February 2007
I have fitted a new battery and alternator to my 1998 s60 punto but it does not want to charge the battery. any ideas to solve this problem thank you. Read more
I'm a diesel owner, and so tend to talk about the best mpg I get (Passat PD130).
As it's winter, short cold journeys etc, and for a change, what's the WORST mpg you've had over a tankful?
I've just had 38mpg from a tankful, which is only the second sub-40mpg tankful the Passat's given in 4 years (due to short commute, cold mornings, no journey over 15 miles).
It's still over 50% better than the 23mpg my Volvo T4 gave during winter one time .... Read more
I got 8.4mpg over 3-4 few miles in the Golf after I had it chipped, down a long downhill section of the M5 at 3am doing an indicated 143mph
I have not seen this mentioned in the BR before, but thought it should be given some attention. The following short article was in today's Telegraph.
£5,000 fine for obstructing 999 crews
Anyone who obstructs emergency workers could be fined up to £5,000 under rules brought in today.
The legislation covers people who wilfully get in the way of fire fighters, ambulance workers, coastguards and lifeboat crews. It also covers those transporting blood, organs or equipment for the NHS.
Home Office Minister Gerry Sutcliffe said, ?In some instances a delay of just a couple of minutes can have terrible consequences. Such behaviour will not be tolerated.?
Police and prison officers are not included in the Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Act as they are covered by separate laws.
It still does not answer the dilema of should you cross a red light to let an emergency vehicle pass. So instead of a fine for passing a red light, you might have a £5,000 fine instead.
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Roger
A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.
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But surely Westpig (I see you have given yourself an uppercase first letter!) ................
my own lack of standards was annoying me & something L'escargot said on another thread reminded me of it
if video evidence is produced it should also show the emergency vehicle, and if it isn't produced then there's no
evidence? ...
you often hear the emergency vehicle some way behind you, so if you pulled forward to facilitate the flow, it may well not be in the frame of the fixed camera at the lights
An Ealing camera twerp tried to run me in for encroaching on a bus lane, at a place where not doing so would have contributed to an endless traffic jam. The still that I was sent was cropped to hide the long queue of traffic waiting to turn right at the junction where the heinous offence occurred. The road markings there were also far from satisfactory. In my letter I said I was more than happy to defend my actions in court and was looking forward to seeing the uncropped video of the dreadful crime. I was sent a twerpish letter of rejection which I ignored. Nothing further came of it. > Don't accept carp from these people. Argue and say that you will be a nuisance.
Glad you did that, had that dilemma on Sunday going around the edges of Oxford, approached a roundabout with the bus lane going near enough right up to the roundabout...big queue wanting to go right and no buses in sight...I eventually only wanted to steal one car length to turn left at the roundabout, but was worried about a camera on a pole... (couldn't see one, but they're usually doom grey aren't they)...why do we allow this, we vote these people in
It's been mentioned on here many times about policy wording about "roadworthy condition" and sometimes requirement for a valid MOT. Well my MOT ran out last week and I was going to delay getting it tested until next month (don't panic, I'm not using it and it's parked in the garage).
But I recalled this clause in my policy and thought I'd do as our resident insurance guru suggests - talk to those who really insure you - the underwiters. So I emailed the broker to ask them and this morning got the following reply.
Thank you for your email.
The underwriter has advised me that unfortunately you will not be
insured to drive to the MOT centre.
The only way around it would be to get them to pick your vehicle up.
regards,
So - I'm stuck now!
Martin
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>Because in the event (admittedly unlikely) of an accident and a claim, you would have put yourself clearly in the >wrong by ignoring specific advice.
Only if that advice was correct.
Lady who works with me flew down with her other half from Edinburgh to Luton at the weekend to pick up what appeared to be a tidy BMW 320d series tourer with 48k on the clock. However when they got home on Sunday after driving back from Luton to Edinburgh they did an HPI check and found out that the car had done 147k. They managed to stop the bankers draft so no money actually exchanged hands. The seller was a dealer from a reputable website (no naming and shaming of course) who on being challenged reckoned that his HPI check had yielded nothing. The car has now been returned to the dealer, the car will allegedly be sold at auction with a "mileage not guaranteed" tag.
The lady in question was wondering what should she do next to prevent somebody else being duped etc. She has reported the dealer on the website, but Trading Standards website is a bit wooly as to what action should be taken next.
Any thoughts gladly appreciated - cheers Read more
I would never dream of travelling more than an hour without doing an HPI check beforehand.
How did they manage to "stop" a bankers draft - they're supposed to be the equivalent of cash. (Unless originating in Nigeria)
Would any member of this forum care to recommend some retrofittable parking sensors.
1. Rear parking sensors, should be able to detect low walls.
2. Front parking sensors, need to be accurate at front "corners " of the car.
Like many vehicles these days, you can't really judge where the front left corner of the car is and when reversing in to a kerb side space this is critical as you swing the front in, Same when coming out.
3, Colour coding should be available for the sensors.
4. Front sensors should have some intelligence as to when they are active, so as to avoid constant bleeping in stop/start traffic.
Recommendations welcome.
Guy
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Can't imagine how front sensors would work for the procedure you are referring to ie. parallel parking. When doing this, the corner of the car is usually turning in at such a sharp angle that the one sensor in that corner really isn't going to be able to tell you anything.
Galvanising seemed great to me and the answer to cars rusting out before 15yrs, but are things changing again re corrosion protection?.
Some cars now have 12 year rust warranties but other *newly introduced models* only have a 6 years corrosion warranty.
I wondered if standards were changing a little in this area, perhaps as accountants and costs get priority over engineers?
Just reflecting on my past experiences, in 1984, I had a new Fiesta which was rusty underneath in 1 year. I then bought a VW polo in 1985 and there was no structural rust in the 15 yrs it was in the family.
The 84 Fiesta seemed like modest paint thickness on ordinary steel, the Polo thick layers of paint on ordinary steel.
The Fiats I have had recently seem to have a modest paint thickness, but on galvanised steel.
But some new models such as Vauxhalls new Corsa seem to only have a 6 year corrosion warranty , I wonder what that means and whether it is another variation on the protection methods?
In other words, I thought ordinary paint thickness on galvanised steel was the way forward, but do 6 year warranties mean something else?
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Well , define "modern"...
The average life of a car in the UK is about 14 years, so anything much older than that is unusual and is living on borrowed time.
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L\'escargot.
Is it me, or is the quality of all but trunk roads and motorways, with rare exceptions, becoming a liability? The A287 south out of Farnham is shocking, and the B roads and lanes are even worse, but at least I'm not normally travelling at 50/60 as I am on an A road.
To whom can I write at the Council? Is there any point? Who controls road maintenance expenditure? Can we sue for tyre/wheel damage? Read more
Totally agrree with all the above (this is a particular bugbear of mine too) & would add that , the overall condition & rate of decay isn't helped by the various utility companies & other digger-uppers not re-instating the road properly afterwards.
I know it's difficult to re-instate patches & trenches properly (compacting soil & substrate etc) bit it's not impossible & the half-hearted attempts at re-instatement you see sometimes are simple testimony to the fact that council highway authorities don't enforce or oversee any standard. A simple system of 'satisfactory re-instatement by inspection ' process would suffice -to which the 'offender' should be required to adhere.
If you had to choose one of these car with a budget of £3k which one would you go for? I like them both so I would like to know which one would be better in terms of reliability, running costs, comfy etc.. Image isn't the most important thing for me. Read more
On my 2.0 td I've had a new cam belt £200, front brake pads £130 and a new brake caliper that had seized that cost £115. Now I'm tight but I don't think those prices are excessive, consdiering my car has done 130,000 miles on a 51 plate. I'm more than happy with the running costs and the car, I couldn't recommend them enough.
From today's Guardian: football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,20170...l
>>> Small ad may be formula one's smoking gun <<<
Towards the back of this month's Motor Sport magazine a company based in America announces the sale of a Benetton B194 formula one car, the very machine with which Michael Schumacher won three grands prix on his way to the 1994 world championship, running Damon Hill off the road in the final round at Adelaide in order to secure the title.
Clearly the dents from that notorious encounter have been straightened out but the car is otherwise advertised as being in original condition - "exactly as 'in the day'," to quote the ad, a statement reflected in the asking price of just under half a million quid.
What is really interesting, however, is the information that the originality of the car's condition extends to certain electronic features - specifically including traction control, a "driver aid" outlawed under the 1994 regulations.
This, it may be remembered, was the season when there was a lot of fuss over whether Benetton were breaking the technical regulations in order to achieve a competitive advantage. Ayrton Senna, who perished in the third race of the season while trying to stay ahead of Schumacher, certainly believed something naughty was going on. And here, all these years later, is grand prix racing's equivalent of the smoking gun. Is it too late for Hill to demand his title back?
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>> So he cheated in that he has reduced weight and reduced aerodynamic drag!
so what about those who get more dehydrated than others? or lose other bits of
the car during the race? or have less fuel left over than anyone else?
shame that alonso and massa did not take each other out in that first corner.
then lewis hamilton would have won fair and sqaure for sure. definitely.
remember that the car and drivers are weighed at the end of every race.-a few grammes underweght and your disqualified.You have to allow for variances when ballasting the cars. the changes in a drivers weight,during the race,fuel amounts(which are measured in kilos,not litres)oil loss,tyre rubber loss,wheel and tyre sets,even the loss of skid plates etc.When I was racing we were adding up to 80kg of ballast.
Browse
Do you mean new alternator or another alternator.