liability is less than
income tax on the monthly cash car allowance.
Does it only really work for gaz guzzlers..?
They would usually get the best advantage from opting out.
The other people who benefit if the company pays for all fuel are people who do high private mileages (perhaps doing a long commute to work).
I remember when the CO2 related rules were brought in, Boots thought that 500 of their 1500 drivers would probably opt back in.
If you're driving a £10,000 car, with 15% tax rating and only paying 22% tax on your income, then the car costs just £27.50/mth.
Do the sums again for a £40K car at 35% rating and 40% income tax and the tax is £467/mth.
Look at www.cashorcar.com and do your own calcuations.
Browse
"PhilW, try to engage your brain before you start spouting statistics. I don't know whether your 97% figure is correct"
That's a very strange argument.
"The point is that those "natural" emissions are a closed system."
Doesn't matter whether it is closed or not - it matters though, where the CO2 is - ie is it locked up? Is it being released by your organisms or absorbed by your organisms - the balance between these will affect the amount in the atmosphere - and by far more than anything man can produce. (And of course you have totally omitted to mention the vast amounts of CO2 emitted by volcanic activity)- here's a quote to ponder- "Above or below average rises in CO2 levels in the atmosphere have been explained in the past by natural events".
Anyway, while engaging brain, and not quoting statistics perhaps you should research some of the eminent scientists who claim that CO2 increases do not CAUSE global warming but are a RESULT of global warming.
I'm no expert, I merely quoted figures from various sources (they range from 95% natural to 99% natural, so I chose the middle figure).
"don't try to use nonsensical numbers to pretend that we've not created a huge environmental problem for ourselves by burning oil." - they ain't nonsensical and it ain't just oil - ever heard of coal and wood? - look up how much coal China and India mine and burn.
"historically (100 millions of years ago) was much hotter than it was today," - how did that happen then? It certainly didn't have much to do with burning oil in my car.
"by reinjecting the CO2," so how do we do that into your "closed system"
"we've managed to cause a huge surge of over 30% in the level of CO2" - You sure about that - we've done it?? See the quote below
"It is back to the drawing board for carbon cycle models. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration varies in a manner which has not been predicted successfully by existing models. There was significant variability before there could have been a human contribution. This variability appears to have followed temperature changes, rather than being responsible for them. Although there has been an increase during the period of industrial development, the increase has not been uniform. Thus, the period between 1935-45 showed no change. The period since 1972, when the increase has been linear despite an increase of over 45% in emissions, suggests that there are new carbon sinks being established in the ocean and in the terrestrial biosphere to absorb the increases. This behaviour plays havoc with previous predictions of global warming, but it is difficult to know how long the present apparently stable rate of increase will continue."
Oh, and so glad to see that you agree with my main point (and back to motoring)- "I agree that the choice of car of 1 or 2 politicians is utterly irrelevant"
As I said "it's a damn good excuse for non-driving Gordon Brown to extract an extra £40 a year from "gas-gussler" drivers in "road fund" tax, or petrol/diesel duty from all of us."
--
Phil