After my first long and tedious cross country drive in the dark, I?m thinking of upgrading the headlight bulbs with standard wattage but brighter/whiter beams.
I assume the bulbs in my Octavia facelift model, are still H1 and H7, but what are currently recommended in that format? I fitted Osram 50% brighter to my old Passat and was satisfied with them.
Think Autoexpress used to do an annual test.
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Not posted for long, long while, but infuriating problem with what would appear to be the brakes on my very late 55 plate (i.e., 06 model year) Mondeo TDCi hatch leaves me hoping someone in the backroom might have an answer.

The car goes to my local spannerman for servicing and had new rear pads back in May. Brakes started squealing shortly afterwards and garage agreed to replace them FOC as they 'had a bad batch'. The noise didn't go away and the pads have been replaced a further three times (all FOC) in an attempt to cure. The noise still didn't go, so the rear discs were replaced (at cost). Fair dinkum - when I saw the ones taken off, they had lost their shine on the outer edge of the disc, so pads could have been scraping against an uneven, abrasive surface. But the noise STILL didn't go with the new brakes...

As I write the car is back there, they've taken the rear brake assembly apart and cleaned it. Doesn't appear to be anything wrong anywhere - no evidence that pads aren't retracting, they say.

Before I go back to collect has anyone got any additional advice on what it might be? It's a high frequency squeal, usually happens when you brake, but can sometimes also be heard when you are simply driving along. I didn't think it would be a bearing as all the bearing noise I've heard in the past has been low frequency rumble, and this happens most often when you brake.

I'm lost for what to do next... Read more

I'm looking for a s/h small 4x4 or standard car with very good ground clearance - the speedbumps have cracked my exhaust once too often.

I like the look of either the Daihatsu Terios or the Suzuki Jimny as they are both cutish, high, but small enough not to incur too much ire from those against 4x4s.

I only need a car big enough for 2 with the occassional extra passenger so don't want and can't afford a bigger car. It won't be going off-road much and needs to be under £3k.

Has anyone any experience of either of these two or any other recommendations? Read more

Posting this on behalf of my sister, who has an LGV license and regularly drives 7.5 tonne and larger horse boxes.

Driving a 7.5 tonne box last night she suffered a punctured rear tyre. Pulled into services and called recovery firm who brought and fitted new tyre. Received a stern ticking off from them after they checked the tyre pressures on the other rear wheels, all of which were down to about 30 psi.

However, she doesn't know* where to look to find out what the correct pressures should be. The tyre fitter didn't know exactly (put 80 psi in which seemed about right to me), but it seems to be a bit of a grey area.

Anyone know the correct place to look?




* Sister gained license on one-week government funded training course. I was (and remain) exceptionally sceptical of the quality of the drivers going through this course if they don't know:

(a) to check tyre pressures on an LGV regularly and
(b) roughly what those pressures should be.

** Why isn't there a "misc" category for make/model?


{Re:- your 'misc' question, the sticky post When Posting A New Question To Technical Matters that tells you how to post to Technical Matters when the make/model drop down menu doesn't have what you're looking for} Read more

the washer pump is not working but the wipers are, im told they run off the same fuse so i need to change the pump. It is a cannister approx 10' tall, located under the o/s/f wheel mudflap i think? Is this easy to change, and why does it look different and much bigger than all the pics of washer pumps on ebay? Read more