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• Growler.N.E.Spain 25 Oct 2004 (Forum)
  It does indeed look a lovely and ideal place. We haven?t booked anywhere and will be taking a few days in France on our way down and find somewhere on arrival. Browsing the area the type of place we would like to stay is such as http://tinyurl.com/63e7e With your knowledge of the area could you identify just where it is as I can?
• Car Accessory "must haves" 21 Oct 2004 (Forum)
  A floodlight with the "brightness of a headlamp" 6. Electric heated car scraper (yes, I know!) 7. Fan (bought in France (great for recirculating hot air!) 8. Dearer handsfree that had wrong connector for my phone (anyone got a Nokia 3410 cable for a Mr Handsfree unit?) 9. Tyre inflation compressor (still use this) What other "essential" cigarette lighter (or to be PC - accessory socket) accessories do you have and, more importantly, do you ever use them?
• driving written off motor 2 Aug 2004 (Forum)
  A colegue of mine had his company C5 "T" boned at traffic lights in France. the vehicle was recovered to the UK and as was not yet 12 months old with low mileage was given a new body shell by Citreon. He has now been driving it since rebuild approx 10 months, this is the crunch, road fund due at end of month,the Lease company cannot re tax it as DVLA says that it was written off in the accident.Insurance company, lease hire company and every one else involved say that they did not inform DVLA of it being written of, so who did?
• Oil for Renault 1.9dCi engine 12 Jun 2004 (Forum)
  Last year I bought a Renault Megane 1.9dCi and was told by the service technician at the dealership from whom I bought the car that i should only use a full synthetic 5W-40 oil for top up. At 9000 miles I had the optional oil change in France using this grade of oil at a local Renault dealership ( by the way the price would make you smile ! ). When I brought the car in for its first full service at 18000 miles the dealership now tell me that a 10W-40 semi-synthetic is fine and that is what they use for servicing.
• Parts for Isuzu Rodeo 12 Aug 2003 (Forum)
  It has a 3 litre V6. It is about 10 years old (and a bit of a dog). Mate bought it as he was emigrating to France. It got him to his new home, but the next day the exhaust expired and the clutch gave up. His local french garage says that it is not possible to get parts for the car in Europe, and parts would need to be shipped (at vast expense) from the US.
• Italian touring. Hotel suggestions? 18 Jul 2003 (Forum)
  Anyway, we are planning on using the minimum of money for accomodation to stretch our no longer huge Sterling/Euro advantage a bit further. When travelling in France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria I have always had good experiences with the Etap chain of hotels for clean, good value overnight lodgings. Does anyone know of an Italian equivalent to this chain of hotels?
• Importing a Ford 25 Nov 2002 (Forum)
  But to make my life easier, is there anyone out there who can name willing Ford dealers (not import agencies) in France, Belgium, Holland or Denmark. You don't have to have bought from them - just the name, web site or phone number of a Ford dealer who will give me a friendly reception - preferably in English. I've got these already: http://www.fordbrugge.com ("Garage Canada" in Bruges) http://www.ford-delta.com (Ostend) http://www.macampagne.be (Izegem, halfway between Lille and Bruges) http://www.groupe-delesalle.com (Calais) http://www.groupedelesalle.com (the non-export site for the same garage) Ian
• Motoring in UK 17 Apr 2002 (Forum)
  After returning from 2 weeks in switzerland and France it is cetainly disappointing to be driving back in UK. It seems after you have brought diesel for 45p a lt, driven on open, uncongested well laid roads and not been caught by video cameras and CCTV for speeding when in fact you were not, that driving in Britain is a tedious and joyless experience.
• UK specs? 23 Nov 2001 (Forum)
  He cited Scenic bought from Cyprus as being very bad for that! And finally, how can I find where a specific car is build? I know that Renault has factory in France and SPain but where else? I hope that this is not too many questions and also I am sorry for my poor english ( I am only french :) Best Regards Philippe Le Toquin
• General poor driving nowadays in Blighty 1 Nov 2008 (Forum)
  I've not long returned from a long weekend in France (and very enjoyable it was too) and the thing that struck me quite noticeably was the vast difference in driving standards between the two countries 'er indoors was quite vocal on the subject too and she's one of those people that very much prefers to sit in the passenger seat and let me get on with it (fortunately) some examples are: when you're catching someone up on the m/way, who they themselves will need an overtake shortly i.e. they also are catching someone up (2 lanes for them, 3 for us which ought to be to our advantage, but due to the CLOG isn't) the accepted practice over there is for the vehicle in the middle of the equation to throttle off a bit and wait for you to pass, then pull out and do their manouevre...yet over here it is pull out early and make you wait absolutely everyone pulls back into the nearside lane after an overtake, whereas over here they dawdle along in the o/s lane mirror usage in France is more than acceptable, over here it seems to be optional when I got back to good old Blighty, pulled out of Dover and went up the hill on the A2, for the whole length of the up hill dual carriageway, some woman in a blue Escort did the whole length of it at 55mph in the o/s lane, thus preventing a queue of us 'popping off' the lorries before the single lane bit at the top, she could have quite easily moved back to the nearside but couldn't be bothered...doesn't happen in France on several bits of dual carriageway and m/way up the M2 there were a number of people unnecessarily staying in the o/s lane (i.e. nothing directly in front of them), to the extent that some motorists started under taking, which although i'm not a fan of I had a degree of sympathy with the final straw was the coach that did a sudden 'signal, manouevre, mirror' despite not being that close to the vehicle it wanted to overtake (thus not giving me much of a chance to realise it was a possibility) and when he realised i was having to brake quite well, swerved back into the nearside lane, then gave me a load of main beam once i'd gone past...marvellous, try checking your mirrors first pal, i wasn't going that fast, had headlights on in the dusk and was fully loaded with my kid in the car, so not willing to push it that much there were others too, like the fool in the green Audi A4 estate that felt it was reasonable to do 4 lanes of the M25 in a high speed swerve from the slip road to the o/s lane in one mad blast ..heaven alone knows what would have happened to a filtering m/c, as the lanes were fairly congested (approaching the toll bit)... and the blue Renault Clio with the young chav that accelerated as hard as he could away from the toll (saw it in my nearside mirror) and thought he could do the double white line lane markings and barge in front of me, but misinterpreted the situation, because by then i'd become Mr Grumpy and closed the gap..which had him accelerating right up to my bumper, revving like hell, then dropping back all the way through the tunnel (the temptation to dab the brakes at a critical moment was severe, but I managed to resist it).
• Aviation fuel taxes 17 Jul 2006 (Forum)
  It refills in either location and it is taxed. America Airlines if it flies to UK and refills is taxed as is Air France from Paris if it refuels in UK. BA will be taxed wherever it refuels anywhere in the world but what is to stop American Airlines flying to Paris refuel (tax free under the US/France double taxation agreement) and then stopping off at Heathrow on its way back to US?
• Skoda Octavia Estate 2.0 TDi - Replacement Recommendations 10 Dec 2024 (Forum)
  His mileage pattern is a 30 mile each way commute 5-6 days/week and occasional trips plus an annual trip down to southern France. He's 6'7", one of his son's is 6'5" already and the younger son is catching up fast so passenger space is important as well as luggage space for their camping trips. I think the time is right for a plug-in hybrid - there are some nearly new 1.4 iV Skoda Estates on Autotrader but Skoda seem to have abandoned hybrids, which may not be a good sign - I looked at Toyota but the Corolla is too small and there's no hybrid Avensis.
• New car advice - downsizing 6 Feb 2023 (Forum)
  Clio, 208 etc. Doing a lot less miles these days, no need for the bi-annual run down to the South of France, and public transport where we live is both cheap and good quality. Has to be automatic, hybrid not necessary, but would consider one. Needs to be a bit pokey - recognising that this is somewhat open to interpretation, but for arguments sake, let's say sub 9 secs on the 0-60 dash.
• Any - Driving in EU after lockdown, great news today! 26 Feb 2021 (Forum)
  There is a new GB style registration plate to be launched soon, this will be legally valid in the EU countries to avoid using GB stickers and remove the need for an IDP. Very useful for me as I plan to visit family in France later in the summer! Will still need the Green Card, and no indication whether in duplicate for Switzerland as used to be the case before we joined the EEC See links below  https://twitter.com/grantshapps/status/1355823094657675265?
• VW T Cross - Exporting a family car from NL to the UK 9 Jan 2021 (Forum)
    God knows what the implications of that are. What worries me is whether I can drive it through France and the UK.  Obviously it isn't registered in the UK currently. If anyone has any experience of this situation some advice would be wonderful. Jonathan
• Audi A4 3.0Tdi v6 s-tronic auto quattro jul-2012 - Audi A4 auto idling at only 590rpm 9 Sep 2016 (Forum)
  Car has about 42K miles on the clock. I've been back to the garage several times and even Audi France took control of the calculator 'at distance' but have so far been unable to improve things. They apparently had trouble getting into the calculator for some reason. The garage even told me "there is no solution" but I don't believe that and I'm concerned that I am somehow damaging the car by using it like this.
• Audi A4 3.0 Tdi V6 Quattro July 2012, 28000 miles - S tronic problem 25 Dec 2015 (Forum)
  The stronic box mostly feels fine BUT I constantly experience the following : At constant 80 mph on the motorway (in France!) the box becomes immediately noisy (boomy, which can seem to ring around the cabin of the car), and with the additional noise comes additional vibration (through the floor?) and trembling of the horizontal part of the driver's seat.
• to be decided... - What car to replace loyal SAAB 9-3 18 Apr 2015 (Forum)
  At some stage it will need to be replaced but we are struggling to decide what to buy. We have 2 young children to accommodate, do ~6k miles a year including a couple of trips to France to visit grandparents, my preference is for petrol. So far I have shortlisted: Mercedes b-class. Plus points are that it is reasonably spacious and is chain cam engine. Downside is that the engine isn't very powerful.
• VW Golf - 1.4 TSI engine reliability 30 May 2014 (Forum)
     I now only do 10K miles pa with lots of short runs and need a small car for day to day use but which is large enough and powerful enough for comfortable holiday touring in France.   Having read all Honest John's warnings about the potential problems with modern turbo diesels particularly on short runs, I have been looking for a petrol engine.     The VW Golf with the 1.4TSI 122ps engine seems to meet all my requirements and the flexibility of the engine makes it a good replacement for the turbo diesels that I have been used to.
• Speedometer error 26 Aug 2013 (Forum)
  My C5 speedometer shows 7 miles below real speed since I had the cambelt changed in October last year. 3 GPS systems agree with actual speed and radars that show your speed too. I recently made a long trip through France were before the sped cameras they had radars that advise your actual speed. I noticed that I was always over the speed limit, (even though it showed the right speed on the clock for the road) and that the difference between my speedometer and my 2 GPS was about 7 to 8 miles difference.