April 2006
Good news for followers of the Subaru marque, as they are planning to introduce their own diesel engines from the late 2007/early 2008.
www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/200603...3 Read more
It has to be said that most of the (previously) smaller
manufactuers have thrived under the ownership of one of the big guns. Namely Volvo, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Land Rover, Saab, Ferrari, Mazda, Skoda, Seat, Mini, Bentley, Maserati, the exception perhaps being Porsche.
Porsche has never been under the ownership of anyone else has it!?
Speaking to friends who work at Jaguar, not all is rosy under Ford's direction, I know Aston have had to shed a few jobs (but they've been just about bankrupt under every owner since the 1940s), Land Rover have suffered under BMW, the 1997 Range Rover facelift never happened and several engine developments were stopped too.
Mini is just a model of BMW so not really a different manufacturer.
...here's BMW's latest advert.
www.slowcameras.com/
Not one of their better efforts IMHO. Read more
It was on "That's Esther". The dog was mine. his name was Oscar. He died in December 2008 nearly 17 years old, but not before passing on his skills to Pablo, the new star of The English Mongrels. They can be seen at major outdoor shows all over mainland Britain - no"tricks" the dog does drive his own electric car - see very short clip of practice on Utube "Pablo the car driving dog"
Watch your local press for when we are near youy.
The English Mongrel
Trying to drag a thread back on topic does anyone remember the car driving dog
on That's Life?
This might seam like a simple question, but where abouts is the fuse box?
thanks Read more
There is also a small fuse box at the end of the dash by drivers door for the lighting circuits.
Hi I have a BMW 3 series with run flats. The ride is very hard to say the least. Can I change these for standard tyres on the same rims? Will this make any improvement to the comfort thanks
alan Read more
The simple answer is yes. Be aware however that BMW have apparently "tuned" the suspension to cope with the significantly stiffer sidewalls, which if true could mean an oversoft ride. I have however changed 2 Minis with no apparent problem.....
A friend of ours came around to dinner last night and parked her nice Saab convertable about 50 yards from our house. It's a shame she didn't park it under a street light.
Result - 2 ft slash in the roof!
It looks like the person who did it managed to get himself between the car and the hedge it was parked against, then did it.
Just to add to her problems, the tear runs through a seam and down onto the side panel of the roof.
I'm hoping she won't need a new roof, but she may do.
Does anyone know of a good repairer in the West Devon/East Cornwall area, and are there processes for repairing these as opposed to removing whole panels, or replacing the roof?
Thanks
Hugo Read more
Having spent three months in a wheelchair,it is my opinion that anyone-repeat anyone-who parks on the pavement should be castrated and/or executed both slowly.Essex police have now abrogated all responsibility for parking.The magic word to get action is "OBSTRUCTION".
Big, big article in this Saturday's Motoring section on Mercedes reliabilty entitled 'Catch a Falling Star'. Fascinating read. Read more
Whenever this topic comes up, I always relate to this story.
A while ago, my Dad helped a mate out by driving "executive cars" for a few weeks. These included a Viano LWB (really cool!) and 2 Merc E320 CDIs with sequential number plates so in all liklihood built at the same factory.
Both E-Classes were on 04 plates and the faults on these relatively new cars (it was only the year before last he drove them) :
* Melted Xenon headlamp and glass surrounding it. The cover had bubbled and melted into the headlight assembly thus...
* Flaking most of the paint off the front bumper
* One of the buttons on the "dongle" completely collapsed
* Extremely sluggish autobox on one of them although it had done 70,000 in less than a year
* A Diesel leak from somewhere
* Service light couldn't be reset
* Centre console wasn't aligned properly
That's about it. Now I don't want to sound smug, but my lowly Ford has done nearly 78,000 miles - is 6 years old and the worst thing that's ever gone wrong on it is the coil pack. Other than that, the only other "non service" type things that have been replaced have been the wheel bearings.
I'm sure those Mercs were nearly 40 grand when new. Dunno what mine was - probably 12.
Don't get me wrong - the Mercs were superb cars and I'd have still had one but after I sat in a 11 year old Lexus GS, it made me realise what I, and a hell of a lot of people are missing out on.
Browse
Trust you PU....darn and blastit.
Showing my age for it always was by reason of age. Thought afterward maybe fail to conmform to conditions but no provision for amending my post so thought I would leave it as a test for others to correct.
You won. PU 1 Dvd 0.... oh dear.
dvd