November 2010
I've been to four recent commercial vehicle auctions at a major and well known auction in Manchester, doing my homework before buying a van. Having made notes at each of these, I've noticed that a significant number of vehicles which have clearly been sold at previous auctions are cropping up again the following week. The vans I'm interested in are from a leasing company and when they re-emerge in the following week's auction, they are still being sold in the name of the same leasing company, so it's not a case of them being re-sold at a quick profit, or being unloaded because they have a major fault. What's going on? My best conspiracy theory is that the leasing company have a tame bidder on site to ensure a minimum price for the vehicles and if this is not reached they "buy" the vehicle and re-enter it in the next week's sale. This would clearly require the co-operation of the Auction company. Or is there a simpler explanation I'm just missing? The vehicles are "sold as seen", where the buyer has no real come-back according to the auction regulations, which seems to exclude the explanation that the buyers are simply rejecting the vehicles as unfit in some way. Any suggestions? Read more
Looking to replace a well respected Volvo V50 2.0D early next year and have narrowed the choice down to two cars - Seat Exeo ST 2.0 143 CR (SE) or one of the new Astra Sports Tourers (1.4 Turbo or 160 bhp diesel). Have lloked at the Seat and its a lovely car to drive and with good road presence. Have called at three Vauxhall dealers and no new Astra STs yet - and complete indifference about selling me one. Has anyone had real life driving experience of the ST or should I perseverse with elusive new Vauxhall? Read more
Any feedback on the Passat? Did you have "fun" with the automatic handbrake? I recently had an Exeo estate courtesy car and was duly impressed. Although seemingly huge, it is in fact it is only 11 cm longer than my current Focus 1.6 TDCi estate. The boot space was less deep owing to the false floor/spare wheel well and I could not fit in the usual payload of 6 large Curver plastic storage cases (with six smaller ones on top) full of my stock-in-trade of books!
The load area roller blind was fiddly (no manufacturer I know of has yet designed the perfect one, flexible enough to fit over bulky items, a 100% reliable system to engage and disengage one handed, etc.) but did have a retractible mesh screen to keep objects behind passengers rather than risking decapitating them - always appreciated - and lots of load-lashing eyelets.
Performance and cornering was superb and even with 17" alloys, very smooth over road humps and the odd pothole. I averaged 7.0 l/100 kms (roughly 40 mpg) in 2 days and 300 miles.
Lots of gadgets, clear instruments, intuitive cruise control, hands free/bluetooth, voice control, parking sensors. The rare luxury of a locking glovebox and a customisable mount for a mobile phone and USB charging point inside it but the icing on the cake was the instruction manual tucked into a recess at the top of the glovebox, which took some finding. INSIDE the instruction manual was an illustration of where to find the instruction manual - very logical and German!
Hi, my zafira has started to run rough once its warmed up. It started when I stopped once and the idle rev's decreased. Not to stall but very lumpy. Its the Z16XE engine
Next day the EML came on and it went to limp mode and was very very lumpy and sounded like it had a mis-fire. I got the code read at my local garage that I deliver to as im a postman and the mechanic told me that it was a coil pack issue. (i did not get the code). I bought a new coil pack and it seemed to work,. however this morning the fault came back.... Read more
Ok, really need some help now. the car has just had a new egr done, and its still the same. vauxhall just says the fault codes are misfires and they cannot understand why.
so its had, new plugs, coil pack, egr and temperature intake sensor and still the same. puzzled!
hi, i have just had a full service on my rav at a cost of £235, and the garage informs me that i need the clutch replacing! the mileage is 44616 and is driven locally and not used hard. They have just informed me that the cost for rreplacement would be £870 all in! The door straps need replacing as well at £63 each. They inform me that the price quoted is for toyota parts. Do i just accept this or do i get a second opinion. apparently if i dont get it done soon it will slip and damage the flywheel. I must just say I do not have a clue about any of this and just take told to me! any advice please? Read more
Hand brake on try set of in third gear if it stalls the clutch is ok if the engine revs up its on its last legs.
Hi,
I have a VW Polo 1.4 CL 1997 as above. The car wouldn't start one day so I assumed it was the battery and bump started it. This worked fine. A few weeks later I had the same problems so assumed the battery was dead.
I bought a new battery and the went flat in about two days so then assumed it was the alternator. I have since replaced the battery again and had a new alternator fitted by the local garage.
The car then started fine but I noticed the alternator warning light was dimly flickering when the engine was idling. The car has now died again and so I am assuming the battery has gone flat again (it will still jump start)!!
Does anyone have any idea why the power is not getting to the battery given that I have both a new battery and alternator? I also changed the starter motor recently so that should be fine too!
I have checked the connections yesterday (in the dark admittedly) and could only find one small blue wire runnign to the alternator!? There is room for two spade connections in the connection clip!?
Thanks!
Jack Read more
The OP's experience shows why poor diagnostic practices mean that motorists end up replacing perfectly good parts all the time - and dealers are complicit in this.
If you suffer a flat battery, once you get it jumped/bumped then then you MUST MUST MUST take a voltage across the terminals to check that it's charging. Then once your battery is charged up again, you need to take another voltage with everything switched off then disconnect the battery and take a voltage while not connected. Do the maths with the two voltage readings to check there isn't an excess drain on the battery. Even with modern alarms/computers/memories to run, a car left doing nothing should take many months to flatten the battery. These days, the fault is rarely with the battery.
Hi
I have been offered a 35 month old 36,000 mile VW Golf from a VW dealer with 12 month VW Approved Warranty. It is seriously good value BUT prior to receiving a full service at the dealer it had never had one.... Read more
I think if no unusual noises were and still are undetected the engine will be fine. I'm a believer in regular oil change if nothing else. Change the oil and filter again now you've done a few miles the do it twice a year. I had an everyday use Mk2 RS2000 for 10 years and after 105 k miles it barely puffed small cloud of smoke on start and ran as sweet as the day I got it at 2 years old not knowing how it had been treated cos in those days there were no such thing as sevice books ! Just sold my Audi A4 TDI 110 at 210k, bought at 156k (although it had 13 Audi stamps). About 5th service it did 25 k between oil changes. Again I did oil sevice every 5 k with different makes of oil and that has been the best engine I've had. Never missed a beat and no smoke. Don't get swamped by all the experts views. Enjoy your car and do oil every 5 k.
Coming back from Heathrow Friday evening with SWMBO, was stuck in heavy traffic on M25 in lashing rain. A yellow oil can sitting on a choppy sea appeared on the dash panel. Asked SWMBO to check what it meant in the handbook (while silently praying) she said it was low oil pressure. Gulp. Later an amended reply of low oil level. Stopped with hazards on and no sign of oil spewing out. No services going north until Toddington(why?) but kept going cautiously. Found a litre of VW507.00 spec Castrol Edge at £20!!!!. Checked oil level and yes, was low. Poured the litre in and the light went off. Checked the oil when I parked on the level and it is now a little high. About 1/2 way up the top black spheroidal thing. I expected the handbook to say something like 1l oil between min and max but no.
The black dipstick has been giving dodgy readings -it is difficult to get consistent readings. I hope the engine is not burning oil excessively and there are no signs of leaks. Only 16months old and done 23,000 miles.
Any ideas apart from checking more regularly?
Sorry, I'm used to my signature telling all on Briskoda. 2l PD diesel.
VW group diesels always seem to get through about 1-2 litres between services. I check regularly and do a fair mileage ~18,000 miles pa. Guessing 6 weeks ago when I topped up -maybe 1500 miles. As I said the dipstick is difficult to read.The warning light gave reasonable notice any way before the level was very low.Probably should have inserted only 1/2 to 3/4 litre if I'd more time. Got another longish M way trip next week so I will check again (and carry oil).
Does anyone know the difference between the 5 and 6 speed manual gearboxes? I thought the 6 speed would be higher geared, so more economical, but the official fuel consumption figures show its less economical. Read more
I owned a B5.5 Passat 'sport' with the 1.9 PD motor and 6-speed box for 5 years and 62,000 miles from new (same floorpan, drivetrain etc as the A6)....
Background
We live on a VERY steep hill on a single track lane out in the Yorkshire Dales. Last winter we were marooned several times in our front-wheel drive car. Unable to "waggle" our way back to the top of the hill...we sometimes had to reverse back down - knowing a farmer could appear around a corner in his 4x4 - which was quite scary!... Read more
For Snow a good front wheel drive car with snow tyres is almost unstoppable.
I changed to a big FWD Renault and never had problems in deep snow.
Hi, our car has recently developed a problem/ several problems that have stumped us.
We've always been a bit conscious that the timing isn't quite as we'd expect it to be, ecu has been reset which solves the problem but only for a few weeks/months. Last week the car started bunny hopping away from lights having been running fine for the past hour. We were only a few hundred yards from home luckily. The next day we went out in the car, seemed fine, running ok until we got onto the motorway when it started running badly. We managed to limp up to the next junction. To start with the car wouldn't go over 2000rpm, really surging before going into limp mode. Managed to roll up slip road but as lights were on red then had to wind it forward on starter motor to get off hte road.... Read more
You need a good clutch specialist my experience is they either work or they don't but if it does explode there is a fair chance it will take the bell housing with it and probably the gearbox not unheard of,don't forget when replacing the unit you can fit an ordinary flywheel and clutch at a much cheaper price.
Browse
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This mostly happens when the auctioneer is "ghost bidding" on the item to push up the price and then coming unstuck when his ghost wins the bid. These will often be attributed to a mystery "Mr P" or "Mr X". Of course some frequent traders will have such nicknames so they don't have to sign for each purchase in turn.
Of course some cars are often bought on Tuesdays/Thursdays and then re-entered on Saturday when the general public turn up to overbid on everything. I made a living for a year in the '80s doing just that. Profits on car sales without having to run a site or even as much as touch the car more than momentarily - it must still go on today.