February 2008
I suppose I've been lucky in that I've been motorcycling for 5 years and never filtered up a dual carriageway in anger until yesterday. What a disappointing and risky experience. Traffic was moving at walking pace towards an accident (I found out later) on the A1 south in North Yorkshire. I joined at Catterick and sped down to the A684 at Leeming and a load of brake lights. I chose to filter between the two lanes of traffic and cruised at no more than 15 mph when I wasn't being baulked or pinched. I was surprised by the amount of obstructive driving and plain lack of attention by other motorists. Some seemed to resent me making progress while they couldn't and took the opportunity to move as close to the adjacent car as possible. Many moved left without checking their mirrors and without indicating. We are all used to poor driving, we see it whenever we use a vehicle, and I'm not an experienced filterer but I felt that there was an unusually strong concentration of the hard of understanding, the short-sighted and the plain bloody-minded; or am I just being paranoid? Do any of you deliberately obstruct motorcyclists from filtering? If so, why?
At the next exit I and many others took to the back roads where I was able to make much more satisfactory progress. And I wasn't even late for work :-)
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Hi,
I have just purchased a Laguna 1994 2.0rxe automatic and have a few faults that i'd like to find out exactly what they are before i decide what to do with the car.
Firstly the voice synthesizer tells me that there is a system malfunction, i have no idea what this means, could anyone shed some light on it?
There is also not alot of hot air coming from the heaters.
The car is also very sluggish in 1st gear and doesn't seem to want to go at times, once it is into second gear its fine and drives smooth as anything.
It has also stalled a couple of times when i stop at a junction or traffic lights, it just seems to lose revs.
and finally, i put £30 petrol in it but the petrol gauge is still lit up and the voice synthesizer tells me that fuel is low, there are no leaks anywhere and was wondering if it could be a fuse thats gone.
I did only pay £250 for it and other than these problems it is in fantastic condition inside and out with all the electrics working. Could it be aproblem with the onboard computer as i was doing 40mph in it yesterday but the electronic display only said i was doing 15mph!!!!
Please help
Thanks
{year&engine added to subject header - as per the 3 separate requests} Read more
You need to get it plugged-in to a scanner to see what code the voice warning and loss-of-power relate to.
The fuel gauge could be a separate fault. It is sometimes possible to get more than one on French cars....
I am not sure what the perceived wisdom is when concerned with FWD and RWD, but I can only comment how I find it. I personally hate torque steer, so that is pretty much most FWD diesel cars. I have a loan car at the moment which has a 2.2d 154 bhp engine in it and it pulls ferociously when the torque steer kicks in. It also has optional 4wd (it is a Mitsu Outlander).
It did get me thinking as to why, when a car has switchable 4wd, does the 2wd bit always be FWD. I know that on conventional 2wd cars FWD is both cheaper and saves having a drive shaft going down the middle of the car, but as the rear wheels can be driven wouldn't it be better to be RWD? I presume that it comes down to cost again, and no doubt space. Perhaps someone more informed could explain. Read more
I suspect part of the reason is that many modern 4wd cars, take my 4x4 Panda as an example, are adaptations or use drive trains that are adaptations of front wheel drive vehicles. Hence development costs are lower to add on rear wheel drive.
Older 4wd vehicles, such as the Nissan Terrano 2 that I used to drive, were designed as 4wd from the start with longitudinal engines, gearboxes and transfer boxes. In addition, ladder chassis put design constraints onto the vehicle favouring the main drive being rear wheel drive.
Would not swap my Panda with mainly front wheel drive for any of the older designs, much safer and predictable handling.
I bought a ford cougar and within a day the engine packed in due to a
burst waterpipe. (was ripped off). A local garage has advised a
replacement or reconditioned engine rather than new head gaskett etc as he is sure the insides will be roasted.
They have quoted around £1000 complete of parts and labour. Whats the
thoughts around this? will it really need a new engine? should i go
for a breakers or a reconditioned and why not Heathrow engines as
previously discussed.
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Thanks to all who contributed. The cougar was removed and taken to another local garage. The engine was saved, head skimmed, gasket, belts / pipes connections renewed etc. Nothing wrong with the internals. The bill is £850, steep for a car that was run for only an hour but at least its back on the road. cheers guys.
I need to add transmission fluid into my Laguna RT Automatic 1998, where is the filler cap/dipstick? Many thanks.
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Are there big patches of oil on under the car if not its the common symtoms of a knackered auto box.
I have an Audi 100 1993 2.0 petrol with a lazy water temp gauge. Takes a long time to start reading and then only reads up to 50c when engine at normal temp. Can anyone tell me how to check sender unit or gauge in order to find out if faulty or likely cause of fault.
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Thermostat has now been checked and is working correctly
My daughter has Fiesta 1,25 Ghia. Sometimes the speedo stops working and sticks at 10mph. After a while it starts working again. Iv changed the cable but the problem is still there. Has anyone experienced this problem themselves or got any ideas on where to look next? Thanx Read more
If it's sticking at 10, then I'd be thinking of trying a second-hand pod.
Indicator float on the LHM reservoir seems to be stuck at the top of it's travel. Even with the ride set high and the indicator and associated connections raised out of the reservoir it still does not move.
Is there any secondary means of checking (eg visible fluid at normal or lowered ride height)?
Guess I'll have to get it down to the garage later in the week; they can check the fualt codes as well since the K light still illuminated from time to time.
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I've had the odd sticky float. Judicial application of the "meat" hammer usually works.
A couple of days ago I saw a Nissan Cube on trade plates in, of all places, Stanley, Co. Durham. Impressed however to see this weird but sensible car in the flesh. Made my Panda look like a sleek coupe! Read more
There's a pale blue on in manchester - seen it a few times looks quite cool though odd...
Is it possible to fit more than 45 litres of fuel into the tank of a 106?
Its a 45 litre tank and we got over 48 litres of diesel in at the station today! It was only just on the red too!
It just makes me think wether the petrol station pumps are callibrated correctly and are we getting ripped off even more with increasing fuel prices? Read more
yes it is possible to get more than the stated tank size into a car. Remember some is held in the fuel lines plus the actual filler neck holds a fair amount too.
Browse
Motorcycle Roadcraft (which is the police bikers bible) mentions filtering to make progress, but firmly puts the onus for safety and giving way to traffic changing lanes on the motorcyclist.
Too often I see car drivers legally and correctly changing lanes only to find a motorcyclist flying down the middle getting irate at the car driver for daring to change lanes without checking the 'invisible' one in the middle. As others have said, trying to spot a motorbike coming down the middle of slow moving traffic in the dark is next to impossible.
The worst offender I've ever seen was a motorcyclist on the M9 when the other traffic was doing 55mph he came hurltling down the middle of the road doing 70+ - a Darwin award in the making...