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• david begg and road v rail 10 Jul 2003 (Forum)
  So Professor Begg has now noticed that the govt is unlikely to meet its transport plan targets. He says that, by 2011, car transport is likely to be 20% cheaper than now, and rail 20% more expensive. Therefore, the conclusion is...: make the more efficient mode of transport more expensive! In 2001, 93% of all passenger movement was by road, 6% by rail and 1% by air.
• Audi A3 Fsi Sport 2.0 petrol - Audi; repair or scrap? 24 May 2013 (Forum)
  Garage claimed new gasket and bolts under warranty from VW and old garage said as a goodwill gesture they would only charge me £300 to fit (labour wasn't covered under VW warranty as not a VW approved repairer). January garage finally finished the car. Told me it was 100% mechanically sound but wouldn't start due to computer code fault. Would start when they attached their computer.
• Toyota Yaris II/Vitz (2006 - ) - MMT Diesel T-Spirit Road Test 20 Feb 2009 (Forum)
  Just done a 30 mile round trip in our hire car taking the place of the Sirion while its being fixed, so have some initial impressions. The car was an 07 with 8000 miles. The car itself is a nice one id say, nice quality, feel solid, rides nicely enough and fairly quiet...
• I am a recovery service, I am 12 Feb 2008 (Forum)
  I tell him to stay out of the car and wait 10 minutes for me. My money is on the 12-year old exhaust falling off. I throw some tools, jack, axle-stands, coat hangers, gaffer tape and tow rope in the car and stick the amber beacon on the roof.
• Don't try this at home. 22 Apr 2003 (Forum)
  NEVER rely on the oil light, it never came on at all and there must have been less than a pint in there. I know I check the oil for my other car religiously but for one week on my daily driver didn't and this happens. s**s law? Absolutely. Glad I bought the cheap RAC cover with my car insurance, too right. God knows what's wrong with it, I really hope it's a slight split in the gasket but with that much smoke I know only too well it could be something a lot more expensive.
• Nissan Micra (1992 - 2003) - Determining the market value for a car ins claim 6 Feb 2008 (Forum)
  Brief facts: - Insurance company is a leading national company in the car insurance market and the policy is a fully comprehensive one. We also have paid for legal cover with the policy. - The Policy states "The most we will pay is the market value of your car at the time of the loss"
• Land Rover Range Rover P38 (1994 - 2002) - Bought a lemon! Need help! 18 Sep 2007 (Forum)
  As soon as I reached home I tried to call the salesman and left voicemail telling him of the problem. More seriously I noticed that the car was actually a 2000 model and had only a part service history. It has not seen a Land Rover dealer since 2004 and has no record of service from this point at which it had covered 50k miles. Naturally I was very upset.
• OTT/Stupid or Honest? 19 Nov 2010 (Forum)
    A few days later the owner of the car called, ever so thankful for us leaving our details, but that she wasn't overly fussed about the damage and if it couldn't be taken out with T-Cut then she didn't want the trouble of panels being taken off and re-sprayed etc.
• New golf has arrived - first questions! 5 Aug 2006 (Forum)
  I know the above are just gadgets but it would really help me to understand them! So far the actual driving of the car has been great, although we've only covered 70 miles together so far (and all of them below 2500rpm - doing as I'm told!) Stereo - how do I mute it so that it goes to a low volume but doesn't switch off.
• Golf VR6 - Water Temperature 6 Dec 2003 (Forum)
  After a while the engineer and other dealer staff became fed up with the noise (130db) and decided to deactivate the alarm by alternate means - never fully explained. On collecting my car it was not possible to unlock the car electronically with either set of keys. They needed re-programming. The odometer had lost all details of the car's mileage and many wasted weeks of the dealer attempting to retrieve the data by interrogating the ECU resulted in nothing.
• Help with replacement car choice 16 Feb 2017 (Forum)
  Four years ago I moved to a rural spot and my property is located at the end of a half mile long rough farm track covered periodically with used road plannings. When we moved I replaced my then car with a Hyundai ix35 4wd 2.0 diesel which is now coming up 6 years old. I bought the Hyundai as I did not know what winter weather would bring and wanted to have one 4wd car in the household with raised ground clearance to assist in getting down the track in tricky conditions.
• Red light on ? Keep driving ... 7 Jan 2009 (Forum)
  As far as I can gather from a morose 19 y.o. teenager, the events were as follows; a small sharp noise comes from the engine, simultaneously the lights dim and the battery light comes on; son stops car and phones g/f's stepdad to shepherd him to g/f's house (by this time some 10 miles away); son and g/f listen to radio until stepdad arrives; car starts reluctantly and covers nearly 8 miles until lights go to candle mode and engine stops; g/f's stepdad arrives, kicks tyre and they abandon the AX and travel to g/f's house, stepdad slagging off Citroens in general during the journey; son phones me to ask if he still has recovery service, I explain that he is part of the family's pay and reclaim GEM recovery service, something he has known about for 18 months; son goes silent for a long time and then says he has £6 in his bank account and the GEM membership card is in the car; before I go all sarcastic and congratulate him, Mrs H chimes in and says I should go and recover him, I ask what the point of paying for GEM mebership is if I have to turn to on a freezing night with a tin of Guiness consumed and rescue his nibs; having just put a new cat and lambda probe on the car, I insist that no attempt is made to start the car, even with the spare belt (under the boot carpet) fitted; I leave Mrs H and son to sort out the finances and irritably pour a Scotch; Mrs H says if I don't want the car started, I should go and supervise the recovery; I refuse politely; I warm to my subject and criticise son's lack of organisation and expectation that everything will be done for him, quoting the time I bodged a fuel pump diaphragm with a piece of plastic bag by the side of the road on my VW Beetle, and other exaggerated feats of mechanical ingenuity; Mrs H's eyes glaze over, she may have heard this one before; an hour later the car arrives on the back of a low-loader, with the key turned to free the steering, there is barely enough juice to light the battery light; the extremely helpful recovery driver and I push the car to where I can connect the battery charger while son makes phone call to person unknown; the battery charger reports that it's giving 8+ amps and I leave it to cook overnight.
• Vauxhall Astra G Petrol (1998 - 2004) - 00 1.4 Leaky waterpump, possible HGF 12 Oct 2009 (Forum)
  There were a few oil leaks, no probs, just replace seals gaskets etc. but i realised all was not well when the engine number...under 1/2 inch of crud... didn't match the V5 and noticed the water pump looked very new. Also a shed load of silicon sealant had been used to seal the old rocker cover seal and the 3 sump bolts that bolt into the oil pump were in various stages of having been stripped etc etc. You got the idea, the previous weilder of spanners on this poor car was a much closer relation to our neanderthal ancesters than ourselves.
• 2015 Peugeot 308 1.6 BlueHDI - Judder - Clutch and DMF replaced under warranty 24 May 2018 (Forum)
  Hi all, I thought I'd just share my recent experience with you regarding clutch problems with my 2015 Peugeot 308 Allure 1.6 BlueHDI 120. Firstly a bit of info on the car - I purchased it at the end of October from a Peugeot dealer. It had covered 43k and I am the 4th owner. It has full service history however I didn't realise until I collected the car that one if these owners was a car rental company.
• Vauxhal Vectra B - X18XE Missfire (no EML) 7 Sep 2011 (Forum)
  [endif]--> I have a 1998 Vectra Arctic with a 1.8 (X18XE) engine, and to be honest i'm having real issues getting it running properly. Ok i think this all started when the car had a bad Cam cover gasket which flooded the plugs with oil causing it to need the assistance of an AA truck but the odd thing was it was VERY hot, i don't mean water temp or oil that seemed fine but the Cat was glowing for 5 mins after it stopped and if you looked into the end of the exhaust you could see the Baffles glowing, Anyway this was fixed with new Plugs,Leads, Coil pack and Cam gasket and it ran fine for just over two weeks.
• 1966 and all that 4 Jun 2002 (Forum)
  Here's one for the armchair experts, (real, imagined and wannabe) from the days when they made proper engines. One of my '66 Mustangs has covered a known 139,000 miles from new on the original Ford V-8. It is used regularly, consumes virtually no oil between 5,000 km changes, (oil remains cleanish) runs quietly and is still good for over 100 mph.
• Ford Mondeo - Rant about blatant lies from second hand dealer 10 Sep 2015 (Forum)
  Hello all, I've just joined up to have a rant.. I know I'm not good buying cars - my mind seems to go blank when it comes to checking the car over. I also appreciate that second hand cars are not going to be perfect. If I hadn't been lied to I wouldn't be annoyed as I still think I got a reasonable deal.
• Any Make / Model - HOW TO: Tint Your Car Windows ! 2 Sep 2016 (Forum)
  Water  Baby shampoo mixture (more baby shampoo = more slip = less stick). 8. Tape-measure (not vital but it helps) 1. CLEAN THE CAR THOROUGHLY Seriously, this is the most important part, if the car is not clean now you will have a dirty, dusty result at the end which will be a huge waste of time so make sure everything is spotless now.
• Honda CR-Z - New car - very first impressions 30 Oct 2014 (Forum)
  Well I picked up my CR-Z a few hours ago and I thought I'd do a first impression; I'll do another review when I have driven it more extensively too. Looks good - it is chucking it down here but even covered in rain it is a decent looking car. It's white so I'm probably going to be really precious about muck on it! The DRLs (whichI am generally opposed to) are not obnoxiously bright and sit subtly below the headlamps.
• Just for fun II 1 Mar 2020 (Forum)
  In fact there’s no real duffer except early base models with no power steering, they were too heavy without. 405 - A joy to pilot down a twisting B road at a time when rivals were utterly dull to drive. Early cars were poorly made but post facelift models from 93 were excellent especially the turbo diesels and the Mi16. 406 - One of the most comfortable and toughest cars of its time. The perfect minicab or rep mobile, designed to cover vast mileages.