January 2009
With all the salt that has been on the roads this winter, I have elected to merely (low) power wash the salt from the body and underside of my new car. On a couple of occasions I have also used a wash and wax in the power washer, but just to soak the dirt off. I have consciously not used any cloth etc on the paintwork as I felt that doing this in a hurry on a freezing cold day on a car thick with grit would do more harm than good to the paint. Because I did this regularly, the car cleaned up pretty well. However, I am mindful that some road grime may have become trapped under a thin layer of wax. When the weather improves, it will get a thorough wash and wax and I want to ensure that any trapped dirt is removed. What is the best way to ensure this, will a prewash help? Read more
Snipped. Too many instances of you mentioning this product in your other posts, which suggests to me that you're somehow connected with the product rather than just being a happy customer.
Happy to discuss with you by email, should you wish to dispute?
DD. dave_moderator@honestjohn.co.uk Read more
How do people do this these days? Banking transfer seems to be the easiest, now that it all happens instantly. Anybody done this?
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And a bank transfer is now so much quicker in the last few months - pay someone and its there. Tested it between Natwest and Barclays and it showed up very quickly.
Currently have a Passat estate (2007/07) 2.0 TDI SEL (170 bhp). Condition is OK and it is 18 months old with 35k on the clock. Pretty sure tyres will be due soon (x4) and next service interval must be imminent.
This is a company car and I have the option to buy it. Any views on value? Parkers comes in at £12k PX but that seems on the high side to me and obviously want to get it as low as possible.
Any views on what I should accept as a price from the leasing company (LEX)?
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£13200 from a VW dealer, with 22k miles, deduct £1000 for your excess mileage.
Lex will presumably send the car to auction if you don't take it, where they will get far less than that, especially if bought by a dealer who has to spend money correcting the issues you mention, and will still obviously need to make a profit. They will also have to pay the auction house's commission (my est £300ish, but why not phone one, tell them it's your car, and ask what they estimate it will fetch, and what they will charge you for a car that sells for £12k? A dealer will pay less than you, but you will get an idea)
Check Autotrader for prices to get a real world "value to you" figure, guides - trade or public, are only guides ( you wouldnt ask £10k for your car because a guide said so, when the other 20 similar cars are advertised for £12k, and vice versa )
By a friends experience, any leasing company is unlikely to bargain with you - regardless of tyres / service, etc. its only a car and they have thousands to move, they won't mess about, so you are right to know its value before making an offer. (actually, don't make an offer - let them tell you what they want for it first - you may be surprised).
Do you have a relationship with the garage you use for servicing? maybe they could advise.
Decide what it is worth to you, would you be prepared to lose it because £10k would be a great deal, but Lex want £10500 ?
considering it probably cost £23k new 18 months ago, it looks like you have landed on your feet!
good luck.
Should we have graded car driving licences in the UK?
First 2 years after test, less than 70 BHP normally aspirated.
2 to 5 years after test up to 120 BHP.
Over 5 years unlimited.
Or would this upset the "celebs". Read more
I learnt to drive in my Dads 3 litre Granada GXL so I've always been used to powerful cars.
Yesterday (Wednesday) at 1:45pm Vauxall Bridge London. On way to a funeral in Southwark, One almighty bang from the car, also smell of burning, frightened the life out of the wife and I.
First suspect tyre but the cause was the air bag in the front passenger seat going off.
No collision not even the door being shut.
Why did it go off?
The car is a 1998 2.5 diesel.
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The wife did complain of the seat belt tightening up, but that was when we left home 2 hours previously.
Have just checked the car and there is no orange tab or anything unusual about the buckle anchor. (Nice name) Curiouser and Curiouser
I had a new battery and glow plugs about 13 months ago and its been fine up until the past week where its been below freezing. It would turn over but not fire up and drained the battery trying to start it. I took the battery off gave it a charge and its started for the past 3 morning although hard to crank up. But i think its coz the weather is warmer. Any ideas what it could be? I thought it could be the altinater but it has run for 3 days now?
Thanks sally :o) Read more
Yer its a good quality one its a HGV battery it says lol. I have no idea. Its been on charge since yesterday and i will pop it back on the car in a little while. And fingers crossed it will start for me tomorrow morning
HELP ... I am experiencing severe cold start problems once the temperature drops to 1 degree or colder and the car has been sitting overnight. In the last month I have had service, new battery, glow plugs and fuel sensor valve fitted - all by Ford main dealer - and it's still happening ... they tell me that without a diagnostic code reading they dont know whats wrong ... Engine turns over and over and over and over and doesnt fire. You have to do this anything up to 10 times on really cold mornings to get the engine to fire.... can anyone help I'm going mad with frustration ....? Read more
I was wondering if anybody out there has had a similar experience to ours with our motor insurance policy. We have full cover on our car and when we took it out we specified all that we wanted covered and of course this included fire and theft but after having a problem with our car and the loom burnt out we were told the car was a virtual right-off and to contact our insurance company so we were horrified to be told that it was not covered as the policy did not cover electrical faults or wear and tear but surely nowadays all cars have so many electrical parts this is silly. Anyway to cut a long and painfull story short, the assessor told us the car could be repaired for about £3500 but then we got a letter to say that the insurance would not pay out, to be honest when we read our policy we just read the first part that states covered for fire and theft and did not notice the tiny writing to say see exceptions on page so and so. Anyway after reading the exceptions our car was not covered for anything really as it stated any electrical parts or short circuits - we have realised now that if we had just left the car burn to the ground then we would have been paid out but we thought we were doing the right thing by preventing further damage. We wonder now what are we paying insurance for? We have ended up lossing the whole lot, no car and no money. Can anybody say about similar experiences or are we just very unlucky or stupid - please don't answer that!!! Read more
There is a difference between a fire caused by an electrical fault, and an electrical fault burning out a loom with no fire. Otherwise a heated seat burning out would be covered.
Still a useful heads up, if my car starts to burn, I'll make sure it gets going properly so that I'm covered.
Write down all the facts of the incident and then apply the rules to them and this will help you to formulate a response. The rules and facts are the key things, not how you feel or how ticked off you are.
Good luck, keep on at them.
Whilst I know it would be good practice to drain entire cooling system to change the expansion tank, can I get away with just draining the expansion tank and refilling the new one? Am I likely to have a problem with airlocks if I do?
Thanks in advance for assistance...
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Get the garage to use their kit to sample the gases from the header tank, these may be combustion gases and indicate a larger problem, a head gasket failure. Regards Peter
Browse
Despite what I may have said earlier here, I have just been outside (well an hour or so ago) and used my hose-fed brush and it took no time at all to remove, admittedly, not a motorway dirtied car. A bucket filled with nice warm/hot water was used to rinse, regularly, the Autoglym synthetic 'leather' and the car was dried off quickly with the help of the stiffening NW breeze, that has sprung up.
As an aside, I would suspect that people who have their cars 'professionally' valeted or subject them to those pressure washers, are not car lovers in the sense that I am.
I will always maintain that a pressure washer is not the thing to use on a car where there are soft vulnerable seals etc. In any case my Karcher is not a wheelable machine and in this cold weather it would take an age to set it up and tog myself up in order to use it - not that I would, I reiterate.