May 2007
dear all
where does one go to find affordable insurance?
my boy is 19 has just passed his test and wants to get his first car but insurance quotes are ridiculous, like 2 grand what advice have you on the best car for first time insurance and what companies provide it
thanks fellers. Read more
hi all
can anyone help on how to remove a power steering rack on a Vectra?
removed the wheels and undone all the bolts, its loose but wont come out, is something else to be removed?
TIA Read more
cheers topbloke, job done :-)
Hit a pothole the other day and damaged a wheel, here are a couple of pictures of the damage.
tinyurl.com/2kcrhk
tinyurl.com/39jxq9
A few quick inquires suggest alloy wheel repairs locally are rare to non-existent, one suggestion was that a new wheel would be cheaper, unfortunately these wheels are no longer available so that is not an option. Another option is to send the wheel away for repair, I have a number in Maidstone some 250 miles away!
So, as getting the wheel repaired appears to be an almighty pain, my question is how serious is the damage likely to be in terms of invisible weakening of the wheel likely to cause failure at a later date?
I have been trying to assess if there is vibration from the wheel but the roads are so carp it is difficult to tell, even at 70. Is it too risky to just leave the damage unrepaired? Read more
Thanks for the suggestion wayne, but Fenwick currently only cover the north of England, I'm in Devon. But I have found a couple of local possibilties that I shall check out.
how long will a 1994 - 1997 LR discovery 2.5tdi go for. i know it all depends on how it has been looked after etc etc, but what realisticly are they capable of? Read more
Can't remember, too long ago. If that was the reason then they might as well have forgotten about the engine altogether and just supplied a poggo stick - it would have made better progress.
What is the reason that now more and more cars come with digital odometers?
What was the wrong with analog ones?
If battery is disconnected, what happens to the digital odo reading?
I assume cars manufacturers are wise enough [?] to probably supply a backup energy source. But what if that alternative power dies? Will it reset to 0 miles then?
Mine is analog though. Read more
I first became aware of electronic speedos with my Dads K-reg Rover 820Si. A dodgy sensor meant that you could intermittently accelerate from an indicated 0-100 in 0.5 secs.
Other times you could be driving in traffic and the needle would drop to zero for a few seconds or sometimes until the end of the journey. You had to memorise your speeds in different gears at different engine revs to avoid getting 'done'.
He had a V-reg Alfa 166 that had a similar problem also.
;o)
I am sure some of you have been in the same situation, so just wanting to see if I am correct with what I think....
colleague had a crash with another car, his (my colleagues) fault & car insured TPO
although no-one injured, police got involved & 'kindly' arranged for car to be towed away
now it is in some garages' yard, £150-odd fee for removal plus £12/day storage
need to get shot of the car ASAP as don't want to incur any extra charges than the frankly horrendous charges so far.
Need to get access to the car to retrieve personal effects, e.g. umbrella & suchlike
once done, the car can then be scrapped.
Is it perfectly reasonable for the garage to allow access to the car whilst it is in their possession ?
cheers,
Stu Read more
Oh yes ICE equipment is most definately "personal effects"
That would depend on whether it's the factory fit ICE, or stuff you've since fitted. And even if you do reclaim the stuff you've since fitted, you're supposed to put the standard ICE back in.
A friend of mine is relocating from France back to the UK. He'll be getting a nice shiny new LR Discovery as a company car back in England. Problem is: how does he get shot of his 3yr-old left-hand drive French-registered Vectra GSi?
It's worth more in France, but he hasn't got the time or patience or language-skills to try to sell it privately before he leaves France. Any suggestions on how to minimise the loss on the Vectra?
Thks, Read more
MY sister and brother-in-law have a house in France and have been looking for ages to find a left hand drive to keep over there. Taking a car from the UK and reregistering and converting headlamps etc is relatively uneconomic whilst finding something over there is fraught with language and procedural difficulties. My suggestion would be to put it on eBay in the UK in english with the car in the UK for viewing purposes and see what sort of response you get. A sensible reserve would offer protection against downside risk of low/few bids. I know something like this would solve a problem for my sister and I imagine there must be many in similar circumstances. There are also expat websites that may be of use.
Good luck, MGs
... whose posts were sometimes very funny, and quite often acerbic? Not a word for weeks now. Read more
And now back to motoring...
People whine in a litany for an 'edit button' enabling them to alter posts after the event. Sometimes one can almost see what they mean. The mild form of insanity induced by this dabbling in the virtual world, a sort of false omnipotence, often leads one to write things one later wishes one had not written. It is particularly galling when those things appear in a thread which is then closed.
It's easy to misunderstand things. It's easy to overreact. It's easy to be nasty to someone inadvertently, to think you're being smart when you're not, to think you're being funny when no one can understand what you're on about.
In fact given all of this, the more or less equable and pleasant atmosphere on this forum is little short of miraculous. A bit like the absence of a permanent general bloodbath on roads overcrowded with carphounds and idiots.
So: congratulations. So far so good, eh? Read more
Yup. Once posted, the die is cast.
If it's a serious mistake one can always post again.
Any idea when A Well Known National E-Newspaper will be back online? I can't search for motoring stuff, which is frustrating.
Good Luck to those labouring behind the scenes! Read more
Any idea when A Well Known National E-Newspaper will be back online?
>>
It is certainly back online today.
Companies good for young males:
- ecar insurance (Google it)
- Liverpool Victoria
- Quinn Direct
I am with Quinn this year, 21, 2 years NCB, £475 on a 1.9TD. About the cheapest I could get, I did hundreds of quotes.
When I was 20 and 1 year's NCB, I got a quote of £575 for a 1.25 Fiesta (Liv Vic), again not bad and the best quote I could get.
However, the first year when you have no NCB will ALWAYS be expensive. They figure that of you're going to crash, you'll do it in the first year.
Confused.com does not really seem good for the young male, they do not even check ecar, Quinn or Liverpool Victoria, or didn't the last time I checked.
Endsleigh is another good one for young males but you need to have had a licence for 2 years.