Well it arrived today, after some negotiation, the delaer's met us physically half way.

First Impressions.

Well it glitters and gleams in it's Diamond Black (the "protection" given it was a bargaining chip) and almost squatting on it's 18" alloys - which are very pretty. It has few options, the wheels being one and reverse sensors being the other.

Once inside, I was struck by the lightness of everything, the 6 speed (manual) box is a delight and the pedals and steering are perfectly weighted, easy to get comfy in the very attractive GTi seats - they are an echo to a happier past when the checked seats first appeared in the original Gti. As previously stated the plastics are not up to BMW standards and even "my" venerable old 3 series. The wheel is slightly strange, being flat (probably to accomodate middle aged stomachs) at the bottom, but the soft feel leather is nice. Strereo is good with MFD type display and channel selection. The interior "mood" is less sombre than Beemers of old.

Difficult to believe that it has 200bhp under the bonnet, certainly no inkling of this is communicated to the driver, in fact it feels almost rwd certainly miles ahead of the low end Focii I've driven as hire cars. Road noise is high but not as jiggly as I expected in these wheels - not my idea, but now I've seen them they are OK.

The dual climate is more difficult to set up than the BMWs I've owned, not quite happy with that. The car's computer is rather confusing, again compared to the set up on the old shape 3 series and I honestly prefer the iDrive. Not come anywhere near thrashing it yet but there is a nice gruffy exhaust, otherwise runs silently.

SWMBO will have to force the keys from me, I do like it though. Read more

This Thursday, 19 April, at 20.00:

tinyurl.com/3743ah Read more

Apologies if its already been posted.

www.roadtripamerica.com/DefensiveDriving/Drive-Saf...m Read more

This morning i got a phone call of the dreaded kind, it was my brother in law trying to get hold of my wife.
Her mother had been in a head on crash with a truck.
Well we have been to see her at home and she is shook up and bruised but after a check up in hospital seems fine.
So off we toddled to the compond where the Discovery was taken and WOW.
The whole of the engine bay and chassis is pushed back and twisted to the left ,the roofline is creased and both front doors now overlap.
She was coming out of a 40 limit and he was entering it , the impact sent the the Discovery facing the way it came and he ended up in the woods so i don't want to guess how fast he was travelling
The Iveco she hit is horrific, his cab is pushed to the left away from the tipper body.
The fact that both drivers ((there were no passengers) are alive let alone walking about is a testomy to modern vehicles.
He says his throttle stuck and he was swerving across the road to a layby over taking a car and hit her head on !!.
Slag off Discoverys as much as you like but i know what my father inlaw will be replacing it with.
Read more

Was having a nice enjoyable day last Friday i.e. pub lunch, visit to garden centre and new nature trail so that I could try out my nice new Canon A170IS digicam. After roaming around, we came back to a rather warm car (new shape Golf MKV) and so pulled away and turned on aircon. within a few minutes, or miles, a horrible irritating rattle started coming from the vicinity of the driver's air vent (nearest driver's door). I started fiddling whilst driving (a dangerous thing to do) but could only stop this noise if I applied pressure to the air vent surround or the fascia in general.

This really pee'd me off and so eventually I posted this annoyance on the excellent www.uk-mkivs.net website, where all things VW are discussed. I soon had a post back telling me to remove the side panel that exposed a fuse board whereupon I might find a loose nut/bolt or two. I did this today, and sure as eggs is eggs, one of the bolts, a torx-headed affair was loose as was its washer. Not having the necessary tools I ventured over to Halfords and bought a Torx set of 'Allen' keys and came back and tightened it up securely. Thinking about this, I also removed the passenger's side panel and again found a very loose bolt of the same size - this was similarly secured.

This all worries me somewhat as I wonder just how many more, perhaps important nuts and bolts are loosening themselves and what does this say about VW's quality control and the appalling road surfaces.

Someone on that site did suggest that maybe the torque settings for fastening are kept low in order not to strip any plastics into which they are being screwed down, in which case why aren't locking washers being used?
Read more