February 2008
Vauxhall is about to announce that it will modify the handbrakes of around a quarter of a million of its cars, after numerous reports by owners of vehicles suffering handbrake failure when parked.
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My 1.6 D Auto suffers from an occasional loss of power. The engine goes into safe mode although no engine management notice appears.Turning off the engine: wait 5 minutes and its gone, the car returns to normal. The garage has been very good but it is difficult if not impossible for them to see the car while it is playing up. Their computer has produce various fault codes and various filters have been changed but the problem remains. Any thoughts?
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Thanks for that. I will look at that. It does seem to be a problem which others have had.
If I had say a petrol Ford with a V8 and 4.6L and the car did 30MPG over a 300 mile journey and say I had another Ford that was 4 cylinder and small (say Focus or Fiesta) and that also did 30MPG over exactly the same distance (300 miles) would the V8 puff out more CO2 per 30 MPG than the smaller 4 cylinder car?
Do different cars output different amounts of CO2 even if they use exactly the same amount of fuel over a given distance? I ask this because I did 300 miles in the Mustang V8 and achieved 30.2 mpg and did exactly the same journey in the CRV and got 30.1 mpg. So I was thinking is there only a certain amount of co2 you can possibly get from burning one litre of petrol or not.
The Mustang was marginally more economical than the CRV on this trip :)
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The only way to ensure that CO2 reduction is the aim is to have a
low registration fee for all cars e.g. £50 per year and then place all the
remaining duty on fuel at say 60p/litre (up from the current 52p).
cjehuk, I agree but it is far too sensible for this government!
Travelling home last night, Southbound on the A417 near the Air Balloon roundabout in Gloucestershire (the one Sally Traffic mentions every week) when my traffic announcement picked up the TA from BBC radio Leicester, this must be at least 100 miles as the crow flies. Then about 30 seconds later - Radio Shropshire !! again another 100 miles away at least.
Conditions were still and clear (wonder if that had anything to do with it?)
Got me thinking - what's the most distant TA your radio has announced? I'm sure a radio expert will tell me why this happened but I've never received signals from as far that before. Read more
when i go out in the boat, I often pick up vhf transmissions from vessels way out of (line of) sight over the horizon, and as vhf travels in a "straight line", i must pick it up after it has bounced of a cloud or thermocline, or some thing.
Billy
I'm looking at a 55 Micra up for £5000 at a main dealer and they don't seem keen to move on price.
The question is what is the price on this likely to drop to after the new reg trade-ins ahve flooded in??
Will it move at all??
I have asked and they say the 'price won't change' but I would have thought it would??
Any advice from anyone would be appreciated.
John Read more
It seems expensive, depending on the model, given that pre-registered Ford Ka's were going for that price not long ago. (Dagenham Ford and maybe elsewhere.)
Picked up my Mondeo IV 2.0 TDCi manual estate yesterday.
Initial impressions were as per my test drive, some 5 months ago now. Body control excellent (tyres are Mich Pilot Premacy 215 / 55 x 16), road & engine noise damping excellent, controls fall easily to hand & foot, etc.
Engine responsive and torquey, will report on consumption etc after first tankful. Seems more responsive to throttle with ESP switched off, but could just be my imagination.
Had to go back to the dealers today as the passenger seat securing bolts (that hold the seat rail to the floor) were hand-tight, allowing the seat to rock. There have been other reported incidents of this on the Mondeo forums. Whatever happened to PDIs, and careful assembly at the factory?
Anyway, more reports as things happen (or not). Read more
>>Had the "oil service" message come up at 3,500 miles>>
My best mate has had the same low mileage requirement on his '57 Mondeo 2.0 TDCI - done by dealer.
Like all previous Mondeos it's a cracking car, perhaps too good in many ways for the market it serves as it's not really appreciated by many owners.
For those who enjoy a true driver's car it's superb, as is the Focus.
Can anyone who owns one tell me if the car has a 'distance to next service' indicator?
On the A3 you pull the trip meter reset button and it tells you distance/time in days to next service. Is the Golf the same?
Thanks Read more
My Golf MkIII reminded you from 2000 miles before a service it ws due... every time you started it. I used to reset it myself. I knew when it was due and to remind every time was a right pain.
Car lasted 5-6 months before being stolen.
Having travelled down to Gatwick this last weekend I could not help notice the work being carried on the road on the southern most section compared to road schemes in Holland and Germany it looked more like something Bob the builder was involved in,the lack of proper equipment , the small number of actual people and completely out of date building techniques is amazing to behold.I also noticed some quite new sections around Leicestershire are falling to bits already I wonder what guarantees the contractor gives on these projects to think that tax payers money is been given out to fund such sub standard works is most saddening.
subject line tweaked. Read more
There must be some sort of dreadful lurgy at work - or rather not - in the UK these days.
When I heard on the radio that the West Coast main rail line was to close over the end of the year holiday for repairs and re-open on such-and-such a day I looked at SWMBO and said 'want to put some money on it?' Civil engineering contracts often just don't seem to be carried out properly any more.
Don't even mention the words O******* G****.
I think, at ground level (sorry about the pun) Andy's mention of all the workers on mobile phones is telling. Today's culture seems to be that, rather than just getting on with the job you have to be on the company mobile, telling everyone exactly what you are thinking or doing (or not getting round to doing), all the time.
Long gone are the days when I was on the road and just got on with the job, checking in and updating once or twice a day when I happened to pass a phone box. My old man used to run an international lorry fleet successfully, just using the odd phone call, telex, or even telegram!
Time wasted in offices on email and internet (come on, admit it! I bet there aren't many like me, sitting at home) and wasted time on mobiles just telling other people where you are or exactly what you're doing must add up to the same sort of frightening figures as internet bank frauds that are never made public.
I'm glad I'm sitting on the sidelines these days, rather than trying to get people to actually do things.
Rant over (for now) yet again.
Dont blame them, the emphasis put on the private motorist is completely out of proportion to their actual contribution to CO2, they are just a high profile target.
Good to have a manufactuer like Porsche putting their head above the parapet and supporting the beleaguered motorist against an exchequer bent on using misguided environmental ideals to rip off a significant majority of the population.
BBC link replaced by www.honestjohn.co.uk/news/item.htm?id=4406 Read more
Lol This is funny as I was just thinking the same
Hello,
I need to change my car - I want a big diesel with plenty of luggage space and power enough to tow a caravan.
Does anyone know of an easy way of working out annual fuel costs based on average mpg?
I want to work out how much, say, a Nissan X-Trail would cost per year in diesel compared with a big estate like a Ford Mondeo.
I would be upgrading from a Ford Focus diesel estate so I know everything will be more expensive on either car (though insurance and purchase price of either would be v similar - just more tax on the XT)
Thanks in advance....
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If you are buying new, Auto Express does a PPM (pence per mile ) running cost for each car over 3 years.
X-trail diesel varies from 51 to 58 PPM depending on model; Mondeo diesel is 48 to 63PPM.
Browse
A well known consumer magazine and the BBC's Watchdog programme have been running campaigns on the subject for some considerable time.
An expert informed the BBC that he believed it was due to the rachet mechanism and, no doubt, Vauxhall have decided to take some action as a result.