November 2007
My battery is running flat after 3-4 days. AA man has been out twice now, he has told me that it is the battery, however, having changed the battery, still getting the same problem. AA man states it the battery beacuse it fails a load test. I am unsure as this is the second battery that it is happening on.
Car is not used every day, it can go 3-4 days without being used, but it used to cope with this.
Car is having its MOT and service on Friday, but garage has already looked at alternator when it put the new battery in 2 months ago.
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Hi All - hope someone can help!
1.4 16V Dynamique+ 2002 Clio (petrol).
Over 1year ago spare remote key fob ceased working although nothing wrong with battery, and I am sure that I now have to stand closer to the car for the working key to operate (anyone else had this or is it me?).
In past few weeks have experienced intermittent inability to either:
a) lock the car with remote fob; taking up to 10 attempts of turning car on/off/pressing fob
b) start car - turn key in ignition all dash lights/stereo etc switch on but engine does nothing. Usually by fourth attempt the car switches on and runs with no problems.
Last night car would not start (as b) on 2nd attempt engine turned over (not sluggish) but cut out after 3secs. Infinite number of attempts unsuccessful - RAC called!
Mechanic rang me back (did not visit me at roadside - never saw the car) and asked if immobiliser light on dash was flashing faster than usual (which it was) then suggested that I hold key with one end in each hand and flex each way as though trying to snap it in two then try to start car - IT STARTED 1ST TIME!!! (does anyone know why this is? Was so impressed that I forgot to ask!)
Went straight to my local Renault dealer who found no problem with EITHER keys (ie. the spare that has not worked for over a year now works!?!) or the immobiliser.
I am convinced there is a problem - does anyone have any ideas?
Yours hopefully
CJ
ps Apologies for the long message!
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That's a good tip to have - not sure I would have worked that out myself!
Thanks for your post
I have to travel up to North Wales from London (SE), Unfortunately I will clash with the M6 at around 5pm.
My questions are - what is the M6 like ? am I better to come off the M1 and use the A5 via Tamworth ? etc Someone I know swears by using the Derby to Stoke link road ?
Please help Read more
If there is nothing big on at the NEC I would agree with Gordon.
Gordon - what colour is your Honda? Have probably passed you numerous times! Mine is the Indigo Blue.
Hi- having recently downgraded to a Y reg Focus 2.0 (128bhp) estate for financial and practical reasons, I was wondering if anyone had tried one of the (reputable) chipping/remapping options available for this engine eg. the Superchips plug-in Bluefin device:
www.mybluefin.co.uk/bluefin.php
which is £300 and offers an extra 13bhp and 12lb/ft.
I'm particularly interested in whether the car just becomes (a bit) quicker, or is it nicer to drive as well - although the Focus's handling is as good as I expected, but the enigne isn't. It feels less 'eager' than our 1.0 Yaris, although obviously it's ultimately faster; perhaps it just needs a bit of getting used to. (And the car has a service book full of Ford service history so I'm assuming there's nothing actually wrong with the engine.)
Cheers
John Read more
A Remap on an M54B30 (3 litre engine in 530i and 330i) will increase power from 231bhp to 250bhp.
I was half tempted but then I realised it was only for pub kudos so didnt bother.
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>>I expect my crimble dinner in my lap again!>>
Buy the non-flashing variation next time.
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What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
Does anyone here have any experience of the late '60s/ '70s Victor, did anyone own one or drive one? Were they popular in the day, how did they compare with the Granada, etc.?
Ford and BL cars of that era regularly get mentioned on forums and in magazines, as do some of the smaller VX cars, but the big ones seem to very rarely get a mention. Or is it just because I've only just started looking, so not noticed them before. Also I've not got my head round the model designations, were the Victor, Ventora and VX4/90 just different trim levels of the same car?
I've suddenly become aware of these because a friend of my brother has bought one (he's 30) to run as a family car, a 2 litre VX4/90. Having looked at pics on the internet I think an early '70s FD model looks pretty cool..
But there does not seem to be much information around about them. Is this because they have all just rusted away and are largely forgotten, or were they a bit rubbish?
Ta,
Rich. Read more
My Dad had a new Victor 101 Reg. YRO 275F in Blue 1967? I was about 4 years old at the time and there are 2 things I can remember about it.
1. I was always car sick on long journeys - every year we used to go camping in South of France which took 3 days back in those days and by day 2 I would be heaving every half hour.
2. It was always breaking down.
It took until 1974 to get him to buy a decent car (then) a Marina 1.8, which was heaven (then).
Hi, as you see in the in the fore sale bit in here im selling a 1997 R reg ghia escort, whilst surfing around on the net i found a web site called WEBUYYOURCAR.COM that lets you enter your vehicle details then gives you a quote/price for a sale, its below what i wanted but i was given a price of £1050 without the car tax, and that's worth an extra £100 pounds so im tempted as its a quick sale and only 25miles away.
anyone dealt with these people or any past experience ect or sounds too good to be true ect.
i was told also that they are part of carcraft which by all accounts arnt very nice people.
thanks Read more
They recently opened a local office in the same building as us, and seem to do enough trade to justify a transporter turning up to collect every week. Current crop in the car park looks like a Passat, a Punto, BMW 5 series, 2 Disco's and 2 Clios (*)
I wonder how much of the business is selling the cars on for profit, and who much of the business is identifying cash-poor punters and selling them expensive credit ?
(*) I'm guessing they're waiting for collection - nobody who works here uses that bit of the car park
Researching the best on-line tyre supplier to replace my daughter's punctured tyre, I find a number of tyres are available with "rim protection". Sometimes a particular tyre can be supplied with or without it, sometimes it seems to be compulsory.
I know the idea is to protect the wheel at the expense of tyre rubber, but has anyone any experience of this idea?
Does it work?
Does it affect tyre characteristics such as handling or ease of balancing?
Is it really such a good idea to have a tyre specifically designed to sustain side-wall damage?
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The browser should do this automatically.
Yes, but the question wasn't asking that.
The alarm/immobiliser on my Escort was giving trouble in the year before I got it. It has always behaved well in my hands until recently. The alarm doesn't work, and the immobiliser seems to work judging by the flashing LED on the facia.
Recently the car has been misbehaving slightly, with the LED staying on steadily and the starter refusing to work. Today for the first time it didn't respond to the technique of getting out and double-locking the car from the driver's door a couple of times, the only way to arm the immobiliser. The light is now on all the time.
Does anyone know if there's a way to disconnect the immobiliser without affecting the central locking?
What a pain. Read more
what are they i have an r reg escort lost the only key i have managed to get the steering lock of and get into the car but need to get the immobiliser off so i can use my car. otherwise its a good working car going to the scrap yard
I deceided that it would be prudent to replace the cam belt kit,as this was a secound hand car,with no reference to the cambelt being replaced.A Good Year kit was installed.
This engine ran very silently prior to replacement.
I had to return the car next morning to the garage as it was making a grinding noise in the cam belt housing.The mechanic listened to the noise and said that it had to "bed in", and I should just drve the car.
Excuse me,I may look like a cabbage,but Iam not green.(My own thoughts.)
There is nothing to bed in,rubber does not need to bed in and the only other part is the tensioner.
I have taken the car back but the mechanic stll insists that all is well,even after taking the cover off.
But the grinding noise persists.
Can you help?
Chum.
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These belts are now tensioned using a seem tensioner but they used to be tensioned using a "special tool" that was just a lever with a weight hung from it was not unheard of for the lever to be fitted with the tensioning weight in a clockwise direction, this is wrong and will cause the belt to be noisey. Its also possible if the waterpump has been changed at any time that the teeth are of an incorrect profile. I`m assuming u have a single cam engine.
Browse
As Screwloose pointed out not really the correct way to do a load test ,it needs a to taken for a good run to fully charge the battery then do the test.There could be a faulty charging circuit which needs checking if it's not charging properly it will never work,then you need to test for any current leakage.