What are the legals to using your mobile in the car with either handsfree,bluetooth etc? Read more

Driving home last night and went to change gear, the clutch pedal suddeenly seemed a lot heavier and very reluctant to return. Slipping my foot under the pedal to get it to come back up provoked amuffled click or crack from somewhere, but the pedal still feels very heavy.

A quick look around the pedal box area when I got home shows nothing obviously amiss - I was expecting to see a return spring hanging down or something.
Any ideas anyone ? Read more

In my work i visit various docks collecting imported vehicles and delivering new for export-the balance as expected.

I'm seeing ever increasing volumes of decent looking used vehicles waiting at the quaysides to be exported.
Ranging from Mondeo's to Volvos' to Landcruisers and Shoguns etc...say P reg to 02 ish.
Not so many small cars.

Are used buyers including dealers noticing a shortage of decent *sizeable* used cars and will this outflow affect supply in a big way i wonder. Read more

OK, so I was turning right onto a main road today (Green Lanes in London). Good visibility and not too busy, but a lack of gaps on both sides of the road at the same time, fair queue gathering behind me.

So, with a good gap from my right and a gap coming up from the left, I pull across so that I am over the lane with the front of my car touching the middle line.

The last car goes past from the left so I start to turn into the lane, when a guy coming from the right decides to cross over the carriageway and cross in front of me (would have smacked into me doing at least the, 30 mph, speed limit) followed my a woman (speaking on a mobile). Luckily I had not started moving quickly, and was able to stop.

Now, arguably I had pulled over the carriageway so as to block the traffic, but if he had slowed down just slightly I could have easily cleared the lane and he could then easily have passed behind me (when I initially pulled out he was a good way down the road).

My observation of other drivers is that getting out into the first lane is fairly common, or it is almost impossible to get out (I have often seen people completely blocking lanes and holding up a queue of cars), and get honked if I don't pull out.

I have tried edging out onto the same road, but they just come blasting past in front of me anyway. But when I am right across, it seems that they will cross the carriageway to get in front of me anyway.

From a legal point of view, perhaps I would strictly have been at fault for blocking the traffic coming from the right (albeit just causing them to marginally slow down), but those drivers surely don't have the right to go onto the other carriageway just to get past me (it didn't seem to be an evasive manoever, and they should have seen me from a long way out).

Legalities aside, does it sound as if my actions were unreasonable? Does it sound as if the other drivers' actions were reasonable? (of course, you only have my description to go on, but I think it is fairly accurate).

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When my 99 Mazda seriously overheated, I was advised by a Mazda main dealer to write it off. Took it to a smaller (recommended) garage for a second opinion. He too wrote in a report "uneconomical to repair". I suggested he look for a used engine. He claimed he couldn't find one. Finally he inspected it again, said all would be fine with a new head gasket, though becuase of the delay sitting on his forecourt, everything else would need to be done. But then, he said, it would be "like new". I agreed. Hefty bill of £3,042. But I had a "new" car. Less than 2000 miles (6 months and 2 days) later the engine was in meltdown on the M5. AA said take it to the tip. Molten bits of metal falling out of it. The AA man was staggered, said he'd assumed I'd run out of petrol. "MX-5 engines never go wrong," he said... Towed to a main dealer (different one) who agreed to take it in part exchange for another MX5. (I needed a car desperately.) They gave me only £500 for it...
Before this I had obviously spoken (initially via email) to the offending garage but the Main Man, said Tough. Everything we did was fine. It must have been something else wrong.

Do I have any claim against the garage. It may be that everything they did was "right". But surely, if you're going to ask your customer to spend over £3,000 on a car which you had already said was unecomical to repair, then you have a duty of care to check that you've diagnosed the original fault correctly and are not putting icing on a rotten cake?

Anyone any ideas or advice as to where I stand on this? They obviously have negligence insurance -- should this be my route?

I'd be very grateful for any help anyone can give me. I'm not someone who tinkers around with cars. I get my car serviced regularly, fill it with petrol, and keep an eye on the dials and so on. Basically I need to be able to trust a garage to tell me what's wrong and then put it right.

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