May 2009
Near me is a headmistress. Her car is, shall we say, not cared for.
It's obvious from walking past that one of her front tyres is under inflated, the outer edge is smoother than my pate and there's a couple of visible bulges. It's been like this for a couple of weeks. The car is moved every day, presumably on her drive to school.
She is known to not accept criticism!!!
What would you do?
Please headline a thread properly. Next time I spot a thread with a title that give no hint what it is about I will delete the entire thread. Headlines like "How do you tell someone........." demand that the thread be opened in order to find out what it is about. That is not acceptable and creates unnecessary work for the moderators. HJ Read more
Must be room under the hat for a few grand in £20s ? ;-)
I thought I would relate a recent experience with the aircon on a Fabia I am preparing for a customer. The symptons were no chilled air, although the switch lit up when pressed. I took it to a mechanic friend who has commercial aircon experience and he thought the compressor was at fault as it didn't seem to want to take a recharge of refrigerant.
This could have been a costly exercise if I had gone down the route of changing the compressor.
I did a bit of research and on HJ's car by car he describes the compressor as being a clutchless type, I certainly heard no click when I turned the swich on. Also found on a Skoda web forum several incidents of similar symptoms where the cure turned out to be a recode of the engine ecu.
I then took it to a very bright sparky I know and he confirmed that fault code 18020 was held in the PCM (Powertrain control module) which in turn indicated it had an incorrect code stored. He was able to look up the correct code and bingo, the aircon worked.
So it does seem that Fabia's can have a habit of loosing or corrupting this code and it is simply a case of having the code reinstated. Read more
thanks for the excellent info.
A few weeks ago I managed to let the old Morris overheat and boil dry. After it cooled down and I topped up the water she was running fine but then after going a couple of miles she emptied out all the water through the radiator overflow, I believe. I was advised that this was a classic case of a blown cylinder head gasket.
I got a gasket kit and changed all the top end gaskets and for a week or so everything seemed to be fine but, I checked the oil yesterday and it seemed a bit high, considering the various oil leaks she has, then I checked the radiator and there was no water visible. I took off the oil filler cap and it had white sludge on it. With the engine running there was a slight water leak from the corner of the cylinder head at the gasket, just under the tie-rod. It had leaked there when I boiled the engine and before I changed the gasket.
Do I have a cracked cylinder head or have I blown another gasket? Read more
In the old days they would take off the rocker cover and wash the white stuff off with petrol and then let it dry. Brush the petrol on to the white stuff (all over actually) and then wipe off, that way you don't need to use as much petrol unless you have a large tray available then use it to flush ensuring the environment is safe. If you do use petrol ensure you don't breath in the vapour. Pour the used petrol into a can and ensure it is safely disposed.
The alternative and safer method is to use a mixture of hot water and washing up liquid and scrub and then let it dry thoroughly before replacing. Then after fitting the cover (note - a new rocker gasket may be needed to prevent oil leakage) you can remove the sump cover and clean the inside of the sump but you'll then need to fit a new sump gasket although they are easy to make and obtain so that's not a worry. Next empty the oil filter and fit a new oil filter, you can put some fresh oil into the oil filter before fitting as it aids oil circulation when the engine is next started. Finally fill up with new oil.
MY girlfriend's '99 Yaris went in for the MOT, one of the items they failed it on was that the headlamp angle could not be adjusted (it was too low on one side). In order to pass it had to have a new headlamp fitted! We got the original headlamp off them, there's no adjustment 'mechanism' on it at all that I can see. Does the adjustment happen by the way it's mounted? If so why would they need to replace the lamp unit?
She paid ~£90 or so plus labour for the new lamp, was she conned or were they just being technically correct but unhelpful? Read more
If they have electric adjusters (knob on the dashboard), the new lamps often (not sure about Toyota Yaris) don't come with these parts and they have to be transfered over. £90 for the light is a good price.
I recently changed a Headlamp bulb on my C4 Grand Picasso. Now one side is slightly lower than the other. Checked to make sure new and old bulbs are seating correctly.
Although these are motorised for height adjustment.
Can they be adjusted manually to correct the error.
thanks Read more
yes they can.
I'm not familiar with your car but if you lift the bonnet the (2) adjusting screws shouldn't be hard to find ~ probably plastic with an internal hexagon. One will be for vertical adjustment and the other for sideways adjustment.
Hi. Does anyone know how much it should cost for an alternator to be mended and fitted.
On a 1.7td escort R reg
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what happened to the pink pages forum?
What was the first diesel powered hot hatch? Could it have been the Peugeot 205 D Turbo from somewhere around 1990? Was that merely slightly warmer than the non-turbo version and left standing by the petrol 1360cc GT, let alone the 1.6 or 1.9 GTi versions? It did lack an intercooler after all...!
What about the Citroen Volcane Turbo D or the Peugeot 306 D Turbo? Both 92bhp if I recall correctly and with the 1905cc engine and the benefit of an intercooler, they were pretty brisk once the turbo was up to speed. Plenty of torque...
What about the Skoda Fabia vRS? Skoda didn't even feel the need to do a high performance petrol equivalent, though they appear to have changed their mind for the latest Fabia, which is a real shame. Surely the latest common rail 2.0 140bhp or better still the 170bhp VAG diesels would have been superb in such a small package.
Volkswagen Golf GT Tdi 130 PD (or the 150PD)? It would certainly leave the Mk IV 2.0 petrol GTi Golf for dust was probably quicker than the 1.8T petrol 150 bhp Golf too ir day to day conditions.
Do we have to wait for the BMW 123d to really see some action around the 200bhp mark?
Given the title of the thread, we're discounting saloon and estate cars, so no suggesting the BMW 335d !! Read more
I am a petrol head - born and bred ... I did go astray a few years ago though - and bought a Pug 306TD from a woman (womans car) I must say not only was the engine quiet, I used to luv putting it through its paces!
GM to close up to 1,100 dealers......GM plans to cut the total number of dealers by 42% by the end of 2010.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8051978.stm
Thats an awful lot of people being hit due to big business screwing up.sma
In Autotrader, I find most Lexuses, Mercedes E classes, some Vauxhall Omegas and Ford Mondeos have often over or near 150,000 miles mark.
There are exceptions, but mostly some specific cars are advertised with very high mileage.
Why other cars can't do that mileage? Especially smaller cars?
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Just about any modern car can do the miles -- I've been in a local taxi a couple of times which is a 52-plate Proton Persona with 270,000 miles, on the original engine and box according to the owner.
The only reason most cars of this type don't reach these figures is the type of people who tend to buy them.
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Likewise traffic wardens.
I parked my truck in a narrow one-way side street today (in a loading bay on the right) and needed to reverse about 10 feet (back towards the T-junction at the start of the street) before moving off, to give myself adequate space to miss all the parked cars on both sides when driving forwards. I collared a passing warden and asked if he could watch me back up, as I didn't want to stick my back end out into the main road traffic. His response was, "I can't do that, I might be held liable if you hit something."