February 2008
hi room , what would one expect to pay for a bit of welding to be done, particularly i need a bit doing around the seat belt anchor points underneath for the MOT , the garage wants £160 to do a wheel bearing , 2 new brake discs , a new number plate and the welding , ive done all the jobs apart from the welding, would £40 sound about right? Read more
I bought my new Tax disc online last night. ( Another Rock 'n Roll Saturday night in the SS household! ). Good, easy to use system though. Certainly beats hanging around in the post office. Now I'm not especially whinging about having to pay the £140 as divided by my annual mileage it comes to approx. £0.0035 per mile.
No, what I was musing over was where the money goes? I wonder what proportion disappears immediately as a result of the admin cost, the buildings and infrastructure to support and house the system and its' staff etc. etc. Our local council at least put something in the envelope telling you about your council tax bill which sets out to reassure you that they have spent it wisely and are going to be even cleverer next year.....but nothing similar in with the V11. Nary a cheap about where they are going to make improvements to the road network or eliminate potholes or whatever. Does any of this money actually find its way back to my road in the form of some tar or a bulb for streetlamp? Or is this just a handy and mildly profitable way of monitoring a vehicles legality? Once upon a time I suppose it was quite useful for this purpose but now that info. on the validity of MOT's, insurance, ownership etc. are all readily available instantly to the authorities, I just wonder what is the remaining point of this somewhat quaint system? I guess I spend about £5000 a year on fuel for my car alone and of course a thick chunk of that is tax, like I said, I don't particularly care about or lose any sleep over this extra bit but it does seem a bit rude on top of all the rest! You know if you were to imagine for a moment that this system had never previously existed and some Chancellor was to try to justify its introduction it might just sound slightly ludicrous. "You pay tax on the purchase of the car and the fuel to run it and the money you earned to buy it in the first place and I know...... lets have a tax on owning it as well!" Read more
Wrong. All wrong.
RFL is high to ensure our MPs are able to live their lifestyle with free food, expenses claims with no receipts, funding children and mistresses, ensuring they can buy a London house and make £thousands tax free capital gains and world sight seeing trips (sorry, educational visits).And subisdised drinks and restaurants...
These are our legislators' prioirities.
Then its payback time for your electoral donors, foregn aid to countries like India (£1bn for the poor so India can afford nukes), and then realy helpful things like sickness benefit for people who have never worked for the last 20 years.
Road programs come near the bottom of the list.
I have had the two small seals (1 black and 1 green) changed on the fuel pump, and it now starts eventually! however I think that it should start within a couple revolutions. Any idea's of where else I could have a problem?
Many thanks
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In January we were in London on a Sunday evening. We borrowed my MiL's car and went to see some relatives, who live in a residents parking zone. We were very careful not to park in the relevant marked residents parking bays and parked on the only other available space which is marked with single yellow lines. There are no driveways at the relative's house in which to park.
MiL has received a letter from the council alleging we received a ticket two minutes before the residents parking time expired (21:00), but there was nothing on the car when we returned and lets say we were looking for one as we had been warned about illegal activities in London of parking enforcement officers.
We have written to the council seeking the proof that we were parking illegally, but is there anything else we should be doing? Read more
You did the right thing by ticking the "offense did not occur" box, that's the only one which really counts. Go back to the area and find out what restriction applied to the area you were parked, look for the information signs. If you can argue that the restriction was not advertised, or you were not in breach of them then you will probably win. The council will keep on saying you are liable for the fine, regardless - they say this to everyone. Refuse to pay and ask the council how to apply to the ombudsman. I think that even if you lose you will still get the option to pay the reduced fine, but I'm not sure because I've never lost!
I finally took delivery of a new D-Max pickup. I asked the dealer to fit an engine and cabin heater, a second set of genuine alloys with a certain make of studded tyres, and to tint the rear windows.
I picked the car up from a non-Isuzu dealer (same company) closer to me. The first thing I notice is aftermarket alloys with different tyres to the ones I asked for. Never mind, I think, they'll do the same job.
Having been in the motor trade for a number of years, I decided to check out the rest of the car. Firstly, I find 3 screws on the floor where they'd taken off the rear door panel to do the tinting. So I put those back in their rightful place.
I then checked out the engine heater install. It basically consists of a socket on the front bumper that you plug into the wall, then a cable from that to a small heater that goes in a core plug hole, and a lead from that through the bulkhead to a socket mounted in the passenger footwell, into which you plug a fan heater.
The socket on the bumper was at a silly angle and only held on with a couple of self tappers through the plastic, so as you push the plug in, the screws pull through the plastic. They've also routed the wire all over the place, cable tied to a/c hoses and the inlet manifold, so it will get tugged about all over the place when the engine rocks. To get the cable through the bulkhead, they'd drilled a 1" hole (although it looks like it's been made with a chisel), no grommet or anything, so you can see the engine if you look from the passenger footwell, and no socket fitted. They've just poked the end of the cable under the mat. What a quality job.
I can't be bothered to call the garage to get it fixed, just as easy to redo it myself and I'll know it's done properly.
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I've actually got the new 3.0 common rail engine with 165hp, not yet available in England. Seems ok so far. We don't have the 3 litre Hilux here, and they've stopped doing the Mitsu power upgrade due to engine failures. The ford ranger is only the 2.5 also, so I only had the choice of Isuzu or Nissan if I wanted an auto.
I went to fit the winter tyres and wheels yesterday, but the centre hole is larger than the hub and no spacers have been supplied. I'll post another question on technical to see if it's ok to run without the spacer.
Hello.
I have a problem with the ABS cutting in at low speed when only braking moderately. The car has had this problem since the two rear ABS sensors were replaced, after having been out of service for two months. I have tried to measure the output from each sensor, but they only give a reading of 0.1 to 0.3 mV at speeds between 10 and 30 mph, and the readings are inconsistent. This applies to both rears and the n/s front (I haven't tried to measure the o/s front).
The only possible fault I can see is that one of the new rear sensors isn't quite fitted flush with the face of the hub casting. It looks like there could have been some dirt there when it was fitted, and I can get a 0.015" feeler in between it and the hub casting. Unfortunately I can't get the sensor out. It's in really tight and I am frightened of breaking it. Before I go back (again) to the garage that fitted the new sensors, does anyone know if a small increase in the distance between the sensor and the toothed gear would cause the ABS to trigger at low speed?
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Thanks again for the replies chaps.
I have carried out some more tests and still can't determine what's at fault. I've tried measuring the output from each sensor and have found that you have to have the sensors connected to the wiring loom plugs to get any output. I then connected an oscilloscope in parallel with each sensor, and turned the road wheel slowly. I got the same waveform from all four sensors, showing nearly 1V peak to peak, and around 60 events per wheel revolution. Having drawn a blank here I tried to find out which sensor was causing the ABS to cut-in by driving the car with different sensors connected to the near side front wheel's connection to the ABS unit. I tried braking hard with everything connected as normal, and the car pulled up perfectly straight with hands off the steering wheel. I then swapped over the ABS sensors for the front wheels and still the car braked perfectly straight, with the ABS pumping all of the time. Therefore I concluded that it couldn't be one of the front ABS sensors at fault, otherwise the car would have pulled to one side under heavy braking with the ABS cutting in on one wheel. I then tried connecting each of the rear brake sensors in turn to the near side front wheel's circuit, and still the car pulled up straight when braking. So there doesn't appear to be a problem with any individual sensor or reluctor ring.
Any ideas anyone please?
Anyone know what colour antifreeze these come with from new? Read more
Hi
I have just bought a mazda 3 diesel (54 Plate) its done 100k and iam guessing its due a new cam belt and was wondering how much this would cost????
Also how much roughly are new rear brakes and tyres on this car
Many Thanks in advance
Rob Williams
Seeing as we're so very vague on asking for engine details and year in the subject line, I've inserted them for you
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I'm looking to buy a 'W' reg 1.8 Zetec with 86,000 miles and have noticed that when you push the gear stick to the left when in the neutral position it doesn't spring back to the middle, is this a sign of a problem with the gear box?
Thanks Read more
Worked ok for me just now. Try the slightly shorter version to see if the same problem occurs.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=35557
A friend of mine has had to have driveshafts replaced on her Citroen Saxo.
the car is 7- 8 years old but has only done around 45k miles. is it a common prob on saxo's?? i always thought driveshafts are good for 100 k plus miles unless a rubber boot has split. the boot did split on one of the driveshafts but that doesn't explain the other one needing replaced at such such a low milage.
would welcome any feedback
thanks
No need to shout in the subject line Read more
Depends how it's been driven. Pulling away quickly on full lock, bashed over potholes, speed humps and driven up pavement edges will soon kill them. You can wear out a clutch in under 10K if you treat it badly enough.
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Sounds cheap really when you think that the garage needs to recover its overheads ,as well as labour.
Is a 1991 car worth repairing ? Will it be worse next year? I got £200 trade in for a 1.3 Escort 2 years ago, so they are 'not valuable'
But while it moves, it does its job, sort of.
snipquote!