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• BMW X5 3.0d Sport Extras 17 Jul 2003 (Forum)
  I am told that the best model for this is the 3.0d Sport (the facelifted model coming out this autumn). The dealers suggest that I should buy a whole range of extras, including tinted glass, running boards, leather seats (heated), automatic gearbox, 6 CD changer, and a few others. Whilst I do not quibble with the auto box, and perhaps the leather seats (unheated?), I am a bit dubious about the others.
• Proton burning oil. 13 Jul 2003 (Forum)
  Then began to notice puff of smoke on starting and engine latterly occasionally idled rough. Then about 1500 miles after repair, started it one morning and it appeared to be running on one cylinder if that. Head off, all cylinders oily and very much more black soft coke than had accumulated during the previous 80,000 miles, no 4 ex. port very oily. Assumed valve guides causing problem and suspected valve seals but all seemed to be in order.
• What car to insure with my student loan! 7 Jun 2003 (Forum)
  Also i am open to suggestions for alternatives. The Imprezza turbo has been considered but would be far too costly to run. What do you guys think??
• Buying Pre-registered 4 May 2003 (Forum)
  This does seem a little too good to be true so I thought I'd run this by you guys. To keep a long story short, I rang the dealership I had trouble with after the dealer that gave me short shift never called back yesterday as promised. I spoke to the showroom manager and he put me in touch with a more friendly salesman who wants 'to do a deal', they've pretty much exhonorated themselves and even apologised.
• Buying (@ £2000 secondhand) 15 Apr 2003 (Forum)
  Have only just joined the site & have been impressed with the sharing of views & knowledge. I have run older cars with family etc history into the ground and with careful maintenance have had few problems - now I am looking for another \"goodun\" to keep going from say 100k to end of life. Having spent this weekend looking at stuff (no ex-family cars available !)
• Renault Safrane 2.2 What to do? 11 Apr 2003 (Forum)
  However to get rid of it the Garage will dispose of the car for me leaving us quits for £160 + Towing Costs. The car is in theory worth 1800 quid in good running order. I have since bought a new car. My questions are: a) How much will it cost for a new engine, fitted? b) Is it worth putting a new engine in the hope that I can sell the car and more than cover my costs?
• battery advice 11 Mar 2003 (Forum)
  t start this morning. The dashlights were dim and the engine wouldn?t even try to turn over. After a good run yesterday in daylight it should have been well charged up. I put it on charge and it took a good 5 amps for the first half hour and eventually settled to 2 amp. After about 5 hours reconnected and the result was exactly the same with little life in the battery.
• Cheap diesel needed 28 Feb 2003 (Forum)
  As these will be mostly motorway miles I'd like somthing no smaller than escort size. I'm going to get rid of my current car and only run the diesel until at least the summer when I may get a second, nicer, 'weekend car'so I'd like something which is not too embarrasing to drive. As I will be piling on the miles I don't want to spend much on the car- under £1000 and preferably around half that.
• Megane - what's happening 1 Jan 2003 (Forum)
  I have to say that the HT leans don't seem that tight a fit on the top of the plugs - they pop into place but there is some movement. The car was last run on Boxing day a 200 mile return trip with it performed faultlessly. Any ideas? Does anyone have any experience of the 1.6 8V Megane that might help. My next step was to start her up from cold tomorrow morning and then to replace the plugs and HT leads.
• Rover 216si - Fan on Continually. 21 Dec 2002 (Forum)
  Well I was surprised by this as I've never heard another Rover 200 series drive past me with the fan running contuinally. So I took it to another Rover Dealer (Premier Motors) and they said either the thermostat was gone on the EMS was incorrectly tuned. After 6 months I took it in for its service (to Lex) and mentioned the fan.
• Hot, or what? 42 C! 8 Dec 2002 (Forum)
  The Italian-tune-up effect was evident - the car was superb from 150ks out of cape town, and was noticably better after a good 'hoon' - so much so that I still have an indicated 480 on the odo, and half a tank of juice left after coming back! Also (one for the techies) will the constant high-temp running loosen the crud etc in the cooling system - should I flush and refill now? Ian (CT)
• Corolla Carb Question for Tune Up Boys 28 Nov 2002 (Forum)
  The car is fine apart from the fact that it idles much too fast (1400 rpm) and is a bit heavy on fuel. I assumed that this would be a simple matter of adjusting the fast running screw on the carburettor, but when I came to do the job, it was obvious that (a) the idle adjusting screw was not playing any part in the idle setting as it wasn't contacting the throttle linkage and (b) the carburettor was a much more complex beast than I was expecting, with a dashpot, cam breaker, choke breaker etc.
• Change of Car 4 Jul 2002 (Forum)
  I can add up to 1,000 more, but that's about the limit. Given these parameters, and the fact that the car must be reasonably cheap to run and reliable, I have almost got down to a shortlist of a Passat (1998, 110 tdi). These cars are available on a R or S plate for the right price, but most have 140 - 170k on the clock. I know that high mile young cars are better than old, low mile, but how long will these engines last, assuming that they have been serviced as specified?
• Insurance - to claim or not 13 Jun 2002 (Forum)
  So what I would like ideally is for the insurers to pay me the insured value, less the salvage value and excess, and let me keep the car. I'll run it until something major goes wrong, then sell it for spares. Has anyone managed to persuade an insurer to do this? And will they still let me insure the car even though they have already written it off?
• Galant UnGalant behaviour 28 May 2002 (Forum)
  The car is becoming difficult to start first thing in the morning taking over 15 seconds to start, once started it runs and will restart properly. This fault is getting worse. We have also noticed a slight "hunt" developing on the cruise control. Our Mitsubishi dealer confidently predicted a new Distributor cap and Rotor arm would cure the faults. £100 later and the difficult starting is slowly getting worse.
• Buying 4x4 for export to Sri Lanka 23 Apr 2002 (Forum)
  Large enough for a family. If the car is exported to Sri Lanka as planned, it is suitable both for running over many years as a private car, or for sale at reasonable profit, even after paying import taxes and freight charges. He does not believe servicing will be an issue. The fact that the car is not new, and he will own it in the UK for over 12 months before potential export are big factors in his favour.
• To LPG or not to LPG... 2 Nov 2001 (Forum)
  b) Get rid of the Cavalier and get something else (I do NOT like small cars and wouldn't want anything smaller than say Golf-sized) and if so what would be a good idea to buy and convert to LPG/or is diesel a better way to go? Whatever I decide on I am going to put at least 100k on it and probably run it into the ground so want something as reliable as poss (another worry re the Cavalier...). Cheers for any advice and I look forward to reading any responses
• 1989 Ford Orion body leaks 18 Oct 2001 (Forum)
  These drain tubes are not mentioned in my Haynes Manual so perhaps they dont give any trouble? I really should get rid of the car, but it runs well, has got hand controls for my wifes disability and she wont change it. regards, Bob Dryden.
• high oil pressure 13 Aug 2001 (Forum)
  A month ago I noticed that the oil gage pressure on my 89 Chevrolet Camaro RS 2.8 was running very high (round 80 -instead of 40/50) I immediately stopped the engine, checked the oil only to see that smoke came out of the dipstick column for over a minute. I added 1.5 litre of oil but this did not solve the problem.
• Nearly -new fleet or older "quality"?? 30 May 2001 (Forum)
  Imust have changed my car for nearly-new fleet models 3 times in the time my next door neighbour has kept his K reg Saab 9000 and I can?t help thinking he?s got it right and I haven?t. My motoring strategy is to run reasonably economical hatches or estates for about 3 years and then update from a ?super-site? or similar before the niggly reliability problems creep in.. I reckon that depreciation costs me about £1500 a year doing this ?