May 2008
Just driven up north from Stansted - 7.40pm, passed 7.5 miles of stationary traffic on southbound Mll, lengthening by the minute, all because of a skewiff Land Rover with its small trailer on its side in the roadworks section. I suspect it will not have cleared as I post this!
Many will have been damaged by this incident. This worn out, coned and excavated, pathetic excuse of a motorway is the main northerly access route to one of the country's busiest airports. Who can one sue? The person who caused the incident? The contractors for lack of contingency plans for such an event? The police for being unable to deal with it in a timely manner? The Department of Transport for providing such a derisory autoroute network?
I suspect twenty blokes and a couple of knotted tow ropes would have righted the rig and cleared it out of the way but as I passed, absolutely nothing was happening. Read more
hiya , i just bought a discovery 2.5tdi manual but it seems very very slow . iv never driven one before so i didnt really know what to expect but i thought it should be better than what its like . my brothers shogun 2.8 will leave it for dead and im a bus driver and it feels slower than most of the old buses i drive . the turbo does spin up cos u can hear it when u rev it upto 4k but its not very loud . does anyone know what i should be looking for thanks Read more
Have just joined the forum and having a bit of a mooch around and saw your thread, sounds to me as if you could have a couple of problems here (easy fixed though).
1. could be that under load the intercooler to turbo intake hose is collapsing (they perish inside) giving reduced intake to engine.
2. The intercooler could need flushing out (sometimes they get a build up inside with an oily substance and need to be cleaned out, normal). I can let you know how.
3. I believe there is a modification you can do too the fuel pump (Td's) which would give you an extra 25bh, can be done by anyone with moderate mechanical ability, could give you a link for this.
Hope this helps let me know if i can give you more info, Regards.
Gozling 2
I am going through the early stages of buying my next car and am looking at how best to finance it. My take on 0% deals is that they only tend to be on selected models i.e. low sellers, base models etc and this deal will be on the full RRP of the car, i.e. no discount for 0%.Am I correct. I am looking at a Fiat Bravo 1.6 Multijet Dynamic which is close to the top end of the range but has some serious discounting on the web. It would be cheaper getting an interest paying loan and buying at discount. Any advice would be appreciated. Read more
I've seen some scarily neglected one year old Pandas at a certain car supermarket here in the North-East. These guys make their money from folk who need finance and are too timid to shop around. Much better to find your own finance then buy from fiatsupasaver.com/
In the cbcb HJ says of the berlingo :
>>Problem with Siemens ECU/injection system on HDIs (no problem with Bosch ECU/injection system).
Is there a way to tell which is fitted other than by looking at components? Is it random? Is it specific years? or engines ? Or as simple as siemens on hdi, bosch on petrol?
I'm only interested in diesels btw.
thanks Read more
My daughter has fractured her ankle badly and her oldish Peugeot 106 will be left standing in the open for about 3 months, although on a usually safe site. It is too far away for me to attend to it. The battery will be flat but will it be ruined? Will the tyres distort over this period? What else is lilkely to go wrong? Read more
May be worth getting a solar powered charger to leave connected. I really would try to find someone that could at least warm the car up even if they are not able to drive it (although you would probably not be asking this question if that were possible). If funds permit may be time to look for an automatic.
snip. Duplicate post removed, and earlier posting moved across to Technical Matters - as notified to you by email a few hours ago. Read more
About 3 weeks ago I replaced both rear tyres on my BMW 323i touring with a new set of Avon ZV3's. When I drove down my local dual carriageway there was a vibration from the back, pervading the whole car and through the feet. I took the car back to the tyre dealer and had them rebalanced. Still vibrating so had them rebalanced another 2 times. Still vibrating, so I swapped the spare for the nearside rear and virtually banished the problem. So I got another tyre fitted as I thought the first one was faulty, but the tyre dealer was dubious, saying faulty tyres are very rare. Anyway, I went out and still had a problem with vibration. My old ZV3's did 16000 miles without any problems. At the moment I'm still driving the car to work, but I can't do any high speed work due to this problem. I'm now thinking of going back and having 2 new rear tyres of a different make fitted. Is it common to have faulty batches of tyres or am I just imagining it? I also span the tyres and noticed that they don't seem to be completely round, theres a slight up/down movement as they spin, especially on one side. Does anyone have any opinions on this? Read more
Just thought I'd answer my own email. The vibration wasn't the tyres, it was the propshaft! Starting to get a bearing noise from underneath the car, and driveline shunt. So no more tyre grief.
I have read some of the grim tales on the forum regarding the problems with the Mondeo, refering I believe to the 2.0 tdci engine. I'm aware that this engine is a joint deal with Peugeot. Not sure if the similar problems with the CR systems of the Mazda 6 engine are related.
The 1.6 tdci engine as used in the Focus ( also Mini ? ) does not seem to get the same bad press.
I'm aware the engine is quite different, although also Peugeot derived.
Is it subject to the same potential problems, or does it have a better track record ? Read more
My 02 2.0 HDi Rapier 90 has a problem while driving along the whole dash goes blank no aelectrics working, that is no indicators, wipers, radio, electric windows etc no display. The engine keeps running and i can keep driving but when I stop you cannot start, engine cranks but due to no dash display of any kind it will not start.
I disconnect battery and reconnect then all display comes back but then a little while later it loses everything again. Any pointers on the cause. Read more
Hi,
this may be worth a look, but really I just wanted to let folk know about a potentially serious wiring problem. My parents 2000 110 HDi albeit with 233k on the clock, died while in a garage for routine repairs that took a while to turn round - long story short, found that the wiring loom that runs from the ECU across the front of the engine to the 2 large circular connections below the battery has severe chafing due to too many wires for the size of conduit used. It wears away the insulation exposing the copper to the elements (especially if some dumb garage has said "belly pan - you don't need one of them... and hasn't replaced it) which then rots the wires away and black wire rot then proceeds up your wiring. To get the car running I had to splice in 13 new wires. It was amazing that the car ran up to the point it did, I guess the wait at the garage was when the fresh dousing of salt water finished it off.
to prevent this I would remove the protective conduit and then use insulating tape with either self amalgamating tape or bigger conduit as an outer sheath, making sure that the loom is still securely clipped so it doesn't have excessive movement. If any insulation has broken through then cut out the bad section and use adhesive lined heatshrink splices and splice in a new wire - to as far away either end as you can / to fresh copper as wire rot will have started to creep up from the break
As a note the 406 Hdi is OBDII compliant and an elm 327 off ebay with scantool 1.13 freeware ran fine under vista to get basic data.
Hi, just bought a BMW 318CI E46 on W reg. The windscreen wiper is very annoying. When you switch it on and try to switch it off it does not stop. You can only stop it by turning the ignition off. However it does not switch itself on, thankfully ! Is this a relay, wiper stalk or something? Please advise
Also the passenger door is not unlocking with remote locking, so i can only unlock it from opening inside. But it locks fine. Is there a cable doing this? Or do i need a new lock mechanism?
Any help would be appreciated. Read more
That's not right ! I think you'll need an Autoelectrician. I did read once that the stalks were a known weakness on early E46s
The only time I ever missed a flight was due to a jack-knifed lorry on the M25. We didn't move for hours and it was impossible to get off the motorway. The next available flight was from Bristol (we were at Gatwick). We got the train there (we were given a lift to Gatwick). We claimed back all of our expenses on insurance without any query at all.
Maybe insurance policies have changed but I can confirm I have definitely claimed for this very reason (about 7 years ago).