January 2010
I can think of a few!
tinyurl.com/y9ne4qy Read more
Will this work?
Assuming I can identify a vehicle with a 15 week delivery
Probably NOT a Buggati Veryon though
Kia Ceed more like Read more
Not sure what the question is here? Can you elaborate?
I?m planning to drive to Lake Maggiore (Italy) in the last week of June. I?ve driven to Northern Italy before a couple of times ? Lake Garda and Venice ?via the Mont Blanc tunnel (before the fire) and more recently to Venice via Austria, and the Brenner Pass into Italy. However the Innsbruck/Brennerpass route is too far east for L.Maggiore and I?m not keen to use the Mont Blanc tunnel due to the weekend delays. One of the apartment owners suggested a route using the Lotschberg Car transport tunnel. I?ve never heard of this tunnel but it does avoid Mont Blanc tunnel.
www.bls.ch/e/autoverlad/goppenstein.php
This is a drive on (similar to Eurotunnel but with open trucks) car transporter train that costs 16euros e/w and takes 15 minutes and runs from Kandersteg to Goppenstein where you drive off and complete your route into Italy via the Simplon Pass.
So ? has anyone used this? Or the Simplon Pass? I?m assuming the pass road will be fine in June.
Does anyone drive to Italy and have a favourite route?
At the moment I?m favouring going Calais?Lille-Mons-Namur-Luxembourg- Metz-Mulhouse (toll free so far), paying the 40 CHF Swiss m/way tax and continue via Basel-Bern-Thun-Kandersteg-Lotschberg Tunnel-Simplon Pass- and autostrada S33 to L.Maggiore. I?ll probably take a slow drive down taking 2 overnight stops but just one on the return..
I?d welcome any comment from anyone with recent experience or route suggestions.
Jacks
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I went through it southwards on a motorbike in 1987. Great experience, although you sit in a small passenger compartment not actually "in the open" on the bike! Great view when you come out on the Vallais side and ride down to the valley floor.
I've also been through it several time more recently as a normal passenger when travelling to Italy from Switzerland and back on the "Transalpino". This is the Italian tilting train that runs from Basel to Milan. You may remember us Brits invented this technology back in the seventies, but as is often the story in too many cases, we didn't have the guts to finance the job properly and sold the technology to our European cousins. We now buy these trains back from Europe, (but that's not motoring related)!!!
As the title I am booked to go on a ski holiday to the Chamonix / Argentiere area first week in March. I understand I will need snow tyres as it is a legal requirement. My car handbook (Fiat Bravo Sport 2007) says wheels unsuitable for chains however all advice seems to point to "micro" chains being ok (they are 9mm thick).
Has anyone ever used them? Also, I understand that they tend to be very good at keeping the roads clear in and around the resorts, anyone had any experiences around there? Thanks Read more
Have to agree with Peter Steele's sentiments. I've done a fair amount of driving up into ski resorts over the last few years.
What I've found it that although the signs say you must be carrying chains to go up the mountain, in reality few people (and crucially, the locals) actually carry them. Putting them on is very tricky and time consuming, and you just end up having to take them off again as soon as you come to a ploughed stretch....
Hi all,
I have a Laguna 1.9 DTI alize, the temperature light on the dash is coming
on intermittently and the footwell in the passenger side is wet, i have to keep
putting the heater on to clear the windows as they keep steaming up. however
the engine temperature is normal (halfway) and i am not losing any any
coolant from the expansion tank, it always seems to be full to the max line.
It is an air con model but it has never worked since i had the car (2yrs)
any advice much appreciated
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many thanks peter for your advice, i will continue to drive it then as it
doesn't smell too bad and there are no engine temperature issues at the moment
Ie my ould Galaxy
was going powerful well
Just the stopping was a bit ............non existent
So £156.00 later we are good to go & stop again
I am not going to attempt to identify what will fail next. Read more
I don't believe any motoring is cheap unless you do all servicing and repairs yourself, but then you still have the cost of an MOT, road tax, insurance, fuel, ... I believe no matter what car you buy, you should add £1000 to your budget to compensate for unexpected problems (more if its an old luxury car like old 7 series, old s class, etc). Then it's not so much of a worry when things need repairing, since you've already budgeted for it.
I'm having some issues with my T reg Focus, when starting the engine from cold (i.e. when off to work in the morning) my needles will do a full sweep as if they are calibrating. They only do it when starting from cold and they never drop out when driving. I have tested my battery first thing in the morning and had it read over 10 volts and tested it when running with a result of 13+ volts. I have been living with it for a while with no other (apparent) ill effects but when I went to start it this (Monday) morning after it had sat and not run for a weekend it:
1. Struggled to start (only took 3-4 seconds but normal fires first time)
2. Did the usual needle sweep but they stuttered half way up
3. Beeped as if I had the door open with the lights on (which I didn't)
4. Flashed some lights on the dash but too quickly to see which
Does anyone have any ideas? Read more
Hi, I have now replaced the battery with a suitable silver calcium type and not had the problem happen since.
Cheers all
Hi,
Our second car is an old Nubira -- one thing that irritates me about this car is that the washer jets come on fractionally *after* the wipers start to move, and about a second or two after I've pulled the stalk toward me.
Is this a fault, or a feature? Read more
Pretty standard with most cars I've owned or driven. You could try putting a one way valve directly before the washer jets so that you don't have to prime the pipework each time you use them.
I have a 2000/X Primera 1.8 which has an issue with the brakes.
This happened a few months ago where you could hear a "clunk-click-clunk-click" coming from the NSF brake under light braking when driving slowly. The noise would disappear if the brake pedal was pushed harder.
Took it to the garage expecting it to be a loose brake pad rattling in the caliper. Garage said caliper was fine, but pads and disks were marginal. Replaced, noise clears.
Moving forward around 3-4000 miles, the noise has returned. Things I have noticed:
1) It only seems to be noisy when the car has been driven for a while, maybe after 20 miles or so.
2) In addition to the clonking, if you brake at speed there is a high-pitched squeal which oscillates with the speed of the wheel, as if there is metal-metal brushing against each other. Again if the brake is pushed harder the noise dissipates.
3) No deterioration in braking performance has been noted. However when braking at speed, sometimes there is a very slight pull to the right when the brake pedal is first pushed, which almost immediately disappears.
Any clues as to what is causing this? Was it my initial thought of a loose pad (which I still believe may be the case)? Read more
Interesting, was just looking for this post again thinking it had been abandoned...
This problem has moved on a little bit.
I took the car back into the garage. This noise only appears when the car has been driven for a number of miles. I told the garage this, they said that, for obvious reasons they couldn't take the car for a 20-mile hike to diagnose this issue so I should give it a run before bringing it in. This I duly did, but I made the mistake of taking the car in over the lunch break and they had no mechanics to go out and hear the noise.
They looked over the car and could find no issue with the brakes. They identified a perished drop-link on the driver's side (not entirely inconceivable that this could have been knocking and the noise was being transmitted) and this was replaced, along with two tyres and the brakes were cleaned up and descaled. They said they had taken it out on a run and could identify no fault.
Got the car back and, sure enough, no noise.
However, two days later and it's back, albeit to a much lesser degree than before. I am not entirely convinced about the condition of the brakes though as there does seem to be a slight warp on one of the discs (evident from a slight pulsing of the brake pedal at times) and the pull hasn't completely gone away.
I am going to get another guy I know to make a second opinion. I agree with you AE that I think it's a sticking caliper, possibly with a loose brake pad on the near side.
The car has done 255,000 miles, but has been regularly serviced during the four years/60,000 miles I've had it. No problems with the brakes or suspension components until this recent fault. As mentioned I believe the noise is coming from the near side. Brakes have been cleaned or replaced twice now and all components reseated in each case.
I have a 95 plate vw polo and for some bizarre reason the boot lock will not unlock (it does not have central locking) the key will go right into the lock but will not turn at all.
I have no idea what this can be, it feels as though maybe the 'teeth' inside the lock do not fit into place to allow the key to turn,I could be totally wrong im just guessing.
This has happened a couple of times but its always opened eventually but this time its just not budging at all
Any ideas? Is the lock completely broke and is it soomething a garage can fix? Read more
Still no joy after trying what you both suggested I even climbed into the boot via the back seats to sparay wd40 in that way.
I did try to see if i could unlock it from that side but im not sure what im supposed to be pushing to release the catch and also its quite awkward too get to as the boot inside lip rises up up where the boot lock catch is
Im clueless as to what this could be,maybe its time for a visit to the garage?
Any more ideas are greatfully appreciated
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Exceptional exceptions excepted old boy.