Hi

i was offered a swap of my mini cooper S 2003(120 miles) with a Peugoet 207 (1.4 diesel, 56Kms). anyone got any reviews on the 207. The mileage is killing me with the mini travelling 70 miles a day not motoway, Also i need a bigger car for increasing family run around car.... Read more

Whilst driving to work today, I had to pull in sharply to let someone pass on a narrow road which meant I went into a fairly large pot hole (2-3 inches deep - photo taken). It damaged both of my passenger side wheels (bent the inside of the wheel) and the RAC guy who came to rescue me advised that I am going to need to get 2 new wheels (and associated tyres). He replaced the front one with my spare and the rear he bashed the bend so that it doesn't rub and I could at least get to work. However, I'm now at the point where I need to do something about getting 2 new wheels and tyres and I have no idea what to do. The RAC guy said I'd have to get them from Ford but they're quoting £400+ just for the wheels/tyres and I don't know if thats too much or not. Also, do I get my insurance company involved? Should I try and get the council to pay for the repairs?

I'm in a total nightmare and have absolutely no idea what to do next - any change someone has been in this situation before and can advise me on what to do next?... Read more

The suggestion is to have toll lanes that you pay to enter. Then you can go faster and this is his big idea to reduce congestion. I think it's daft. We've paid many times over for the existing roads and shouldn't be fleeced again. In an ideal world it would be charging for additional capacity. In reality it'll be take a lane away from us peasants and charge extra for exactly the same as we have now. It's his 'M4 Bus Lane' idea but this time for rich sales reps in BMW, Merc and Audi's ...you know ...utter dicks. Read more

I got stranded at the weekend with a flat battery -- I'd left my sidelights on. The mechanic that attended tested the charging voltage under idle and load & reckoned charging/alternator was fine. He didn't seem to think the battery was faulty, but didn't do a drop test.

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i bought a 2004 renault laguna diamonique it was 2 months old so basically it was a new car and i have still got it ,, it has done 46000 miles and of course had tyres and services,, at 30 000 miles it had a set of track rod ends , done by a mechanic,, i replaced the track rod ends again a couple of months ago ,, now the engine was terribly noisy after some investigation the dephaser pulley was at fault,, i rang around various garages and no one wanted to touch it ,,,,i decided to do it my self ,, after buying the special tools required to do the job i had it done in around 4 hrs ,, the pulley wheel itself was £145 and various tools required like the setting pin and camshaft holding tool was around £50 ,,, if you are going to attempt this job yourself make sure you read the haynes manual although its fairly straight forward , i didnt see the item where the crankshaft bolt must not exceed 49.1 mm as the origonal bolt was nearly 55mm in length the laguna was sweet as a nut for around a week ,, you can guess wat is coming,, it stopped and wudnt start i got it towed home and discovererd the bolt on the crankshaft had come loose there is no woodruff key holding the crankshaft sprocket in place now this bolt came loose because it was too long ,,, and the crank slipped bending all 16 valves which cost me alot of money to repair the laguna lives again but this is just a small warning to anyone wanting to attempt such a repair themselves,,,whether renault has designed the v,v t engine to slip the crank on purpose forcing you to take it to a renault dealer to repair costing £86 per hour (which i didnt) who knows ,, but to me it seems ridiculous that a simple bolt can cause massive engine damage ,,,,,i do love my laguna and like i said early it was near new when i purchased it and now it is running smooth again i intend to keep it for a lot longer Read more