December 2008
evenin' all;
SWMBO's Zafira developed a little 'feature' a couple of months back, finally got round to having a look today. Basically the TID is constantly showing 'brakelight'; although all 3 brake lights are in fact working. Poked around in the rear light clusters today, both brake light bulbs were rather black, although they've only been in a few months. Poking around with a DVM there is only 11.0V on the bulb when lit, which sounds a little low. I've replaced both bulbs and cleaned / bent the contacts in the cluster to make sure all is Ok, but still showing 'brake light' on the TID.
Any ideas anyone? Read more
Has anybody experience of removing the ABS ECU from the hydraulic unit? Haynes as usual says dealer job as Hydraulic unit has to be removed & fluid must not be lost from it. what a great design the earlier model ECU was under the passenger seat easy to remove etc - progress?????????
VW seem to have carefully designed this version of the Passat to make even simple service jobs awkward & inaccessible. Read more
hi there found this thread you posted a while back, i have a golf vr6 i have put my abs problem down to ecu under pump now, you mention soldering etc, when you take off the ecu from the pump how do you get in to solder etc does ecu split open or is board visible once its off, if you could help that would be great thanks
Just a quick note, dont know how new it is but yesterday I was behind a Debenhams lorry which had in big letters on the back of the trailer, that on single carriageways it is limited to 40 mph.
Ive never seen this before but it seemed like a good idea given how few people seem aware of varying limits for different vehicles and subseqently think the HGV driver is holding them up on purpose. Read more
>>they have had the latest batch of 50 vans governed to 62 mph (60 true speed)>>
The company have not governed them, all new vans over 3.5 tons have to be governed by law. The manufacturer fits the governor.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=58674
Well, I made my debut post on this forum just 12 months ago and the above link.
It angered many of you and was seen as confrontational. It wasn't meant to be at all, but having just sat and read it through from start to finish, I can certainly see why it was seen as such.
It had been a very bad year for me but things had just started to look a bit better then, with some light at the end of the tunnel.
I've stuck around ( welcome or not!), I read far more posts than I reply to and it certainly gives me some valuable insight into the way car drivers perceive us lorry drivers, and has brought a far greater understanding for myself and hopefuly our PDA Members too.
I admit to being a tad intimidated at times and thinking my opinions won't be welcome, but I log on to HJ every evening, sitting in my lorry wherever I am, and read the latest threads.
Things I've learned from these forums>>>>>
Car Drivers are just as proud of their skill as we are.
We are ALL road users and in the bigger picture, DO have respect for each other.
There are more very good and considerate car drivers than there are bad ones.
There are some very arrogant and bullish lorry drivers about ( and there are getting to be more than ever before).
Your sense of humour is sometimes hard to understand! ( but then again, so is ours!)
I'm amazed at how many of you are also Bikers :)
The Moderators are great and thanks to PU for calming the waters last year and allowing me to stay.
I've enjoyed being around here, I've learned a lot and if it's all the same to you all, I'd like to stick around for 2009 as well and learn some more.
Pat
That's a lorry drivers attempt at an apology, by the way!
Read more
I'll echo the above. Always good to have an informed opinion from someone who knows their game. I enjoy the banter on here and especially so those that don't necessarily agree with my angle, as you can always learn from others can't you, or enjoy trying to get others to see your viewpoint...(NowWheels i'm sure i've detected a chink in your armour)...;-)
I particularly enjoy the mostly civilised behaviour on here and for that the Mods can take a deep bow...I know some things get nipped in the bud early, but that's the price for the most civilised site i've found...and why i'm still here.
I do though think it's a shame that some posters who perhaps aren't as robust as some (and why should they be) get hammered by the 'perfect' brigade for an honest post, which causes them to disappear early. The thought ought to be no one's always right and if they're willing to discuss it on here they might learn something and improve..(cue someone finding one of my posts that steams in)...:-)
This site can only benefit from people like pda (and others), long may it continue.. from an avowed addict.
where is the egr on this car before I go getting cold and dirty for no reason?
Im trying to find out whether its gona be coked up due to short journeys
cheers Read more
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
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?
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.........
Read more
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.
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Just a quick update; the tail light on the opposite side blew today, so I replaced that stop & tail bulb ( which was also black inside), now the 'brake light' nag has gone away. I'm not at all convinced I've solved the root problem mind you.