August 2006
Has this been mentioned elsewhere?
I have just read the letter in HJ's column in Sat's DT about the Civic handbrake "failure" on the m/way hard shoulder. I am (almost) lost for words! How the person can have the temerity to write in to complain!
It is up to the driver to ensure that the car is securely parked, how could the car roll more than a few inched without the driver being aware of it yet alone across three lanes of a motorway!
Why-oh-why were they not prosecuted for dangerous driving, not taking due care, wrongful use of the hardshoulder etc etc?
And then to admit that they let that car roll down their drive way demolishing a wall in the process, thank god a child was not playing in the path of the out-of-control car!
Sheer incompetence!
Am I being harsh? Read more
Hi all. My 2000 X 1.8 petrol Mondeo has started to give out this rattling noise from the front of the car, which I can best describe as sounding similar to what you'd hear if you had a coke can or two dragging under the car (hence the title of the post!). This only happens when accelerating from really low revs (eg putting your foot down at 18mph in third) and only lasts a couple of seconds, but is obviously slightly worrying! Not much more I can say, the only symptom is the noise, if you had ear plugs in you wouldn't notice as there's no loss of power or strange feelings thru the pedals etc. Any ideas appreciated! Read more
Demon...
My 1.8Lx had a fairly loud rattle which was a collapsed Cat (I lost my heatshield years before). I checked it by tapping the Cat with a large mallet to see if anything was loose (and whatever was loose inside the Cat rattled back at me).
Didn't cause problems for a few weeks but on the day I took it in for the new CAT the car would hardly perform (garage said it had started to break up and block the exhaust).
Only other rattling I got was creaky rattles from the front wishbones on uneven road surfaces.
Hi
Essentially I'm trying to establish whether Peugeot will do anything for a car that has just gone out of warranty. My girlfriend's sister has a 206 hdi which now has 37,000 miles, apparently her father topped up the oil adding nearly a litre in June (she didn't notice the oil level monitor until it started to flash) when the car went for its 36,000 mile sevice the (local vat registered) mechanic reported an oil leak coming from the back of the engine possibly from below the rocker cover (the entire engine is soaked) and had advised her to go back to peugeot as the car was just out of warranty (may 06) this was a few weeks ago. She has now left it for me to sort out.
What does anyone think? are Peugeot likely to cover it? Mechanic reckons it will be a full day stripping.
And has anyone experience of oil leaks like this in a 1.4 hdi and what the likely culprit is. The car drives normally.
Thanks all advice appreciated. Read more
Some while ago I had two new tyres on the front wheels, which clearly needed balancing as judged from the severe steering vibration. I put them on the back.
Having just fitted two new tyres on the back, I have swapped the half-worn pair back onto the front, fully expecting to have to have them balanced.
I am surprised to find that they are now in perfect balance, with not a trace of shimmy at any speed.
So is the following theory true ?:
Wheels are imbalanced because the circular periphery of the tyre is slightly eccentric with respect to the centre of the wheel. Running the wheel for a while on the rear, where this might not be noticed or matter, causes slight preferential wear in a way that re-centralises the tyre. Like spinning it on a lathe.
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Technically, this thread covers the theory of static and dynamic balancing in a reasonablr rigorous way for a non-mathematical forum - there isn't any more to it than the description in this thread. Most off-car machines since the 70's or so can do both types of balance at once.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=42992&...f
It's not unusual for tyres to change as they wear - for tyres which are initially OK to become unbalanced, or vica versa.
I can imagine if you have put the tyres on the back axle, the back axle, being heavy, will tend to stay still, and may help even out any imbalance, by forcing the heavy spot to wear more, where the lighter independant front suspension will be more likely to be shaken around - but that's just an educated guess.
Number_Cruncher
The audio system (Model 9000 with touchscreen ) in my Mondeo is not selecting 'external input'. Has anyone else had this problem please?
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I'm going to be getting a new (well, 6-18months old) car soon and the choice has come down to Skoda Octavia, Mazda 6 or Mondeo. Will probably be a diesel (for the first time) as they're by far the most common, at least in the better specs/trim, and the price difference isn't actually that huge. Got a drive in the Mazda6 2.0 TS2 in 2 days and drove a Mondeo 2.0 (130PS - would probably get Titanium X) and ST TDCi today. Very impresssed by both, mid-gear acceleration "wow" and "Yahoo" respectively! RAC giving insurance quote not much more for the ST though tyres would be pricier.
OK - here goes.... any opinions? Read more
As stated elsewhere, just catching up after computer problems. The heart finally won and signed for a 13month old Mondeo ST TDCi today. £1,000 less than we'd seen for one that was 10 months (though 55 rather than 05) and has upgraded drivers seat electrics and DVD player and headrest screens for the offspring so am ignoring what it'll be worth in 3 years - sob! But it does drive wonderfully. I'll maybe report again in 6 months. It's going to be a long weeks wait.
Anyone know how to get the fault codes flashed via the engine management light on a 98 Vectra DI using a paper clip. Topbuzz suggests pins 5 and 6 shorted for the petrol version but only pins 3,4,5,7,8,12,and 16 have inserts on the DI?
Fault is that car goes in to limp home mode only on motorway. Switching off and on resets and car behaves normally for a while. Fuel filter and air filter have been changed. Air mass/temp sensor next perhaps?
Perplexed. Read more
Could be MAF sensor but if the car is still sluggish even when not in limp home mode, first check that the catalytic converter is not blocked.
This was the cause of a similar problem on my company Vectra DI but was only found by good friend of these technical threads Andrew Moorey , and only after much sensor changing and heartache at another local garage at considerable expense.
If you want the full story you can get it by searching back on the old threads here.
We have just returned from a very enjoyable 2 week stay in France. While driving up the A28 between Le Mans and Rouen I looked in my mirror and saw a car and caravan behind me that I couldn't remember overtaking.
I checked the mirror again and found that he was actually gaining on me. Now I was cruising at around 85-90mph, like most of the locals, but he relentlessly hauled me in. I edged up to 95 but still he kept coming. After overtaking a line of trucks I pulled in and settled back to 85 and let him past.
Up he steamed and it emerged that he was a Dutch registered Citroen C6 towing a substantial caravan. I tailed along behind him for a while and he was cruising at 95mph, occasionally edging over the ton. I settled back to my 85mph cruise and let him get on with it.
I have to say that all the time I saw him he appeared smooth and steady as a rock, even when entering the bow wave of the trucks he overtook.
I'm sure you could hear the sound of the fuel gushing through the pipes to maintain such a pace. I kept expecting to come over the brow of the next hill and see a C6/caravan shaped accident ahead of me but he just disappeared into the distance.
I just hope he had a good set of tyres on that van. Read more
I never had any problems stopping with a caravan: brakes of van always carefully maintained and a stabiliser: the latter vital imo to prevent jacknifing.
But if the brakes are maladjusted and van is unstable at high speed, then a emergency stop may result in van pulling to one side and either dragging the car sideways or rolling.. or both.
madf
Wait till it's illegal and they have to increase fuel duty to recover the lost revenue.
Then you'll be sorry!
--
Robin Reliant, formerly known as Tom Shaw
Had to disconnect battery to charge it,and when I reconnected it,the stereo is not working properly,ie only tuner works but not tape.Says in manual that if battery is disconnected that you will need code for stereo,where do I get this code?And how is it put in? Read more
The usual answer is that a dealer will give you the code but may require proof of ownership of the car, and the car handbook will tell you how to input the code into the car stereo. Depending on how old the car is and whether or not it has had previous owners, the info should be in the car doumenatation along with key numbers and that sort of thing.
Browse
Must be something wrong with this guy's handbrake. I had my Civic for 35,000 miles and not once did the handbrake slip - not even slightly.
Do you think he knows that to get it to work you have to pull the lever up until you encounter resistance? Or does he think that the little red light looking a bit like this ( ! ) means that the brakes are off, and so he moves the handbrake lever down until it goes out? (A bit like the guy a few weeks back who asked why he had to turn his Passat's traction control on every time he started the car, because the yellow light stayed off otherwise...)
What. A. Plonker.