March 2008
Full story here
tinyurl.com/3ckxdv
Read more
My Audi A4 Avant, 1999, has a squeaky steering column and the main dealer requires silly money to replace it! Does it have a grease nipple or similar to get over a simple but annoying problem?
{added year to the subject title, and turned down the VOLUME!} Read more
My Volvo S60 does it as well, but only intermittently. I thought my friendly mechanic had cured it with some spray lube, but it seems not.
Will be interested to see any replies on this one myself.
Cheers
DP
Doh! Just bought a new car. Should have waited: what's the betting the tightened credit crunch will now lead to some juicy showroom deals? Read more
The new tax regime both car ,company,and personal will devalue some cars to a point of being almost worthless,using germany as an example punative taxes have put older 4x4 on the same par as chichen teeth they have disappeared of the second hand car market.Having to pay £270 tax for a mondeo is nothing for a company but a three year old one when it comes of lease is not the car joe public will be looking for.I think all vehicles with co2 with 150 or below will be the winners and anything above will become a little dusty in the second hand car mart.
Planning some touring on a first visit to the Rhône-Alpes at the end of March for a week. I was just about to book an Alfa 159 diesel rental car when I noticed that the Fiat Sedici 4x4 is available at Geneva Airport for another tenner. Will the bonus of four-wheel-drive be advisable at this time of year? I don't really plan on going into the ski resorts as such but want to be able to get around as safely as possible. I know there is still snow on some roads in the Pyrenees in April but not enough to make much difference in a 2WD if you take care but the Alps are new territory. Route is probably Geneva - Evian - Morzine - Megève - Alberville - Col du Galibier - Briançon - Gap and back up to Grenoble and Geneva. Read more
Thanks for the very comprehensive and interesting feedback!
Hello
I commute up and down the A12 most days (Southend -> Colchester). Three times now, over the past 6 months, I have seen a young man in a fairly new black Peugeot driving with his hazard lights on, very slowly at about 40-45mph.
He's always dressed smartly in a suit and usually seen around the Kelvedon/Marks Tey area! I just wonder if anybody else has seen him or knows what he's doing? Why does he always drive so slowly, and why the hazard lights all the time? I didn't think much of it the first time I overtook him, but it is odd that he drives like that all the time. Read more
maybe he only has little legs and cant reach to push the accelerator any further LOL
Had my first experience of this today (for those of you that don't know it - it runs parallel to part of the M6 past Fort Dunlop).
www.birmingham.gov.uk/carsharelane.bcc
I happily drove along it at 11am to much gesticulation and light flashing from those in the other lane, not sure why as it is only in existence until 10am, oh well shaved minutes off my journey time so they do have a useful purpose :-)
Was intrigued to know what the offence is if a single occupancy vehicle uses it in its period of operation, the website is not exactly definitive:
"Enforcement
The car-sharing lane will be enforced by the Police and fines will be issued to offenders found to be contravening the lane."
Read more
>>Don't shout too loudly - its great way of making decent progress at the moment!!
My thoughts exactly!
Maybe this really belongs in Technical Matters but I'm sure there will be plenty here who know the answer.
A friend (really not me) has a flat car battery which he needs to charge. This is used for an electric mower.
He's wondering whether there's a quicker method of charging this than connecting it to a mains-powered charger. He's thinking in terms of using jump leads to connect it to the battery in his car. If he does this, will it charge from the alternator if he runs the engine for a while?
Swapping the batteries isn't an option.
The car in question is a '97 Ford Escort if that has any bearing on the answer. Read more
If he wants to use fuel running a car engine to charge a battery to use in an electric mower, he'd be better off with a petrol mower in the first place!
Just found this link on the good old & ever informative internet:
tinyurl.com/yo7ua7 {shortened link to www.barnsley.gov.uk - courtesy of Martin's post further down} Read more
Apologise for dead link:
This is the text in full:
8< SNIP. No need to post the article in full. Aside from any possible copyright issues, the link you originally submitted has since been amended and is now working. DD}
I am thinking of buying a new car from an internet company one a friend used last year and with whom he was very happy.
I have a car to trade in and I put the details into a different internet company website that buys your car for cash. The offer was fair (indeed more than a local dealer offered me against a new car) but I wondered if anyone on the forum had used this method to sell their car and if so was it a success?
I really don't want the hassle of wheel kickers coming to the house wasting my time as I have had that before. Read more
Little bit lower than I would expect for mine but not too bad. I wouldn't mind dropping a couple of hundred quid just to avoid all the hassle of selling. Depends how you value your free time I suppose.
I am trying remove the inlet manifold and the rocker cover. The rocker cover should be straight forward but alas the hex-bolts are made of cheap metal and tend rust onto the cover and round if you use too much force. Now I need to remove the inlet manifold but two of the nuts are almost impossible to access. Any ideas? Read more
Hi Olaf,
You were right a wobble bar was needed for one of them and I had enough room for a 12 mm spanner to crack the other (and my hand). I found that part of the loom was attached to the inlet manifold and that the knock sensor is threaded through the manifold. So quite a tricky! I will buy new bolts and coat them with copper slip - good call.
Never seen such a coked up inlet manifold - EGR valve was replaced but the pipe was solid and took a bit of cleaning, as will the inlet manifold.
All I need to do now is carefully chisel a notch into the last rocker cover bolt, and I can set about checking and adjusting the valve clearances. They had better be out ? all this because the LTFT is -100% i.e. running very rich.
I noticed that one of the injectors looks different and I thought I would pressure test them on the car. If I plug in the fuel rail and switch the ignition on I should not see any of the injectors leaking, if I do then that could also be causing the car to run rich.
I must admit that the car has been fine for 5 years and then I get an EGR failure and then noticed the fuel trim and the rest is skinned knuckles and lots of blood.
Cheers for the advice.
Eddie
Browse
The way things are going, and I'm being deadly serious, I have very real doubts that we will still be living here in 2015.
The next election and the couple of years that follow are the most important in recent memory as far as I am concerned.
Cheers
DP