January 2010
Help again. I've read about RHS VIN being bad and having a FAP filter. Do I? 2004 1.6 HDI 110 BHP Read more
Listening to one of my new Beatles CDs in the car on the way home started me thinking about motoring lyrics and motoring song titles.
Taxman, by the Fab Four, still rings true today:
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat,
If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.
Any other motoring lyrics/song titles spring to mind?
Read more
Wolf Creek Pass by Curtis McPeake and the Nashville Pickers, which I copied from a 1976 cassette onto CD ..........................
Me an' Earl was haulin' chickens on a flatbed out of Wiggins, and we'd spent all night on the uphill side of thirty-seven miles of hell called Wolf Creek Pass. Which is up on the Great Divide?
We was settin' there suckin' toothpicks, drinkin' Nehi and onion soup mix, and I said, "Earl, let's mail a card to Mother then send them chickens on down the other side. Yeah, let's give 'em a ride."
[Chorus]
Wolf Creek Pass, way up on the Great Divide
Truckin' on down the other side
Well, Earl put down his bottle, mashed his foot down on the throttle, and then a couple'a boobs with a thousand cubes in a nineteen-forty-eight Peterbilt screamed to life. We woke up the chickens.
Well, we roared up offa that shoulder sprayin' pine cones, rocks, and boulders, and put four hundred head of them Rhode Island reds and a couple a' burnt-out roosters on the line. Look out below; 'cause here we go!
Well, we commenced to truckin' and them hens commenced to cluckin' and then Earl took out a match and scratched his pants and lit up the unused half of a dollar cigar and took a puff. Says "My, ain't this purdy up here."
I says, "Earl, this hill can spill us. You better slow down or you gonna kill us. Just make one mistake and it's the Pearly Gates for them eight-five crates a' USDA-approved cluckers. You wanna hit second?"
[Chorus]
Wolf Creek Pass, way up on the Great Divide
Truckin' on down the other side
Well, Earl grabbed on the shifter and he stabbed her into fifth gear and then the chromium-plated, fully-illuminated genuine accessory shift knob come right off in his hand. I says, "You wanna screw that thing back on, Earl?"
He was tryin' to thread it on there when the fire fell off a' his cigar and dropped on down, sorta rolled around, and then lit in the cuff of Earl's pants and burned a hole in his sock. Yeah, sorta set him right on fire.
I looked on outta the window and I started countin' phone poles, goin' by at the rate of four to the seventh power. Well I put two and two together, and added twelve and carried five; come up with twenty-two thousand telephone poles an hour.
I looked at Earl and his eyes was wide, his lip was curled, and his leg was fried. And his hand was froze to the wheel like a tongue to a sled in the middle of a blizzard. I says, "Earl, I'm not the type to complain; but the time has come for me to explain that if you don't apply some brake real soon, they're gonna have to pick us up with a stick and a spoon."
Well, Earl rared back, and cocked his leg, stepped as down as hard as he could on the brake, and the pedal went clear to the floor and stayed there, right there on the floor. He said it was sorta like steppin' on a plum.
Well, from there on down it just wasn't real purdy: it was hairpin county and switchback city. One of 'em looked like a can full'a worms; another one looked like malaria germs. Right in the middle of the whole damn show was a real nice tunnel, now wouldn't you know?
Sign says clearance to the twelve-foot line, but the chickens was stacked to thirteen-nine. Well we shot that tunnel at a hundred-and-ten, like gas through a funnel and eggs through a hen, and we took that top row of chickens off slicker than scum off a Lousiana swamp. Went down and around and around and down 'til we run outta ground at the edge of town. Bashed into the side of the feed store... in downtown Pagosa Springs.
[Chorus]
Wolf Creek Pass, way up on the Great Divide
Truckin' on down the other side
Wolf Creek Pass, way up on the Great Divide
Truckin' on down the other side
There's a one-way street about 400 yards long in Kensal Rise which I often use as an alternative to doing an awkward U turn when I have visited my daughter's house. The street has cars parked closely along both sides, with room for a single line of traffic between them and a couple of not very serious speed bumps.
Last night drove 300 yards up it but stopped behind a dirty marked police Vauxhall with the reds flashing on its roof. Nest to it in a parking bay was an ambulance. On the other side of it was another police car, facing the wrong way. Police officers and residents were moving about restlessly behind the ambulance and going in and out of two or three houses. They took no notice of us. Almost immediately two other cars stopped behind us.
After five minutes the rearmost car reversed back down the road, 300 yards, but the car behind us stayed where it was. The driver, an educated African guy in a suit, said he lived in that street and 'knew the people' in those three houses. That made me wish I hadn't just said: 'I hope it's a murder at least, to justify this endless delay', but he didn't take it amiss. Eventually he did the slightly fraught 300-yard reverse and so did we.
I hope it was a murder at least. Read more
dd said they 'can be' bolshy/inconsiderate 'by times' (nice to see some genuine local dialect). All three of those who have suggested the BiB can be less than perfect in this way (including me) have stressed that it is an occasional thing.
Perhaps the thread title was too provocative. Remember though that I was once a hack (although not tabloid). Need a hook to make people read the lies and propaganda!
A common fault by my reckoning, is a leaky matrix on this model. It's easy to replace though. You don't need to remove the whole dash. Go under the sterring wheel, remove the panel (3 or 4 screws), you'll see 2 silver pipes behind the radio. Simply undo the screws or bolts holding the pipes to the matrix, pull them off and slide it out. Reverse to get it back in.
Fiddly, but a damn sight quicker and easier than removing the radio assembly and central dash unit. Read more
I may be the cold, but in the last 3 days I've had:
EBS and ESP stop working. OK when ignition starts, as soon as brakes applied, they switch off and warning lights come on.
Heater/A/C has stopped working - fuses all look fine.
Nearside side and rear light stopped working. Off side are fine as is the nearside fog lamp, on the same light housing.
Brake lights all apear to have stopped working.
I've a busy weekend ahead of me. Some help would be greatly appreciated. Read more
Going to try looking at the earth harness under the battery. Spray some WD40, see if it workd. Bit warmer today, but moisture may have worked its way in where it don't belong. Will let you know. Otherwise, it's back to the dealer.
Car was taken in for tyre rotation last November - the tread was down to 4mm then - two months later and 2000 miles later they were down to the wear bar indicators, so a change was deemed. Handbook say that the standard 225/65x17s are "winter" tyres and they do have an M&S mark on them. Despite being close to the bone, they performed very well in the recent bad weather, never losing traction (apart from one slide down an iced up hill when I "forgot" to come off the brakes ! - it sorted itself out once I took my foot off the brake !) - never losing traction or giving any "moments" - the upshot of this was that with real world experience of the Conti Contacts that came on the car as OE had performed well enough in all areas to be replaced with the same. Web prices seemed to be around 142 pounds each ! However Kwik Fit had an online offer of 99 pounds each (fitted) - my local branch of National happily under cut this by a fiver - so they got the deal. Bolts were powered off and re-applied by hand and torqued to the factory setting so got myself a good deal (I hope) - COSTCO membership can go and whistle now ! Read more
Too late now - one good thing the back seats on mine have carried tons of "stuff" over the last few months, the cloth seats come up as good as new when I can be bothered to clean them. Doubt whether leather would have benefited from that sort of punishment.
hi, i bought a car that was advertised on autotrader in august and sold it on in september,
the guy i bought it from only had the green slip from the v5. he said he hadnt owned it long,hence no full v5.
The mans wife has now contacted the person i sold it to.She says her husband had no right to sell it.the police are involved on her behalf. I have an invoice/receipt from the guy that says he is the owner and it states he is entitled to sell it .
The police are asking me for a copy of this document,
The problem is if i give the police a copy of the invoice it will increase thier chances of prosecuting the guy for theft.
If they succesfully prosecute him have i then bought stolen goods?
The police agree that i wont be prosecuted for receiving etc.
However could i then be liable for the value of the goods in a civil court ?
Could the wife recover the car from the person who i sold it to ?
Does the fact that I bought it legitamettly and then sold it on have any bearing on the case.
In simple terms if its proven that the guy stole the car from his wife ,or at least sold it without her knowledge,can title on the car, or ownership of the car pass to any one else.
any information would be appreciated Read more
>>A bit unfair bathtub.
Sorry! An opportunity for a cheap laugh at someone else's expense.
However, you say you've bought fifteen cars in the last five years, two of which were not the sellers to sell. That means you're experiencing 'iffy' cars in more than fifteen per cent of your purchases. Do you think that's indicative of the market?
I doubt if I've owned fifteen cars in my forty-odd years of motoring (I tend to hang on to them for a good few years), so I'm not putting myself at as much risk as someone who makes more regular purchases. I've certainly walked away from many more than I've bought. Perhaps I've just been lucky.
The familiar old anti-diseasal rant. I'm utterly convinced that over the life of a car a modern diesels cost much more than their petrol engined cousins to run. Yeah sure there are some cracking diesels out there, I know. If you're a high mileage company car driver who'll get a car for 2 or 3 years, blast it up and down motorways and then throw them away, the only concern is diesel biased BIK and fuel costs (if you have to pay them.) again diesels win that argument.
The bottom line is the compression ignition engine is a rough old dirty beast running on rough old dirty fuel, successive generations of diesel cars have ever increasing layers of complexity to try to make a silk purse out of a pig's ear:- Complex or active engine mounts, DFP filters, anti-pollutant additive systems, ever increasing fuel injection pressures, dual mass flywheels, the necessity for a turbocharger. These things make the cars inherently unreliable as a long-term prospect unless you keep them dealer serviced - practically forever and when things do go wrong expect big repair bills.
What looks good on paper in the motoring rags for a new car isn't particularly what will be good for Mr punter with an 8 year old car on his hands. Before all this plant food emissions nonsense, cars could be judged on their actual relative merits ? the whole argument has been clouded. The punter loses out, manufacturers get to sell complex cars that require dealer support, the government makes a mint by levying huge taxes on what should be cheap fuel until it costs the consumer more than costlier to produce petrol!
Older diesels were what they were, simple, rough and reliable machines. My friend's 504 had been in the family 25 years and was still running fine with 420,000 on the clock when they scrapped it due to tin worm. In order to make these inherently fuel efficient cars viable as a replacement for petrols, they had to be cleaned up and quietened down ? these two requirements have turned simple reliable diesels into complex liabilities. Discuss! :-) Read more
Anyone out there who has covered massive mileage with their modern diesels (150000 miles+) with
no expensive problems I'd like you to prove me wrong. Set my mind at rest!
My 'runabout' car is a Fiat Marea Weekend - 2002, with the 1.9 JTD engine. Bought for next to nothing with 200,000km on the clock and now has > 270,000km on the clock.
Total repairs so far:
EGR valve at 240,000km. Total repair bill including cleaning all the soot out: 70 euros (Spain)
Admittedly this car doesn't have a DPF, but it is common rail.
Part of the problem is that the UK driver pays silly money for common / simple repairs like an EGR valve - I've read some FIAT owners paying as much as £300 to have it replaced. Here in Spain we have so many diesel cars, we have lots of independent diesel specialists that only diagnose and fix diesel cars.
I put this over on discussion yesterday, but now it's moved about three screens down without a single reply, I thought I'd try over here.
I got my cheap tyres the other day, I'll only be using them off-road. Made by Event. Apparently a Dutch company but likely imports from China.
One's got a red dot and a yellow dot. I understand the red takes priority over the yellow and is mounted adjacent to a notch or groove in the rim indicating relative high and low points.
T'other's got two yellows. I assume either is placed adjacent to the valve?
Both have got a white dot on the shoulder of the tread. I can't find any reference to such marks. Any ideas what they indicate?
Both have a 'DOT' code OU. Again, any ideas please? My research suggests they're American marks indicating date and place of manufacture and should consist of three or four digits/letters.
Both tyres have obviously been mounted on wheels from the rust marks around the lip, but appear to have never been used. They still have the moulding pips and coloured stripes!
They came from a large industrial estate unit that must have had tens of thousands of tyres stored there. One guy seemed to be working his way through one pile and sorting them into two other piles, presumably suitable for sale and not. It lends some weight to their story that a source is spare wheels that have never been used. Written-off cars perhaps?
I did wonder about the fire risk and what local residents would think. Isn't there some kind of limit on storing tyres?
{Duplicate post in discussion removed} Read more
Found it!
I turned the tyres over and found the four digit code on the other side - doh!
I'm struggling to get new rear wipers for my W-reg (Japanese made) Yaris. Lots of places sell them for the newer versions (French made) but no-one seems to stock them for the older one, expect the local dealer who wants £££ for one. Any advice where I can buy one, or am I stuck paying dealer price? Read more
recently bought a rear blade of ebay. 2002 1.4d4d jap it fitted ok .but its not a perfect fit, so i guess its a copy.
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Yes, I believe that you do have a FAP (90% sure, would need to resort to documents to be 100% sure). It should be visible at the front of the engine on these.