February 2017
Re: Drained of all Hope My father has a 2009 Seat Leon with the same engine as your correspondent's Ibiza. He has owned it from new and experienced exactly the symptoms described. He took it back endlessly with no joy, but it was eventually fixed by a software re-flash at a routine service. The dealer said they'd carried out the software update as an advisory item to cure exactly the symptoms he was complaining about. Admittedly it was still under warranty at the time and was being serviced at a franchised dealer, but given that it's a known problem with a known fix there might be mileage in creating a fuss or complaining to Seat UK. Perhaps an agreement to pay for a diagnostic scan, but with an agreement to waive the charge if it's found that the software version is out of date compared to the one known to fix the problem? Read more
I give you warning Im going into rant mode here. Since this VW thing started I have been getting angry at the bandwagen jumping thats going on with half truths, truths that are said in the most missleading way Diesel emissions are bad, yes but so are petrol emissions, particulates for Euro 6 are the same for both and NOx is only 25% lower for petrol. Thats not going to solve the situation is it? Ok in practice diesels emits more in real life but so does petrol and no one is looking at that, well not yet anyway. Particulates are the same for both. These petrol small capacity high output turbo & supercharged engines that are so efficient emit more NOx and particulates than their thirsty large capacity equivalents but much less CO2. So which do we want? NOx that stays in the atmosphere for a few day and is not a greenhouse gas or CO2 that stays in the atmosphere of many years and is a greenhouse gas. VW are having to fit a particulate filter to their models.of petrol cars.petrol NOx kills thousands of people the headline says, well maybe, maybe not it depends how you look at it. According to the BBC web site the way that is worked out is like this. Smoking shortens your life by 10 years, being obese shortens your life by 7 years, and if you work and live in the city NOx shortens your life by 30 days. So if you multiply 30 by the number in a city and divide by the number of days in a life that gives the equivalent of the number of people killed. To me that is a very distorted way of seeing things and in the context of modern living there are much worse thing. There is no doubt diesels in a city are not great but petrol is not much better, its the old unregulated vehicles that are the problem in cities where the high building trap the pollutants and allow them to build up in concentration. in fact if you drive your diesel in the countryside past a heard of cows you are doing positive good because the NOx rremoves Methane, the very worst greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere. Electric cars are great but we are decades away, the national grid could not supply enough electricity to have any worth while numbers on the road. I suppose we could always burn coal to generate more!!! Yes I have been a bit flippant but you get my point we need a logical rational strategy not just an emotional demonisation of diesel or any one thing. Well I feel a bit calmer after that. Read more
Re breakdown cover for older cars - I have a Lloyds bank Silver account which costs (I think) £9.95 a month and one of the privileges is AA Breakdown cover for any vehicle in which you happen to be travelling. I have been recovered or repaired several times since I took out the account, including two different 20+ year old Toyota MR2s.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/02/officials-draw.../
"officials are developing a scheme which could focus on geographical areas around the country where pollution is worst"... Read more
Don't despair - only 5% of tha area of England is built on (2.5 % of Great Britain. But I'm the first to agree that, to keep it like that, the Government and local authorities need to make more effort to build on brownfield sites.
The much-too-frequent habit of Government inspectors overruling local authorities in favour of developers needs to be controlled too. They are too keen to meet targets for house-building without making enough effort to find the right sites....
Any advice welcome please. Close friend saw a second hand car they liked and were trading theirs in. Their car had £200 negative equity which the garage stated would be paid to the finance company. The week they were due to pick up the car it was not ready due to too many things wrong with it. Friend then decided not to go ahead with the new finance and cancelled.purchasing the car. The garage then said the £200 was actually a.deposit and to visit citizen advice. So the finance company haven't been paid and my friend is £200 down. Can the garage do this? Or should the money be paid back?
Does my friend have any legal rights? Thank you Read more
Has she spoken to her current finance co about funding? She has a relationship with them so it should be easy enough unless she's behind on payments. Not that I totally approve of this guy holding onto her deposit money in the circumstances but he was honest enough to tell her what was wrong with the car which means I assume he was intending on repairing these faults.
By honest I meant did she tell him about her poor credit? He might be seeing this all the time, I certainly did and while you don't mind trying to get credit for those who tell you up front before wasting half a day with them, you do get sick of people wasting your time when they already know they won't get finance.
The loan firms would usually call us to decline or accept, they would also tell us if they'd previously been declined elsewhere (often several in a few weeks, every garage in town) and sometimes terms were put on the loan such as PPI if they had a moderately bad credit history but that was wrongly now classed as misselling but now these borderline people just get turned down flat. It's actually the people the misselling regulations were designed to help who were hurt the most by them.
Of course if she currently has finance she possibly didn't know and has been turned down for some minor point but I don't understand why she hasn't sought credit elsewhere. If it's just a case of she doesn't want the car anymore then he's perfectly right to retain the deposit. But I've a funny feeling there's more to this story than you've been told. The telling of existent faults on the vehicle and a commitment to spend money fixing them don't sound to me like a dishonest trader but I may be wrong either way. Speak to TS and CAB for advice.
The CX-9 beats a field of over 50 cars to be Wheels COTY 2017
We are probably too obsessed with diesels for it to come here................a shame.... Read more
My first company car was a Volvo V40 (the older estate-body version) with the 2.0T light pressure turbo. Turbo was watercooled and the intercooler was truck-sized, all massively robust.
That was a lovely engine, loads of torque from tickover rpm and went very well. Economy was shocking by today's standards, though. Mid-20s mpg on average.
We must drive from the Midlands to Dorchester in mid- August. Do we go on Friday or Saturday? I'm resigned to horrendous traffic on either day but would be grateful for a view from any cross-country high-milers here, please. Read more
As others have said, leave at 5am Saturday morning, not sure about taking the A34 it's not an obvious route to Dorchester.
www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/motoring/range-rover-re.../
Who would pay over £135k for this rebuilt pile of junk????? Read more
Hj article
Was in Istanbul for a few days last week and noticed a lot of scooters and motorcycles fitted with a sort of skirt thing, with wrap-around leg covers and a sort of bib to provide the rider with some cold and weather protection.... Read more
Could probably get some in Taiwan but it'll be a lot easier to find here (they have it in Halfords for example), so I thought I might take some back, as long as there are no gotcha's re compatibility. ... Read more
Is there anything like an MOT where you live?...
@Skidpan or any other new Superb owners, can I get your ownership impressions please?
Especially interested in views about the 1.4TSI petrol as a possible company car choice, they seem to be pretty good on benefit-in-kind tax, and are less likely to be punitively taxed in the future compared to diesels.... Read more
We have saved large amounts of money in the past buying diesels instead of petrols plus before the introduction of small petrol turbo's the driving charisteristics and economy of diesles were in a totally different league.
Take the last diesel we bought as an example which was a 2010 Kia Ceed SW....
Browse
Re. The person looking for breakdown cover for older cars, I took out personal cover with GEM a few years ago as they had no limit and would cover both my Mk2 and Mk5 Golfs at that time.
I never had to call them out to test any exclusions for the policy so can't be sure it is suitable cover.