September 2006
I need your help please!
I have been "advising" a friend on a car purchase. I found one particular car which was 1 mile from where she lived and a price (on autotrader) at least £1.5K less than everything else advertised.
Long story short - she's looked at it and fallen in love with it and wants to pay a £1K deposit tomorrow! (20%).
BUT!!! The guy took the car to a car park for her to view, it's got a Northern Ireland reg, he says it belongs to his Dad in Northern Ireland, not him, she didn't see any documentation. I've found out where the car and the guy lives but for some reason I've got alarm bells ringing.
I'll try and call the supplying dealer tomorrow (it's 4 years old) but I'm not sure what that will prove.
I've told her to be careful but short of seeing the V5 is this a "walk away" from job?
Thanks! Read more
i got a mk2 golf 16 vale gti , when i turn right and accelerate i get a wheel rumble ( feels like a flat tyre) it also happens when you go in a straight line but not as much , i thought it was c.v joints as it only happens when you put a load on the wheels(accelerate) and if you dip the clutch or take it out of gear the rumble goes away( even when turning right, i am currently changing the wheel bearing hoping its that but i would have thought that would be cosntant thing acelerating or not. has anyone else come across this problem . pretty sure its not tracking as no tyre scub , calipers are not sticking and discs are not warped, could it be a worn bush, worn steering rack or even a gear box problem as i dont really think its a bearing , any suggestions??
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i had this problem on a 306. It turned out to be the inner cv joint where the tripod joint goes into the gearbox. This had some lateral play in it and was comming away from the gearbox slightly.
Can anyone advice? I have been issued with a fixed penalty parking fine. However, the policeman wrote the wrong address for where the car was parked. Is the ticket valid. I was on yellow lines but definetely not where they said I was. Read more
If I'm understanding this correctly the ticket was issued at 01.50 and showed an address i.e house number further down the road. How difficult can it be to find a house number you ask. In my experience quite difficult, let alone at night. There seems to be no dispute as to whether an offence has been commited just that part of the address was wrong. Whether that's enough to avoid a fine I don't know but sometimes I believe we have to take a little responsiblity for our actions rather than always blaming our self inflicted misfortunes on those whom we pay to enforce the law.
for my vw v6 engine? bought vw leads 14 months ago (£18 each) two are now visibly arcing from the plug cap to casting. Read more
i would love to fit magnecor leads but it is cost, availability and the fact that i will probably only keep the car for another 2 years that were the decisive factors.
if the leads cure the misfire, next on the list are: heater matrix, n/s mirror, 2 x tyres & MOT.
wish i had a company car
I have been told that if your car is used for business, it is possible to claim 40p per mile for the first 10,000 miles and 25p per mile subsequently, instead of claiming the money spent on fuel.
Has anyone in the BR had any experience of this?
My contact tells me that it is box 3.55 in the self-employed section of the tax return. However, I understand that fuel costs go in box 3.46 - cost of sales. Read more
hxj
The interesting question is - why can the self employed claim interest plus pence per mile rates and employees can't? Do you think it's something that's just been 'overlooked'?
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I say again:
8< SNIP 8<
{Oh no you won't. Any further persistance in this and you're barred. DD} Read more
8< SNIP 8<
Er, what part of No Naming & Shaming are you finding hard to understand?
Thread locked.
DD. BR Moderator. Read more
And actioned. Thanks to those people who reported this post.
DD.
Past couple of days the brakes on my 04 Accord have started making a horrible metal grinding sound. I understand that this is the pad wear indicators. But If I listen very hard, the sound can be heard constantly.
Would this mean the brakes are 'binding' - not fully releasing? and if so I'm thinking this could be a factor in the poor fuel consuption.
Would just getting the pads (& possibly disks) free this up or will it require further work? (warranty?)
Car has done 35K so will be booking it in for a service anyway. Read more
You need new pads! Be sceptical when the dealer tells you that you need new discs too and that your brakes are binding and that "We've never seen one like it sir"!!! I've just been told that, again, and as it's a safety issue most people say "£450! Steep but necessary!". I checked mine and they seemed servicable, but changed them all myself for £150.
Hi all,
Can anybody please me how long does it take for the average exhaust to last before any parts of it whether it's the back box or the front down pipe is due for replacement?
I was reading an old Marshall Cavendish manual & it explains many systems can last up to a year, but it's an old manual & surely many pipes don't last this short nowadays? I own a Y-reg ford Ka which has done just over 41k miles & is still on it's original system despite being used for a mixture of trips.
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-) Read more
Increased exhaust lifetime is a benefit of the change to unleaded petrol. Leaded petrol and the cocktail of additives used to reduce the less welcome effects of tetra ethyl lead were a factor in promoting exhaust corrosion.
JS
Well, if anyone ever wondered how much it costs to run a car, in this case a 2l petrol Mondeo estate, I can give you chapter & verse.
If you aren't asleep by now:
It is an ex-company car which I ran from new and bought off the company when it was 3.5 years old. As I had always had to keep certain records for the company, then I continued for the next 5 years of ownership. I bought the car for £4500 and wrote off this cost as depreciation over the 5 years. The ABS unit failed at 80,000 miles but, having replaced it for £1008, the car is still going at 128,000 miles. For the past 5 years, averaging 13,084 miles pa, the cost has been £3,603pa (27.53p per mile). That includes absolutely everything - insurance was for business use.
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I couldn't find the 'Real cost' indicator on the whatcar site, but found the depreciation data and comparison graphs. According to that, a new Mondeo, equivolent to mine, would lose £10,918 in value in its first year - blimey! If you did 15,000 miles in the first year and costed loss of interest at 5%, then cost per mile would be 79p before you added the costs of petrol, tax etc. The data fall down because the start price is quoted (presumably) at RRP, which no one would be paying.
There's no way I would run a new car - unless I won one in a raffle!
In the grand picture, a few mpg doesn't make much difference compared to depreciation; however I always reckon that if we paid for fuel in fivers and tenners rather than with a bit of plastic, we'd feel the pain more.
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was probably best to have walked away.......an HPI check is no good if the registration number is cloned..
by that i mean the car to which the registration number relates to might be legitimate, but if the made up plates are on a stolen car (ringer) then you are buying a stolen car with plates on it that relate to a decent one,...... that you've just paid £40 to check........ & somewhere else will be the real one.
The only sure way is to check physically the engine and chassis numbers and if necessary get right down under the car or into the engine bay, to ensure the numbers haven't been welded in from a wreck,(thereby hiding a stolen car's true identity).
If you buy something stolen, the original owner (or insurance company if they take on ownership after a payout) still own it, now matter what innocence you prove.
any decent seller won't mind you attending their home, you'd expect to see a number of bills etc to go with the car, old MOt's, previous garage documents maybe, when they purchased it etc, etc.
if in doubt take a mechanic ask them to check thoroughly for the chassis number (in more than one place)and then ring the old bill and say that you're concerned you might be about to buy a dodgy motor...(and why e.g. car park sale)...explain that you're not after info from the Police National Computer (which would have them fall foul of the Data Protection Act) but just to make sure the vehicle is not stolen (thereby preventing crime).