July 2009
Having a Nokia phone (E63) matched to a tiny voda gps gizmo via blutooth, I downloaded Nokia Sportstracker (sportstracker.nokia.com ) onto my phone. I am a sucker for gadgets like this.
I cycle a bit to try to keep fit, and rather than work out a route beforehand, I like to cycle and see where my pedals take me. I also like to know how far I have travelled and roughly how many calories I have burned. It updates live, telling you average speed, fastest, slowest and highest/lowest altitude.
You can upload your gps tracked route to your own secure profile and keep a log of your efforts and/or make it available to the sportstracker community. Below is my trip today around the Essex countryside, 22 miles. Probably overdid it for a 54yr old man with spare tyre, but you'll see what I mean.
sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do...9
You can zoom in and out of the map to see route in better detail.
The only negative is that it doesn't rub cream onto your chapped thighs after a hard slog. Thank goodness for Mrs T!
So, if there are any keen cyclists out there, it is a pretty nifty piece of kit. Read more
I helped No1 son fit a K&N air filter to his Fiesta yesterday. It's quiet on tickover but barks at you when you floor it. He's delighted. So delighted he took me across the road for a pint.
This post is really about the Byzantine complexity of the standard air intake system. It completely stalled my son as he tried to follow which bits went where and which bits were hiding above the wheel arch and in various body orifices. We levered, unclipped, rived and swore before all this plastic junk fell out in various-shaped pieces in the yard. There's a rectangular box holding the filter and an amazing arrangement of tubes, chambers and bends before the fresh air can get to the filter box. I sincerely hope this new filter doesn't affect the emissions at MoT time because I won't relish reassembling it. What is all this stuff for ? The new noisy filter instructions mention resonance chambers. What do they do, apart from slow the airflow down and stop it getting to the filter ? To my simple mind, it just looks like a load of complexity or somewhere to store your contraband.
Bewildered of Richmond. Read more
The chambers are Helmholtz resonators - they work a little bit like the reverse effect of blowing over the top of a milk bottle to produce a note.
The Helmholtz resonator can be thought of as an acoustic mass spring damper system. The mass of air in the neck of the bottle represents the mass. The compliance or springiness of the air inside the chamber represents the spring. The energy that is radiated as sound fulfils the damping role.
In an intake system, the Helmholtz resonator produces sound which cancels with the sound resulting from the pulsing air in the manifold. The gross flow isn't significantly affected by the presence of the resonator, but, the noise you hear is much reduced.
EDIT: The interior lining of the front part most aero engine nacelles is made of thousands of Helmholtz resonators for noise reduction. They are usually made, quite cleverly and cheaply, by perforating the inner lining sheet in a regular pattern, exposing the chambers of the honeycomb sandwich panel within.
Hopefully, after a few long journeys, your son will realise how dull he has been, and convert the system back to standard. However, you'll know if this learning opportunity has been missed if he asks you how to install a louder stereo (to overcome the tedious noise of the new filter). Hopefully, this reversion to standard will happen before any damage is done to either his hearing or the car's engine!
Off to look at a private 2003 Mondeo tdci zetec s estate, 48k miles, silver, £3,500. The guys retired and had the car for 2.5 years, don't yet know how many previous owners.
I've read much of the stuff in here about reliability etc, and I need to (somehow!) check the mileage is genuine - I've got to consider it suspect.
A good buy, or too risky?? (mileage, reliability, etc)
Ta!
Andy Read more
Good stuff Harry, instinct is key when buying. But:
"Not got all the bells and whistles...still, there is climate control, cruise, 'leccy seat, etc etc."
That would do me!
tt
Help needed,
I have a 1.2l 5 door 03 plate micra that has decided it will only fill with 10litres of fuel, sometimes it only will fill up with 3l!!
Nissan dealer has quoted £400 to replace a sensor? Seems a bit steep. Any advice??
Thanks Read more
Hi everyone,
first post on the forums despite using the site so I hope no one has me down as a spammer despite my first post being a "request"
Just as a start, I do love my cars and drive an imported Honda Integra DC5 (going to do a search in a minute to see if there is any posts on these) :)
Anyway, one of the reasons I've been prompted to post is a slight request for anyone who has done any driving experiences that you can buy, such as Ferrari or other supercars, tank driving etc.
I run a site and I want peoples reviews on driving experiences they have done in the past. I will send some sort of freebie as a thankyou for anyone who does do a review for the site
If anyone has done a driving experience that they have enjoyed and wouldn't mind doing me a write up then drop me a PM or reply on here as I can't seem to spot an inbox on this forum at the moment :)
As I said, I hope this post doesn't get frowned on too much, I know it's not particularly good form to start posting on a forum asking for help without getting integrated in the forum first and I hope I'm not sent to the naughty corner...
Cheers
Wardy Read more
Just a quick reminder for anyone who would like to do a write up to drop me an email instead of posting on here to driving(at)adsenger.co.uk (replace the (at) with @) and we can sort it :)
Cheers
Mark
ive been calling the local motor factors and none seem to carry pattern panels like they used to a few years back
can anyone reccomend some online sellers of pattern parts please Read more
chas ..i mean all the usual factors i have used in the past can no longer order pattern parts at all , ive no problem waiting a few days
gsf /ecp dont have them listed and i called too to make sure
its for a polo 2 ...clean n tidy cheap run about , dont need amazing quality but would like new
I've got a '95 325td and for some reason it struggles to start cold.
Once it is warm it's perfectly fine. But the first time you try to start it, whether it's morning, afternoon or whenever, it takes a while to start.
I'll get in, let the glow plug light go off and it turns over fine, but takes quite a while to finally kick in and fire up.
I hoped cold weather was a reason, but after the weather warmed up, it continued. Once it does eventually start it billows smoke from the rear.
I hope you guys have an idea of what might be wrong with it, because I'm clueless.
It also cuts out occasionally when idling and some electrics are used. (E.g. On Idle, I can press both window switches up and it will stall out). It also stalls sometimes when the clutch is depressed when rolling up to a junction for example.
Cheers for anything you can help me with. Read more
Thanks, hopefully that'll cure it. We thought glow plugs at first, and I think we checked one. But maybe the one we checked was working.
I'll see to getting them all replaced and will update when I can
The Porsche boss and his finance chief have both resigned with immediate effect after an all-night pow-wow. Big payoffs, and a merger/take-over by VW is surely to follow.
It seems Porsche ran out of money to effect their own take-over of VW, any such take-over would have had significant Middle East money, so the powers that be in Germany are probably happier with owner-ship of both companies staying within the fatherland. Read more
But Porche have fingers in much more than cars.
For years Porsche has behaved like an investment bank with a small car company on the side. They got their fingers burned with the credit crunch as well as getting caught out with how they tried to take over VW. Almost all of their profit came from trading and not car making.
But since their boss got 0.9% of the pre-tax profit as per his contract, is there any wonder this is what happened to Porsche?
Hi,
I am after some advice please.
On Tuesday evening I paid a deposit on a new car on a PCP arrangement. Yesterday the dealer phoned me to say that they couldn't honour the deal due to the fact they combined the subsidized APR along with the discount availible on the car.
They have said that when they have gone to put the deal through it isn't allowing them to combine both.
They have given me two alternative deals on the factory built car I want but at increased cost.
They have said I can have a car that is 'off the system' at the quoted price without the extras I want (so I still lose out.)
They have asked me to pay an extra £300 and they will stand the rest of the loss. They are claiming they will show me just how much they are losing on the car (in excess of £1000)
I have so far been adamant I want the car i've ordered at the quoted price with the APR quoted.
I have a written order for the price but I don't have confirmation of the APR as it was processed the next working day. The dealer says it is in their T&Cs they could return my deposit but this isn't in their interests. I do not want to lose the deal as obviously it is a more competitive price than I should have been given.
Any thoughts on the best way to proceed?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Read more
dealers try to trust the customer and get shafted. they don't trust the customer and
get slagged off.... they really can't win can they?
Probably not, but better to be slagged off than shafted!
I thought it was interesting that Ling Valentine (of Ling Cars) said in a post on a Mercedes forum recently that some of the dealers she orders through won't accept orders for over-optioned cars in case they get stuck with them.
Can anyone help, where is the ecu located on a renault trafic sl27dci100 van? As searched under dash cannot find. A picture would be handy
Edited to remove the upper case text as it's classed as SHOUTING Read more
I'm no expert but I'd say pretty much for certain no. AFAIK modern ECU's that are the same make even can't be swapped. All to do with whats stored on them immobiliser codes etc.
Browse
Its "wyndrobwll" in the middle. Not an appealing place either.