August 2009
Cruising down the M3 yesterday with SWMBO driving. I saw this lump of debris --bit of lorry tyre or a mudflap--fly through the air towards us at a great rate of knots, it hits the front of the car with a thump causing three small dents in a line and taking some paint too. I am quoted £400 to fix it which is below my excess figure. I can't see how three little dents come to that price so i will live with the dents and have touched in the paint. Read more
Trying to get rid of spurious traffic announcements from distant stations.
I found an adjust menu to allow 'Automatic' or ' Fixed' traffic reports.
Anyone else with a recent Skoda sorted this?
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Take the aerial off?
When I put my indicators on they work outwardly okay every time but I often do not get the audible click-click feedback sound, only the lights on the dash.
It is very intermittent sometimes going days or journeys working correctly sometimes not and so on.
On old cars you can usually find a flasher unit that makes this noise and replace it, but I cant find the equivalent on the circuit diagram for this car in the Haynes manual, nor does it mention such a thing.
Anyone out there know where it is or what makes the clicking sound on this car?
The sound seem to come from behind the instrument panel somewhere.
( By the way, I get an ocassional fault with the speedo needle dropping to zero for a few seconds, which may be related? e.g bad connections to the instrument panel?) Read more
I had exactly the same problem on my 1998 406 2.0 GLX estate.
I changed the instrument panel for a used one I bought on Ebay - this fixed the dials reading zero problem but the flasher problem came back & is still there intermittently like before....
I am no science expert but I know the basics of physics. and the laws of energy transfer.
Put simply if the engine cuts out at each lights surely it will need at least all the energy it saved if not more to turn over the engine again? I am missing something? Read more
If the start stop technology is fitted, can it be turned off?
Please say yes!
While looking on the Beru website, I found this interesting newish development;
www.beru.com/download/produkte/fachvortrag_psg_e.p...f
The glow plug acts as a pressure sensor, and provides a feedback signal to the ECU, allowing better combustion.
Apparently they are to be fitted to the Insignia's 2 litre bi-turbo CDTi engine, and VW are already using it.
Being a Luddite for a moment, I bet they aren't going to be cheap to replace when they burn out!
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NC's right, these newer type of Glow Plug will be more expensive than existing types. The additional technology is required to reduce emissions, especially NOx, is a requirement for Euro VI diesel engines, although other solutions are or being investigated in R&D.
To remove an existing Glow Plug it's advisible to use penetrating lubricant around the plugs threads prior to attempting to remove it. If it's stuck in then leaving it to soak for up to 2 days often helps.
Testing glow plugs can be done with them still installed in the engine. Disconnect the wire going to each glow plug, then connect a test light to the positive + battery terminal and touch the point of the test light to each glow plug terminal. Light on is good, light off is bad and plugs need replacing.
When correctly tightened there shouldn't be a problem getting a plug out when/if required to do so, however, an aluminum head & steel Glow Plug combination don't help matters.
I've just taken ownership of a high miler 300C with the 3.0 diesel (is this a mercedes diesel?).
unfortunately it has suddenly died on me. I now get a warning symbol 'Electronic Throttle Control' fault. And i cannot restart the engine.
After a few phone calls i understand this to be a common fault but does anybody here know the fix to get it started again? either short term or long term.
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What is that wiring loom for on the inner wing?
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cheers, i'll have a read later.
Do modern turbo diesels suffer bad economy if driven below full turbo boost for long motorway speeds ?
I recently drove to Birmingham and back and I am sure that I used more fuel driving at 60mph than at 70mph.
My reason for thinking is this :-
Driving to Birmingham had heavy traffic so could only drive at 60mph, the engine speed was 2,000rpm (just within turbo boost)
The return journey was driven 70mph the engine speed was 2,400rpm so this was well within the full boost of the turbo.
I could be wrong for thinking this but I think driving slower does NOT always mean better mpg. Read more
A lot of confusion between engine efficiency and fuel efficiency.
Generally lower RPM = better fuel efficiency but it is VERY important not to run too low. Between 1.5k and 1.8k RPM gives me the best economy on my toyota 2.2 180bhp engine.
An extended fair test over a hilly dual carriageway confirmed the following
@ 60mph with cruise control
4th = 41.6mpg / 2.6k RPM
5th = 46.3 mpg / 2k RPM
6th = 51mpg / 1.6k RPM
Running too low can actually use more fuel as the engine over fuels to try and generate enough power to keep the mass moving.
So you now know what RPM gives the best fuel economy, you have to get up to speed first. This is where engine efficiency comes in. What you need to do is work out when your engine is going to produce enough power for the least amount of fuel used.
You want to change gear whilst the engine's mean piston speed reaches 1200-1500. This is when the engine is running low frictional horsepower loss and high volumetric efficiency. In other words, working most efficiently and is the very best range to accelerate in as the engine generates power for the least amount of fuel that is used. I worked this out as a measure of RPM*engine stroke length(inches)/6. Which on the t180 works out at 2k RPM to 2.5k RPM, as the range to accelerate and shift in.
Another important factor especially with VNT diesel engines is to accelerate as smoothly as possible to ovoid over fuelling. Even better if you do it within the engines mean pistol speed band. Thats why i like to sit just under the band at about 1.7 / 1.8k RPM if i know i have to accelerate.
The only thing i can think that would make 60mph worse on MPG is if you were in 5th at higher RPM's or you had a head wind or going gradually uphill. OR as i said before you were in 6th at such a low RPM that the car was injecting more fuel because it was labouring.
Can anyone help with this?
Sudden loss of power accompanied by coil glowplug warning light coming on. AA could not identify the fault, so recovered to Honda main dealer. No diagnostic code - they checked the fuel system and replaced the diesel filter (which was in back to front), checked (but did not dismantle) the exhaust / cat and then tried a replacement ECU. Nothing found - they said it was OK to drive home but the fault would recur - and it has. Will not rev above 2,000 and there is some sort of power limiter which means the speed dies away on an up-slope. The car has not been misfuelled
Any ideas as to what this could be? What to try next.....
{header corrected, as OP confirmed it was the glowplug light and not the coil warning light - DD} Read more
Sounds exactly like what happened to me when my EGR went. They are expensive, so Honda tried everything else under the sun first (was under warranty). Replacing the EGR fixed it completely, and new software (there was a TSB apparently) has so far stopped it recurring (50k miles since the change).
Just looking for a few comments on wether this is a good deal or not. Been offered a Ford Focus Zetec 1.6 TDCI - 06/2006 with 70,000 miles for £5350. The car was an ex-government car, probably not a patrol car as it's silver. It has been registered since November 2006 and since then had five Ford services. It is guaranteed against rust until Nov 2011 under a Ford warranty. The garage offer a three month guarantee and an MOT, if anything goes wrong they'll fix it I'm told, with no exceptions.
The garage say they buy them in bulk and so look to make quick high volume of sales with the cars, hence the low price.
I know the high mileage young car is well discussed and I think I probably take the side of a car with high miles and low years by default must have hit the majority of them on the motorway which is good news for the engine. What about the clutch though, likely to run out any time soon? How much is it going to cost me to get the cam belt replaced when it reaches 100k miles.
Anything I am missing, please point it out. Any advice, constructive comments would be very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Mark Read more
This seems very expensive.
Browse
About 10 years ago I was driving to Frankfurt airport late evening. I was late for my flight so was driving the rented Mondeo foot to the floor, despite the rubbish headlights which only hinted at what was in front.
In the faint yellowy glow in front of me I suddenly saw something that looked like a block of concrete on the road but it was too late to brake or steer, so I drove over it. There was an almighty bang and I pulled over onto the hard shoulder to check the damage. Part of the underside of the front bumper was missing, there was a huge dent in the offside sill and both offside wheels were buckled.
I weighed up the consequences of calling a breakdown service and missing my flight against the risk of driving on. I decided to drive on as I only had a few KMs left. The steering was shaking like hell and the car was difficult to steer in a straight line but I made it to the airport. When I gave the car back I explained what had happened and showed them the damage. Oddly, I never received a repair bill and never heard anything else about it.