May 2006
I have a Seat Leon 1.6 which I have decided to keep for another year or two.
It has a factory fit Radio/Cassette but I would like to play CDs. What is the easiest way to achieve this?
Do I need to buy a new unit (perhaps vulnerable to theft) or can I have a CD player put under the seat?
Any help welcome. I live in the Croydon area.
Woody Read more
i have a set of braided brake hoses on my car, i got them beacuse i understood they were pretty much bullet proof and would last way longert than standard rubber ones
today on the mot brake tester one burst..it spilt open! anyone heard of them failing before? i half worried that another might burst when im braking hard one day. should i take it up with the company?
one other thing..the pedal went to the floor and it looks like its lost all the fluid, i thought modern cars (its a golf2) had a split diagonal so that 2 brakes would still operate in such a emergency Read more
yeah they were the correct ones , right length and all that. i take very good care of my cars and cant help but think if i have done something to cause a failiure then im sure many others have done far worse than me
funnily enough brand new goodridges have a thick plastic sleeeve molded over the braid, i wonder if they improved them for some reason..all i can think of is maybe a stone flew up and damaged the braid???
Replacing a front upper strut mount/bush on a 306 - does this require the spring/shock to be disassembled?
According to Haynes it does but I've done the same job on the back of a car before and they just came out as a complete strut.
Thanks all. Read more
The spring had to be compressed when I did same job. I could see the mount had separated by pressing down on each wing top.
I would like some advice on parking tickets please. Today I parked up at my local gym, paid the 40p at the ticket machine but didn't get a complete ticket (just a fragment of a headed slip); the ticket machine then seemed to 'go to sleep'. I informed the receptionist at the local authority gym and placed a notice on my dashboard stating the time of parking and that the machine was not working. Surprise, surprise I have an "Excess Charge Notice (Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984)" and a £50 fine.
The 'notice' even states that I left a note and the parking attendants asked the receptionist who confirmed what I reported; the attendant states on the notice that the machine was checked and was working ok (about 2 minutes after I parked).
Can anyone offer any practical advice on appealing please? There is no information on appeals of any kind on the notice. Thank you all in advance! Read more
I would advise against sending the original ticket. Send a photocopy. If they conviniently 'loose' the original you will loose your best evidence.
--
Fullchat
Can someone please let me know the location of the microfilter on a 1997 316 Compact as I am having trouble finding it. Many Thanks
Read more
Are you refereing to the pollen filter?
If so, see if you can find the info here:-
www.puravent.co.uk/filters/dispmodel.pl?make=BMW
Is it just me or I have found a new game these idiots play, when traveling on a motorway or duel carriage way you approach a slip road and you just know the vehicle coming from the slip is going to force you over. So you move over if its safe to do so (to avoid being side swipped)and then are unable to get back to the nearside lane because the vehicle that you moved over for is determined to match your speed at any cost. I hear you say drop back and pull in behind,not so easy when you are on a busy road and the vehicle behind seems to want to join the fun.
--
rustbucket (the original) Read more
traffic joining the motorway must match its speed to traffic
on the motorway.
This has been the rule for at least the 35 years that I have been driving. Unfortunately, with massively higher traffic densities, it is easier said than done. I can think of no answer other than to be courteous and careful. The problem is made worse by drivers who join from a slip-road and automatically assume that a driver will move over for them - not giving sufficient thought to the fact that he himself might have an overtaking car on his RHS.
Some months back, I spent a few weeks in Tasmania where the population/unit area is about one fiftieth that of England. Driving was a real pleasure again rather than a chore.
***** This thread is now closed, please CLICK HERE to go to Volume 23 *****
Originally titled "A Reasonably Priced Car?" but as Volume 21 has filled up, volume 22 has been started - DD
Why do The Top Gear people use such obscure cars?
A Chevrolet Lacetti? Wossat?
Why don't they use say - a Ford Focus, Audi A3, VW Golf, or whatever? A car that we see on the High Street, a car that we know and love (or hate). Read more
Are you sure that song's from The Rock soundtrack? I've just
worked my way through the previews on Amazon and can't hear
it on any track>>
It is part of the general soundtrack and not an individual
track by an artist.
Yes i'm sure!
Well, The Rock soundtrack CD turned up today from an Amazon seller - but it doesn't actually have the track I was after on it.
The good news is that I managed to get hold of it in the end from AllOfMP3.com (yeah, I feel a bit guilty but I didn't want to spend 12 pounds on it). It's from the soundtrack to "Man on Fire", final track, starts at 8 minutes something.
Anyone changed the battery on a remote locking fob for a 2001 Mazda 323F?
Wary in case the coding can be deranged. Getting a spare key coded was a real problem with only a main dealer being competent.
--
I wasna fu but just had plenty. Read more
Only number on the remote is Mazda Motor - 41003 (Alpine)
New Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander is due to announce a £10m fund of taxpayer's money for the development of nationwide road charging schemes.
He hopes new technology will allow drivers to be charged by the mile.
Mr Alexander, promoted in last week's reshuffle, is to outline how he intends to improve UK infrastructure with minimum environmental impact.
His predecessor at the department, Alistair Darling, announced several pilot road charging schemes.
'Time to face facts'
Cambridge, Durham, Bristol, Bath, Greater Manchester, Shrewsbury, Tyne and Wear and the West Midlands were among the authorities developing road charging proposals.
Conservative transport spokesman Chris Grayling said: "Yet again we have a secretary of state whose only solution to our transport problems seems to be a road pricing system which couldn't be introduced for a decade.
"It's time ministers realised that we need action now to improve transport and not vague ideas for the distant future. They could start by keeping some of the transport promises they've made in the last few years and then quietly dropped."
Mr Alexander said road pricing was one of several measures that had been looked at to tackle congestion.
He said that it was time to face "certain basic facts" that as the nation's prosperity improved, people would want to travel more and to travel further.
"And as we travel more, because we live on a crowded island, congestion is set to grow, so if we do nothing we simply face eternal gridlock," he told BBC News.
The debate now was not so much about "why road pricing?", but "how it would be implemented", and the prize for motorists would be "better value out of the road network".
Read more
As above I don't think people think of petrol as a tax, it's just something to make their car go.
If I choose to use the M6 toll road I make a value judgement - is it worth my cash to save time and drive on an empty road or not?
It seems to be universally agreed that one of the big problems of the M25 is too many junctions - ie it became too easy for lots of local journeys to include a few miles of motorway leading people to make journeys, that hitherto had taken too long to do as easily.
I seem to recall an article in Motoring Telegraph which said that car insurance companies do not take on new customers who are aged 75 or more.
A couple I know are approaching this age. Their insurance has for several years been in the wife's name (to get better rate for her lower age?) with the husband as second named driver. This means that he has lost his benefit to no-claims-bonus even though he has not had an accident for more than twenty years.
If, after he is 75, his wife was to pre-decease him, how would he stand for cover....because he is not the policyholder (and therefore a new customer)? Should he be doing anything about it now? Read more
I guess most insurance companies would be reasonable about it, when my father died, my mother (under 75 ) had never had insurance in her own name but had been a named driver on Dad's policy for 40 years, Direct Line simply changed the insurance into her name with no effect on the premium or NCD.
Just fitted a H & B CA5555 to the Porsche, AM/FM + CD MP3 player plus plays USB & MMC/SD cards & has the ability to manage a remote CD changer. All for £ 106 from Dabs, brilliant audio, vastly exceeds the speaker capability!