November 2006
Just entered a trip from Manchester to Alloa in the Sat Nav.
My usual route, as per various websites, is M6, M74 then across the central belt on M8, A80 and over the Kincardine Bridge.
Subaru Sat Nav is weird. Avoids the M6, tells me to go to Barrow-in-Furness as a 'shortcut' (!) and then up A7 and through Edinburgh. I wonder if I have it set wrong?
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I have a Vectra 1.8 2003 petrol/lpg car.I have been told damage can be caused to the valves due to running on gas. Does anyone have experience of Flashlube,which i am told is a cure!
regards
dave
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Its when you run most of the time on gas problems occur ,run half and half and they are ok.
2001 Renault Scenic 1.9 Diesel, 50000 miles, apparently running OK but smokes a lot on hard acceleration. Is this normal for this engine? Will any petrol additive work? Are there any other cures? Read more
If an Italian Tune up doesn't work, go to your friendly Renault dealer and ask for some 'Reducteur de fume'. Will cost you about £14 but a lot cheaper than new injectors.
Volkswagen AG said Tuesday it would stop production of its Golf model at its Belgian plant, shocking workers and government leaders who fear more than 3,500 jobs could be lost.
Company officials said the German car maker will move all production of the Golf to plants in Mosel and Wolfsburg in Germany as part of plans to cut production in Western Europe due to falling demand.
Helin said the factory currently produces 204,000 vehicles per year, 190,000 of which are Golf models.
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VW are a totally confused group-
Their India plans are very uncertain. They were to set up a plant but their corrupt management took a $10 million payoff from the state government of Andhra Pradesh (AP) into a dummy company to sign the letter of intent.
This came to light when Dr Pietscheider (sorry can't recollect name) started a major clean up. VW paid back the state (AP) and started the site selection process again thus losing another year.
To cap it all, Skoda have been in operation for the past 4 years and have been successful with rather overpriced Octavia's (old version Octys TDI 90 sell for 15000 pounds). Local content has not risen significantly so they are finding price competition, a challenge. Meanwhie Hyundai, Suzuki, Toyota and Honda are creaming the market and are able to maintain price through high level of localisation (which does not mean quality is compromised).
If VW make the Golf in India, it will cost almost the same as an Accord and hatchbacks do not sell at the premium end out here. Audi are selling fully built up cars out here aggressively, they make a loos on each A4 and the A6 is priced hiher than an E280. So far they are selling based on exclusivity and novelty. BMW will start local operations soon.
There is a wonderful strategy to use the skoda plant to churn out Audi's and VW and attain economies of scale but alas...none of these companies talk to each other.
Hi all,
Got a bit of a pinking problem with my 1.0 Corsa at between 3000-3500 rpm in 4th and 5th gears. I've tried running it on Shell V-Power / BP Ultimate for a few weeks, and even given it a dose of STP System Cleanup. The spark plugs are correctly gapped, new, and look in fine condition. The engine management light has never come on (apart from briefly when starting up) which makes me think the knock sensor is fine... Am I right in thinking that a diagnostic check won't show any faults because the engine management light has never lit?
Don't know if it's related, but the car will often 'hiccup' when setting off after standing in traffic for a while. The fuel and filters are new and the EGR valve was replaced by the previous owner at the last service.
I'm just a poor student who can't stomach the idea of playing with the timing, or even worse paying for someone to look at it. Could the timing chain be poorly tensioned? I'm really struggling for easy solutions and ideas now. A bit of a headache really.
Could anyone help please? Read more
What is cold starting like, does it start OK and run fine until fully hot? Sometimes this can give you a clue if it's OK when getting plenty of petrol when warming up but the fault only shows up when it is hot and running lean.
Have you checked for any air leaks in the manifold area, hoses split etc? Not sure if your car still has one of those hot air intake devices to guide warm air into the engine when it is cold but these can cause problems.
I think the timing is set on these, no distributor etc. If the spark plugs are set OK then I would give the ignition HT leads a glance. Eliminate ignition and air leaks before moving on to the fuel system or sensors. From what you say the problems may be caused by a weak mixture or difficulty igniting the mixture when under load or light throttle openings. Besides that as others have said it could be an air flow sensor or even a more fundamental problem with the compression ratio being raised due to cylinder head skim in the past.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/6169590.stm
7-9 Dec public shows.
14 Feb cutoff for comments Read more
Here we go again. Widen the road to make it hold more vehicles waiting to pay the Dartford Crossing Toll. Brilliant idea or crazy idea depending upon your point of view.
Road users are now paying a French company to cross the Thames via an already paid for pair of tunnels and a bridge.
They were supposed to go after the Crossings were paid for
Wed Nov 30 12:00:00 GMT 2005
When the tunnel was built in 1969, the tolls were supposed to be scrapped once enough cash had been taken to cover both the cost of construction and the on-going maintenance. This period was extended with the construction of a second tunnel in the late 1970's, and extended once again with the construction of the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, which was completed in 1991. The crossings were finally paid for, and enough money set aside for their maintenance, in 2003. The government, however, immediately moved to reverse the promise first made over 3 decades earlier, preferring instead to trouser the £65m + profit it generates each year. They did have a consultation process first, but, despite hundreds of responses opposed to the continuation of the tolls, the outcome was as could have been predicted without the pointless expense of pretending the consultation would change anything.
www.scrapthetolls.com/
The traffic flow and the air quality in the locality would certainly improve if the tolls were removed.
--
Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
Hi just found out from AA why my golf is not starting its dued to a switch on the autogearbox which tells it the cars in park gear. Is this a cheap job to fix?
Cheers Graham Read more
Hi all,could someone provide me please with the e mail and postal address for Vauxhall customer service uk..seems to be a bit elusive on a google search.
many thanks
Jim Read more
thanks dd
After interrogating my dear wife for a few minutes.. this is what appears to be what happened.
Background info is that every now and then she notices a "squealing" noise from under the bonnet. also her battery light tends to come on very occasionally, but "only when driving through puddles..." (women....)
A few days back it was raining REALLY heavily and was pretty cold. She was driving the girls back from school and was in a slow moving traffic jam for ages with all the electrics (fan, front demister, rear demister, radio, lights, etc...) going. Suddenly the radio cut out, the dashboard lights all went out and the car engine seemed to labour a bit. She waited for a minute or so, then turned off the rear and front demisters and all the lights came back on and the radio did too.
She drove home (another 10 miles or so) then parked up normally. Next morning, she went to use the car and it was dead as a doornail. Not a flicker of light anywhere to be seen and no ignition possible. RAC called out, not really got much of a clue, measured battery at "2 volts" apparently, connected jump leads and got it started, then measured again and said it was receiving a very slight charge but not enough. He called their tech line who mentioned a "faulty fuse box" as a posisble problem. He followed us to the local garage where we dumped it until Monday so they could look at it. Garage called us back saying they weren't good enough with electrics to diagnose the problem, but they charged the battery overnight and my wife was able to start it this morning at the garage and drive home. By the time I got home a few hours later, it was all dead as a dodo again.
I connected my jump leads to it and started it up, then disconnected the jump leads. Immediately the main lights dimmed and the engine laboured a bit, but it kept going. Inside, no dashboard lights at all. Revving the engine caused a fan-belt (or alternator belt? Don't know?) squeal. Whilst sitting there I decided to turn on some other electrics and picked on the rear window demister... instant engine death - just like a kill switch and all lights off totally (including interior light - not a flicker of light in there) and ignition completely dead again.
This is all very familiar to when my old fiesta's alternator gave up years ago, but not entirely... I'm pretty sure that it got to the point where it completely tried to run off the battery and couldn't be driven, whereas my wife's appears to be fine until the engine stops and the battery doesn't appear to be holding its charge, even when it has been fully charged...
Anyone got any ideas on the problem based on this description please? Read more
A colleague of mine is having a similar problem on a 1992 1.4 Fiesta. Battery completley flat on a couple of occasions after leaving for a few days. No obvious reason for current drain, battery apparently in good condition and holding charge when disconnected. However on reconnecting another fully charged battery I noticed that the LED display on the radio was glowing but without any figures or letters showing and without the ignition being switched on. Disconnected the battery and the LED went out. Also discovered the radio doesnt work anyway whereas was working perfectly before. So removed fuse 2 (radio and interior light) and have not had any problems since.
There may be other faults but certainly the radio seemed to be drawing a current in some way which I havnt worked out. I have heard that, in certain situations, broadband wifi can have strange effects on car radios and certainly this car is normally parked in an area thats full of wifi signals so we'll bring it round to my place ar some point and take the radio out and see what we can find.
Hi all hope you all are well. Have a small problem with my Mk2 1.6 auto (1989 F). Every now and then it just wont turn over to start. Not long had a vw service and battery so ill rule them out. The other day i did find a little puddle of water in the bulk head above the fuse box. The drain pipe was bloked with leaves and so on, but i have now cleared it. Does anyone think this may have something to do with my problem as water may of run down to the fuse box????? Any help and how to fix would be great.
Cheers. Have a nice day Graham Read more
Hi again, yeah its the gearbox switch. AA bloke said. Is this a big job?? what sort of money am i looking at?
Cheers
Graham
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Just done a TomTom on it (v.5.4) goes straight up the M6 to the M74 or somewhere like that, certainly doesn't deviate through the lakes. The settings on this one are for a lorry so that may make a different.