December 2008
Bought my Avensis 1.6 T3x petrol a month ago from a main Toyota dealer. Was a demonstrator with just 5.5k miles. Braking requires a very firm foot, significantly more than my previous Mazda 323 almost as if the servo has gone AWOL. Can be quite disconcerting to gently press the pedal in slow traffic and nothing happens. I've tested an emergency stop and it seems to be okay. Brake fluid level is where it should be.
I'll be bringing the car back to be checked out next week but I wonder if this is a characteristic of the Avensis. For such a big and almost new car I would expect excellent braking power. Could it have something to with the fact that it has spent most of the last 18 months sitting on a forecourt? I can hear the pads on the disks which is understandable given the lack of use and SWMBO's Corsa D sounds the same.
Any observations will be most welcome. Read more
Betsy - yeah I know, naff isn't it but all our cars have been Betsy for years. Big Bets, Little Bets, Old Bets, New Bets etc etc..... I blame my wife......
Anyway, some of you will recall the ongoing automotive love triangle going on in the Backbridge household. A tale of three cars fighting for the affections of just two adults. The old Betsy a humble ford Mondeo estate, Little Bets the Ka and new Betsy a Vauxhall Signum.
Old Betsy was bought second hand 4 years ago. The year my biggest customer went bust owing me what was most of that year's income. Her predecessor was a Merc which had to go as a result of the financial pressure. Having had Mondeos before I was happy enough to run another.
She has given faultless service for 155 thousand miles. She has got me to Italy and back a dozen times, often crossing the Alps in winter, laden to the gunwhales as usual. A similar number of business trips to Germany have been completed without fuss and every summer she has phlegmatically dealt with the bike racks and kitchen sink levels of detritus which we apparently need when camping in the south of France. Most weekends she shrugs off the indignity of being laden with damp people and muddy mountain bikes as we continue our quest to find the gloopiest and steepest places to ride.
But, in the summer along came the new pretender, the Signum. A fresh faced youth in comparison with sports suspension and an addictively smooth revvy engine. Bucket seats and big alloys. A right poser by comparison.
After much deliberation I announced over the toast and thick cut this morning that it was time for Old Bets to go. A friend has been after her for some time and I only need to make the phone call.
A stunned silence sank over the breakfast table, a small voice quavered from my 8 year old's lips "Dad, you can't sell Betsy, you musn't" I looked to my wife for support, but in vain. "No, you can't....it's well....Bets" "She's our favourite" came the chorus.
- but it's time for her to go.....
- you won't get much, not worth it...
- still be enough to fund Christmas.....
- yes but what if one of the others breaks down......
- I prefer the petrol car now.....
- petrol might go back up....
- you haven't got a bike rack for the others and anyway you don't want to get the new one muddy...
- it just takes up room....
- you can't sell Betsy.........
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Alternatively>>
That sounds more promising, thanks! - off now to consult the atlas. Anywhere to stay with a Mondeo-sized parking space in or near Siena?
Two years ago the no. 1 daughter killed her Punto. Leaving the house and driving down the lane to the road she was putting a CD in, and failed to avoid a tree. It took out the NS front wing, headlamp, lower arm etc. Beyond repair, so I bought her a poverty-spec £200 Nova for the remaining six weeks before she went travelling. When No. 2 daughter started driving earlier this year I bought a 97P Corsa 1.2, which to date has been good.
Imagine my surprise when SWMBO and I returned yesterday morning to see a sick Corsa with a severely dented NS front wing and wrecked bumper. No. 2 daughter had crashed within 5' of the first accident, but had not hit the tree, just a fence post holding up a panel. Wheel/steering/suspension was good, so I removed the wing, bumper and headlamp (intact, but the securing lugs were sheared). All off in 25 minutes. This accident was also caused by her lack of attention - she was worried that a cake on the passenger seat was going to bounce off the seat, so was trying to re-position it.
Google was my friend, and I soon found A1 Vauxhalls just beyond Swindon (www.a1vauxhalls.com ) who quoted me £70 plus VAT for all the parts, which I collected straight away. The supplied wing was silver, not the desired blue, so I came back via Halfords for a £6.99 rattle can and some wet/dry.
We (daughter's first lesson in car repair) prepped the wing last night and then sprayed it after masking, and at 0745 I started putting it all on. Had it finished in time for her journey to work at 0845.
She's only been driving a month, so I hope this will be a good lesson for her. My sense of humour is now back up, and my sense of pride quite high. I guess an insurance assessor would have written off the car, though it could not have got to that as the car is only insured TPFT.
Forget passengers causing accidents - No. 3 daughter is going to drive a car with no stereo or passenger seat !
Happy Christmas all - let's hope 2009 is safe and accident free. Read more
> A friends son recently backed his 306 into the undergrowth<
I can sympathise. I recently reversed my car into a spot in a temporary car park. I didn't spot the dead leaves covering a hole just the other side of a tree root :>(
Nice dent in the door sill!
Wasn't there some sort of competititon running, a couple weeks back, to encourage people to take an interest in maths?
It was on mentioned on radio BBC local, but a national competition, they wanted you to offer ideas on how the gold COULD be recovered, without the bus crashing over the edge.
VB
A link somewhere else took me to www.gas4free.com ... and it looks to me like it's either a scam or an out-of-season April Fool's joke.
I am no scientist, but I thought that:
a) the electrolytic separation of water to hydrogen and oxygen required as much energy as was available through the subsequent combustion of the hydrogen
b) trying to create the two cycles in a machine or in an industrial process would require an ongoing input of energy from elsewhere, to compensate for inefficiencies in the system
and
c) this would be the case for any similar combustion/reversal cycle.
Is this correct? Read more
This has been discussed many times before, here's a quick summary of my thoughts:
The electrolysis process used to create the HHO could be more efficient, but you will only ever get out what you put in (minus some for inefficiency) in terms of energy.
The idea that the hydrogen gas is used to gain a more complete burn has some merit. I.e you do not gain additional energy, just make better use of the available fuel - increase efficiency. Maybe, but modern engines don't spit that much un-burnt fuel out.
While an engine could run on HHO you are never going to be able to get one to run on HHO generated by the engine itself - perpetual motion machine.
My conclusion - it's a scam and like all good scams it's based on some real/fake science to make it sound credible.
My firm hired a van for 6 months, and now it has to be returned, a bit of advice required please.
1 Do the van rentals firms expect it to be returned, cleaned inside and out, or do they always do it anyway and charge one for it, if so I won't bother, unless it will be cheaper to do so.
2 They is a slight paint mark on the side, but no indentation,what could be used to take it off, without damaging the paint work?? and do they ignore scrapes on bumpers, after all that's what they're there for - Read more
1. Car hire firms usually reckon to valet inside and out - I think this is factored into the contract price anyway.
2. Try a paste wax polish, if that fails T-Cut but don't rub too hard! A bit of polish to restore original shine. I doubt if they'll ignore bumper scrapes though.
do they ignore
scrapes on bumpers after all that's what they're there for -
Spoken like a typical white van man :-)
I have a very low mileage Panda 4x4 Cross, only just launched in the UK but available in Europe for a while. The 4x4 system differs from the Panda 4x4 Climbing's system, in that is electronically controlled.
The dashboard repeatedly flashes a warning that the "4x4 mode is unavailable" and the car is booked in at the dealer on Monday to investigate.
I'm posting this as 3 out of 4 Panda Cross cars owned or driven by contributors to the Fiat Forum have shown a similar fault. So far one vehicle has been repaired by means of replacing an "electropneumatic valve"
Are there any other Panda cross owners out there and if so, are they having the same problem?
I'm rather disappointed and a bit anxious about this, since I've had 33,000 trouble-free miles in my Panda 4x4 Climbing with its purely mechanical 4x4 system. I fear the system on the Cross will not be so reliable. Read more
This is the thread running on the Fiat Forum
www.fiatforum.com/panda-new/171588-panda-cross-upd...l
Does anyone have any recommendations for selling a Cherished reg. plate? I have one (in the A1AAA format) which I no longer need/want.... Bought it 15 years ago when it seemed a nice thing to have at the time, but now have a AAA1 format plate so no longer need it.
Tried a couple of these "regtransfers" type companies, but all they seem to do is add so much profit margin to the sale price that it makes the cost unappealing to any buyer.
Any ideas? Read more
Ebay, Freeads, Autotrader, Exchange n Mart?
If its car specific an enthusiasts website?
CBG
I'm looking for the cheapest way to get a car for a 3-month period in a foreign country. I'm assuming that the regular rental companies will want at least 300 quid/month?
I'm reluctant to buy an old car and resell it when I leave. Chances are some greasy dealer will sell me a 6 year old Hyundai/Toyota for about 4000 quid and only offer me 1500 when I bring it back....
Any suggestions? TIA. Read more
About £25/day... not unreasonable for a daily rent but talk to a hire company direct. But then HA do very cheap CDW.... I wrote off a car (Fiesta auto) and was not out of pocket. List price was about ?14k!
Whatever you do please make sure you have full cover. If you did buy you have the problem of insurance as well - or 3 months only.
My head unit has an AUX socket (3.5mm jack). I'd like to get an audio device that plugs into the lighter socket and has a 3.5mm line out that I can plug into my head unit. The device would read MP3s from either a USB drive or an SD card.
There are lots of devices almost exactly like this, except that they use a FM transmitter to pipe the audio from the device to the head unit, rather than a wire, e.g.:
www.mobilefun.co.uk/product/12937.htm
Of course I could use one of these, but I'm worried that the sound quality won't be very good with FM. So has anyone come across one of these devices that has a line out?
Thanks
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Battery life of an iPod Touch is very good.... and nice big touch screen controls. Mounted in a cradle..... and can be charged via cigar lighter to USB connection if needed.
Browse
No those brakes should be light and progressive, a sharp prod should stop the car dead.
Have you given the brakes a good cooking by a few repeated high speed stops to clean them up?