July 2009
Dear all
Hope you can advise. I found out this evening that my lodger has passed on my home address to a friend of his to use - this chap has evidently recently been pulled over for speeding (I don't know the details) and was apparently advised by the copper who stopped him that if he gave in effect a false address, it would be impossible for him to be prosecuted.
Notwithstanding the fact that this appears to be shoddy practice by our police (if it is true), I am more concerned right now with my address having been presented without my knowledge or consent. When the NIP arrives should I ignore it or should I open it, contact the constabulary and inform them of what I know?
My concern, aside from the fact that I don't want to be an accessory to this kind of thing, is that if the police cannot track down the chap, the only thing they will have is my address.
Not that it should matter but you may be interested to know that both my lodger and his mate are Irish and certainly my lodger's attitude towards motoring is that he can get away with anything in the UK provided he keeps his Irish numberplates. This extends to speeding tickets and more.
Any advice gratefully received.
S
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I found dozens of unused Fram oil filters (PH9B) in the original box stored in a garage for 30 years plus.
They are the cannister (easy change) type
Would they still be good still to use or best discarded? Read more
Providing they have been kept dry I would think they would be OK
Walking across a roundabout I spotted a wallet laying in the grass. When i opened it there was a large amount of cash & credit cards & personal family photos & a driving licence. I was un-able to trace the owner by phone & the police station had shut at 5pm. I put the address on the licence into the sat nav & drove to his house approx 30 miles away. The face & the courtesy said it all! he was absolutley gobsmacked. He rewarded me instantly with £40 for a meal for my wife & I & a bottle of red wine as well.
I had made someone a very happy chappy & I felt very good too.
Apparently he has stopped for fuel & put his grandaughter back in the car & left his wallet on the roof & then lost it at the first roundabout.
I just hope that some day should I do the same that some one would do the same for me
Tenuous link to motoring but a feelgood story nonetheless - first one to start moaning gets chopped ! :-) Read more
I haven't heard the expression for years, but my generation was brought up to believe that "honesty is the best policy".
hi all .is the audi injector pump the same as a passat ,bothe engines are engine code AFN 1.9 TDI Read more
The Bosch pumps should be interchangeable, methinks.
I test drove a 300te estate, superb except for 1 thing. The key sticks in the ignition. when u want to take the key out, you have to move the gear stick very slightly to release it! it might be something or nothing. Any thoughts on this appreciated. It a clean car with a full service history and looks cared for (100k miles)
Thanks Read more
I recently had a key problem in my W126. Suffice it to say that my mechanic turned up on my doorstep after several hours of hard work . . . with the steering column in his hand and the ignition barrel still attached to it. After just one or two starts that needed some key jiggling, it failed, and finally the key broke in the lock after further jiggling by my mechanic but no abuse. In total he had to spend more than a working day on the job; you can imagine what the bill was. If you catch it in time and don't break the key, it's more straightforward if still a bit tricky to replace the barrel.
So, I'd say to anyone experiencing the slightest ignition-key problem in an MB of that generation that it will fail very quickly and should be tackled before it does. At least the parts aren't that expensive, even though MB has doubled its key prices recently; pity those with clever-dicky electronics keys at £200+ to replace.
i have an intermittent problem with loss of power in my car which is very frustrating....i can drive fine for a few days then all of a sudden the car will judder and start to slow down and if i accelerate there is nothing there, but if i ease off the throttle it sometimes picks up power again. This will happen for a while and then i can leave the car overnight, start again in the morning and it will be fine.....i have had it looked at by a garage and an independent mechanic who can find nothing wrong. it has had a diagnostics check and has no recorded faults so as u may guess it is becoming increasingly frustrating as i have to keep being recovered from the roadside , sometimes with kids as i cannot guess when the fault is going to happen again..
any advice would be greatly appreciated.. Read more
well i bought it off a mechanic and in 1 year have had to replace the radiator, have wiring done, new clutch and now this.....alas i know nothing about cars but i do know he saw me coming lol
prompted most recently by the topic on the ABS light not working, and the fairly frequent replies along the lines of "if you do that the insurance company will refuse your claim".
I just wondered, has anybody on here actually ever had a claim refused either on some technical problem with the car or on some undisclosed modification, or for any other reason.
I haven't much experience of claims within my family in the last 10 years or more but I never got any impression that the insurance company was trying to disallow a claim.
So, is it a real problem or are we worrying too much? Read more
failed. The car was then left at the garage for repairs. Whilst at the garage
it was stolen and damaged extensively. Insurance refused to pay out as the car didn't
have a valid MOT.
I find that one difficult to believe. The value of the car may have been reduced by the cost of the MOT repairs, but it was not valueless (unless it was a £100 banger of course).
Hi all,
I recently picked up an 850 T5 estate. I'm in the process of repairing the ABS ECU (a known fault with this model- dry joints need resoldering), and consequently the ABS is disabled at the moment. I'm hoping to have it done and refitted by the weekend, but things are rather busy at the moment and that might not happen.
I'm happy pottering around locally with no ABS, but I need to take my Father-in-Law down to Cornwall from Kent on saturday, a 500 mile round trip. Now, I was thinking no problem- the brakes still work; but I got to thinking, how important is the ABS? It is a big, heavy, powerful car, designed with ABS. Am I being a wimp, or are my concerns justified?
Will it be okay in the dry, a problem in the wet?
Thanks in advance,
Alex.
PS we do have another car, but the Mrs is using it (long trip also with our son, so I won't be getting that) Read more
For info, we are taking the expedient action of fixing the ABS ECU before the car goes out on the road again. Will borrow MiL's Accord to deliver FiL to Cornwall.
If we can't fix the ABS, I assume I'm ok to drive the car to the local garage for repair? AFAIR the manual advises this as action when the light comes on. I would drive with due diligence, naturally, and wait for a dry day.
Thanks for your contributions all, most enlightening!
BW,
Alex.
nice story on today's Telegraph website about a man who found found piece of Ford Cortina windscreen embedded in his chin 30 years after the accident that put it there. He'd always thought the small lump on his chin was a harmless cyst, but was amazed when a shard of glass popped out when he cut himself shaving. Anyone beat that?
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There is a small piece of very hard carbon under the skin of the third finger of my left hand with a visible black mark. This came from the rusted exhaust tailpipe of an Austin A60 Cambridge almost 40 years ago. The second finger of my left hand has a 'flat' between the 1st and 2nd knuckles caused by the collapse of a hired engine crane lifting out the enormous heavy lump otherwise known as the engine and transmission of an Austin 1800 in the early 70's. As the great Issigonis himself said - although his own favourite design, ease of maintenance was not a factor in his thinking with that model. The cursing of exhaust fitters when they needed a new front pipe was a joy to hear. They had the bandages ready in advance. Willing BMC victim with the scars to prove it! 8 years of Maxi ownership, including 3 replaced clutch plates (always just the plate. They never wore out, just oiled up and slipped) never left a mark, so things were obviously improving as the years went on.
My missus's old Saab is on its last legs - big repairs likely to come up in the next 6 months, and because my son's now 17 and we want him to learn to drive, we're thinking of the scrappage and getting a new small-engined runabout, rather than a more direct replacement for the saab. My question is this: how important is the insurance group in the decision of which car to get? Obviously we're not going to get something in, say, Group 10, but does it make a big big difference in insurance premium if we got a Gp 4 car as against a Gp 1, where the choice is really thin? I know we're going to be paying the earth anyway just to get the lad insured on what will be, essentially, my partner's day-to-day car, but I can't see any other way round it.
Anyone got any useful experience to relate? Seems to me the wrong decisions could be quite costly... Thanks Read more
I still can't get my head round how much insurance for 17 year olds costs today. I passed my test 19 years ago at the age of 17 and very soon after bought my own car. My insurance premiums have been around the £250-£300 mark every year since, varying between TPFT and fully comp according to the value of my car at the time. Had a couple of minor bumps in my mid-20s, been rear-ended 4 times in total. I've mostly had 1.6 or 1.8 Cavaliers/Sierra/Mondeo/406 size cars. Currently driving a 1.8 Escort (gp 11), premium £285 fully comp.
Luckily my eldest is still half a dozen years off learning to drive...
Dave TD
Browse
Yes, and a good one. His (Hancock's) mate Sid did a bit of boxing didn't he? :-)
JH