April 2007
Can anyone tell me whether a full size wheel will fit into the new Toyota Avensis Hatchback in order to replace the spacesaver
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Need to give the car a good clean on the inside - the carpets / boot floor are quite dirty. Have been around a few valet places - but not wanting to waste time (has to be done before Saturday) and £50 - 60 and get a poor result - decided it may be an idea to have a go myself.
Has anyone used the Rug Doctor in their cars? This is a carpet wash thingy you can rent from diy / grocery stores. It is designed for carpets in the home ( works like a upright valcum cleaner), but has piper attachments for upholstery. I was wandering if the attachments would do a good enough job? (presumably these are used in hard to reach areas / and stairs).
So - anyone had a try? Read more
ive just looked in his garage and its got pro-clean written on it but its in 25ltr containers and it looks bright yellow.
you only need a cap full to 5ltrs of water and it gets off really thick grease and mud very quickly
I was in Halfords yesterday, after a bit for my pushbike. I had a mooch around the store and saw that Halfords are now selling various aircon products, including a cleaner (containing a biocide) for smelly aircon, and also a regassing kit. The regassing kit is £40, and consists of a large aerosol containing the refridgerant and lubricant, together with a connector. The connector contains a pressure gauge so that the user can tell when he has pumped enough refridgerant in.
They also sell leak testing kits etc.
As Mrs Lawman's Picasso has pretty much non-functioning aircon I bought one of these kits, and tried to use it last night. Locating the inlet nozzle was a doddle, as was connecting the connector. The gauge immediately showed that the pressure was low. I pumped in enough refridgerant to get the pressure up into the acceptable band.
However, no noticable results! Oh well, £40 down the swannee. Of course, they may be something other than low gas that is causing the aircon not to work.
Has anyone else tried one of these kits and dows anyone have any views? Read more
I had mine regassed for £50.
It didn't help... the system had a leak in it which was going to cost
£250 to replace the part. Oh well.
This week i had mine done for £55 which also includes a dye which is placed inside the system to highlight any leakages if there was to be a fault.
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-)
hi is the right hand side drive shaft on a pug 205 stdt 1993 the same as a gti ? 1.6 or 1.9 ? Read more
I don't know how serious this threat is, but it is all too conceivable that some politico or other is pursuing it. The environmental impact of new-car manufacture seems somewhat understated below. As all of my cars are over ten years old, I'd be grateful to anyone who signs up. (Originally found at www.mbclub.co.uk.)
"Plans to ban cars older than 10 years from our roads
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Banning/restricting cars over 10yrs old. This is on the .gov website too.
"Several EU proposals across the years are dangerous to the classic car movement. One that has been under consideration is to ban the use of cars older than 10 years. Similarly, Edinburgh City Council is considering the banning of cars over 15 years old from the town centre. These, and similar, proposals directly threaten the classic car movement, and encourage the manufacture of new cars, with the attendant environmental issues of sourcing raw materials, manufacturing, distributing and scrapping the spiralling supply of new vehicles."
You'll be banned from using the roads and only allowed to take the vehicle out having obtained PRIOR consent from your local council.. i.e you'd have to plan your route in advance and inform the council for approval who may then decline the whole thing or certain aspects like perhaps if you wish to pass through a city centre etc... "
petitions.pm.gov.uk/Classic-Cars/ Read more
Whilst I am as shocked by this silly idea as anyone else, in a perverse kind of a way the "bottom-feeders" among us who buy old cars cheap and run them into the ground may well benefit in some ways through this -- we'll be able to buy a much newer car for the same money.
The Korean manufacturers must be laughing into their cornflakes at this one. If cars are sent to the scrapper after ten years, the resulting vicious depreciation will mean that people will just buy cars as cheap as possible and have done with -- they'll be literally disposable items.
The average lifespan of a car will not be 10 years -- because of the low value of cars at 6 years old, one failed component and they go in the bin, just as is happening to the 10-year-old cars now. So the average life will be closer to 7 to 8 years. Combine that with the Kia/Hyundai 5-7 year warranties and you have a car that's guaranteed for life pretty much.
If this is a product of the car manufacturers, they've shot themselves in the foot big-style. Less years = less money spent on each car = lower profits. Isn't it the case that a lot of car makers actually make a loss on the smaller models, because the cost of manufacture doesn't cover the market price adequately enough?
Can some of you fine gents (or ladies) tell me where the bonnet release is on a 2001 Fiat Brava, for the life of me I cant find it! Read more
Please forgive me if this is a silly question but is there any make / model of satnav device which comes with safety camera locations already installed? Read more
Aprilia,
I can entirely undertand where you are coming from, I also helped build the database by submitting cameras.
If you haven't downloaded a databse recently, you may be surprised that the accuracy has dramtically increased. They have split out unconfirmed sites so that you now have the choice to either install these unconfirmed sites or not. If you don;t install them, the database is very good in my opinion.
I download a database once every 6 months so it only cost me £4/year, quite good value I think.
I have got this urge in my body that I need to change my car ( or my wife's car.) There is no logical explanation for this. Any cures ??? Read more
When I get a new car I say 'This is the one, we'll keep it a long time, say five or six years. It's daft changing regularly.' And then after two years or so I hanker after more performance or a sharper handling or better looks or...
Thing is, I enjoy driving and I don't drive every day or even do huge mileages, so a car isn't mere transport from A to B and back again. So I guess i should expect to pay for that enjoyment via depreciation.
Just posted a follow up to continued problems with daughter's Clio on the technical section
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?f=4&t=50...2
but the relevant section is this, which may be more appropriate to the "Discussion" section of the board.
"She is sending me all details of probems with car over last 4 years, is there any point in pursuing this with Renault HQ? (she is on her 4th Renault dealer - none of whom seem to show any concern)
She has (understandably) lost all faith in Renault and Clios(and French cars!!) despite her 2 previous cars being Renault, - a 5 and an old Clio neither of which gave any trouble at all, and is considering a "new" (not necessarily brand new) car
So far she has mentioned Honda Civic , Seat Leon, Toyota Corolla, and Skoda Fabia. (About which I know very little!)
She has a 60 mile commute each day (London to near Cambridge) so needs something not too big but comfortable and economical - recommendations please (not Focus or Astra she says - I don't know why!)"
Hope this does not count as a double post, if mods feel it is, please delete as you feel necessary
Thanks for any help, suggestions,
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Phil Read more
Phil, I have just made you up a 'grid' of the cars mentioned, and ALL of their editions....
honestjohn.dealdna.com/grid.cfm?gridkey=2f3977c6
It is quite a big grid, so I suggest you only check it out on broadband, there are a LOT of editions of each of those models.
Jerry
Hi,
My 3 1/2 year old 2.2 Primera developed a fault with the turbo, so I took it into a main dealer, who has been servicing my car from new, he told me that there where three campaigns (recalls to you and me) that needed doing, the first two have been outstanding since 2005
1/ Replace a hose that supplies the turbo
2/ Remap the engine management software to take care of the black smoke from the exhaust
3/ Improve the handbrake efficiency (nearly failed it's MOT two months ago on that point)
Do you think there has been any long term damage or accelerated wear to the car? I asked the service manager why had these three recalls had not been picked up during the earlier services? He had no answer.
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Hi Graham,
The short answer is yes, the turbo feed pipe (or something like that) had actually split, hence the whoosing noise which is why we took it in in the first place, but the engine management upgrade really seems to have had a positive effect, no more black smoke, and I think there is now a better response from the throttle.
As you are a fan of the Primera, it seems a shame that Nissan are not going to produce another family saloon/hatchback, but instead have gone for the Qashqai which I had on loan while my car was being fixed, in fact we picked it up on the Friday, and we were to return it on Monday however because it was not a patch on the old Primera, I phoned up on Saturday to see if our car was ready, which it was, and took my car back early.
Joe 90
Browse
Is this an 2006 onwards Avensis? My 2004 model has a full size spare in the boot - maybe that was an option at the time?