January 2010
I am no dum dum but have a "glitch" with warning light. Car seviced 3 weeks ago and all was fine. On latest journey after 5 miles or so the light flickers on and off, I pull over swtch off and check level, coolant for oil, oil spater exesive exhaust smoke all ok. Continue and light off then after 15 miles on and stays on. Took advice from ameture fitter to keep eye on everything.
Now the light STAYS on, engine sounds fine no pinking or knocking and oil is getting to top of engine, The light is now NOT on when ignition sequence test occours but sometimes on during a journey. Am I looking at a faulty switch or worse, or am I just thick. All and any advice please. Read more
the plastic bit with your mush on
can anyone tell me what is the use of this other than a revenue puller?
you cant hire a car with it
you cant use it as a legal proof
its not accepted anywhere on its own
worthless govt rubbish
please advise im wrong Read more
One slightly obscure use: if you use campsites in France (especially the excellent Municipal ones), you'll usually be asked for your Carte D'identite or an International Camping Carnet when you try to check-in. This seems to have become more common in the last couple of years. Your UK passport won't do, as it's proof of address they are after. The more jobsworth the manager, the more insistent they are. Happily, a UK photo licence will do nicely, as it does include your address.
I can't quite believe I have done this....
It's not the fact that I have bought a car blind (I did that with the Outback and I was very happy) but that I have actually swapped the Outback for a Volvo XC90 D5 SE.
Last weekend was a bit of a last straw moment. We went out with the children and a friend or two and had to take both cars. A bit silly, especially as the destinations were only two or three miles away. However SWMBO had been complaining almost since I bought the car that there was very little legroom in the back seat and it was more comfortable to go out five handed in the A-class than my car, the children are getting bigger and I need a car capable of taking five of us with luggage or seven people in relative comfort.
So we gave the matter a lot of thought. We knew that we wanted a seven seater and as it was going to be my car, my wife decided I was not going to drive an MPV but a 4x4 as it suited her image of me better [sigh]!. Actually I was very happy with that decision, but it left a conundrum. I don't wan't an Audi Q7 (ugly and too expensive), I can't afford a seven seat BMW X5 (do they make them?), the Mercedes ML did do a seven seat model in the Mk1 version but it was a dog to drive and I will not have a Jeep under any circumstances. That left talking either Japanese or Volvo. The Japanese (Shogun, Landcruiser, Navarra etc) were good value but after an Outback rather basic inside, slow and uneconomical and I wanted the appeal of a comfortable car. So Volvo it was. There are a lot for sale, but I really want in-built SatNav and the Winter Pack so it reduced my choice somewhat.
Eventually I found what appears to be the ideal car. I decided that I would be better off looking for a young high mileage specimen rather than a five year old school run car. I found, at a Volvo dealer, a 78,000 miles D5 example that is not yet three years old (it will be in March). With all the kit I want and nothing I don't need. The beauty is that the dealer selling it, sold it to the owner, serviced it from new and have just sold him another XC90 - his third. So he obviously has had good service and with my paltry 9,000 miles pa, I won't be putting too much extra stress on what I assume is a well run in engine.
Price - well I could have bought a two year older slightly higher spec car with less miles for more than I paid and I got a decent price for the Outback. I will be sorry to see it go.
My only dilemma is the Comms Pack. I need to insert the SIM card into the car to make the phone work. This is a bit of a pain. I thought about getting a second number and diverting all calls form one to the other (its free on my mobile account) but can't quite work out how to make it work efficiently. Any ideas?
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You 'don't trust the Captiva'?
An odd thing for you to say, since you've just dropped considerably more than the street price of a 7 seat Cappie on a high mileage Volvo that you are now thinking of selling!
Perhaps it would be best to give those instincts of yours a miss during your next purchasing foray?
I cam only repeat that after 20K miles, I have found the Captiva an excellent family car, a first rate caravan tow car - and, perhaps most importantly, a 100% reliable car.
For £16,000 (haggle price) with 7 seats, 3 year warranty, and a 60,000 mile service package chucked in, I'm more than happy.
I certainly 'trust' it!
My friend owns a 1996 'P' plate Nissan Micra, which has done just over 100,000 miles. She is thinking of getting rid of it to save money. The car is slightly battered, but has been reliable and it is a fairly high-spec 1.3 GX model with an airbag and power steering.
She rekons no-one will want it and wants to scrap it, but has only been offered £30 for it, is this a realistic scrappage price?
If it is scrappped how much can you realistically strip off the car before it goes? (she has already removed the CD player)
I rekon she should stick it on eBay listing the faults, but i feel a lack of MOT will put buyers off, is this a realistic option? Read more
No...i think this is not the realistic price for scapping a car and we can't decide the scrap car value without analyzing it. So better you contact some other car scrap dealer who can give you somewhat more than this.
Is it unreasonable to ask for proof a vehicle has been repaired before handing over the cash?
The reason I ask is I damaged a hire vehicle, returned it and held my hand up straight away.
I am not trying to wriggle or squirm out of paying for damage which I have done.
Photographs were taken there and then in my presence while returning the vehicle however, two requests for proof of repair have been ignored. If they can take photos on return why can a quick video not be shot showing reg plate, vin number then a walk around showing the repair ? Not on a mobile phone I hasten to add.
How do I know the hire company have actually repaired the vehicle or more to the point
not dumped it at auction still with the damage?
Are all hire vehicles at the end of life sold in pristine condition?
This then makes me wonder how you would know if a car had been in an accident requiring a total body reshell if the hire company themselves underwrite the insurance policy?
Would this show up on any HPi check ? Read more
I can remember years ago dealing with a hire drive company who had their own in house repair shop and part of their terms and conditions were all repairs were carried out by them. On one occasion it would have been cheaper to get the repair done at the main dealers as I had obtained 2 quotes prior to informing them of the damage but they had to do the work and my insurance was happy to pay their fees as it was part of their t&c's.
I've just carried out an HPi check on a car I was intending to buy at a big auction tomorrow. It's a finance repo and it's showing as owing finance still which I guess is understandable until the finance co receive the funds.
More worryingly though, it is also coming up as being recorded on the 'Security Register' - I hadn't even heard of this before but apparently car rental firms put their own cars on there to stop them being offered for sale illegally.
The car I am interested in is nearly 10 years old though so I have no idea why it would be on the HPi Security Register - do you think it could be an admin error?
I'd greatly appreciate any advice/whether anyone else has had a car on this register.
Do some finance companies put their cars on the Security Register and take them off once the finance is paid? I would have thought this unnecessary as the car will always show up as owing finance so there's no need to put it on the Security Register too.
I've got so fed up with buying cars at auction that show up on finance/mileage discrepancies that I HPi them before buying them now! Once you buy at the auction, there's never any comeback as they will just say it's an admin error on Hpi's part and it's up to me to sort it.
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Many thanks for the reply. I contacted HPi who said that the registering party should contact me within an hour but I didn't hear from them. I've decided against bidding for the car tomorrow, I've spent far too long in the past trying to get HPi to remove mileage discrepancies that were reported in error so I can do without the stress of buying something on the Security Watch register.
I even once tried to sell a car after owning it a year only to lose the sale as it was showing finance on HPi that was actually paid off in full 18mths before! Sometimes I wonder just how many cars are really offered for sale with finance owing, I'd bet that the vast majority have been paid off but are showing as owing finance incorrectly. 1 in 3 cars may well come up with a problem on the HPi register but I bet 9 out of 10 are only on it as HPi hasn't updated the register.
Hello kind people.
I recently purchased the above model but decided the headlights were next to no use as I live in the countryside.
As a result I have upgraded the lamps in my headlights to some higher wattage ones (yes they are illegal, but only if I get caught) My problem is that intermittently the nearside headlight will come on (the car has an auto light setting) then it immediatly fades out. If I play around a little turning lights on and off ETC the lights come on and funtion as normal. I have checked the lamp is secure in the fitting and due to the difficulty in accessing the lamps on this car Im averse to having to keep changing the lamps back (especially as the standard legal lamps are so poor) so would ask if anyone here can offer a solution? It may be a relay or similar and if it is can I (totally inept mechanically and electrically) change this?
Thanks in advance Read more
hindsight is a wonderful thing but why did you not specify the zenon's as standard , It will be the canbus system mucking the lights about or vice versa, we recently had a car in that had a light upgrade (HID's) vauxhall asked us to not touch the vehicle untill the original lights had been reinstated and thats what the owner had to do even though it was not the cause of the problem,s Regards TB
I had a communications pack supplied with my new Focus a couple of months ago. The car is great, but the satnav is not as good as a previously-owned Garmin Nuvi,
Today I tried entering a valid postcode, but was not offered a choice of letters/numbers beyond the third position by the satnav- it had the next number in the sequence greyed-out. I re-checked the postcode to find that I had not made a mistake in my entires, and the address I needed was in existence well before the Focus was even a twinkle in its designer's eye.
Has anyone experienced this type of problem, and have they overcome it?
How do I update the satnav data (using an SD card), - and is up-to-date data expensive??
By the way, the user manual supplied does not cover the communications pack. Luckily, most of its functions are intuitive.
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....Granted they are neater in the car but they usually cost an arm and a leg to upgrade......
Reckon you're right about "upgrades". Looks like the same kind of situation when buying a printer. Cost (new) of printer + ink cartidge= £30, new ink cartidge = £26.>>
Hi everyone,
I recently took my car in for a MOT and I was told all my pads needed replacing. I had recently had them done so I questioned them concerning this and they went on and passed the test but told me "they may need replacing soon" I knew this was a lie but became very suspicious when my brakes started screaming the moment I left the garage. I suspected they may have changed one of the pads on the rear side for a worn one.
I am not a mechanic so waited until I could afford to have them replaced elsewhere and sure enough, the rear left brake pad was completely worn while the other pad was fine.
The advice I need is - what anybody recommends I should do to get compensation 'before' taking legal action which is a pain. I have the old brake shoes and verbal confirmation from the recent garage of the fraud. I intend to phone them first but need some advice.
locality of garage makes no difference to the OP's request for advice - PU Mod.
Thanks! Read more
That said - I can remember Auntie Ethel and uncle Bill, looking with dismay at the battery in their pre war Austin.
It was not the SAME - you see. Memory precludes whether it was a dopple-ganger of the original with dead flies in different positions - or bold as brass, with a different name on the side..
But they considered they had been rolled over and that some grubby little mechanic was jumping up and down in glee - in that little garage on the way to Bridlington.
He was lucky really that old Uncle Bill didn`t blow his fuse because he was a trained killer from the war and still twitching in his sleep and feeling for an imaginary Commando knife.
Auntie Ethel knew when to slip out of the bedroom at night - and of course none of us kids went within 50 yards of him if he nodded off in his chair.
Hi
seem to be living on this forum at the moment! my micra has keyless entry and last night i got locked out of it and had to get RAC out as didnt know about emergency key option to open it.
annyways i managed to get in it and thought all was fine except the central locking is still hit and miss-sometimes it locks with the key, sometimes it doesnt. seems to work best when stood some distance away but only behind the car. if at the side or close up pressinng the key doesnt activate the central locking.
sometimes the keyless entry buttons work on the car sometimes not. is it a problem with the keyfob battery or do you think there is a problem with the nats itself?
can i just replace the key fob battery myself? does the fact the little rubber covering on the drivers door for the keyless entry button has come off have anything to do with it?
this is 3rd problem ive had now with this car-starting to regret ever buying it!!
just cant really afford to take it to Nissan dealer you see Read more
Browse
This is a risky approach. Have the pressure measured and if appropriate a new switch fitted. This flickering if like throwing £10 notes out on the window as you drive along. Regards Peter