August 2006
Having booked next summer's holiday travelling from East Midlands we didn't take up the travel agent's offer to book parking at the airport for £73.00 (though could still if we wanted to) as it seemed expensive. We've usually paid around £55.00 at Manchester, but all the off-site parks come up with £79.00, which smacks of a cartel IMHO. Anybody able to recommend one? I'd be happy with 15-20 minutes transfer time for a decent saving. Many thanks. Read more
I have just returned from an epic 2,200 mile tour of Southern France, Andorra and part of Spain.
In all this mileage I saw virtually NO roadworks (other than some minor streetworks in Calais town centre).
This begs the question, how can the continentals do such a good job of making their arterial motor route so clear of cones and restrictions, whilst we in the UK are plagued with seemingly non-sensical delays, speed restrictions and phantom roadworks where nothing much seems to be going on in them ?
Why are there so many signs in the UK warning of sometimes months of road works with restrictions, while the French seem to maintain a similar or even better standard of motorways without this, even in places of known heavy congestion ?
Comments please............. Read more
When I was in Rotterdam recently they were doing some work on the A20 to the west of Capelle Aan Den IJssel. They seemed to be trialling some kind of bridge over the roadworks - a temporary structure that was the full width of the carriageway over which the traffic travelled and under which the workmen were doing whatever it was that they needed to do. It seemed to be easily moveable to other locations - every time I want back it was on another bit of the road. There was a lower speed limit in place, naturally, but the traffic flowed fairly freely because all the lanes could remain open.
Chances of that sort of thing being employed over here?...
you know how on a cold and frosty morning your car feels like it pulls like a train...
when the cold dense air makes your car go much bettter.....
has anyone routed the air con cold air to the air intake???
is it possible?? would it have any advantages??
i dont mean wires and pipes here there and everywhere just something like a bleed off point where some of that very cold air goes to the engine
something similiar to an intercooler !! :)
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www.storme.co.uk Read more
Compressed air has been considered as a power regen option along the lines of - as you apply the brakes a clutch driving a rotary vane compressor is engaged so much of the reduction in momentum is acheived by the load on the compressor. Then when you need a bit of extra power the compressed air is released into the intake system at approx 0.5 bar above atmospheric, apparently enough to give a good few horse power for a good few seconds.
why do cars have lovely BIG and BRIGHT rear lights????
yet a lorry has tiny weeny little pathetic small rear clucters of lights
look at the size of vehicle to size of light ratio and a lorries is almost non existent
surely something must be done about thier tiny little rear candle powered lights??
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www.storme.co.uk Read more
it seems to me that truck driving with the 56mph limit is now more boring. More boring equals more chance of lack of concentration.........
this seems to equate to lack of awareness of when the overtake is necessary and then lack of warning to faster following traffic that you are going to pull out.
generally truck drivers seem to be good drivers i.e. aware of what is going on, but i have noticed an increase in 'sudden overtakes'.......... and yes the aware following driver should realise when a vehicle in front is approaching a slower one and will need to pull out...but... many lorries travel in convoys nowadays (no doubt due to the 56mph rule & the inability to travel a bit faster to get by) so that is not necessarily that easy to work out.
I read on the site that VW and Skoda Octavia Tdi's can suffer faulty ECU's.
I am thinking of buying a 2000 W reg Skoda Octavia 110 TDi with full history and 100,000 miles but am slightly put off by A) A possible ECU fault that afflicts the VW Tdi 110 engine and
B) It's had 4 previous owners and despite the great condition, I am wondering if it's been through many hands due to problems.
I understand that VW supply an upgrade at some cost but can the original ECU be repaired 'at home' like some ECU's that have been mentioned on this site. Is the fault caused by failure of a component such as a chip or is it nothing more than a 'dry solder joint'
I have successfully repaired dry joints on other ECU's but I am not sure if this known fault on the tdi is unrepairable
Thanks
Andrew Read more
I have a 1995 V6 2.5 Omega.
There is a rubber hose at each end of the valves which connects to the manifold pipes, and on one side I am getting it melting and blowing out in about 20 minutes of engine running.
Vauxhall suggested that I replace the valve unit at a cost of £132, however I would like to know if anyone has had this problem before to see if that is the probable cause of the problem.
Please Please help...... Read more
I've seen this problem before.
Just replace the hose - its melting on the bend isn't it! As an experiment - just tape it up with black plastic insulating tape to see if it cures the problem - which I suspect it will.
Its caused by gradual degredation of the rubber - thats all.
HTH
Is there a simple explanation of the various channels one can go through to pay one's toll. Which is the quickest? what is telepeage? I recently spent 17 minutes waiting to go through a channel with a green arrow and cars sailed past me into other channels with few cars waiting. Read more
Having had my Sanef telepeage fail on me yesterday on my return from S of F, several words of advice......
The french were quite sympa when I had to reverse out of the T lane, altho I was waving the transponder out of the window and swearing at the same time.
The french autoroute network is regionalised, and the different operators issue different transponders. This is not a problem when they work, but if yours fails you cannot exchange it at a local operators office, outside the home region. If you spend your life in the south, and Sanef operate broadly to the North of Paris!
The only office that we were passing was the Boulogne office at the end of the journey (650miles), and like all French customer service operations they only work until 17.00 with a long lunch break. So do I wait til my next visit during office hours to Boulogne to exchange, or negotiate the french helpline on the telephone for a replacement unit?
The good news is that all manned peage toll booths at an exit point can use a bar code reader to read the account details from the back of the unit. A triumph for the use of old technology, and it allows you to get off the motorway without cas or CC.
And finally last night, the M25 reminded me why I prefer to live in France, but that can wait for another thread and some time to spare.
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pmh (was peter)
I was wondering if the toyota camry 2.4 litre petrol vvti 2003 model is a chain or belt driven motor. The FAQs just says the toyota avensis 2.4 litre is, but has no mention of the camry?
Thanks
Greg Read more
The Camry 2.4 is the '2AZ' engine - basically the big brother to the 2.0 '1AZ' used in the Avensis. Essentially the same design - so its a chain. They are very fine cars too....
Hi
I have heard that a lot of companies seem to provide company cars to their staff.
My question is, do employees have to generally be employed for a set number of years?
Also, what kind of jobs offer this. Do you need a high level of education and good work experience history?
It is just a friend interested in this wanted to know.
Thanks
Greg Read more
Do you really not get the company to pay for fuel?
I would have thought that was one of the main
advantages, especially if you don?t do many business miles.
Like the way you did a tax calculation at 22%!
Hi Bill Payer
No Bill Payer, I pay for all of the private fuel myself. If the company was to pay for it I'd be liable to a tax charge of either 22 % or 40% on £4752. Which would be either £10.45, or £36.55 per week depending on the appliicable tax band.
For my earlier post I used both 22% or 40% throughout, except for where I used the final figure of £5.14 for the daily charge, which as you say was at 22%.
MTC
www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/29/ebay_scam_robbery/
A gang which set up a fake eBay car auction robbed the would-be buyer at gunpoint when he met to close the deal, The Daily Mirror reports.
Read more
As mentioned before, the feedback has been rapidly engineered to look at first glance like the seller is pukka when he has little or no Ebay status, and one negative comment. Alarm bells should have started ringing. However, just because this has been done, doesn't mean it's dodgy - if I wanted to sell something valuable on Ebay and had bad feedback or no feedback I'd perhaps do the same thing myself, even for a legitimate sale.
However, the photos were taken at what looks like a car park based hand-car-wash. You know, where you give your car and your keys to someone you've never met so they can clean it, take photos of the exterior and interior, put it up for sale on Ebay... that sort of thing.
Here's another thing... If the car was registered on 1 Sep 2002 why does the MOT run out in Jan 2007? It would have been due for its first MOT by 1 Sep 2005 and that would be valid until this Thursday. There are no previous owners (ie, no case of it having had 12 months MOT slapped on it to aid a sale) so why was an MOT apparently done in Jan 2006?
Why does the seller not know the engine size?
So immediately it's all a bit fishy.
Quite why a high reserve was set I couldn't say. If our scammer was a bit clever it could have been a way of making the victim think he was getting an even better deal... "yeah, because I like you I'll take less than the reserve, but in cash, right?" But the data protection thing puzzled me too. Perhaps they want to be happy that it's the seller whodunnit before they go fishing through his accounts. All a little odd though.
Browse
Ref. Doncaster Airport, I don't believe there is any off airport parking as yet. I live not far away and I haven't noticed any advertised. It may have something to do with the current volume of flights, once this reaches a certain level someone will set up the a service. I have used the on-site car parking, and this is extremely convenient, just across the road from the terminal building.