September 2007
5th gear has an interesting crash test tonight, surprised if it's type hasn't been done before? A Volvo 940 and a Renault Modus in an offset frontal crash at 40mph.
My money's on the Volvo physically holding up well but something nasty in the cabin harming the driver. Not sure that offset tests were really in when the 940 was designed so perhaps the test criteria is different?
Will 5th Gear go into some background and informed detail about this, or will it be a few slow-mo clips and a soundbite?
Which do you think will come off best? Read more
i have a 97 vw passat.i keep getting oil warning lamp going off after the engine is warm but when checked there is enough oil
on the gauge.i have changed the oil switch and even sent to vw main dealer but nothing was found.after an oil change,i dont get this but
after 1 month it will start again.can anyone help. Read more
Enough oil on the 'gauge' - what gauge or do you mean the dipstick?
Under "Motability" scheme have, for last three years been driving Mondeo 2.0 ltr. Auto Petrol,with which I have been very satisfied.
Have been informed new Mondeos do not include petrol autos!! Have therefore ordered 2.0 ltr. diesel auto.
Is what I've been told true?
Comments please on what I can expect in the way of driving experience
Approx 8000 mls.p.a. 90% town driving
Never had a diesel before.
s
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Nowt wrong at all with the grunt and go of the PD130 motors ... but even their best friends would say they are a shade uncouth :-)
I will really miss the instant shove when mine goes ...
I have a red '97 Astra estate, which when we bought it were aware that it had some accident repairs in a "previous life". As it has aged, the drivers, door, wing and bonnet have oxidised far more than the rest of the car, which looks very good for its age. I have used T-cut in the past prior to polishing, which does help improve the finish for a short time, but removes an alarming amount of colour each time.
Is there a "foolproof" way for an amateur to improve the shine and colour and preserve this finish long term? I don't really want to resort to having these panels re-sprayed, but they really let the car down at the moment.
Any advice much appreciated, thanks! Read more
A good bodyshop proprietor once told me never to use T-cut on red paint as it contains ammonia which causes the pigment to oxidise and turn white.
Typical! We're about to go abroad with SWMBO's 306 HD1 X reg. A knocking noise has developed coming fom the "belts" side of the engine, quite loud when started from cold. The local Peugeot garage listened to it (warmed up, of course) and said they couldn't hear anything wrong. They've kept the car and will have another listen when it's cold.
My thoughts are that the problem could be the damped crankshaft pulley that drives the auxiliary belt. I gather that on this vintage they are the spring-damped, not the rubber-damped type. The car has done 50 000 miles or so and as far as we know, has not had the cambelt changed.
My fear is that the garage will be uncertain and we'll be faced with the choice of either taking the car and worrying about it, or taking the "other" car, with all the hassle of changing the ferry booking/breakdown cover etc etc.
Any diagnosis, guys, please? Should we take this car on a jaunt across Europe? Read more
Forgot to thank everyone who contributed and thereby helped us to deal with the garage.
Could anyone advise where i can find the govt fuel consumption figures for older cars, ie approx 1994 through to 2001. The Urban, 56mph and 75mph type figures. In the market for an older 4*4 and want to make some comparisons.
I am a new member of the back room and look forward to your input
Thanks in advance
Mark W Read more
Thanks all those that replied, the 1st 2 replies came through whilst still logged on having just posted question!. The AA road test archive works well and is free, does not detail the govt fuel figures but it's own findings. which is still useful. The link that someone gave to me sadly details only current cars on sale at the moment but thanks anyhow. Will be shortly posting further questions re specific vehicles and there fuel consumption. thanks again to you all
Mark
I got into the habit with my last car of parking in gear but I am now worried doing this in the xantia doesnt allow the hydraulic suspension to lower while parked. Is this likely to cause damage to the hydraulic system?
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I got a knock on the door one day from a passer by who wondered why my Xantia had just rolled out of the driveway into the middle of the road, with no driver. The handbrake was fully on, since then I've always left it in gear.
Does anyone have any experience of how used up-market cars are selling in the UK at the moment, now financial markets are starting to melt down?
For a while I've been looking for something unusual from the UK to replace the classic cars sold when we went ex-pat.
I've noticed that normally a trawl of Autotrader comes up with one or two Honda NSXs - this weekend there were more than a dozen.
Am I alone in thinking there might be a killing to be made before long? Read more
Will NCAP ever test how well cars protect rear-seat occupants from impact from the rear? Or in the grand scheme of crashes is it just statistically unlikely that your car will be hit up the rear with great force? Or do they assume that if it happens, it'll be a modern car with a good crumple zoney bonnet that hits you, and therefore IT will do most of the absorbing for you?
For the first time in probably over a decade I recently rode in the back of a supermini ? a ?99 Micra, on a fast but curvy single-carriageway trunk road, and I was surprised how vulnerable I felt with another vehicle also doing 60 mph close (but not unduly) behind.
Blimey, in a Ford Ka, the back of one?s head must be practically brushing the rear screen.
I was reminded of that traffic-cops type TV programme on several months back where a young woman (the driver) had tragically been killed when her car (was it a Peugeot 206?) became sandwiched between a truck and an Audi estate. The truck was big-ish but not an HGV, and it turned out its driver had been fiddling with a cellphone, and realised so little of events that he thought he?d crashed into the Audi.
I have read that it?s recommended that baby seats are safest in the rear seat of a car, but it feels to me safer for a 2 year old toddler?s forward-facing seat to be strapped into the front passenger seat in a ?99 Micra in case anything runs into the back of the car.
Bit of a dilemma really, if you?re after a car which is shortish in length (perhaps you have limited parking space) ? but need to be able to seat people in the back.
I?d be interested to see the comparative rear-impact performance of say Fabia and Focus hatches against their saloon and estate versions.
I see Fifth Gear are to (frontal) crash a Renault Modus into an old Volvo (240-ish) on tonight?s programme. I?m betting that the Modus will be deemed to ?have done well, and have minimal deformation of the passenger compartment?, ?but what G-forces would its passengers have been subjected to? As Clarkson observes, ?Speed never killed anybody. It?s the abrupt stop that does for you.?
In other words, it?s all very well having a rigid passenger cell, but surely there?s little substitute for plain old distance (and therefore time) between point of contact and point of coming to rest?
If I?m travelling at 10 m/s (22 mph) and crash into a rigid immovable object like a concrete bridge pillar, but my theoretical car?s bonnet is 5 metres long, it may have been fairly easy to engineer the car to take 1 second to crush the entire length of the bonnet, in which case I?m subjected to a deceleration of 1G and laugh it off. But if my bonnet is 1 metre long, I?m subjected to 5G. And so on.
In the case of a lighter, short-bonneted car crashing head-on into a heavier car, the small car may not just come to rest, but may finish up going backwards, i.e. a deceleration through zero mph and out the other side.
Maybe at typical speeds the difference in G forces with a bonnet 1 foot long rather than 5 feet long aren?t significant (they?re both very bad)?
Number-Cruncher to crunch some numbers please.
I think the accident in that TV programme some months ago happened at a motorway exit notorious in rush-hour for vehicles having to queue along the left lane of the motorway itself. Not a terribly uncommon scenario these days, so, Messrs NCAP (or somebody), what about measuring protection from impacts to the rear ?
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>> Don't most accidents happen within 3 miles of home?
This is a real "shark attack" statistic
Not entirely. When people are on their home turf they unconsciously drop their guard and fall into last-few-corners habit. Can be disastrous.
Some scrote broke into my friends Ford Puma and stole the Ford CD player.
Rather than just break the window, they have used some sort of lever between the window and the channel (is there a correct name for this?) that it slides in.
It feels like there is some metal bent about 6 inches down from the top corner of the door.
It is sticking out about 1/2 inch over a length of about 1 inch.
The friend is going to Autoglass or similar tomorrow.
Is the damage likely to be repairable.
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Punto got the same treatment a few years ago - door frame bent back with a crowbar.
Local bodyshop bent the frame back into shape, resprayed the damaged paint and repaired the lock in a day. There's a slight crease left at the point where the frame was bent, which leaks when a power washer is pointed straight at it, but otherwise I've had no problems since.
"T-Shirted, Shorts-wearing, no helmet biker saved by the airbag"
Pity.