June 2006
Hmmm...I didn't know you could pick up Boras so cheaply.
One look at the Reliabiltiy Index has more or less made my mind up (Still the Toledo) but I thought I'd throw it open to you guys anyway.
Also, Cruise Control wasn't standard on the Bora - amazing! Read more
Hi All
Any suggestions appreciated.
The drivers window on my astra is driving me nuts. It is sqeaking like mad.
How should this be lubricated?
I have used WD and spray grease on previous cars- this is an Astra coupe which has pillarless doors. For this reason I am a little reluctant to throw just anything at it as if I degrade the seal I will be getting wet when summer ends!
thanks guys Read more
Never had a problem with polishing / waxing (delete as appropriate) the side windows on any of my cars, both past and present. The only window I don't do of course is the windscreen.
I even do the mirrors. Helps keep them cleaner longer as any dirt / dust doesn't stick to them, and when it rains, the water just sheets off.
Any hints if the new 125ps 1.7cdti Corsa engine will be dropped into the Astra at some point???? Read more
I would expect it might be, depends on whether it would prove more economical to fit than the current 1.9 CDTi FIAT-group unit, I guess.
When one reads the specifications for a vehicle, they always give the maximum power and torque figures - eg 110 bhp at 5800 rpm, 110 lb ft at 4000 rpm.
These figures are very useful for giving one an idea of how how the vehicle is going to drive. But it struck me that because of the way I drive, I'm probably more interested in how much power and torque a car have at 2500 or 3000 rpm. And of course, those figures are never given (though one can sometimes find graphs which will give you the information you want).
Anyone agree with me that it would be useful to publish figures for power and torque at, say, 3000 rpm? Read more
I doubt it. The clutch and gearbox don't survive many 0-60
tests ~ usually just enough to obtain an average that is
worth publishing.
I remember reading in Autocar some years ago about how they tried and tried to match Chevrolet's 0-60 time for the then new Corvette, without sucess. Enter stage left, Mr. Chevrolet test driver to show how it was done - accelerator hard down, dump the clutch, don't lift off the accelerator and don't use the clutch to get from 1st gear into 2nd (60mph came soon after). Easy!
S6 1SW
The fuel consumption on my wife's diesel yaris has always been disappointing giving about 52 mpg urban or about 58mpg at 75mph on the motorway , much less than Toyota's promises or other owners experiences. It's a 3 years old, done 24k owned from new. My wife has decided to keep it till it drops so a better fuel consumption may save a few hundred pounds over the next 10 plus years with oil prices going one way only. I did ask Toyota to look into this when it was last serviced and they could find no fault. I don't have a lot of faith in main dealers. Can anybody recommend an outfit around the Esher, Surrey area who may be able to remedy this? . Read more
Oh yes, it gets it's occaisional Italian tune up, and yes proper brim to brim calculations. My wife does drive it gently but also efficiently which should boost the mpg. Sorry should have written 52 semi urban ( it never gets driven in heavy traffic ). I would have thought at 24k the engine should have loosened up by now. i read the earlier thread about the Yaris D4D getting 70 mpg which prompted me to finally post this thread something I've been meaning to do for ages!
Anyone know the part numbers for the cam belt and tensioner for the four cylinder VAG PD engines.
Just curious to see if they are the same numbers as my 1.4 TDI PD three cylinder engine.
Thanks
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It's really all about producing a small engine on the cheap. A major cost in engine production is the transfer machining line. If you design a 3 (or a 5) cylinder engine with the same bore centres as the 4, significant cost savings in block and head production can be made.
There is certainly some significance in the relationship between cylinder sizing and efficiency and there is less friction with a 3 cylinder engine, but in my book, to design an engine which is fundamentally out of balance is poor engineering. Clever detailing with engine mounts may make this imbalance imperceptable to the occupants, but all of the on-engine anciliaries suffer needlessly high levels of first and second order vibration and tend to suffer as a result.
659.
Some weeks ago I started taking motorbike lessons, something which I'm really enjoying and getting a good feel for. I thought it would take me a lot longer than it has to feel comfortable with the controls, the gears, the clutch etc but it's almost second nature now.
I recently started riding out on the roads and through the town with my instructor, something I felt a bit nervous about when he first proposed it but quickly felt ok about once I'd started. However, this experience has really made me think about how I behave in a car. I do a lot of miles in a year and never would have considered myself a careless driver - in fact, I try to remind myself to be aware of my driving style, my position in the road, hazard perception etc. I do my best to keep safety uppermost in my driving behaviour and be conscious of how I'm "managing" the car.
Since starting to ride, I have come to realise just how removed from the driving environment the car makes me. I'm much, much more conscious of the road surface, potholes, drain covers, road repairs, gravel and mud when on the bike. A bird flying out of a hedgerow at the wrong moment could mean having to touch up the paint on the nose of the car - it could mean a broken neck on the bike if you don't react to it properly. Perhaps the biggest contrast was when I realised this evening that I had happily driven the car from a bright part of the road into a tree-lined, much more shaded stretch. As my eyes adjusted, it took me a split second longer to notice the pedestrians in the road ahead of me on the other side. I was doing maybe 55 as I entered the shady part, and allowed the car to lose speed so I was under 45 when I passed them. Yet on the bike the previous evening, I had felt the need to slow to less than 30 in an almost identical situation, in order to avoid even the possibility of emergency braking.
I believe I'm just as keen to avoid an accident whichever vehicle I drive, but it seems that the sense of vulnerability on the bike makes me far more cautious than the car does. This makes me think that although I used to tell myself that I would always have something to learn about being an even safer driver, I may not have realised then just how much learning I still had to do.
--
andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ... Read more
The best thing I did was to go on the local Bikesafe course after buying my latest bike. Been riding for 25 years, but I learnt a hell of a lot in those two days, it sharpend up my driving as well.
This is merely an observation rather than a discussion point , as it has been discussed to death before.
However, coming out of Coatbridge today, on the stretch of 30mph dual carriageway that is renowned for mobile speed trap, all the cars were crawling along at 29mph prompted by the flashes of headlights from the opposing cars.
Now as I approach the fluorescent copper with the hand held gun (noticed they have a red LED that lights up when in use), I realised that around me, without a a word of a lie, there were:
3 drivers not wearing seatbelts
2 cars with kids not strapped in to any seats
1 car with front foglights on (7.30pm, broad daylight)
1 guy on his phone, though he did put it down to below the steering wheel while he passed.
and 2 cars with illegal number plate font.
When I got to the roundabout at the end of the road, 3 cars had defective brakelights as well.
Not a single one of them got stopped by the police.. Read more
A policeman with a speed camera is MEASURED by the number of speeding motorists caught.
He is not measured by the number of other criminals caught even if they are breaking numerous laws.
If you don't measure it, we don't control it is the police motto.
Blame the politicians....who control the police. We taxpayers do not. The Police Authority is of course unlected.
Rant over....
Seriously I was stopped in 1993 with a defective rear light (cracked lens) by a policeman looking out for such incidents at a well nown local problem spot. Never see any police there now as our "local" police are no longer local.
Lorry drivers on phone when driving. 50mph in 30mph zone when passing a car over a zebra crossing with a pedestrian on it?
Police not interested.. Not measured..
The law on mobile phones has been passed making car use when phoning illegal. Enforcement? Whatsthat?
Perhaps fewer laws and enforcement of key existing ones would be a good idea..
(But no we're going to reform the Justice System - again..:-(
madf
I have just bought an immaculate 1993 Ford Orion as a runabout.
The rear wheel bearing is obviously shot, is replacing this the straightforward job I hope it to be?!?
I have bought a bearing kit. In all the jobs I have done including engine rebuilds and rebuilding kit cars I have never changed a wheel bearing!
All help gratefully received! Read more
Many thanks oldman. Just what the doctor ordered!
I wish the problems with my Astra dti were that easy to sort :(
Cheers,
Stuart
Do car adverts actually work on people or are we pre-conditioned with our own views anyway ??
The reason I ask is I like the C4 ice skating car etc and also the latest Honda impossible dreams ad where the guy riding/driving now has an England flag attached to everything including the f1 car and boat.
But I find the VW ads - Golf is £11995 - amazing but true etc - totally annoying and misleading.
Is it me - i.e. why should I be amazed at the price when the cars are actually nothing special and never score highly in an surveys.
Yet I also like Audi ads so I it's not VAG bashing.
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>Give me Barry Scott and Cillit Bang any day (clear, refreshingly simple and a demonstration of what it does)!<
I don't know much about responding to ads for new cars - last time I bought one the publicity was only in motoring magazines. But in France the product mentioned above is pronounced Silly Bong and on the rare occasions I catch the TV ad I fall about laughing.
And thanks Lud, as ever, for the smile. I thought I was the only one who had picked up that one...
Browse
Don't get me wrong, mine has never given the slightest hint of any trouble. But running two vehicles, I need to know I've got the most bullet proof things going. Hence buying a Honda, and an older tech diesel!