June 2006
Anyone know how to find out the dimensions of a TVR Chimera? Been googling round for ages and had no luck.
Yes I'm trying to find out if one would fit in my garage, MR2's a tight fit but still usable with the mirrors folded in, garage doors are 202cm at their narrowest, rest of garage is 220cm ish (with carpet along the walls!).
Length should be ok, got 430cm to play with without even taking out the work bench.
Thanks for your help guys. Read more
Any views or experince on which estates are fun to drive? Is it possible?
How about Accord Tourerr? Volvo v70's Audi A6 Quatrro?
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Audi A4s are not as bad as people say, but it
is a firm ride, and the handling is a bit lifeless.
Ditto a Passat, would rather have the Honda in terms of
driveability any day.
The nice thing about the A4 is that although the handling isn't top notch on all but the specialist models, at least the estate doesn't drive any differently to the saloon. Whereas the Passat Estate is noticeably different. Handling is always a compromise, because in my area you dont want the stiff sports suspension and ultra low profile tyres because of the rough country lanes, and I find that when people say a car handles badly this usually means it is a good motorway cruiser.
I have recently bought a 406 with a rather nice set of alloy wheels. Went to check the front disk pads yesterday and realised that there is locking wheel nuts on the car (unsurprisingly!). A quick check of the interior of the car and a quick phone call to the previous owner reveals that the tool to remove the locking wheel nuts is missing (Damn!). How easy is it to "shear off" the wheel nuts (this is what loacl peugeot garage quoted a large amount of money for).
Is this something I could do at home e.g. 6' of scaffold onto end of wheel brace? Is there really no way of Peugeot supplying another key tool (the local garage says not)?
Lastly, and most importantly, the car is an estate. Please, please could anyone suggest and hidey-holes in the car that I may have missed. Where would the tool be stored for a new 406 estate?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Regards,
wally. Read more
Walter, if you feel that the service you had was really good - and you obviously do, you can enter the people, by region, by following the link under HJ's Photo called "Directories". People like this deserve a mention! I did the same a long time ago for a garage who received a broken down car of mine, towed in by Green Flag, and fixed it for nothing! A mention followed natch!
I am having intermittent starting problems. Sometimes the car will start 1st time (not often) and runs fine. Most of the time it needs at least 3 attempts. Sometimes it needs several attempts. When it does not start there is no fuel coming from the injector, but there is always fuel pressure to the throttle body. I have changed the injector and the injector relay but this has not rectified the problem. I have dismantled the fuel pressure regulator and it all looks clean. Although the diaphragm is not split it has delaminated, I don't know if this could be the cause of the fault. Peugeot tell me that the diaphragm is not supplied on its own and I need to buy the complete throttle housing. Some help and advice would be greatly appreciated. Read more
Changed immobiliser aerial yesterday. Car starts fine now. Thanks to everyone for sound advice.
Does anybody know where the inertia cut-out switch is on a Nissan Micra, please?
My Haynes manual doesn't mention it, though it may be useful to know. Read more
Thanks - if my car flips over re-starting the engine will be the last of my problems.
My 1997 Rover 100 (metro) had an inertia cut-out swith that turned the fuel off if you came to a sudden halt.
My 1997 Nissan Micra hasn't - I'm amazed at the higher Rover specifications, both in terms of build quality and equipment. It's a pity they didn't get their act together until it was too late.
VW touran diesel engine suddenly died no electrics,no hazard flashers,elec windows ect absolutely no power at all.This happened last year was found or thought to be corroded + terminal on battery by VW dealer.
Same thing happened today only VW rescue attended and found nothing wrong, when this problem occured this time the battery case was very hot and the + battery terminal was also very hot and slightly discoloured-had cooled down by the time VW rescue repair man had arrived.Only suggestion was book it into VW for investigation.
So my thoughts are
1.if it was a high resistance battery terminal ie corrosion it would get hot but why would that cause the engine to stop.
2. If there was a lot of drain on the battery and caused the voltage to drop significantly and cause the + terminal to get hot would that stop the engine.
3. If it was a high drain on the battery where to, alternator via a duff diode or perhaps the starter motor?
I was not there at the time so info sketchy.
Any thoughts / suggestions please
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rustbucket (the original) Read more
This recall only affects 2.0tdi tourans. No idea why the fire occurs, but there are many pretty pictures on the net of flaming 2.0tdi tourans.....
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
I have recently acquired a 1997 VW Polo 1.9 CL Diesel.
The car is in excellent condition and has recently (March) passed full mot and service no problems (all paperwork to prove).
The only problem with the car (that we can see(!!) is that under 1000rpm the engine sounds a fair bit louder than you would expect, even from a diesel. In fact, at standstill the cabin vabration caused by this is quite extensive.
The car has been taken to three different garages (two of which are VW specialists) and they cannot see anything mechanically wrong with the car. One garage actually said - "that's just the way it is, the car is perfetly fine". Very helpful indeed!
Having run out of ideas regarding a solution to the problem i thought i would turn here to hopwfully shed some light.
The cam-belt was recently replaced by a VW specialist at 94,000 miles (the car currently has 103,000 on the clock). Could this have been over tightened and cause a problem such as this? Or is it possible that a bearing is sticking or something?
I'm really rather stumped as the car drives perfectly well even with this annoyance.
Any help would be great thank you.
Ollie Read more
I drove a 96 1.9D Polo for 20,000 miles and unfortunately I can confirm what you are experiencing is normal. It had been in my family since nearly new and was always the same. It's easily the most agricultural diesel I've ever been in - especially at low speeds and on the motorway.
I don't think it's an engine mounting issue, it's just that the car and the engine aren't a paticularly good match - there's not enough sound proofing (maybe not enough room) and the engine idles at the resonant frequency of the whole car. You can try adjusting the idle speed on the Lucas fuel pump but this is probably not to be recommended. I've now switched to a PSA XUD powered car - supposedly a much older design but lightyears ahead in terms of refinement.
Has anyone else had this problem. My daughters N reg petrol Fiesta gets jerky after a while and stalls fairly often when coming to a stop. Releasing the fuel filler cap produces a hiss of escaping air/gas and driving with the cap loose is perfect. It seems like a build up of tank pressure is the problem. Is there a breather or pressure relief valve anywhere that could be blocked? Can it be removed or cleared easily if so?
Any thoughts please.
Thanks to all who wrote to me regarding the wet drivers carpet in my Mondeo. I have just posted a thank you in this list but in case you can't see it was coming in through a cutout above the ECU/immobiliser. Not much rain in Somerset hence the delay in thanking you all. Read more
Thank you to all who replied to me. I had a good look round, breather to map sensor was clear, took off tps & lubricated it with a little WD40 (couldn't do much else), cleaned around the butterfly in case dust or gunge was holding it and its bypass was clear. It still stalls so spoke to daughter and she is going to run the car with the fuel filler cap loose (and remember not to overfill the tank & tighten cap for the MOT!)
Thanks again for all your thoughts & time. Bast wishes, Vinnie.
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They have a website - sodastream.co.uk - seems to be dead as the proverbial though.
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Hi whenever I apply footbrake I get a one off clunk sound coming from front end any ideas? Read more
Found this old thread when searching as I had exactly the same problem on my sons ageing Ka.
Last August, I completely overhauled the brakes including new calipers, discs and pads. All was well until around Nov when I noticed a knock when the footbrake was used. Sometimes it was worse than others and sometimes it didn't knock at all. I can't recall how many times I looked for the cause of this problem! Even when the knock was apparent, the brakes were OK (by Ka standards) and it sailed through its MOT last Jan.
Last week ithe knock got really bad. so I decided to replace the discs and pads again, this time using Ford parts. When I removed the pads, I was horrified to find that the friction material on the pad on the caliper piston side, was cracked all the way across from inner edge to outer. This was on both N/S and O/S.
The good news is that so far, and I suppose its early days yet, the knock has not come back.
In my 30 odd years of working on my cars, I've never before seen any pads with cracked friction material. I guess the moral is you get what you pay for. From now on I'll be using original Ford parts.
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Afraid we're not diyers, so wouldn't attempt to do more than shove fuel in frankly. (Which takes forever - don't be in a hurry!). Always had it serviced at the place we bought it and they charge very reasonable prices - £200-£300 - although it does need a service every 6k. A mate has one as well though, and he does a bit - yes, they are all pretty standard (and cheap) bit, so you can certainly do a fair bit yourself. Easy to access too.
When we were looking I had a hunt for chassis rot - of the four or five we looked at (all at dealers) only one had any slight evidence of that, so it's not hard to find a good 'un. But of course you are ALWAYS better off spending a bit extra on a better car than trying to put one right.
Having said all that, I admit we spent a bit more than you are thinking of on the two we bought, so I don't really know about what you get at that price point.