April 2008
Mk1 Golf 1.5 Cab - parked in a garage in a fully running condition. Left for four years. Engine now seized. Nothing has been done to it since it came out of the garage.
What do you suggest, BRs?
Car has 86k, FVSH, sound hood, one wing to be painted and I've bought it for £300! Read more
is this just a Segway with a seat and just as daft?
uk.gizmodo.com/2008/04/27/uno_motorbike_brilliant_...l Read more
At least with a Segway you can just step off it.
A solution in search of a problem, IMHO, but as a method of obtaining some publicity, it seems effective...
In his road test of the A3 cabrio, HJ refers to 'trunk' space. What on earth is that? If he means boot space, he should say boot space. This is after all a UK road test.
Standards, HJ. Standards! Read more
and may well have gone native.>> Are you allowed to say that?
I remember the days when HJ used casually to refer to the station car park at Hinchley Wood. The villagers raised their caps to him as he swept by in yet another new car. The elderly ladies cycled to evensong. And you could find a decent pint in the pub by the green and engage in conversation, with the smell of new-mown grass in the air and the sound of leather on willow in the background.
It's all gone Pete Tong, all gone Pete Tong.
Until today, I've only ever driven one Saab. It was an F plate 900 Turbo 16v about 10 years ago, and I got out of it thinking what an all round superb bit of kit. Impressively solid, very quick, comfy and great fun to drive. I wanted one.
Wind forward a decade or so, and SWMBO is off on one of her occasional business trips. As usual the company have provided a hire car for her, and as it was short notice, they've given her the only car they had available, a beautiful black 08 plate 9-3 Aero Sportwagon auto. As I grabbed the keys to go for a drive, I felt a pang of anticipation and excitement that no car in years has provided.
What a disappointment! The interior is stylish, but the finish feels nothing like special enough for a £28k car. The driving position is strange with the steering wheel always feeling too close, whatever you do with the seat and wheel. Many of the minor controls feel cheap (including the door mirror control that looks just like the one in my old Cavalier), and the engine idles roughly with vibes transmitted into the car.
On the road, it's reasonably quick, but never feels anything like 210 bhp worth. The engine is harsh with a rattly, "tappety" note over 4,000 RPM that has mechanical sympathy starting to kick in long before the autobox in "Sport" mode, and the torque steer is dreadful. The steering is heavy, but relays no more information than my S60 and the ride is fidgety. Where the old 900 involved and engaged, this just covers ground. Admittedly quickly.
This is not how I remember the Saabs of old. Is it rose tints at work, my standards changing, or Saab going downhill? Saab were always a marque I respected - they made quirky, but brilliant cars that in my limited experience were fabulous to drive. The only possible thing that marked this particular car out for me as a Saab was the floor mounted ignition key. Take that away and I could have been driving anything. It had no identity or "feel" of its own, and that mass produced feel to the interior was a real let down.
I know its fashionable to bemoan the effect of the GM takeover, but my Volvo still feels like a Volvo even though Ford ran the show when it was designed. A Jag still feels like a Jag, a Lotus like a Lotus - big company ownership of smaller ones isn't always a bad thing. I didn't even think of this when I got in the car and formed my impressions - I saw a Saab.
The last car I drove in this price bracket was a friends E90 320d, and that just felt like an expensive, beautifully crafted bit of kit. The Saab frankly just didn't.
My goodness it looks good though, especially in jet black with those lovely wheels and the subtle Aero bodykit.
Cheers
DP
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That's nothing - on my sister's Mercedes-Benz SLK the wheel bolts shear off when you try to undo them.
659.
Hi all,
I changed the Cambelt of the 406 about 1000 miles ago but in the absence of a SEEM measuring device I poked it a couple of times and decided it was tight enough. MOT is due in about 2 weeks and I think I may have overtightened it, has a slight whistle between 2500-3000 revs. I seem to remember someone saying that if it twists to 90 degrees its generally ok. Can anyone confirm that? had a quick search on the forum but can't see anything. Going to slacken it off a touch tonight if its dry. Read more
I would agree with the above, 45 degrees between the cam and pump wheels is about right for these engines - the belt needs to be tight.
Having sneaked around the back of my local Peugeot dealer and seen first hand a mechanic working from a van rebuilding a gearbox on a concrete floor and another mechanic fitting a cambelt to a 106, I can report that the "SEEM" tester was clearly not in evidence.
I bet very few dealers bother to use them.
659.
I have had my 2004 Panda since January, it's pretty clean but I cannot get rid of a doggy smell inside. It's particularly noticeable when the car's been parked in the sun. It's got ordinary cloth seats and carpet, no visible marks or stains. I have scrubbed the seats clean with upholstery cleaner. Any ideas anyone? Read more
Doggy smell is one of the hardest of all smells to get rid of. If it is bad and conventional efforts dont get it gone, you have to scrub every interior surface, including under the seats, remove trim esp in the area dog has ridden and scrub every surface with hot water and a strong cleaner, try Fairy Liquid even.
The headlining can hold alotta smell but is thin and hard to clean. If you go over every surface, even the ones that you dont think need doing, it shoudl go some way to getting the smell gone.
It once took me 3 days to do this job on a Pug 406 estate
Seems a good Idea!
Why not in the rest of the UK?
BBC Report
Drivers in Northern Ireland will soon be fined £200 if they fail to display an MOT disc on windscreens.
The Driver & Vehicle Agency (DVA) is making it a legal requirement from 1 May to remind motorists when their vehicle is due for a test.
Read more
Re the OP comment, we have had a requirement to display a Warrant of fitness [ equal your MoT ] sticker since the year dot. It is about 2 in X 1.5 in, and shows to the outside the month and year of expiry, with the actual date of expiry written on the inside. As we don't have ANPR here, checks have to be manual, so the sticker is necessary for plod to make checks. Not sure what the fine for failing to display is, but not 200 pounds. Testing stations enter the passing of the WoF into the ministry's computer so that we can get the tax cert.
In Victoria, Australia, in the 1990's when I was there, no testing of cars was required until sale, when it then had to be certified roadworthy by a ministry testing station. It was up to owners to keep them roadworthy in the interim, and it was quite heavily policed. The incentive to owners was that, if caught, the police would put a yellow sticker [ known as a canary ] on the windscreen just saying "Unroadworthy vehicle". It was effectively a blank cheque to a garage and therefore usually very expensive. Not sure if that is still the rule there.
Lots of talk lately about the increasing cost of fuel and oil.
So how long before it costs £100 to fill your tank up?
It seems like everytime I fill one of my cars up I set a new personal record, the one at the weekend set me back £65.
I saw diesel at £1.20 the other day, so maybe some owners of diesel cars are already at the £100 mark?
Whats the most you've ever paid to fill up a car? Read more
£78 for me (new Mondeo diesel, 65 litres at £1.189).
I found an old receipt from Feb 07 the other day: Shell Diesel Extra was 88.9p.
I've been offered an imaculate C5 which has a small oil leak from the oil cooler next to the radiator. The cooler is covered in dirty thick residue.
The oil cooler looks factory fitted but Citroen say it does not have one as standard.
I can't see the pipes to and from it so I cant tell if it is transmission or engine.
Any advice about this? I thoght it might be a transmission cooler but the car has no tow bar. Read more
Turbos usually blow oil; they have no need of oil seals.
99.9% of their vast oil feed just falls back into the sump; if a smidgeon blows past the shaft and gets into the engine intake - who cares. [Stops it rusting...]
Have you ever......?
tinyurl.com/49wo47 Read more
My understanding was this was only ever a commissioned prototype by GM just to see how it might work. I believe one of the prototypes was on ebay recently - one door worked the other did not. I think one of the problems is the amount of space that the mechanism took underneath the car and also that alot of the mechanism would be exposed to general muck and salt under the car.
It's funny isn't it how back in the 60s/70s all scifi films had bizarre electric doors that moved apart often in odd ways and yet other than on shops and offices we still have manual mechanical doors everywhere. I always thought when I was small that within 30 years we'd have powered everything. a car these days is remarkably similar to the one in the 70s with just a few bells and whistles on...nothing massively radical eg gull wings or mad shapes. If anything some 70s cars were more mad than those now eg TR7, GSA, CX, Honda S600 etc.
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If its had water leaked into it that's a different ball game, the rings would have rusted to the bores. Oil and gentle persuasion would be the key. Perhaps a socket on the crankshaft pully bolt with a l-o-n-g bar.