November 2008
Maybe I'm being a bit paranoid, but would appreciate any advice about whether it is safe to give out log book details and VIN number when a potential buyer asks for such information in orfder to carry out a HPI check. Could this come back to bite me in any way - cloning, ID theft etc.
Any advice much appreciated. Read more
We are just back from a tour of France in our motorcaravan and during this visit; we got a parking ticket from the local Police Municipal, in Sts Maries de la Mere.
The circumstances were that we had parked in an area of a quiet road, which was prohibited to motorcaravans (this was not obvious at the time) and when we arrived back at the ?van, a Police officer was writing out a ticket. I asked him what the problem was and he said that motorcaravans (?Camping Cars? in French) were not permitted to park in this location. I asked him why not and he said that it was due to a local ordinance dating from 1999 and that I should park in a specific area at the entrance to the village. All this time he was still writing out the ticket and when he had finished, he made a pantomime of placing it under the passenger windscreen wiper before telling me that I could pay it at the Police station in the village centre.
We asked the very nice lady in the tourist office what we should do after the ticket was issued and she said that given the amount was only ?11, she did not think that Interpol would get involved and that we should throw it away!
As the cost of the fine was so low and being good law-abiding citizens of the UK we walked round to the station and paid.
Two questions for the knowledgeable members of the Back Room.
1) If I had driven off before the ticket was placed under the windscreen wiper blade, would I have escaped all consequences?
2) If I had simply thrown the ticket away (as suggested) would I have escaped all consequences?
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IIRC the usual speeding ticket fine is still 135 euros, reducing to 90 euros if paid within something like 10 days - although there is a lower fine for offences of not more than 10k over the speed limit. Look on the back of the document for an address for the central ticketing office, which I think is the same for all France. Again, IIRC, it is in somewhere like Rennes in Brittany.
Motorcaravanners should be much more strictly policed as to where they park, anyway, in my opinion. They seem to think they can stop where they like and the French who aren't motorcaravanners don't like them because they don't spend much money locally. They have a particular down on the Dutch for this reason.
Backalong I found a family camping on (and blocking) my back drive - they hadn't bothered to walk around the corner and see the gates and garage!
I was in my local VW dealer yesterday looking at trading in the good wife's Touran for a new one. She's lucky enough to have just got a fantastic new job with a very generous car allowance, and is therefore expected to have something new and reliable for the job. So, the 4 year old Touran with 52k on it and 4 years of child/dog related abuse is looking a bit below par. We have settled on getting a 2.0 TDi SE DSG as the replacement and are very much looking forward to enjoying the extra power and equipment over our current poverty spec 1.9 TDi S.
Now. On to the subject of the post.
Sitting in one corner of the dealer's showroom is a brand new, unregistered Phaeton 3.0TDi V6. In black. The price tag says £29,995. So, I ask the salesman: "Why so cheap?". He says they have knocked 20 grand (!!) off list to try to shift it, and if it doesn't sell in the next week or so it'll go to work as a demonstrator.
Am I completely mad to consider spending 30k of the children's inheritance/my pension fund on this? I know it will depreciate like a heavily depreciating thing, but I would be inclined to run it for at least 10 years and probably wouldn't put any more than 100k on it in that time.
I mean, is 30k that much more than a top of the range Mundaneo? I know people who have spent more on unspectacular Volvo estates for heaven's sake.
Please, someone, in the words of a recent poster, talk me out of this insanity. Read more
"practically one owner from new"
Isn't that like being a little bit pregnant..?
Hi everyone, this is my first post and i hope someone will help, i have an astra 05 reg 1.7 cdti. the problem is that this car was running spot on before i parked it up last week and it never started again. on the fuel filter are two pipes one saying in and the other one out. when you turn the ignition on is there suposed to be diesel coming out of these pipes? because it doesnt. can anyone help. Read more
no, no fuel will come out of these pipes, the pump suck's the fuel through, are all the lights working on the dash , any ones on that you have not seen before, have you tried another/spare key, do's the car crank over but not start, or not crank at all, is there enough fuel in the tank (these are known to collapse the fuel tank, remove the filler cap and listen for a sucking noise) that's enough questions to be getting on with, post back some answers and i am sure someone like me will help just need as much info as possible
The A1(M) northbound tunnel Hatfield Tunnel will close from July 2009 until May 2010 and then the southbound tunnel will then be closed until April 2011.
The Highways Agency propose to operate a contra-flow system for traffic on the A1(M) when each of the tunnels is closed.
The closures are to make the tunnel compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act.
preview.tinyurl.com/572t5d Read more
Let's take this to the "N" th degree - I'd love to see what they're going to have to do with the Rotherhithe tunnel, Blackwall and Dartford tunnel -non of which would a disabled person manage to escape from.
Especially the first two tunnels they'd have to make them single lanes, JUST IN CASE a disabled driver breaks down and NEEDS to get out.
I just hope they've factored this into the long winded Hindhead tunnel !!
Hi,
I have a 1999 1.6 16v Astra Club. My garage told me to use a 10w-40 semi synthetic oil for the engine. The manual says it should be of ACEA A3-96 type.
I have some Shell helix plus oil which is 10w-40. It is synthetic but doesnt specify full or semi. It also says it is ACEA A3/B3-98.
Would it be risky to use if i'm not sure if it is semi synthetic and the fact that on the can the ACEA ends in "98" whereas in the manual it suggests "96"?
Thanks again
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Most likely a semi-synthetic, and it's fine for your car. The recommended oil for that era of Vauxhall is a semi-synthetic 10W/40 A3/B3. A3/B3 98 is simply a later (and better) spec than the earlier (19)96 oil.
JS
Hi
I have just bought a Renault Kangoo RXE 1.4 petrol (year 2000)
It starts and runs fine but I the hand book shows two warning lights that don't appear to work on my car.
The one I am most concerned about is the 'tell-tale light 2' (a rectangular box with a zig zag line in it). It is also descibed as an ' electronic incident warning light. It should come on when the ignition is swithed on and then go out after a few seconds or when the engine is started.
On my car it does not come on at all. The other light, just a red dot, behaves as it should.
It also should come on when driving if there is an electronic / electrical fault with the engine management system.
The other warning light is for the air bags, (stearing wheel and front passenger) It does not do its test at switch on.
I had a look at the dashboard speedo console and it is very obvious that it has been taken apart in the past as the plastic clips have screwdiver marks on all of them and there is a dirty great finger print on the inside of the glass!! The odometer is electronic and the car came with full history, why would anyone need to go inside it?
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Below the rectangle is a glow plug symbol they are both illuminated by the same LED. A friend has the same car but 2003 and both light for a few seconds at switch on. I tried unplugging the lambda sensor (and a few more) in the hope of bringing a fault light on, but nothing happend the engine ran fine!!
Having been stupid enough to brag on this forum in Aug '07 that the timing chains on Nissan Primera III's don't break, the inevitable seems to have happened! (well stretched until the engine sounds like a bag of spanners anyway!)
Apparently this is quite a common problem on the petrol P11-144's.
Trouble is that if on Monday the garage do confirm that this is the problem then the likely bill is going to be around £500 plus vat (obviously not from a main dealer we'd be into 4 figures then!)
The car's a 2000 X plater, 1.8, a bit tatty, alloys corroded, rust munching happpily into the tailgate and consequently is worth about £750 at most.
What would you chaps recommend? Throw more money at the thing (it actually drives really well!) and get a new timing chain or get what I can for spares and repair and buy something else? (probably only have a budget of about £2000) My worry is that for that price bracket I could soon end up with another big repair bill if I'm unlucky and the Primera is basically sound apart from the cosmetic issues.
....there's an outside chance that since the problem came on suddenly (noise/em light on/loss of power/doesn't want to rev) it's just the cam/crankshaft sensor which was subject to a recall in 2002 but I can't find out if it's been done 'till Monday morning. If it is, then it should be a free fix and I'll be a very happy bunny! Read more
I've owned 20-odd cars in 20 years of driving and, quite frankly, if I've paid over £500 for a car (until very recently, all my cars were sub £2k with the majority being less than £500) then I expect it to do it's job of being legal, safe and usable. And they all have done this job. The bad ones I just cast aside if something went wrong big-style, an example being an ex-police Montego whose gearbox expired at 150k, 2 months after I'd bought it. Bought another Montego for £100 for it's gearbox, the replacement Monty was better condition than the original so just threw the old broken Montego away and used the replacement one.
Again, had a dodgy old Metro, more owners than I'd had hot dinners so of course was a dog, again, threw it away once I realised I'd never be able to keep it on the road, moved on, next car a lot better (well, it was legal, driveable and didn't break down!).
I think all the others just worked.
I do recall moaning big style at a mate who I bought his Cavalier from for £600 when it needed £300's worth of work 8 months later for it's MoT. I moaned and I moaned and I moaned about that to him. Never again. I expected it to be as new, it had after all been serviced from new with FSH!!!
anyway, I appear to have got slightly sidetracked and the discussion is irrelevant anyway.
Stu
130 TDCi engine, had car since new, now done 44,450 miles, serviced every six months, camshaft sensor changed two months ago.
Three weeks ago after 140 miles at 70 mph and scarcely a drop in speed left M25 on sliproad for A12, slowed for dedicated slip road on roundabout and dropped into fourth gear, lost power, lost engine, cruised in neutral, with dead engine, to standstill, Glow Plug Indicator Light (GPIL) flashing. Switched off, restarted, no problems, no loss of power, no flashing lights, continued on my way.
400 miles later on 28/10 dropped from 5th to 4th on approach to roundabout, accelerated, loss of power, feathered off then accelerated again, no further problem, no flashing lights.
100 miles later on 30/10 the above happened twice in similar circumstances, first time no flashing lights, second time GPIL began flashing but because of road conditions not apparent that whether engine was in limp mode. Drove 3 miles to destination. Later restarted, no problems, and have driven 50 miles since without a further recurence.
Car going in for code reading next week and hopefully resolving of problem.
What should be looked for please? Any ideas what the problem might be please? Help!
halilley
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The engine was difficult to start after standing for two days. The GPIL was flashing all the time so no indication as to when the glow-plugs were hot. Had to guess, got it started at the fourth attempt. Most unhappy until warm then drove OK but in limp mode. Had the codes read by my Ford dealer, one injector needed recalibrating. Did all four while I waited. £30-00 including VAT, now pulling like a train.
halilley
Why can't UK Top Gear be more like this? tinyurl.com/5lat33
Some gentle messing about rather than bombing, bazooking, hanging drawing and quartering and torching perfectly useable cars that could provide 40 or 50 years' service to needy people in a developing country.
Just a thought... Read more
I'd fallen asleep by the time they even got to the bowling. Could they have found a more boring presenter?
Browse
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Serves them right if there dum enough to put a deposit on a car they've not actaully seen!!!