May 2008
Was driving along yesterday when the gear lever suddenly became very loose, even when in gear. Gears are difficult to find, though do at least work, and reverse is particularly tricky. Clutch feels okay, though, and it is drivable provided one is careful in gear placement.
Moving it around in neutral reveals some clunky noises - particularly at the extremities.
Any idea what the problem might be and more important, is it likely to be expensive? Got a cam-belt service coming up in a couple of weeks. Car only cost £500, so if it's going to be major problem might think twice in having the work done. Any thoughts welcome. Read more
At the foot of the road yesterday, awkwardly parked, was a 5 door Fiesta - N Reg.
I then noticed the back door was ajar, the the rear quarterlight was smashed and then there were wires cascading from the steering column.
Finished the dog walking and phoned PLOD. What a reception I got - I said I had spotted an "Probably abandoned stolen car" at the foot of my road.
Is it abandoned or Stolen.
I would say it was in my opinion Stolen and had been abandoned at the bottom of the road.
PLOD "the Council deal with abandoned cars"
I understand that but in my opinion it is a stolen car.
PLOD " How do you know that"
Related damage - abandoned rather than parked, broken quarterlight, door ajar, wires dangling from steering column...............
PLOD - Has the Stereo been stolen?
At this I was annoyed so I said I could not give an opinion as to whether the stereo had been stolen as it might just have been a radio but tuned Radio 4.
Within 1 hour it was uplifted.
A few years back a vandalised car was abandoned at the same point in the road - the police would not come - Council Matter!!. The Council put a label on the rear and windscreen and quoted something like 2 weeks b4 uplift as the owner had rights to the car.
Not good enough I thought - released the handbrake and pushed it down a slope to a Scottish Power substation. Phone SP and and told them the story - 2 days ago a car was left near their premises, vandalised yesterday - IT could be set on fire next! - uplifted within the hour. Read more
We wanted to see the faded grandeur of Cuba before Fidel Castro pops his clogs and there?s soon a MacDonalds on every corner. So, after doing fair amount of research (thanks HJ forum) SWMBO and I booked a flydrive holiday to Cuba.
If you haven?t got time to read further I?ll summarise my feelings here and now by saying DON?T DO IT.
We had learned that road signs were few and far between, sat navs banned and maps very difficult to source locally ? undeterred we bought maps here in London and bought a compass (thanks HJ forum again). We had just about every guidebook ever published including 3 editions of Lonely Planet ! I bought some Learn Spanish CDs and spent maybe 20 hours trying to learn the basics, as my knowledge of Spanish prior to this was limited to only the usual ?2 beers per favor?. The Virgin flight to Havana was very pleasant even though it was full (451 souls on board according to the purser) and we had 3 car free days in Havana itself. At check?in to the hotel we were told our floor in the hotel had had a water leak and we were upgraded to a better place for the night. We learned later that in fact one whole floor of our hotel was out of use and had been for weeks. No work was going on and I got the impression they needed to cannibalise that floor?s fittings for other rooms leading eventually I suppose to the closing-down of the place in years to come owing to the never ending shortage of materials and supplies. It goes without saying that in the 35 C heat the air conditioning didn?t work. We found this sort of dilapidated state in hotels time and time again all over the country.
The number and assorted types of old cars in the streets were far better and varied than I?d expected and the smell and dense fumes coming out of most of them was pretty bad. I guess they make up around 30% of all traffic in the country and are typically American 1950s and 1960s with a few Moskvitches and European makes represented too. The newer cars were Ladas, stretch limo Lada taxis and VW group modern ones. I?m no expert on old US cars but I guess they were all represented ? the problem was that usually where the original name had been spelt out in individual letters in chrome on the bonnet the letters had since fallen off and not been replaced. So you?d see a CHE - - - L - T , a HUD - ON, and a D- - GE. I drooled over one immaculate red Chevrolet Impala but its condition was the exception. There were plenty of 1950?s station wagons used as MPVs and they were usually crammed full with families. All the wood trim had usually gone and the cars re-sprayed all over in one colour. I didn?t see a single intact windscreen and a lot of quarter lights where replaced with solid plywood panels. Most tyres were bald and I picked up a thing or two about tyre construction too.
English cars were represented with a Ford Zephyr 6, 105E Ford Anglia, Austin Devon and a few Hillmans.
You?d see plenty of abandoned and cannibalised wrecks just parked by the road side where the owners had presumably just given up trying to keep them going. A lot of ex-Canadian yellow school buses were in use, but the broken windows, rust perforated bodies and bald tyres scared me. If you wanted to risk your life further you could try a Coco taxi ? a motorbike engine 3 wheeler with the driver out front wearing a crash helmet and the unbelted passengers in a pod at the back.
The car we picked up on Day 4 was a Seat Altea XL 1.6 litre poverty spec but with heavenly air con. I noticed plastic blanking plates in place of the side indicator repeaters and then found that no cars in Cuba had repeaters. This was clearly no problem as I soon found out that nobody bothers to indicate anyway. Just as we pulled away from the hire place SWMBO read to me from the guide book that if a driver is involved in an accident involving an injury he gets locked up as a matter of course until proven innocent ? just what I wanted to hear as we edged into the surprisingly busy Havana traffic !
Driving though a tunnel we learned that headlights aren?t used but hazard-warning lights are ? bizarre. Apparently it?s illegal to have your lights on during the day.
We got lost after 10 minutes and couldn?t find the way to the Autopista (M-Way) going south-west, so decided to do a 360 turn at the next roundabout. There are police on nearly every street corner (no exaggeration) and we got stopped by one. His English was worse than my near non-existent Spanish but it was clear we had done an illegal manoeuvre. Apparently roundabouts are only for turning off and not going around. He demanded my licence, car hire contract and passport, and after an age he got out his little book and I wondered if an on-the-spot-fine or a week in the nick were coming next. Thinking quickly I thought I?d maybe momentarily distract him by saying how lost we were in his beautiful city bla, bla, bla. He turned over his notebook and drew directions for us on the back of it and we were away ? phew ! We were maybe 5 miles from the start of the Autopista in the middle of Havana and saw only one sign to it at around the half-way point which was reassuring. We found the slip road leading to it by going past it and wondering what those crowds of people were nearly blocking the way down it ? hitch-hikers (more on them later).
Clover leaf junctions are rare and so after we did a perfectly acceptable U-turn (must have been as we copied others) on the dual carriageway we drove past our slip road which was now on the wrong side. Another U-turn later and we were on the right road. No signs, 3 lanes each way, plenty of potholes and pretty much deserted until we came to an over-bridge, where again there were hordes of Cubans sheltering from the sun in its shadow looking for a lift. I slowed down from my 70kph to walking pace trying not to kill or maim anybody and caught sight of the government appointed yellow uniformed hitch-hiking marshal. Ours was a hire car with a tourist red numberplate and we weren?t stopped. The marshal, who I saw was equipped with a clipboard with destination lists, has the power to stop all state vehicles and force the drivers to give lifts. A lot were empty trucks with people standing in the back and the crowd happily gave help to the aged and infirm to get onto the trucks. On our travels we saw all sorts of vehicles crammed with hitchers.
The Autopista presented another difficulty ? it may have had 3 lanes, naturally with no lane markings ? so ?3 lane width? is more accurate, because the slow lane often had horses and carts, bicycles and pedestrians in it coming toward us going the wrong way. Sticking to the fast lane was not on either because we found it to be used as a hard shoulder more than once with vehicles stopped in it having wheels changed. U-turns through gaps in the central reservation hedge were often done too.
Turning off the Autopista was easier because there was always one sign, no countdown markers, no repeaters just one sign before the slip road. If it was a major turn off you?d know by the crowds hitching at that point, though you?d have to decide for yourself if you were going left or right afterwards.
In maybe 800 km ? 1000 km we got stopped maybe 3 or 4 times by police checks and I didn?t see a single sales or repair garage, only the odd filling station where petrol was 95c per litre (54p at 1.77 CUC to the £).
A small comfort was that even dual-band mobile phones worked and the signal strength was excellent absolutely everywhere.
I didn?t run over anybody, the car was returned in one piece, and we got our deposit back ? what a relief.
Never, ever again.
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Thanks again all.
When I said ?Never, ever again? I suppose I meant it to mean that although a DIY tour of Cuba was a great and worthwhile experience, the anxiety about getting lost, running out of fuel and possibly being locked-up wore us out in the end and I wouldn?t really want to repeat it.
Up until now I?ve always put blogs in more or less the same category as those round robin letters you get at Christmas from those ever so busy friends who only have the time to personalise the greeting with a hand written name on the top. They can be pretty boring and full of self-interest. But now that it looks like I might have a willing (??) audience I?ll certainly think about getting the little grey cells working. The trouble is the old grey cells die off and don?t get renewed, so my memories of a lot I have done are fading. The fact that we only recently returned from Cuba made the write up pretty easy. It could be that I just end up with a few anecdotes but no real story. I?ll dig out the old photos and maps and give it some thought. But no way can I ever emulate The Growler ? his posts were superb.
By way of background, even though we had little money (can I hear those violins somewhere?) my parents were keen travellers and my Dad a keen motorist as well. So, over something like a 10-year period, we went camping in plenty of European countries very much on the cheap. I was navigator with my mum in the back very often asking us to slow down. The car (always a Ford) was packed with maps, a tent, and plenty of Vesta dried food packets and we often had jerry cans in the back because this foreign petrol was expensive too! Some of it, particularly in the East, was low grade causing lots of pinking so we mixed it with 5* from home.
When I finished University I no longer stayed with my parents but just followed on from where they left off and more or less finished off just about most countries in Europe. As the years have passed and the body became a tad weaker but the bank balance better we?ve taken to using hotels and often doing long haul fly drives.
A quick thought brings up some strong memories like driving through Death Valley (IMHO much more interesting than the boring Grand Canyon - seeing the pictures is good enough) and worrying that we had no mobile phone signal. Suddenly finding Geiranger Fjord in Norway by accident on a car ferry crossing sticks in the mind as does crossing the Alps using the mountain passes before all those fancy tunnels were built. Another more recent memory is driving 4-up in Barbados in a Hyundai Atoz and finding the car just wouldn?t climb some of the hills. The passengers had to get out and walk while I drove up the hills alone.
Give me some time and I might be back.
Does anybody know if the 3 connections on back of the pug 306 factory fit stereo are standard and interchangeable with modern stereos. Read more
you'll only use 2 of the 3, the one with 8 wires and the one with iirc 5. the other one is for the stalk controls, you'd need an extra cable or two 2 use them with a new stereo.
and the aerial adapter you'll need is one of these,
tinyurl.com/5j348h
chris
Just returned from a couple of weeks touring around France and thought that you guys may appreciate a tip. Make sure that you have adjusted your headlights.
On two different motorway service areas we noticed that the French Police were pulling UK reg cars over and putting one of those headlight alignment machines onto the lights. Be warned ...
{Amendment to subject line} Read more
Yes, the BMW 525 next to me last year had them, dead easy compared with my deflectors!
The ones I have are special plastic ones for my model and when I went from Poland into Germany a few years ago the German stopped me and were not wanting to let me in because of the "modifications" I had made to the car - the original border gurad didn't speak English and it was only when another one who could came over that we able to get through... best part was is that I thought they'd waved me through and it was only the wife who stopped me, who knows what would have happenned if I'd driven off!
My 1996 RAV 4 just passed it's MOT today. No advisories issued. Last years MOT from a different local garage listed 4 advisories none of which i have acted upon. Appreciate they are the"personal opinion of the Tester". Obviously highly subjective but surely this makes advisories a little misleading. Hence my question?
Would of thought the used car trade would hate advisory notices?
One of the pre printed notes on reverse of advisory form reads
You should obtain expert advise on any defects listed overleaf. Continued use of the vehicle (even though a test certificate may of been issued) may make you , liable for prosecution or invalidate your vehicle insurance.
All comments welcome
Mark
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I don't mind them. It seems quite a good way of formalising the old system of an informal bit of advice from a helpful tester, who may have spotted something that could become a problem, but not yet.
Sometimes there is still room for a bit of leeway as between fail/advisory, depending on the tester's judgement of how likely he thinks you are to take any notice.
At a test a few years ago by someone I have known and trusted for years, he said the handbrake efficiency was just on the boundary of fail/pass, and he thought the offside mechanism was probably partially seized. He could have failed the car, but instead gave an advisory because he knew I would immediately go home and fix it. That covered him against any possible comeback (eg accident soon afterwards) but also gave me proper notice that it really did need attention.
Hi all,
My mother-in-law drives the above car (2000 x-plate 2.0 vtec in sport trim), and gets appalling mpg (as a guide, it uses nearly twice as much fuel on a long trip as our 1.8 Avensis; we get about 40mpg+ on a run, she must get early 20s). Local Honda dealer has had it in & change a couple of bits (not sure exactly what), but to no avail. Any ideas as to known issues with this engine? As she does a lot of local journeys (quite a few of the family don't run cars), it's costing her a fortune. She really likes the car and doesn't want to change.
Thanks in advance,
Alex. Read more
Haha- good one. No, she does change up to 5th. She's a pretty good driver, aside from a propensity to sit rather close to the wheel & a mistrust of cruise control.
I will discuss a change of car with her, although a smaller model might not be useful as there are two grandchildren on the way this year, with associated car seats & paraphernalia to cart about.
Thanks for all replies,
Alex.
when i drive it, it needs to be revved or it keeps jumping and missing, its been like this for a while, didn't know if it needs a service or could be a common problem. Read more
i have worked out the centre section is blowing and the back box is knackered! But how do i work out if the cat has had it?
HJ,
My car is a 2003 Leon 1.9 TDI SE110 which I believe is quite old VW technology, but is it old enough not to have the infamous dual density flywheel issues?
As the car approaches 70K miles it has a slight increase in the normal agricultural VW diesel vibes and was wondering if new engine mounts would help?
Regards,
Chris Read more
It is possible that could cure it, you should be able to see the engine rock excesivly when you rev it up from under the bonnet if its the mounts being worn.
My 1.9 skoda had a bit of a vibration until I did the cam belt and it vanished (timing must have been so very slightly out). setting it up with the correct locking kit worked well and the amount adjusted to bring it all in to line was tiney almost un noticabe, but the vibration has now gone!
Saxo VTR W (2000) plate has developed a fault which has totally immobilised/stopped the car.
Problem:
No power, no lights, no ignition, Clifford alarm de-activated, no electronic/electical signs of life at all.
Tested battery and alternator. Both OK, in fact the battery is only a month old anyway as it was replaced when car had a previous start up problem.
It's as if the power is not getting from the battery to the car engine management system (assuming Saxo's have one?).
Oh and when the car is running we also have the normal airbag light warning but..... I think that is likely to be the connectors under the seat and not at all to do with this issue.
Have asked a Citroen garage for an opinion, all they want is for me to open my cheque book up for them to have a look and run diagnostics. problem is I have very limited financial resources and I'm not prepared to do that without some form of idea about the size of the problem first.
So that you are fully in the picture, the car first had a problem 2 nights ago, no power, no alarm (Clifford) nothing, slammed the driver door in frustration (in a multi storey car park at the time and had visions of AA getting stuck at the barriers) and everything came back on? Got home no problem. Next day. Nothing at all worked again and has remained that way.
Would an earth problem or a loose terminal cause this sort of symptom or is it more like to be something else? I don't think it will be a fuse issue as the power loss is total but, could something fusing have caused some sort of trip?
If you have an idea please tell me where to look, I don't know a lot about the mechanics of a car at all. Oil, water and petrol is about my limit. Probably a bit more than that in truth but you get the idea.
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Thank you :-)
Will have a look as soon as I can. Will let you know if it cures the problem.
lol, if not, you will probably hear me yelling at the car anyway.
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Just realised that I haven't been stopped by the police for over 20 years - since I first got a company car in fact!
Even a policeman has to enjoy his work. A dentist friend admits he especially likes doing extractions - bet his patients don't agree!