January 2009
Bit of an odd one but hope someone can offer advice.
I?ve been working in IT now for around 5 years and had a short spell in the car trade selling used cars quite a while back. I?m sick of working a mundane 9-5 job and have been thinking of setting up my own business for a while now.
Have any backroomers had any experience in setting up a valet centre? I'm talking of just purely car cleaning and not body shop work.
I live in Birmingham in an affluent part and there is nowhere to get your car cleaned around for at least 10 miles.
Any advice greatly received.
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I bought this VW Cabriolet last summer, it hadn't been used for a year or so before I bought it and so on the odd ocassion that it stalled or didn't start or cut out I just put it down to that and maybe the fuel being blocked somewhere. I used engine cleaner every other time I filled up and the period without problems grew longer, so I assumed the problem was in that department. When it stalled or cut out I would give it ten or fifteen minutes and a bit of a pump on the pedal and it would start again.
Last week it cut out again and this time it wouldn't restart, I called the AA and they came to the conclusion that it was a relay but he couldn't tell me which (I didn't know there was more than one - actually the whole thing is new to me!). I ended up being towed home and here it sits.
If anyone could shed any light on this I would be eternally grateful.
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Fuel Relay, X Relay or hall effect in the distributor. Read This thread.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?f=4&t=70...3
Regards peter
hi my battery died in my car and when i jumped it my fob wouldnt work, i know the fob is workin as its just a new 1 i got a few weeks back. some1 told me i might need to resync it, does any1 know how to do this. all help n advice would be welcome.
car is an r reg rover400
thanx Read more
OVERIDE code should be in hand book, when I programme them or if i supply and programme a new key i always supply overide code, mabe whoever supplied your new key could help?
Peter
Hi
Anyone tell me where the camshaft sensor is on my mondeo, and can it be easily changed.
i.e. I am a fairly experienced amateur, but most of my experience on older cars with more machanics than electronics.
Does the sensor need any special kit, or does it need programming into the ECU etc
Cheers
Petrol or Diesel ? Read more
tinyurl.com/7hh6wy
(pic link valid for 1 week)
In use (Punto heater switch) it had become harder to turn in cold weather to the point of risking shearing of the shaft. Strange though, it was still very stiff even with the backplate off. In other words - with just the ball and spring on the shaft in engagement.
I notice that there`s no grease on the ball or the housing on the right it works in. Grease it? Modify the spring tension - putting it outside design parameters?
Incidentally - I fitted a new one before noticing the old one was designed to be DIY friendly (£20 ;-( notice those integral housing clips. A certain manual said "Prise down" had I done that the central dash panel would have sheared the horizontally engaging lugs on the dash...
Great isn`t it? Can`t help thinking there is a gap in the market for better quality manuals.
I don`t really `need` help of course, but would be interested in what technical chat may develop
(as always ;-) Read more
"wetting the record grooves lubricates"
A groove on the shaft then and lubricated by condensation off my hands? (they condense water out of the atmosphere in winter)
How do you cut the groove so that it plays Waltzing Matilda on being moved to position four?
can anyone tell me is it possible to get the software installed into a door module of a s60 without paying the dealers ransom? And is it possible to reprogram an old module? Read more
it's the passenger door module,it was messing with the window,central locking, mirror, alarm on that door. After trying 5-6 different old modules(proveing impractical due to p&p to NI) I've got one which leaves central locking on that door, mirror & window dead but allows alarm& dead bolts to work on remote key, I know dealer won't reprogram old module but is it possible to reprogram module I have now?
I was the unfortunate victim of a speed camera last month due to a slip of the mind resulting in being 7MPH over the limit. After 12 years of having a clean license....
I had the option of doing a "Speed Choice" workshop as an alternative to taking the 3 points. At the time of stating this option, you do not have a choice in the date of the workshop, only to put down the dates you are unavailable in the next 120 days.
Unfortunately due to running a business and other things cropping up, the date they have chosen is right on a date I am no longer available. I cannot even free up this date for various reasons either.
In order to quote: "request for an Alternative Workshop Appointment", you need to pay a £30 "non-refundable administration fee". How on earth can they justify charging this kind of money merely for "Administration". Has anybody try to challenge this? You would probably grudgingly accept a £5 fee for admin, but not £30 ?!
I think this just goes to show all these schemes are merely about extracting money from people and nothing to do with "education". If only people in stinking country would stand up to things like this...
I don't plan to pay this "fee" and will take the issue as far as I can.
Dan
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It IS optional - he chose it!
In another thread, R75 linked to a juntion on Google maps which set my tiny brain in motion. I found a helicopter-view of a roundabout which aged me 10 years not long ago.
tinyurl.com/6vnk6q
Apparently, 20% of users never make their destination, marooned as they are in triple laned cross-roundabout madness. I once took a right from the road on the left top to Stockley Road South-bound. God's been with me ever since...
I trust this is an acceptable topic for discussion but I, for one, would be very interested to see examples of semingly dangerous or confusing road junctions. Particularly arial views - available from several sources, not only the ubiquitous "G". I hope that I'm not alone in finding this an interesting topic... Read more
I'm a delivery driver, and I cover all the M6 Toll area every day. I never deliberately use the Toll road because I'd get charged GBP9 even for going one junction up it. I have accidentally joined it once in 18 months though, at the Burntwood junction - the signs were ambiguous, a fact confirmed to me in writing by the Toll co. when I tried to appeal the charge, as they told me there is a yellow temporary sign 100yds before the junction to clarify things!
Further down at the northbound M42/A446/M6 Toll split, I have seen everything from last-minute multi-lane swervers to hard shoulder reversers to, on one occasion, as I bore left for the M42, the driver of a car on the M6 Toll looking aghast at me as it dawned on them they had just taken an expensive and unnecessary detour.
Dave TD.
hello, i have a 2008 Ford Focus TDCI 1.6L (style), mileage of 13k. i find the gearstick quite stiff when moving from neutral to first. asked the local ford dealer who didn't think it was a major problem but said he adjusted / loosened some screws (?). that did not help. any thoughts? many thanks
Subject header expanded to include a brief summary of question being asked Read more
1st tends to be a bit stiff in the cold weather, was it stiff during the warmer summer weather ?
Where does the clutch bite ? If it's biting too low down then it suggests it needs adjusting.
We all know its going to happen, for personal mass transit at least, now that we are using up reserves faster than they are being discovered, the dreaded tipping point.
My moneys on electric vehicles, clean sustainable even Jeremy Clarkson looks like being won around! Read more
Drax is also going to be using biofuels soon. ............ Specially grown crops will minimise the nett CO2 output.
That will require a sizeable acreage of land to grow it, and a sizeable amount of transport to get it to Drax!
Browse
Depends on the person. Most of my customers dont live in town or they have extremely busy lives which doesnt leave hours to have the car cleaned. Many are either retired and like to potter in the garden or ride horses for instance while their cars are done, or they work long hours, and or have children they want to spend time with and simply dont have time to run the car down a quick valet place.
Also worth considering is that I am respectable, somewhat middle-class in the way I talk and conduct myself and you wouldnt believe how many people want 'one of their kind' cleaning their car. I get left with keys for £100k cars, house keys and all manner of gate codes etc which Im afraid, rightly or wrongly, many wont leave with a Polish valeter - this has been said to me on many occasions by people - trust with your home and car is extremely important.
I was once chatting to a contract cleaner and he said that more than half the blokes working there were ex-cons - I was trained by one myself - and for a certain group of middle/upper class people, letting people invade their personal space is a big trust issue.
I have one customer who I worked for nearly a year before I was ever formally introduced to them as they sent out the maid or personal secretary to deal with me. This was after they inspected my work for one of their employees for 8 months beforehand. Carzy world sometimes.