I bought a new mondeo march 2008. I noticed after a few weeks it had a missfire between 1100 and 1200 rpm, the car has been back to main dealers between 10 and 12 times to be re programmed on the computer, during this time ford technical took up the case and kept telling me to go back to the main dealers to try again.
To cut a long story short ford technical now say they have checked many 1.8 tdci cars out and they all have the same problem and say they cant do anything about it its just a characteristic of the vehicle.can anybody advise what I can do now.
Thanks
Mark

Wavering between putting this in Tech or leaving it here... Read more

A couple of days ago my neighbour asked if I could run him down to Scarborough from Sunderland to look at a car, on private sale, for his son. "OK", I said, but it turned out that we had to set out at 6am this morning (Sunday). Something to do with the vendor of the car needing to get to play football.
My alarm went at 5.30 am, just in time to prevent me from entering a Bruce Forsyth game show wearing only my pyjamas (in my dream, I must add).
So, we set off in darkness at 6am, surprising how many other cars were on the road at that time on a Sunday morning. However, we had a lovely run, chugging along at well below the speed limits and seeing so much of the Yorkshire Moors and the lovely town of Whitby in the emerging daylight. Sometimes it was a bit misty but generally bright weather. We drove through real "Heartbeat" country and I almost wished we'd been in my neighbour's Morris Minor rather than my Panda.
Got to the house of the car vendor almost dead on 8am. Nice bloke, made me a coffee, though in a "Grumpy from the 7 Dwarves" mug, must have detected my mood. The car on sale was a BMW 3 series hatchback in really nice condition for its age, 1980 I think, and miles, 130,000, again I think. But then it only cost £450 and drove faultlessly back to Sunderland.
We stopped for a huge breakfast at the Flask Cafe on the moors and "admired" a LHD Smart and a BMW C1 city scooter parked up there.
I think we only saw the sea a couple of times but the beautiful villages we drove through and the moorland scenery more than made up for that omission.
The downside to this tale, poor young Steve, who is to drive the BMW, when he gets his licence, will have to pay £3000 insurance, on a £450 car. Good job he's honest or there would be another uninsured driver on the roads.
Makes it good to be alive, doesn't it?
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Guys,

I've got a Grade 'C' rental car from Hertz, a Fiat Bravo and it's front tyres are getting quite low (approx 2mm). I'll probably have a rental car for another month, maybe longer and I'm interested to know what cars Hertz have given out as Grade 'C' cars if I ask for an exchange.

The official website lists a 1.6 Focus but it might be a case of keeping the devil you know.

This Bravo is a 1.9 diesel so really economical and also reasonably well equipped (cruise, rear parking sensors, USB stick for my music and a bluetooth connection for my mobile phone). It does handly quite poorly in my opinion though, is quite noisy and also it is quite a tight fit inside.

So, if you have had a grade C car from Hertz recently, can you let me know what you got.

Thanks Read more

My Vectra 2.0di has been playing up a bit lately and it seems to have a mind of its own when it wants to do it, sometimes after starting it loses power at around 3000 revs however if i stop and wait and get back in it and try again it goes fine, broke down the other night and called the recovery company, but thought I would try it and it started fine and I used it that night and all was good, tried using it this morning and the same again, it chugs badly at about 3000 revs. I have left it now but I was wondering if anyone else had an experience of this? Is it a sensor thats what i have been told, basically skint so dont want a big bill.

Wierd but it only started doing this on the way back from the MOT centre where it passed a few weeks ago?????

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Just a bit of a rant really.

I am not sure what possessed me to go to this particular national tyre chain to get a puncture mended (I realise that we are not allowed to name and shame - a pity). Anyway, having been told that the price of a new 215/55 17 was £170 plus £10 for something or other I decided to get it repaired. "that will be 15 minutes sir" so I trotted off with my little boy. Came back expecting all to be fine and dandy, to be shown the tyre with a whole lot of froth on the side wall and the guy saying that because it was side wall etc etc etc. Found that very strange as the puncture was from a nail. in the normal place (ie middle not sidewall)

Anyway. Nipped round the corner to where I had intended to go to in the first place. They say, oh yes can be mended no probs. I did mention that they had said leak in the sidewall. Mended it. Put it on. Cleaned off the tire, and see the leak on the side wall. Straight away they say - that's been stabbed.

Got me going a bit, so I made a quick call to the national tyre chain, politely (!!!!!) explaining that I didn't appreciate what they had done. The chap who answered the telephone, giving him his due, didn't try and deny and just kept quiet.

Rant finished, but should I take this further? CEO of the company? Trading standards? I realise that it will come down to hearsay (and I did start my quick call with the people who stabbed it by saying that I know that I couldn't prove it).

I suppose that this is also a warning to hang around to keep an eye out on these nefarious chains.

Thanks for bearing with me! I feel better now.

Attempt to name the company with a clue removed, Rob (Moderator) Read more