February 2009
I guess one should never be surprised at what drivers do at the wheel of a moving vehicle.
I saw a guy looking at the car roof immediately above his head while driving at 30+ mph. With his right arm raised, at first I thought it was some sort of hand signal.
Oh no silly me.
He thought it more important to empty the last few bits out of his crisp bag than concentrate on the road.
Rant over.
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Does anyone know what happens to the Mileage if you change the Dashboard in a Mk3 Mondeo?
Is the Mileage stored on the ECU?
Will the car even start?
The reason I ask is that I changed my dials, and I am not really happy with the look bit the needles are slightly damaged so was looking to replace the complete unit but don't want to go through Ford doing the work!
Any help appreciated!
{subject header given a less vague title} Read more
Thanks! Didn't think it would be simple!
I was hoping to put a new dash in and my mileage would pop up on the new dash!
Nevermind.
From the department of ' you couldn't make it up '
tinyurl.com/d7gavf
Why do insurers still stick to cliched views of certain professions. Do they have the figures to back them up ? Read more
Both my sons have found that if you are a younger driver having dad named on the insurance gets you a reduction even, in one case if he's 120 miles away.
My mother in law has asked me to sell her 1999 Merc SL. Its in great condition and has only done 16k miles with herself as the only owner. Can anyone advise on where to sell it - autotrader or better off with a Merc owners club?
Also is now a good time to sell or shall I wait until the Spring?
Thanks in advance. Read more
I agree with Altea Ego. The 58 reg Z4's are out on the forecourt again at the local BMW dealer, and everyone round here is washing their cars in a "thank goodness this wretched winter is over" mood.
Sounds quite tempting, actually - though prices seem to be all over the place.
A poser for the backroom lawyers amongst us.
I sell a car privately. The cheque bounces or part of the cash is fake.The car is off with the buyer. I've handed over the keys, but the V5 is still in my possession.
Can I report the vehicle as stolen or not, seeing as I've handed over the keys. Or what is the process for getting the vehicle back? Read more
The simple solution to taking cash is to escort the buyer to the bank - he hands over the notes inside the branch, and you pay them in, and you then hand over the keys. The teller then can check their authenticity on the spot. You have the advantage of then having the buyer on the banks CCTV. A dodgy buyer won't go in with you, a solid buyer with nothing to hide will be quite happy.
The simple solution to taking cheques is don't. Direct bank transfer, or cash as above.
A cautionary tale.
Bought 04 Ford C-Max CVT auto (1.6 TdCi) from a franchised Vauxhall dealer. Ex-motability car 18,000 miles, three years old, full main dealer history with 1 year warranty.
Car immediately started hesitating - generally at about running pace accelerating from a standing start - leaving you stranded in the middle of roundabouts.
The car was taken to a Ford main dealer, rather than supplying dealer 15 times in 18 months and various fixes were tried - EGR valves, wiring changes, breather hoses, sensors etc. To start with all these fixes worked - for a few days. Gradually the time between "fixes" reduced and the hesitation got worse. The car then started going into "limp home" mode regularly on long trips. This required a 10 minute stop on the hard shoulder before restarting. THis was getting me down as I considered the car dangerous.
Ford dealer was paid £1,500 to apply these fixes. When the warranty ran out and I started complaining about the cost of continuing failed repairs (car done 23,000 miles by now), the dealer put up the shutters, saying "it's a characteristic of the car" or "it's out of warranty sir, what do you expect ?".
Writing to Ford got me nowhere. In the end I cut my losses, trading the car in and losing thousandss in the process - all because Ford can't be bothered to fix their own products.
Be warned. I should have rejected the car with the dealer I bought it from at an early stage - being nice and giving them every chance to fix it has counted against me. Read more
One with lots of "new to that manufacturer" features (like first use of CAN bus in C->> Max, CVT, new TDci engine etc)
A car that has just started its production run (teething troubles)
A friend bought one of the first 2.0 TDCi C-Maxes in the UK new back in 2003. It was a horrible car at first. Numerous engine management glitches (battery going flat at random due to intelligent alternator bug, parking brake self releasing, haywire CANBUS system, stalling under certain conditions, 24 mpg fuel consumption etc etc).
Slowly but surely, these issues were resolved over the first year by software updates, and occasionally replacement parts. Since just after its first birthday, it hasn't missed a beat, and has now racked up nearly 80,000 trouble free miles.
I would never buy a new model of car. Too many manufacturers expect launch customers to finish off their R&D. I know it happens with Japanese manufacturers too.
In this case, the car was fundamentally good, but that last bit of polish and bug ironing had simply been left to the first customers to deal with.
I've been looking at buying a new Hyundai i30 1.4 SE. Hyundai have winter discounts at the moment and 10395 OTR for a new one sounds good. However the dealer has a pre-reg 58 plate demonstrator with 1000 miles on the clock. The asking price is 9995 - anybody any idea what a more realistic price would be for bargaining? I'm thinking maybe 9400 but maybe in the current economic climate that is too high. Or maybe I should just buy the brand new one with an 09 plate. Read more
batesy:
see autotrader (national search)
i30-
0808 1.6 style 1,400m £7995 trade
0858 1.4 se ....2,000m £8995 dealer
0858 1.4 style.3,122m £9000 dealer
I've been looking for a chain-cam-engined, reliable, economical, small-ish diesel automatic that has been sold for long enough and in sufficient quantities for it to be available inexpensively secondhand. I'd hoped for a proper i.e. torque-converter, auto for its driving-characteristics but it's proving hard to find. (Forum-members variously warn me off the MMT and AMT 'autos' offered by Toyota and Colt, respectively, as unpleasant to drive.)
Could anyone recommend me something I may have missed? (If it's belt-cam, so be it ? reluctantly.)
And if the diesel/proper-auto combination just isn't available, what would be your choice of small-ish petrol auto?
Thank you,
AF.
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My mum had a Yaris Verso manual 2002 for 40k and loved it aside from pig ugly looks, so needs to be a dark colour which hides the slab sides. Exceptionally practical though with seats that fold into the floor.
Hi all, posting on behalf of my little bro who is looking to get a Golf GTi (must be 3 door) and he poses a question, what can he expect in terms of age/mileage for £8.5K at auction?
I appreciate that it's a slding scale (newer will equal higher mileage for the same money as an older lower mileage one) but can anyone give a rough guide? Unfortunately I can't seem to access Glasses guide via Vauxhall anymore otherwise I would just look at which GTis book at £8.5K.
By the way, there's no point in discussing the common sense in this buying decision, he's 21 and has his heart set on it, absolutely nothing else other than a 3 door Golf GTi is under consideration!
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Mapmaker that's spot on thanks very much.
It shows that as I originally suspected he's most likely looking at a 55 or 06 reg model if buying at auction.
If he does end up at a dealer (which I suspect he will) then it will also prove useful when trying to work out what the car stands them.
I was just over on the Housepricecrash forum and noticed that someone had posted the below in a thread about cars:
"Much more typical is large clearance through employee only schemes (or those extendable into friends, family, or employees of other companies in the supply chain). One of the UK based Japanese manufacturers did this last month, and offered around 30-45% off their small hatches and larger people carriers and 4x4s. I was tempted by a brand new 58 plate model (think Qashqai, CRV, Rav-4) down from 21.5K to 10,995. As long as they can clear their stocks in this covert manner there is no reason to lower prices at main dealers."
Made my jaw drop, especially when they seem to be in denial about offering discounts to Joe Public.
T. Read more
If you are serious about buying a CR-V, then do a bit of research on the giant shopping catalogue, also known as the internet.
HJ has provided all the links you need to quickly establish the going rate for your choice of vehicle.
Then, as rtj70 says, go to your local dealer, and as PU says earlier in this thread: "dangle some wedge under their noses".
But only do this if you are serious about buying.
The title of this thread is a little misleading.
Nissan offered heavily discounted Qashqais, X-Trails and Notes, but I've not heard of any other Japanese UK manufacturer doing the same.
Nissan have had two 'releases' in the last couple of months with up to £8k knocked off the higher price motors.
Browse
M25 this morning:
I looked over to my left and there was a woman in a brand new BMW doing 75Mph
With her face up next to her rear view mirror putting on her eyeliner.
I just looked away for a couple seconds !
And when I looked back she was halfway over in my lane, still working on that makeup.
As a man, I don't scare easily..
But she scared me so much; I dropped my electric shaver,
Which knocked the meat pie out of my other hand.
In all the confusion of trying to straighten out the car using my knees against the steering wheel,
It knocked my mobile phone away from my ear which fell into the coffee between my legs, splashing, and burned big Jim and the twins, ruined the phone, soaked my trousers, and...............disconnected an important call.