February 2010
This is quite incredible in my humble.
A lorry gets stuck in a narrow country lane and has to be lifted out by crane.
www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/videomediaplayer.html?vid...2 Read more
Somebody posted the other day about pushing the wing mirrors out far further than normal. There's no longer a forum search (or if there is I cannot find it), and I got bored wading through pages with only 20 threads on them. So a new thread, sorry.
Anyway, I tried this at the weekend.
1. What happens when the rear side windows mist up?
2. You lose a blind spot that you can check by looking over your shoulder, and replace it with a blind spot that is by the rear wing, plenty large enough to hide a cyclist, and requiring a head on a swivel mount to check. See diagram.
www.use.com/0658e8e05d733682939d
3. My rear view mirror doesn't give me any view through the rear side windows anyway, so there's only really that which shows up through the back window.
4. I already set my mirrors so as not to show any of the paint on the car, but only just.
5. Maybe it's because I drive an estate car. Maybe it's because I'm used to using my wing mirrors more than the average car driver, having spent a lot of time driving vans with no rear view.
Anyway, downright dangerous. Read more
I gave this a go after 26 years of having them give me a view of the sides of the car. I have to admit it works. Give it a try. blindspot.docx (184 kb);
I have always owned petrol and manual cars so far. Now thinking of buying a diesel auto as my next car. I have driven auto/diesel occassionally though (hire car etc).
Not decided on specific car yet, but Kia Cee'd seems to be a good candidate (AFAIK, it is a normal auto - not DSG)
Other than remembering to fill correct fuel in the car, what other things I need to do differently compared to manual/petrol cars?
Is there any habit which is good/ok for petrol/manual but bad for diesel/auto?
I was going thru Kia Cee'd manual, where I found the advise that after heavy load on engine (eg. motorway driving) one needs to leave the engine running for 1 minute before switching it off (to cool the turbo). I find it bit awkward TBH. It also mentions that engine can be started only after "glow plug" symbol disappears from dash after turning key on.
How an auto feels to drive on snowy weather? Do I still leave on D or put in 2 or L mode? Do I need to put in 2 or L while going up/down hill?
Though my usage will be mostly long trips but on some occassions, the car will run less than 5 miles on a single trip (i.e weekend shopping etc.) Will that be harmful for the engine?
Any other advise?
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i have just bought my first diesel automatic chevrolet cruze 2.0Lt no problems so far drives just as well as apetrol from starting from rest. heater warms up very quickly before engine temp reaches its limit. as i do quite a few short journeys i am concerned re the DPF but i managed to get the garage to gurantee the filter against clogging up for 3 years. otherwise i woud not have bought the car. MPG not so good for the first 300 miles mixed motoring only 29,4 but display now shows 32.6 mpg in town.
Hi all,
My first post here - hope it's in the right place!
My car is in need of a service & MOT, the first ones not covered by the warranty. My car has done nearly 37,000 miles, and had its last service this time last year.
In the past I've used the dealer, but they seem rather expensive - certainly everyone I work with says so.
Can you advise whether I should just stick with the dealer or look elsewhere? I don't know anything about local garages (I'm in Newcastle-under-Lyme) as I've never used one before. I don't want to get ripped off, either by a dodgy garage or by the dealer charging more than they should!
Any advice would be most appreciated!
Emma Read more
Have a look at "Good Garages" under the HJ picture.
A main dealer will not necessarily give a better service than a good independant garage, but will cost a lot more. Remember, the main dealer has high overheads and glossy showrooms to pay for!...
Unmarked possibly but not unnoticeable. I am not a regular on the M25
but saw a driver pulled in by a bright orange RS Focus last week clockwise just North of Wisley/A3.
Beware!
A few days earlier I had been travelling South on the M40 in very light traffic and saw a fast approaching Golf in my mirror. It moved out well before overtaking me and carried on in the empty overtaking lane at great speed.
I turned to my wife and said it was actually quite nice to see somebody driving both quickly and competently. I had hardly finished my sentance when the slipstream of the fully marked police car nearly blew me onto the hard shoulder!
Doing a bit of arithmetic, if the Golf was doing, say, 100mph and a half mile start I wondered how fast the police car was going to pull him in within the next mile. By the time we caught up the policeman was out of his car looking fairly well armed and menacing. I'm sure it was "only" a speeding offence but I felt quite sorry for the driver....... Read more
it varys up and down the country, but typically police advanced drivers have permission to disregard 70 limits, other police drivers do not - so usually dog vans and so on should not be breaking the limit
30 limits they are supposed to stick to unless on a job, other limits have verying rules...
Hello please could someone help!
We have bought a saxo as a runner to and from work.
We noticed a few hours after purchasing that the engine just cuts out as we where coming upto a junction. With it being a oldish car and that the previous owner had had it sat on the drive since November we put this down to dirt going through the system and thought little of it. HA!
Then the next day it did it again but this time the car was just stationary whilst my partner was waiting for me outside a shop. However it just started again without a hitch, although sometimes in the cold we need to keep the throttle on for a few minutes to keep it ticking over. This morning as we scrapped the ice off the car, it cut out after starting first time, again as usaul the car started straight up again... once we begain to drive out of the carpark it did it again this time failing to start at all... not even ticking over! We have a feeling this may be down to the ECU but only bought the car as a cheap run around so not spending £500 on a new ECU.. thats almost what we paid for the car! Please can someone give me some good news or other possible problems i could look at before the ECU? Read more
Bit late now but if it is single point injection the stepper / idle control is a known problem on these cars.
This simple task should not be as frustrating as it is proving. Does anyone have a quick & easy method of replacing this small bulb within the headlamp housing? It should be easier than it seems. Help! Read more
I've been having some problems with my 530d, intermittently not starting. All fuel pumps checked OK and 1 diesel injector replaced, rest all ok.
That has improved things but still having problems start of day when very cold, so now figure that some of the existing problem might be glow plugs.
It normally does start (when it doesn't I do then need to charge battery). Seems to 'chug' to life - reluctant to turn over almost as if it's the battery struggling even when I know it's fully charged.
When it does start it will be fine the rest of the day. Likewise if it's mild overnight rather than freezing it will be ok.
It only ever struggles if I have to wait for 'Pre-Heating' to go out which is why I'm fairly sure that it is the glow plugs - if it doesn't say 'Pre-Heating' I know it will start fine.
Does my diagnosis sound right? Are they easy to replace or am I better getting a dealer to do it? I assume 1 per cylinder?
Thanks
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I read a letter in a motoring section in a newspaper yesterday where the replier called a salesman a patronising moron for telling a customer that rev counters were a non needed accessory on modern cars and went on to explain how important they were to keep revs in a particular range to aid economy.
Unfortunately in the real world of motoring this is useless advice as most people dont even know the difference between a rev counter and a speedometer until it is explained that they are doing 3000 revs not 30mph.
So i agree with the salesman.
On most cooking cars a useful guage would be a temperature guage rather than an idiot light and lets keep rev counters to men who think they know how to use them but in truth red line the nuts off cars that common sense woul say dont do it on Read more
My ears are more useful than any rev counter.
I agree: a compete waste of space...
In most diesel engines, the maximum torque remains constants over a good RPM range [eg. from 1500 to 3000 or so].
Why the same thing does not happen with petrol engines? Torque in most petrols' peak at ~4000 RPM only.
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My two regular drives are turbodiesels of similar size and output. The Verso (2.2l, 138bhp) has six speeds, the Volvo (2.4l, 163bhp) only five. Both are strong cruisers, but the Verso has to be well above UK-legal speeds before its extra gear makes it noticeably more relaxed than the Volvo. At my typical cruising speed, the Volvo is perfectly happy at about 2500rpm (against the Verso's 2200), and has the benefit that I can back off slightly without feeling that I might drop out of the torque band and have to change down to get back to speed.
In town (1st to 3rd) the two are indistinguishable, but I sense that the Verso's 4th has been lowered to make room for 5th. This means that on a moderately twisty B road I can simply keep the Volvo in fourth while the Verso prefers me to alternate between fourth and fifth. In other words, if the six-speed box is supposed to make driving more relaxed, my experience is that it has the opposite effect.
Browse
Ah from the other side of the fence it's not so clear.
I posted here a few months ago my Journey in North Devon in my car transporter truck, i don't use sat nav and probably never will, my first drop was in Barnsataple and my next drop in Minehead, now Porlock though not mentioned anywhere on the maps is a no go for large stuff so i travelled back down the A361 and took the left turn A396 at Tiverton for Dunster...seemed a reasonable route....