I am looking for 8 days parking at Gatwick next year. The price comparison sites have come up with the same cost (£47) for parking 4 miles away and catching a bus as for valet parking. However, Watchdog or some such used a firm, that has since gone out of business, and gave them a car with a tracker fitted, for an 8 day parking service. The car was parked on the public road in an industraial estate for 4 nights and was driven round in XS of 70 mph on a number of occasions as well. Does anybody have direct personal experience of valet parking at Gatwick, please could they comment, and perhaps recommend a firm, either on the forum or thru the e mail in my profile? I am a bit wary about handing over my car and keys to anybody I don't know or who is not well thought of by other people! Thanks

{motoring related, so moved out of IHAQ} Read more

Morning All

just returned from a 2 weeker in Florida with the family and thought I would pen a few observations about motoring and other stuff.

Motoring - we asked for a 8 seater minivan - the company who booked the voucher said this would be no problem but when arriving all tired and bothered with two young kids at Orlando airport at midnight their time (05:00 our time) it turned out they did not have one available. We were offered a 8 seat SUV (Dodge Dourado). In the end we just piled luggage on our laps for the 30 minute drive rather than wait a potential 2 hours for more of the right vehicle to arrive. There were only six of us but we felt we needed the extra space for luggage that's why we ordered an 8 seater. Moral of the story is at a weekend they may not have your vehicle available straight away - probably not an issue for a standard size car I guess but for bigger families or in our case two families please be aware.

As for motoring approx $3.00 a gallon for fuel, (but the Dodge did an average of 14.5 mpg) and whilst their gallons are smaller than ours that's a lot of CO2 we pumped out. The car itself was typical Amercan fare, lots of poorly fitting trim and fake wood, but with a great satellite radio (Sirius I think)- kids kept wanting radio 1 but 70's and 80's channels won the day! Could not really find traffic announcements but I think that was again similiar to the UK with most cars and say if you are on AM you can't receive FM traffic announcements.

Used BIL's Tom Tom 710 - which was preloaded with US maps - again OK for most jouneys but it always seemed to get confused within the last mile so it was then down to following the signs at this point.

As for motoring itself - on the whole a pleasant experience, although the following observations seemed prevalent.

1. Floridians or indeed tourists don't like changing lanes on a freeway. Whilst their overtake in any lane rule applies it seems to make progress you need to just move from lane to lane.

2. Traffic signals are a pain, the 3 or 4 way phasing means if you just miss one you end up waiting 2 to 3 minutes (or 5 minutes in one case on highway 535) in most cases for a green light again - thus use the freeways or indeed toll roads (which are really cheap anyway) if you can, rather than the standard roads. Anyone who knows the area says don't use Highway 192 to go anywhere quickly in Kissimmee anyway.

3. In general motorists are curteous - people seem to let each other out in car parks and junctions etc. Very few horn tootings (compared to New York anyway), or indeed observations of agressive driving.

4. The "go right on a red light rule" is great if more people followed it, again watch out for the crosswalks where pedestrains obviously have right of way.

5. Saw one speed gun in use (on I4 used by a Florida Highway Patrol on a bike) - he was well camouflaged as well.

6. Did not see one speed camera but then again most people seemed to be observing the speed limits anyway - including us Brits !

7. When driving long distances (60 plus miles) we did a few counts of vehicles to ascertain the most popular and types. 70% + of vehicles were minivans (people carriers) or SUVs (4 x 4's) or pick up trucks, the rest were normal type saloons. Most popular types were Japanese (Toyota and Honda), Chrylser products or GM - very few Fords surprisingly.

8. The Japanese cars seem to have a habit of getting a desireable European design and taking the styling cues and incorporating them into their vehicles. We counted numerous examples of Toyotas/Lexus and Accura/Honda aping 3 or 5 series BMWs.

9. As for European marks VW Jetta/Golf/Beetle were probably the most popular followed by a sprinkling of Audis, BMWs and Jags. Not one French vehicle at all.

10. Counted about 4 diesel cars (all VW Golf TDIs) in 2 weeks - they are extremely rare.

10. Cost - this was most surprising (even at $2 to the pound). Did a couple of examples. First was a car similar to mine (A3 170 TDi quattro) and BIL's (BMW 520d M sport.) First problem - no diesels offered on either of these two cars on Audis and BMW's US websites. So we compared an A3 3.2 quattro and a BMW 525 with similiar levels of trim. Cost of Audi c.$32k, in the UK £29k, thus like for like at present exchange rates US cost is £16k.....a saving of £13k. Similiar results for BMW - cost savings of approx £12k like for like. I have probably missed a tax or two somwhere along the line but it does appear we are completely ripped off here in the UK.

11. Economical motoring does not appear to exist, having spoken to a few residents they are complaining bitterly about the cost of petrol but do not make the connection between using less. Floridians seem to agree that they are not a "green state" compared to California but the link between buying a more efficent car has not been made or indeed incentivised.

On a non-motoring observation - recycling does not appear to have been heard about. It did annoy us that all our rubbish ends up in one bin, I accept that in the UK and more so in France recycling is part of our cultureor soon to be tax structure, but the whole disposable society thing is alive and thriving in Florida. Although your garbage is emptied twice a week. It did make you think that if the US and other countries are either unaware or don't care about these issues then what is the point in the rest of us feeling guilty for putting out half a bin bag every 2 weeks.

Finally I have to say I like Americans in America - they are a friendly lot - accepting that tourism is their life in that part of the world They have an optimistic view of the world (even though that view might be narrow). They are in the main curteous, respectful and we did not hear one example of bad language in two weeks, unlike the UK. I could not live there 100% of the time - I think I would get fed up of their food!! But as for a place to go on holiday with kids - IMHO it's difficult to beat.
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03 Toledo 110 hp TDi with 110k miles
The alarm in my daughter's Toledo has just started the irritating habit of going off for about a minute and then switching itself off again - it happens around two or three times a day. Could this be an indication of something relatively simple like the battery dropping below voltage or is it likely to indicate something more sinister?
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Seat Leon TDi 110, 100k miles, regular servicing every 8k miles including cambelt change at 95k.

Towards the end of a 10-mile trip this evening, I thought the engine was starting to sound slightly ?buzzy?. Once it was started up again later on, it was running very harsh and the ABS warning light appeared (some years ago this light came on to indicate a faulty injector at the time, long-since rectified). Checked oil which was slightly low but not below minimum and had no real choice but to drive home. I noticed that intermittently, the harsh running sound seemed to suddenly disappear and asked des. driver (aka wife) to vary engine speeds and gears.
The engine appears to run suddenly normally at various rpm in various gears. In first gear it?s harsh up to 1600 rpm, after which it suddenly sounds normal again. In second and third the harshness suddenly disappears after 1800 rpm, while in fourth and fifth the harshness suddenly disappears after 1900 rpm. This is very consistent ? e.g. it could be running normally at 2000 rpm in fourth, but if revs are allowed to fall back to 1500 rpm the harshness returns until revs reach 1900 again. Same consistency of symptoms exists whether accelerating through the gears or varying speed in individual gears.

Last week I went for a longish trip of 190 miles and due to an unexpected extra 90 minutes of stop-start traffic caused by a couple of accidents en route, the ?fuel remaining? display was intermittently indicating zero with about ten miles to go. I was able to fill up about a mile before our destination and had been driving cautiously up to then, coasting in neutral where possible etc. However there were no problems on the same 190-mile return journey ? I?d have thought that any problems with dirt in the fuel would have manifested themselves before getting home. Although I wasn?t the driver tonight, wife said she didn?t notice any drop-off in power so I?m not sure that it?s the MAF. With the window down I could just about hear the turbo spool up as normal. I?m guessing either dirt in the fuel system or a faulty injector, but would welcome any other suggestions/advice/solutions!

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andymc
Vroom, vroom - mmm, doughnuts ... Read more

Last day of my fortnight off...aaah... its been lovely, and been having a browse over some of my favourite forums.

I've got funny ideas as some of you have probably already guessed, and losing the plot as well yes i do know.

Well i'm amazed at the amount of people who are prepared to risk running relatively expensive diesel vehicles on mazola.

IMO the complexity and cost of modern diesels means i take no risk with the maintenance and operation of these.
And i've realised today that i could no longer take the risk of buying another used diesel vehicle.

Look if i paid a couple of hundred quid for a fairly simple old fashioned indirect diesel then if it runs ok on the muck, why not, if it blows up on 6 months i'm probably in pocket, but i will not be taking the risk of having someone else's experiment on my hands.

In fact my old merc indy is adamant on having nothing to do with this mazola thing and his opinion is good enough for me.

What does the panel think. Read more