January 2018
Yesterday I realised I had not recieved my road tax reminder so have just spent much of the morning looking for my log book, which at the momengt I cannot lay my hands n. The website says it could take up to six weeks to obtain a new one. With the tax expiring in a few days what is the best way forward? Read more
This days there is increased use of technology in car parking = ranging from ANPR through pay-by-card to parking apps. However, the one area where there is absolutely no progress is making parking charges more linear (and fair). A few days ago I picked up a friend from a hospital in the area when a decision to discharge them was made at six in the evening. The pickup area is limited to ten minutes and so I used the car park. But with a slight delay I went over the 30 minutes for £1. The next level is £3 for two hours so the extra two minutes cost £1 each! I had a similar thing there some months ago when I took someone to the hospital for a small procedure. Things overran slightly, as they often do in these cases, and again there was a £2 hike (50%) for about five minutes over. Motorists are a soft target for councils and hospitals but at least they should play fair!... Read more
... I don't agree with charging for parking at hospitals.
Neither do I in principle, but neither do I agree with being unable to park as an out-patient because of the visitors' cars occupying all the spaces. Some urban hospitals' car-parks could be occupied by all sorts of other 'visitors' as well....
Fuel priming bulb deflates until engine stops running and then slowly inflates either with hand pumping or by itself. Engine then starts and process is repeated.
New fuel pump and fuel solenoid fitted.... Read more
Check test the fuel pump relay.
Have ordered a new fuel pump relay - thank you....
Hi. We're looking at buying a new family car and would like one with 3 full seats in the back so we can take 3 kids in car seats. I don't really want a 7 seater with 3 rows of seats. Budget would be around £4k. Any recommendations? Read more
Mazda 5 a good car with advantage of sliding doors. I had one for a bit, remember it being quite narrow inside without a proper centre rear seat. It was a few years ago and I maybe wrong but check it’ll take three child seats, I’m not sure it will.
Perhaps (my slow memory now does recall another thread with comments to that effect) - maybe the OP will be lucky, in that their eldest child may not need a child seat by the time No.3 comes along. For all the advice we all give on the forum about performance, handling and reliability of cars, its all a bit pointless if you can't use it for its primary purpose!
I remember being laughed at by colleagues when I took my holiday stuff (suitcase, box of provisions [I go self-catering and need to bring certain foods but also certain k******ware not provided], golf bag, trolley, shoes and umbrella plus the usual holiday/long trip/car stuff [foot pump, etc]) - empty suitcase and box of course - with me in my little Micra when I went looking for a replacement (12+ years ago), so I could see whether I could get it all in the boot of cars I was looking at without having to put the back seat down (safety/security reasons)....
Appreciate it not motoring discussion but its happening when i access this forum. I'm getting an eBay popup with no cross to clear it that obscures what i am trying to read. There's some sort of url at the bottom that is probably malformed I suspect. This is using chrome on an Android tablet. Anyone else?
I tried Firefox and the popup didnt appear, in fact its stopped happening in Chrome now. Bit of a mystery and Malwarebytes didnt find anything.
Well, I said goodbye to Powershift today. Its been a rollercoaster ride that I never should have paid for, but big lesson learned and seven months down the road from the beginning of that adventure, we'll now be coming home in a 13 plate Honda Jazz.... Read more
You can literally close the doors with a finger, can't you?...
My car has died and therefore I need to buy a new one but would really appreciate some advice. I travel 40 miles each way to work and back every day. 30 of these are on a fairly quiet motorway (travelling at about 85mph throughout) and the remaining 10miles is A and B roads where I probably average about 45-50 mph. I want to know what car would be most economical for this type of journey? My previous car (which I was lucky enough to get for free) was not at all economical and was costing me about £75 a week in petrol and over £200 in road tax. Any advice gratefully received. Open minded as to the type of car but rather not something massive. Read more
It used to be an ACPO agreed policy but it has always been possible to get done below the 10%+2. ACPO was dissolved in 2015 but has been replaced by NPCC. No idea whether they have a similar shared policy.
ISTR that the Chief Constable of Bedfordshire was blethering a couple of years ago about making his stretch of the M1 zero tolerance....
I have recently used the internet disconters Car WOW to get a quote - its about 10% less than the full retail figure.
The car scrappage scheme is up to £4000 on the model I have been looking at.... Read more
From the Seat website:-
- The SEAT Scrappage Incentive scheme cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer.
Hello.
Partly thinking aloud about this one. I am a beekeeper in Hungary (though British) and the current work vehicle is a 2005 VW Transporter 1.9 TDI with the lower power rating. It is also a LWB version with 5 sets and separate load area. It's issues are that the central locking is slowly failing, the rear window is gradually falling out and the AC doesn't really work even after a service. It has around 270,000 KM on the clock (around 160,000 miles or so). Oh this morning looks like the rear lock is failing too........ Read more
Just re reading your post, i realised that i hadn't mentioned the lada.
I will be honest here and come right out with, "i would love one"!. I have often found myself going on to a German or Polish used car website and looking at used niva's. For me it woud have to be a bog standard version in white with the steel wheels....
Re Location, Location.
It is far more likely that the majority of diesel getting past the rings occurs while the engine is running,under pressure, thousands of times per minute , for 10-20 minutes.
Obviously diesel may fall into the sump whether or not the engine is turned on, but bear in mind that a diesel stops because fuel stops being injected, so turning it off during a cycle will be trivial in comparison.
My Mazda 6 oil level rises irrespective of driving style, and DPF regeneration varies between160-230 km seemingly irrespective of driving style, so it is crazy to drive another 15km every time it wants to regenerate. Read more
"If you can then sense heat under the car you need to drive the car for another 5 - 10 miles to ensure active regeneration is complete, otherwise the extra diesel fed into the engine to actively regenerate the DPF will sink into the sump." While I appreciate this advice is correct and should be followed with modern diesels, it strikes me (as a driver of a petrol engine) that the situation is frankly untenable. What if you just returned home in poor weather? Or with small children ready for the land of Nod? It also seemed that regular unnecessary 10 mile journeys will negate some of the mileage advantages of the diesel engine too, it will be half gallon of fuel wasted based on the example in the question.
I agree 100% and this could be avoided if Manufacturers fitted (a) Warning Lights which indicated when a regeneration was taking place, and (b) controls which enabled the owner to actually start a regeneration manually when at a steady speed on the Motorway with no plans to stop in the next 20 minutes, these systems exist on some HGV's and Coaches, so its not exactly a ground breaking idea.
I work for an Electronics Manufacturer and fortunately one of our design engineers has built me a "Black Box" which plugs into the Diagnostic Socket, the box simply contains an Atmel chip containing some custom written code and software to communicate with the Car ECU, a few other Ic's to communicate with the OBD, an LED which lights when the DPF is regenerating and a small push switch to enable me to start the regen process manually, all of the normal DPF protection parameters set by the manufacturer are still retained, so a manual regen won't start if the car isn't up to operating temp and hasn't covered a minimum of xxx miles since the last regen etc.....
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You need the reference number off the reminder or log book to do it online!