February 2008
The topic of abandoned cars comes up often but today right outside a local Tesco Extra I saw a car I thought unlikely to see abandoned. A 1998 R reg BMW 5 Series 540i automatic. Who'd have thought someone would dump this. But I've not been for a few days and this car is not parked and someone has placed an abandoned car notice inside on the dash.
Apart from someone's smashed the rear tail lights (probably has a dodgey history) it looked in good condition. It's not on the MID mind. Read more
hi guys, need help on a tdci with the timing of the chain. Got the cams pegged at 6 oclock. Where do i peg the crank off from? Also do I need to time the pump? It's the common rail, so I take it it's free wheel? thanx
{year/engine supplied via email. Also added some punctuation to make for easier reading (hopefully)} Read more
that`s great thanx screwloose
Anyone else managed to get any vouchers from this 'club' since it changed from the old system.
My points balance has gone from nothing to 2500, back to next to nothing, up to 3000 and now down to 69 in the past six months!, and I have never received a single voucher.
Have emailed them a number of times and never had a reply, actually telephoned them once only to get foreign call centre type who told me the system was rubbish and it will be sorted soon, this was 3 months ago!
Is it me?
CBG
Read more
Chaos sums it up - old system was not perfect but every so often you got a statement and you could get vouchers for a variety of shops. Drivers Club Points paid a stop to that.
Another Shell faux pas
Shell V-Power Diesel - a well hidden secret is where to buy it.
In October there was a "National Launch" of V-power Diesel according to the Car Mags. Only trouble was few stations had and if you enquired on the Shell site they had a 56Kb pdf file that had stations listed in county order - as long as the counties were in the Southern half of Britain.
I e-mailed and asked when their site would have information that could be retrieved. I heard little and saw no improvement in their site.
For a company that made £14Bn profit they must do something right but it certainly is not having a website with information or a "Reward Scheme" that pays out.
I buy the ordinary Shell diesel - I have bought V-power diesel on 2 occasions after stumbling into a filling station that had a V-power Diesel Pump.
Log on to sthe Shell site and look for yourself.
Apologies in advance if this has been dealt with, but a quick search did not reveal.
I've just had a council (as opposed to police) penalty notice handed to me as I arrived to drive off. I was unsure about the wisdom of jumping in and departing in a hurry, so I took it off the attendant (with some eyeball rolling), and was surprised to discover that although the offence is 'longer than permitted', the ticket does not specify the start and end time, only the time of issue + a 'reasonable cause to believe..' statement. I would normally assume the ticket wording is bulletproof, but shouldn't it say when the period was timed from?
As it happens, they've also got my registration slightly wrong, so I'm also wondering whether to lie low and wait to see if they work out where I live... Read more
I have since discovered that the parking bay (dotted line area) is incomplete, as one end of it has been recently tarmacked and no longer has the required end-of-bay markings, so I think the ticket is unenforceable anyway.
Having photographed the area, I also notice that there are old dotted yellow lines present from the previous era of regulations. Since these require different signage, they could be regarded as confusing - does anyone know if they are allowed to remain?
........ half as nice as the one tonight.
Had to drop my son off for a gig earlier tonight and offload his PA and speakers. Usual problem, not much parking, the only space available was on double yellows almost outside the venue so bit the bullet and parked up to offload.
About fifteen minutes later a warden poked her head through the door,'Is that you parked outside?'
'Yes, we're just unloading, probably be about another ten minutes, if that's OK.'
'No problem, I'll check back in an hour and half on my next circuit then. No point in hassling you; the parking's pretty bad round here at this time of night. Tell you what, when you've finished off-loading just pull round the corner into the side street and park up there out of the way and I'll leave you all night. Have a good, gig.'
'Speechless!!!'
So different to the one a fortnight or so ago who seemed to think we could offload and cart the gear up three flights of stairs in five minutes,'Otherwise I'll regard you as parked and will have no choice but to give you a ticket.'
So to tonight's warden, thank you for making the get in so much less stressful. Read more
I make a habit of saying a cheery good morning to all traffic wardens when I pass them. And being in Westminster, they are legion!
I've got a 2006 1243cc Fiat Panda, bought it delivery mileage at a discount, but sold as used. As such it only has 2 years manufacturer warranty, the 3rd is dealer which is not included in my case. Had the first year warranty done, which was a visual check and an oil change, was a bit expensive for really no work. I'm reasonably handy DIY and can change oil, plugs, filters, brakes etc, as such I intend doing my own service every 6 months. I will need something to reset the service indicator light, EBAY has lots of tools like this U581 code reader which claims to work on FIAT digital CAN systems and can reset faults and read fault codes. It's not too expensive, I'm not interested in moving into laptop based stuff which obviously does more, but don't want to go into remapping and other mega tech stuff. Is this tool worth buying? Anyone with knowledge of it, or is there better stuff for less or not much more?? Read more
According to AutoData, service reminder resetting on this car can only be done with suitable diagnostic equipement.
DC
Just returned from a small road trip to Italy and France and I had noticed that the car did seem to be running rather more quietly than usual. However on my return to the UK the noise was back again. Do other Euro countries use something different to surface their roads because the noise was caused quite simply by the road surfaces on our motorways and A roads? Read more
And then there's the concrete motorways!
I've found they are generally quieter in France as well, though the section from Calais past Dunkirk to the Belgian border is the most rutted and rough surface of any motorways I've driven, and that includes the UK and Prague!
Hi All
Some of you may recall that I recently bought a ZT, and had an accident in it 2 hours after purchase. TBH, it felt like a minor accident - a van pulled out of a side road at low speed into the side of my car.
Well, it's now 6 weeks since the accident and I have been chasing the garage regularly to push forward the repair, but everything has been so slow....
I won't bore you with the whole story - suffice to say that I have had to chase every step of the way. I don't think they actually started work on the car for the first 4 weeks. Then they started work on the suspension but stopped as they decided it needed more parts than they originally thought, so they had to go back to the insurance company to approve.
Spoke to them again today and now they say it needs a new steering rack so it will take at least another week to finish the repair. So they've now had to stop work 3 times to get in new parts.
The other problem is that they say they only have 1 ramp for cars needing suspension work, so even when the parts arrive, it takes a few days to get the car back on the ramp - then they find they need more parts...
TBH I despair that I will ever see the car again!! I don't understand why they couldn't just work out from the beginning what work needed doing. Their excuse is that the insurance company will only authorise repair work on visible items, which means that other problems only become apparent once they have started work.
But this is such an inefficient process. By the time you add up the repair costs and the car hire charges, I would have thought the total bill would be ~£6k, which is not much less than I paid for the car. All this for a minor accident!
It's a long time since I last had an accident, but I don't recall the repair process taking more than a couple of weeks. So far this time, it's 6 weeks and I think it will be at least another 2 before I get the car back. Should it really take this long?
Sorry for the length of this rant, but I had to get it off my chest.... Read more
Guess I asked for that, didn't I.....
Anyone used www.buynewcars4less.com ?
Experiences good or bad? Read more
Buynewcar4less's website is currently unavailable. Might be coincidence.
I have someone interested in buying my car.
He hasn't seen it but he lives a long way away (He - Southern Ireland, me - Kent). He wisely wishes to check that everything is as it appears before making the journey and has requested the chassis number and the VS5 number from the registration document.
I have spoken to him and we have agreed a price subject to him flying over and viewing. He seems a genuine chap, we had a good chat.
Is it OK to give out the VS5 and chassis number? Is the registration number not enough?
Thanks Read more
My thoughts are:
What was the guys telephoen number? Irish land line/mobile? or a personal issue number?
Will you get a cheque for more than the amount asked for with request to transfer remainder?
Browse
.jpg)
The local council are often slow at picking up abandoned cars - police even ignored a shell of a car parked on a corner (and a hazard to other road users).
Abandoned car at roadside at the foot of our road and we knew it would lie for weeks before the council would do anything.
ANSWER - release handbrake and allow car to be pushed beside local Electricity sub-station - we then e-mail the Electricity Board and told them of the danger of it being set on fire by "local youths"- within 2 hours the scrappy had uplifted it and I got a thank you e-mail from the Electricity Board for making them aware of the danger.
Job Done and maybe a tip for other BRs