April 2007
its coming up to car change time and i have been seeing some good deals on leasing these (thought i would try leasing this time). They look good, i need/want an estate and a diesel will be a must this time. I was wondering if anyone has experience of these cars. I am a bit concerned it will be a bit slow after my 2.4 accord.
I will be test driving at some point, but interested in real life opinions. I always enjoy a change of car and have been driving a transit all week and really enjoyed it, so a short test drive may not give me the best impression of living with a car!
As an aside, im going to be looking closely at the new mondeo estate, reviews seem to be coming out next week (embargoed til the 24th?) Read more
My corolla is going to need a new radiator at some poijt, as the plastic top tank is weeping slightly and all the corrugated elements ahve started corroding and dropping out.
Looked on Ebay and there seem to be several "brands" available, all around the £60 mark.
Nissens are claiming to be "all aluminium doesn't corrode" - what are the corrugated elements on my roriginal ad made of ? I assumed it was aluminium and that was why it was corroding ?
There are other Co's - SLickparts, and Aaron Rad Co. which say they make their own.
Can anyone recommend any of these or another brand which is going to give a few years service ??
There are other co's advertising that theirs are OE quality, but of course don't say which brand, so one can't verify this.
The car is 13yrs old so I'm not sure if it is worth putting on too expensive things. Have done that on old cars b4 and either something big goes and not worth repairing, or someone hits u and writes it off !!! What do people think....
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Hi,
sorry to steal this thread but just out of curiousity is external corrosion the main reason for radiator failure????
I have heard of other reasons for rad failure including stones from the road bursting a hole in rad, internal corrosion, causing the rad to choke and burst, the plastic cracking but i would be interested to what is the most common cause of rad failure and wot is a typical life expectancy for a rad???
I have today gone all the way to Weybridge top look at an elderly first-shape BMW 520i. I can get it very cheap. I don't know yet what MoT or licence it has (I drove it but fairly typically didn't even look).
The engine and as far as I could tell the gearbox were sweet as a nut. The oil was not new but far from squalid. There was a light on saying 'inspection' on the dashboard. Underbonnet, fairly filthy, showed a breather pipe sort of thing strangely lying there with a spark plug stuffed up it to seal it. Perhaps as a result of that, it idled much too fast, nearly 2,000 rpm, and the idiot economy meter read zero at idle (!). It drove OK but like a boat. Brakes weren't sharp but worked. Whole thing felt just slightly lopsided, not in a bad way, and not unusually for a 175,000 miler.
My mechanic, who has a much newer-shape 525 and is a fine fellow, said the light wasn't a problem and BMWs were generally reliable and long-lasting, but the original 5 series could suffer rust. (I didn't look under the car but it was apparently rust-free, perhaps often garaged). He also said those models if in sound nick were fairly easy to keep in order. It has been the much loved hack of a film maker. I thought it might make a good station runabout for the place in Sussex where my long suffering wife is sometimes staying with grandnippers and no personal car.
Am I, at a frankly buttons financial level, just being dumb and thinking of wasting money? There's a front wing crunched too but I know a good body man. Speak soon if you have an opinion, especially Aprilia if you see this. Read more
No problem Lud, I really should get it changed!
Any idea how I get a quote (online preferably) for a few days car hire without all the extras, as I get these as standard on my Amex card. Read more
Would the "extras" include the excess if you write off a car? I ask as that happened to me last year - HGV into the back of the hire car. Luckily I hired with Holiday Autos wit the extra cover (£9/day and cheaper by far than the hire company itself?). I had to pay the hire company their excess (and that was reduced via Holiday Autos anyway) and quite quickly HA paid me back in full.
I'd use them again... well I might not drive abroad for a bit after that experience but would recommend them. Also got a discount because of who I work for.
This has come up because of the revelation in another thread that you can check your cars MOT history on the VOSA website. It's not at all important, but I just can't get my head around it.
I bought my car in February. At that time it had a private plate, so was re-registered by the dealers.
The MOT history lists the old and new registrations, stating that it was transferred on 16/02/07.
All fine so far. But the paper MOT certificate (which agrees with the web in every detail) was issued on July 10th 2006, and has the current reg on it. It also has mention of the transfer in February.
So how does that work? To take account of the reg change did they have to contact the garage who performed the MOT back in July and get them to re-issue a certificate with the new reg? Read more
It's from VOSA - imagine the mess if the car had been tested in Land's End and part exed in John O' Groats.....
hi, having trouble getting the sump pan off , i dont want to start forcing the join with screwdrivers or such ,any help out there would be appreciated its probably been on since it was put together (1989) cheers Read more
double check all the bolts are out there
cheers, im actually going to replace the timing chain and sprockets (very noisy) but the gasket set ive got has actually got round (curved) rubber seals but like you say if the old ones dont fall off i will leave them on , its a job im not looking forward to but im afraid the chain will jump off sooner or later and it will be goodbye cylinder head valves and piston crowns, ive seen posts on this site saying fiestas rattle anyway ,but how much they can take i wouldnt know, the car itself runs beautifuly it doesnt miss a beat but the aweful rattle at the lights is a bit annoying
Hi,
I've recently fitted a replacement engine to my 306. The new engine came from a citroen zx and has a bosch fuel pump without immobiliser, in order to get it to run all I wired in was the stop soleniod. The old engine had a lucas pump with immobiliser, don't know if any of this helps.
For some reason the engine won't go past 3100rpm. It flies up to this point, really does. I've adjusted the max fuelling and it has given it a bit more go but it still won't rev past 3100rpm. It feels like I'm hitting some sort of limiter. If I give it max throttle it'll jump when it hits 3000rpm, but if I give it a little and let it accelerate more slowly it will creep up to 3100rpm before it starts jumping.
I've noticed there is a wire that goes to a very thin pipe which goes to what i think is the top of where the bolt that accesses the governor is. There is no feed going to this as I have explained only the stop solenoid has been wired in. Is this anything to do with it????
Or is it something else?
Cheers
Bryan. Read more
Dodgy rpm/crankshaft sensor?
Is the engine exactly the same? As (Bear with me here)
my 306 HDi used to change dramaitcally (Noise wise) at 3200rpm
(If I remember right) and it was due to the injection
mode of the injectors being changed.
Just a thought
It's a mechanically fuelled diesel not HDi so surely this wouldn't matter...
As for revving it from pump or car good point, I'll have a go outside the car later and get someone to check...
Having just arrived at work, i went to put my drivers side electric window up and nothing happened. Not even a buzz from the motor. Does this mean the motor has gone? Is it just seized? Can it be freed or is it a new motor job? Read more
Even though the passenger side switch still works?
I am quite appalled at the number of new cars I see and often prestige ones at that, that seem to suffer from orange peel on the paintwork. I thought that this phenomenon was a thing of the past. My last three new cars, two Rovers and my current Golf don't have any signs of this scourge. Maybe this is because my cars have been finished in metallic Silver or variants of colour thereof.
I pulled alongside a new black BMW 1 series a day or so ago and the orange peel finish down its side was very apparent - I would have been straight back to the dealers with that car, I can tell you.
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which can remain orange peely even when a top coat of lacquer is applied
Yes, and I've seen body shops vainly trying to buff or polish their way out of the orange peel effect when the cause of the orange peel is beneath the laquer.
And good old-fashioned xylene - do you still get this in some hammerite paints - takes even longer to flash off. The benefit is that the solvent can escape from within the paint for much longer before the coating skins over.
Well
My VW Transporter was sold last week, and my Defender will follow shortly..ideal as a 2nd vehicle, but not very practical as a sole vehicle, especially for long weekends away using the motorway. Anyway, I had always wanted one to run short term, so now it is out of my system!
My priorities are reliability and minimising depreciation, budget £8k (ish).
On my recommendation, a friend bought a MY03 2.0 Lexus Sport Cross which she thinks is fantastic. I am equally impressed with the build quality, but less so with the rear end styling and practicality.
Over 10 years I have owned 3 Legacy estates..my last R reg GLS bought from a friend for £3500 and sold 4 years later (with difficulty) for £1900. The Legacy lacked overtaking performance...useful given the mimsers in my part of rural North Yorkshire, the new 2.0 Re Sport Tourer rectifies this but dealer prices are well outside my budget.
I shall be buying at auction, or using the services of an auction buyer.
Looking back at recent HJ auction reports, I can see no mention of these two marques, so am at a loss as to what prices they are fetching...although the part ex values on Vauxhalls website are very useful.
Two 'wildcards' are the Golf V5 estate..very practical, poorish mpg, maybe reliability problems and a leggy new model Mondeo ST 2.2 TDCI 155 hatch/estate, very practical, excellent mpg, but probably over budget.
Any advice gratefully received...though my head tells me to go for the Lexus sport Cross and put up with the mpg, lack of rear load space and having to rev the engine to get the best overtaking performance.
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Whilst you may struggle to find a 2.0XT for £8,000, especially with leather and winter pack (for heated seats), you will certainly find the Mk1 Forester Turbo S (I think) for that money and a lot less.
Don't worry about mechanicals! I got into my old Forester XT auto today (my Outback was broken into and the glass smashed - boo) and I thought I would be disappointed by rattles etc, but it felt just as solid as the Outback at two years older and a smaller, more stressed engine. Go for it, you won't regret it and we can have a Back Room Subaru convention on the M62!
Browse
The A6 Avant is a lovely shape,but the thng that put me off it (with 3 small kids) was the high side window line/low rear seats which meant the kids couldn't see out the side. A case of form before function in that respect. I bought an E-class estate instead whcih the kids loved - especially the rear-facing boot seats - until I sold it!