March 2009
Hmm...
On Sunday evening I was travelling south on the M6 Toll road. A decent journey from home, the occasional patch of tailgating etc. but nothing out of the ordinary.
I reached the M6 TOll at about 8PM.
At T7 there was a huge BANG! and I heard wind noise coming from the top of the windscreen.
I pulled over onto the hard shoulder - small but deep dent in the roof at it's junction with windscreen and a laminated screen with a lot of cracks.
I drove gingerly to the Norton Cranes service area, looking at every vehicle and bridge, and got out of the car to examine the damage in a safe place.....
As you will have guessed there was evidence of a large brick of lump of concrete hitting the car.
After I had dropped and picked up my mobile 'phone 4 or 5 times I accepted that shock had set in and I looked for a cup of tea....
The Duty Manager at the service area and the RAC patrol guy were both excellent providing common sense and reassurance. Many thanks to them.
The Police and Highways AGency spent a good deal of time loking for debris and I presume the bombardier.
Later, at the car repair centre we discussed speed of vehicle, acceleration due to gravity, height of drop, angle of incidence, relative strength of materials and so on on we agreed that a fractional difference in speed and timing had made the difference between life and death.
PLEASE
When you drive south on the M6 Toll in that area check the bridges for trainee bombers.
Perhaps that should be any motorway passing through an urban area.
If you know of anyone who knows anyone that does anything like this report them to the boys in blue; it might just prevent a death.
If this happens to you, and you are still breathing, report the incident to the polis.
FINALLY.
Anyone want to buy a bomb proof car?
Can I chage my name to Lucky?
Wamest regards from a fellow traveller,
Jonathan.
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Was actually going to make a thread how I have seen this late model Corsa B on a private sale which sounded perfect if a little over priced.
It does have 12 months MOT looking closely at the pics on ebay I spotted quite a lot of rust on the C pillar above the sills.
Had a look at some more cars today and it really does seem that if insurance is an issue £2k is no longer enough money to buy a decent car. The best one garage could come it with is an S reg Fiesta for a whooping £1500!
I am now angery for selling my old car so cheaply, I know it needed a huge amount of work doing to it but I never imagined finding a car would be so hard. I think it is because of my past bad luck I am now being very picky, in the past a bit of rust on the sills would not have bothered me, where as now I know it generaly means the car is rotting and won't last much longer.
If anybody out there like me is looking for a first car it seems now is a very difficult time to buy :(.
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if you've got an ounce of intelligence you won't sell a car to Rattle.
I seem to remember that bb has a short way with tiresome punters. But you are right Mm, even his psychic stability might be threatened after a few weeks of peering at microscopic rust spots and listening for imaginary suspension knocks and tappetty noises in some little just-above-bangernomical gem from old Henry's industrial diaspora...
'History is bunk, my boy.'
'Yeah but bb, this is SERVICE history we're talking about, not some old tat about Henry V... surely those spots on the C pillar should have been touched up at the third service... etc.'
what does a 2007 ford fiesta 1.25 zetec climate come with. does it come with an ipod connection? Read more
We have 08 plate Fiestas at work (base model) which do come with the aux connection. On ours they're located right in front of the gear lever so should be easy to spot without even getting into the car.
car running ok on fuel when switch to lpg idles over at 450 rpm and unable to increase rpm any ideas? Read more
cheers steve looked at site giving it a clean out tomorow fingers crossed .
No I did not fix it but a good guy, just off the M25 in Kent did.
My air conditioner in the Mondeo got steadily worse during last summer so I had it regassed. It was regassed on an auto machine and things appeared to be OK for a while. SWMBO warned me to get it fixed before the sun returns or there would be even louder moans than the car was by then making.
Looking on the web for an A/C repair specialist just produced a list of companies so who to chose?
One company in my region stood out, IMO, because of an interesting web site.
As I was outside his stated mobile area I went to him.
It was well worth it. Super service, lots of info about A/Cs.
I needed a new compressor to replace the knackered / siezed old one.
The price was very reasonable and labour charges most acceptable.
Now I have a "cool" car that drives soooo much quieter.
I have no association with the company and am just a very happy customer.
www.ac4cars.co.uk/
( also lists other A/C companies)
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That sounds efficient!
I like their website, fortunately I have a local contact who seems as good. He replaced the condensor in my MK2 Mondy and it's like an arctic blizzard in there now, I like to keep that sort of feature working as once it stops it automatically makes the car an old banger in my eyes. If a button is there then it should do something!
My daughter's looking for another car and asked for my opinion of this place in Plough Lane, Wimbledon.
I've searched the interweb thingmy and can't find any comments on them.
Any comments from the BRs? Read more
Sorry BT. Can't help.
Only posting because you once mentioned that your handle was a sort of anagram which I have singularly failed to crack and for some reason I now want to know !
Anyway, at least it's a free bump for your post !
;-)
I was seriously considering a Mark 6 Golf GTi this year when it comes out so I keep an eye on the VW website for developments. I noticed a section on the car yesterday so I thought I'd check it out. It even included the latest Golf price list.
It turns out a 5 door Gti is listed at £22995 and if I wanted a 5 door with a DSG gearbox they'd relieve me of £24300!!!!! That's before you put any options on it. Even just putting metallic paint on the latter takes it to nearly £25k.
Now I accept that there'll be discounts available at some point but surely nobody in their right mind is going to pay this much money for a GTi. As a potential customer that's me out of the equation straight away - it's just too expensive.
Having said that there'll be people out there who'll pay it no doubt. Is it just me or do you think they're taking the mickey with these prices? You can buy those listed below for the same or far less. I know what I'll be doing.
Audi 2.0 TFSi Sport £21 585
BMW 1 series - any number for less money
Focus ST3 £21 895
All these before discount. Read more
"...Ford has announced an average price increase of 3.75 per cent...."
Today's news
what are these people like? Would they drive into a river if a ferry wasn't there yet?
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/7962212.stm Read more
why would the bus need to be towed away?
Even though there was most likely no damage to the running gear, I guess it's a H&S issue. The bus driver was probably in no fit state to ascertain whether any more bits might fall off the damaged bus into traffic as he drove it back, much less in a fit state to actually drive it back! The picture shows that the recovery driver has secured the loose bus body before starting to move it.
Also he might have been flagged down by passengers waiting at a bus stop (thread link: possibly by the aforementioned BMW driver, if he still refuses to recognise the obvious problem right in front of him).
Evening,
The rear suspension on the car is very hard and when i go over any bumps it makes a awful clonk/bang.
The fronts are absolutley fine and perform as they should.
Any ideas? Read more
Worn rear axle rubber bushes and/or a broken spring will fail the MOT. Rear bump stops split into two parts (they only last about 5000 miles before they separate) will pass. Worn rear axle rubber bushes cause rear end/wheel steering.
My faithful 96 MB passed the MOT with flying colours again last week, thank goodness, and it should do the tlc it gets.;)
I happen to have the exhaust emission test results in front of me.
As its entirely possible that i will have to compulsorily scrap this car at some point in the future should we get more empty eggheads in charge, with or without £2K to help boost some foreign manufacturers coffers.
I wonder how my gas guzzling cars emissions compare to a new equivalent petrol engined car, i'll give the results of mine, hopefully the more knowledgeable will be able to say just how bad my car is in comparison to new and whether it should be scrapped, or are we being fed hogwash by the green brigade in the govt.
Its 3.2litre, straight 6 cyl 24V and its done 75K by the way.
Fast idle test.
CO Max limit 0.200 Actual Value 0.052 pass.
Lamda. Min limit 0.970 Max limit 1.030 Actual value 1.002 pass.
Natural idle test.
CO Max limit 0.300 Actual value 0.018 Pass.
Thoughts please.
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The density of petrol is 0.737 ...
Thanks Snail. Redoing my calcs, then
Density of petrol 0.737 .... so 41.2 gm/km.
CO2 produced is 41.2 x 352 / 114.2 = 127 gm/km
You'll need to do about 53 mpg to get into the lowest tax-band.
Browse
If you're ever a witness/victim of this it's vital you dial 999 immediately. There are a multitude of CCTV cameras operated directly from the motorway control room that could help identify/catch offenders.