November 2009

spanface

Any advice please my car started fine until the other day, i turned on the ignition glow plug light went out tried to start it nothing at all there so i switched the ignition off then tried again but now i have no oil light, battery light, and no glow plug light, theres nothing there at all but my head lights and hazards lights work ok (very bright so not the battery) we have had alot of rain recently so wondering if water got in some were any help would be apreciated thanks Read more

spanface

The ignition switch was second hand, and there was nothing else working everything just the same! i will check the fuses in the engine bay box when i get some day light its getting worse my demisters have stopped working and my interier clock is going hay wire. but thought this could be with me wireing it all the time to start it anyway thanks for your suggestions guys!!!

henry k

"The 33-year-old world number one pulled out of his driveway, struck a fire hydrant, then drove into a tree at his neighbour's property, said the Florida Highway Patrol.

Woods was treated in hospital for facial lacerations and later discharged, said Gary Bruhn, Mayor of Windermere, Florida.
"Airbags typically do not deploy if a vehicle is travelling at less than 33mph,

A spokesman for the Florida Highway Patrol said the golfing superstar was driving a 2009 Cadillac sport utility vehicle and the crash was not alcohol-related."

Latest reports from his agent " TW is fine"

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henry k

Veery interesting!

So it was not two dings but four.

A sod got involved too. $200 for it and the tree.

How does that paperwork compare with the UK paperwork?

ifithelps

Any pics, reflections, rants or stories about roadside art?

I'll kick the thread off with a roadside statue which, despite a shaky start, has come to be well-liked by many people in my part of the world.

tinyurl.com/2cjucq



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mike hannon

Sorry for the wind-up Lud, couldn't resist it. They are very different animals - the carnivals that is, not the camels.
The Bridgwater pong came from the huge manufacturing plant of British Cellophane, on the eastern side of the town, close to the M5. Both the plant and the pong are now history.
The firm was set up in the early 1930s with government backing, to provide jobs for a suitable area where an existing industry was in decline. Bridgwater presented the best case for the plant, to replace, in part, its fast-fading brick and tile industry.
The pong was a fact of life for decades and resisted all attempts to eradicate it. The 'plume' normally spread eastwards on the prevailing wind but if the breeze was from the east the whole town smelled it. It didn't stop me considering once buying a house close to the factory and I worked in the town for some years without any apparent ill-effects. The MD of what by then had become British Celanese, or something like that, once told me the smelly element of the cellophane-making process, involving boiling down eucalyptus trees, is so potent that something like one part in ten million parts of air is enough to be offensive.
He was - rightly - highly defensive of cellophane, it is bio-degradable while modern plastic substitutes often aren't, and very suitable for food packaging because it doesn't try to regain its original shape when used for things like sweet wrappings - Werther's Original was a big customer - not to mention for making the original 'Sellotape'. Oh, and (motoring link) he had a very nice early E-type!
There you are, all you need to know. I should be writing for wackypedia.

Altea Ego

According to Brittania Rescue

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8382506.stm

Gravelly Hill (Spaghetti Junction), Birmingham
M8 junctions through central Glasgow
Marble Arch, London
Magic Roundabout, Swindon, Wiltshire
Hanger Lane Gyratory, west London
M5/M6 intersection, Birmingham
Piccadilly Circus, London
Five Ways junction, Birmingham
Magic Roundabout, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire
Kingston Bridge, Glasgow
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Altea Ego

Marble arch is easy. Just aim for a black cab - he will avoid you.

Rattle

My Corsa is actually pretty good for this and the rear screen heater clears in about 1 minute which is very impressive. However sometimes the windscreen still mysts up a little bit, mainly when I have cleared it, gone to a job, got back into the car and it mysts it is only slight but enough to be ilegal to drive until I clear it.

I leave the heating setting on dimist even when the ignition is off, I assume this makes the problem worse? Read more

oilrag

Dig the pollen filter out and bin it Rattle. What`s `motoring` without a bit of leaf or the odd wasp coming in through the vents? ;-)

DezSport

I have never had this problem with any of my cars, so it has puzzled me

I recently took the old battery out of my 205 as it was dead, and replaced it with a brand new one, the problem came when I connected the negative lead to the battery... as soon as I did, a crackling sound came from the front left of the engine bay, then smoke started coming out of the part that is on the right hand side that had a belt around it and what looks to be a fan inside the casing

I have no idea what the part is called, but it is the only thing connected to the radiator with a belt on that side of the engine Bay
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Peter.N.

I would agree, there is a lot to be said for older cars, if it had been a modern one it could well have written it off.

ams08

Hi i was driving to work last night when my car made a pher noise then lost power.i have all my lights etc but my car will not turn over at all.we thought it may have run out of petrol but have stuck some in and nothing.
any ideas to what it may be?have tried jump leads and nothing
would be very grateful for any help or advice
thanks in advance Read more

bell boy

i had a car once that made the pher noise
jack douglas was the previous owner-----------
i also saw a cowboy mechanic hammer the valves straight on renaults finest last month
it lasted a week before it got towed in again
this car needs the services of a mech that can confirm your belt has gone and wrecked the top of the engine,(very common at this age) and then you yes you the OP can decide whether repair or scrap is the way forward
i recommend a good s/h head all the shennanigans the belt runs on and then antifreeze etc
its going to cost in the region 0f 3 to 4 big ones depending where you live
might be better giving it to china of course and get the bus till reserves of cash put you back in the driving seat
good luck tally ho and dont forget to cash the road tax in and get a destruction certificate for the old beast so the dvla who now do tours apparently dont come chasing you with fines for cars you no longer love

message ends...........

Plex

Hi my 1998 2.0 16v automatic gls vectra b has a sport drive button on the top of the gear stick, until now it has worked fine and has always shown a small orange light on the dash indicating its in use, and you certainly know when your in sport mode as the gears do not change so quickly as in normal drive.
For some reason the indicator is not showing up on the dash no more and the sport drive seems totally inactive, ive looked for blown fuses but they are all fine. even my local mechanic didn't know and there seems to be no other posts here of this freak problem, any help would great. P.S it has never been thrashed about even though the cars 11 years old next month it only has 79,000 on the clock.
thanks Read more

Blue {P}

I was driving along Burdon Lane earlier tonight (for the one or two that know it it's an unmarked and unlit NSL country road in an urban area, basically a death trap) and saw what I thought was two foxes in front of me but I quickly realised that they weren't darting into the bushes like they normally would.

I soon realised they were actually two Yorkshire Terriers, no collars, clearly abandoned alone in the cold. Stuck the hazards on and rang my brother who fetched the van up, I managed to catch one that was quite scared (she cowered when I got near) and we duly loaded her in the back, the other one however started to cause traffic chaos. With my car blocking one part of the road for safety other motorists all slowed to a crawl to make sure they didn't hit us or the dog.

Gave the Police a ring as I could see the situation wasn't the best one to be in and lo and behold, they actually attended, must have been a quiet night as at the peak they had 4 or 5 Police cars blocking off the road whilst chasing the one that got away! I would have left sooner except at one point the snappy one took residence under my warm engine block! :-)

Anyway, in the end my brother took the one that we caught home and about an hour later a pet taxi turned up to take her to the kennels after stopping to catch the one that was still on the loose.

Unfortunately one other dog had already been mown down by a car, but at least we saved the other two and possibly prevented a fatal RTC (when cars swerve on that road it often ends up with a trip to the undertakers).

Result! :-)
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Lud

No offence cheddar, but long before I was old enough to drive it had been represented to me that to risk an accident to a human being, or even a car, in order to avoid harming an animal was a fundamental mistake.

BobbyG

Interesting program re the Stobart company on ITV4 just now which reminds me, I keep meaning to ask the truckers on here, what is the viewpoint of Stobart amongst the other truckers?

Are they the elite that they try and portray with their collar and tie drivers or are they much of a muchness? Read more

jc2

Ed Stobart said that leasing not only reduced his capital expenditure but in the case of accident/breakdown,one phone call got him an immediate replacement-also no time off the road for repairs/servicing and always an up to date fleet.Many other companies were in the market for ex "Eddie Stobart" contract vehicles.