Can anyone give me an honest opinion of these? I'm looking at buying one tomorrow.

How easy would it be to fit an intercooler from a Xantia? I'm told this is the thing to do to slightly increase performance and increase economy. Read more

August bank holiday and I'm 2 miles from home driving my wife's car (she was with me). I'm a named driver so fully insured. I had a careless moment and slid her car, on a wet road, into the back of a Porsche. Bumper damage apparent on both cars. W e made a claim and my wife will lose 2 years NCD. I rang my insurers (different company to the wife) to report my carelessness and they seemed confused (call centre in the UK). They told me to call again when my own policy is up for renewal (Augsut 2007!!).

I'm wondering should/must I? My wifes premium will go up I don't want mine to as well. Why should we be hit twice or will we?? What do you think? Read more

Evening all. I'd like to share an incident which happened on my way home last night. Approaching a signal-controlled Y-junction I positioned myself in the right-hand lane to take the diverging road. On nearing the junction I saw that the diverging road was blocked by a 'Police - Accident' sign and a police officer was in attendance, directing traffic in the right-hand lane to rejoin the left lane and continue straight on. As I got to the stop line, the light controlling my lane was red, that controlling the left lane was green. The officer indicated for me to rejoin the left lane. A motorist in this lane stopped and signalled for me to pull in front of him, which I did, at this point triggering the red light camera covering my lane. Clearly I am now concerned that I may receive points and a fine for jumping the red light, although I was doing so under direction from a uniformed officer. Incidentally, I believe both the officer and the sign should have been clearly captured by the camera when it was activated.

With hindsight I can see that the sensible thing to do would have been to find a safe place to stop, return to the junction, explain the situation to the officer, and make a note of his number. Unfortunately I didn't do this, mainly due to the heavy traffic and lack of thought on my part. By the time I got home a few minutes later I had recovered my wits sufficiently to call the police enquiry line and ask their advice. They duly noted the details and issued me with a reference number, though were fairly noncommittal as to what might happen further down the line.

Today I have received a voicemail message along the lines of "If any automated follow-up is received, please contact PC Bloggs 123 at Anytown police station, quoting your reference number, and it will be dealt with."

In the opinion of fellow backroomers, what is likely to happen now?

1. The people who process the fines will apply common sense and nothing further will happen
2. I'll receive a NIP, contact PC Bloggs and he will make the whole thing go away
3. I'll receive a NIP, then have to embark upon a lengthy and time-consuming procedure (court etc) to try to get it overturned.

Is there a possibility I may end up having to take the points / fine after all?

Thanks in advance for all comments and advice.

Jon
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The thread on motorway lane discipline brought to mind a phenomenon that I experience on the rare occasions that I venture on the network.

I am invariably in my motorhome which is based on a 2.5TD, so easily capable of the legal limit, however as I am usually on holiday and rarely in a hurry I am quite content to sit in the inside lane rather than mix it in the overtaking lanes.

Naturally and inevitably I will come up behind a convoy of lorries and am quite happy to stay behind this for the above reasons, and in the interests of safety and the absence of stress I allow a safety zone of one and a half to two lorry lengths gap. Equally inevitably the occasional slowing of the preceding convoy means that I will be caught up by a following lorry which then attempts to overtake me and eventually pulls into my safety zone. My slight speed reduction to restoring this zone encourages the next lorry to overtake me and so on, ad infinitum. I have no hang-ups about being overtaken but it is disconcerting to constantly have a juggernaut alongside with a speed differential of only one or two miles an hour, also there is the consequent road block in lane 2.

The puzzlement is that the overtaking lorry is then following the lorry that I was following at the same speed that I was travelling at so I fail to see the gain. I could of course prevent these manoeuvres by reducing my safety zone to less than a lorry length or travelling in lane 2 but am naturally reluctant to take either of these steps.

This isn't meant to be a trucker bashing thread, and if I am annoying anyone I would like to know, but it just seems that the truckers resent me travelling in 'their' inside lane.

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One mans junk is another mans treasure Read more

Hello,

If coolant is ok in specific gravity terms, i.e. is proving the required protection from freezing should it still be changed on an age basis? I am getting differing views on this.

To put it another way can it's corrosion resistance and lubricity diminished even if it's anti freeze properties are intact?


Thanks.

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