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• Peugeot 306 (1993 - 2001) - 99 1.6 Engine Warning Light & Car Judders 28 Sep 2009 (Forum)
  I'm no mechanic, but we all know what main dealers are like, so i'd like to get some idea first before having them run up a huge bill. If sensor related, are these cheap enough and easy enough to replace ourselves first as a hit or miss effort? Some extra info... It does not appear to be cold weather related. It happens in any gear or when car is idle.
• Ford KA, KA2, KA3 (1996 - 2008) - 02 1.3 MOT - Brake Pedal Travel 30 Aug 2009 (Forum)
  and the guy at the garage said that there was too much travel in the pedal. I presume this means it goes to far towards the floor with the engine running. I have done the following: - Blead through all 4 brakes (used half a bottle of fluid). Front ones seemed a little gassy on first couple of pumps but fine after. - Checked disks (seem fine) and pads (at least 4mm tread left) - Cleaned rear brakes (inside of drums)s - Observed cylinders to be neither seized of leaking - Observed shoes to have 2/3 remaining tread - Re-set rear self adjuster to zero and heard them clicking when applying brakes after refitting drums Advisory notices were ?
• Volkswagen Golf IV (1998 - 2004) - 04 1.9 Car stopped just after i filled up 13 Aug 2009 (Forum)
  after ringing the AA they came along and un done the pipe that goes to the filter and sprayed a little carbon monoxide/dioxide into it and it started first time. The car then continued to be running. we turned the engine off and then back on and it worked like it always has. The AA guy plugged his laptop into the engine management and there were no fault codes coming up on his screen he did the normal rev tests and he said things were fine.
• stopped by police taking pics of my car[Read Only] 7 Aug 2009 (Forum)
  Being an ex-cop I was rather bemused by the whole episode, mimsing along the high street of a nice village taking pics of nice villagey things and my car.......and I get stopped by a couple of plastics! Crikey, what must it be like in York or Harrogate? The cops/plastics must be run off their size 11's asking people why they are taking photos. Now, if I was hanging around a playground taking pics, or on a bench where a group of children were playing, I would understand. But they didn't ask for my details nor did they want to look at my pics.
• Goodwood Festival of Speed 19 Jul 2009 (Forum)
  However the first car we saw when we arrived was a Matra F1 car with Jackie Stewart climbing onboard to go for his run up the hillclimb. From then on time just flew by as I showed him around the event. The road cars included almost all the cars on Top Gear's lap time list - Zonda, Koenigseggegg.., Caparo, Mercs, BMWs, Lotus Evora, Bugatti Veryon (with or without roof), Maseratis,etc The Ferrari California was almost ignored!!
• Vauxhall Combo van (2002 - ) - 05 1.3 Help! engine failure @ 51,000 miles 17 Jul 2009 (Forum)
  Hi, I have bought an ex royal mail vauxhall combo van on an 05 plate, I bought it with 48,000 miles and put another 3000 miles on it. It has been running fine and was very pleased with it although the fuel consumption seemed to fluctuate a lot with the same driving conditions/style. On Tuesday I stalled the engine and it would not restart, the breakdown recovery van got it started by using 'easystart' and followed me the rest of the journey home [50miles] and it ran perfect.
• Pedestrians - annoying the traffic 24 May 2009 (Forum)
  I put this down to distraction by the phone - in that situation any sensible pedestrian would either have waited for the lights to change again, or on seeing the oncoming traffic, run. But perhaps I was mistaken - while out walking today, I saw a young man of chavvish appearance (with three companions of similar age and countenance), dart into the town centre traffic (30mph) cross the road in the face of traffic, causing disruption and a loud beeping.
• Vauxhall Insignia (2008 - ) - Impressions of Insignia Hire Car 2 May 2009 (Forum)
  It's OK at cruising on the motorway but for single A road overtaking, I think you would need quite a long run up. I don;t no how much the car weighs but I guess quite a bit as it is a big car and 1.8 with no turbo is just not enough. I'm sure that this doesn;t apply to the larger petrol engines or the turbo charged diesels.
• Ford Fiesta (1995 - 1999) - 97 1.3 black smoke on start up and knocking noise 5 Apr 2009 (Forum)
  I would have thought it was the stem seals but the smoke is really reallty black so it seems a bit more serious. The car runs fine but it is very vety noisy at idle. It does use a bit of oil but nothing too bad, probably about 5 litres per 10k. The engine is now making a bit of a racket but I have mentioned this on the technical bit before and the noise is more likely to be the water pump bairings.
• Folding bike to go with folding roof 16 Mar 2009 (Forum)
  In a bid to get a bit fitter I'm now the proud owner of a Brompton folding bicycle. And great joy, it fits - just - under the safety net in the boot of the CC3, which means I can run with the bike in the boot and the roof down. Pleased about that, because I ordered the bike before Christmas, which was also before the CC3 was thought of, so there was no opportunity to try it. Despite the credit crunch, there is still a wait of about 10/12 weeks for a factory order Brompton.
• Motoring in 2050 - what will it look like? 15 Dec 2008 (Forum)
  m genuinely interested in this, at least in part because at the moment I fly about once a month and drive 27k a year as a part of my job. I don?t think that?s sustainable, if only because fossil fuels will run out. What potential solutions can people think of?
• Mazda Mazda 6 (2008 -) - Mazda 6 2.0D Sport 5dr Hatch 2 Nov 2008 (Forum)
  I still prefer the Mondeo for roadholding, grip and general confidence you get from 'knowing' a car, especially the original set up I had on Continentals all round The running lights are a pain and are causing annoyance to other road users. They are permanently on so I really don't see the point of the auto lights function. I've resorted to driving around on parking (i.e side lights) during the day The handbook is an inch thick.
• Ford Fiesta (1995 - 1999) - Bought a new shed - £350 22 Oct 2008 (Forum)
  It is a 1996 N Fiesta MK4, 66K, body work is not the best but nothing T-CUT won't fix, I am not entirely sure of its history but at this price who cars? The HP check came out fine as did the past 5 MOTs. The engine runs fine, no miss fires, no knocks or rattles, no smoke just started it up now as its cold and misty and I didn't see any steam or anything from the exahust just the odd little bit as normal. The tappets need doing as the top tend does sound tappety, I took the risk that that is all it needs doing.
• Peugeot 307 (2001 - 2007) - 02 2.0 Anti Pollution - ESP/ASR - BSI 24 Sep 2008 (Forum)
  Incidently the radio will not tune into any radio stations - rellivant I'm not sure... 3 weeks later driving along the motoway (which we do not often do long runs) on a rainy day (as we have a lot of latley) warning lights re-appeared and back into limp mode. Back to the dealer who advised me that a new BSI (£480) plus a new FAP filter (£380) was required, I discided to have a look myself.
• Suzuki Swift (2005 - ) - 07 1.5 Crash caused by a manufacturing fault? 23 Jul 2008 (Forum)
  Eventually after I managed to pull back onto the busy motorway & had actually managed to pull over & check to see if the car was road-worthy I carried on my journey home, shaken but still in one piece! Today I tool it to a local Suzuki dealer, and although they haven?t run any tests on the car ? they said that they don?t feel a broken fuse would have caused the accident, indicating towards a driver error. I feel that as the ?red-key? function displayed & the brakes locked, with the steering failing ?
• Toyota Carina E (1992 - 1997) - Has engine economy improved in the last 11 years? 20 Jul 2008 (Forum)
  My Carina is also approx 300kg heavier than the Passat, so if my Carina was 300kg lighter than it is, the economy would be even better! And it runs on the cheaper petrol rather than diesel. Has engine economy improved? It doesn't look like it! I think I'll save my pennies and wait until the old bus reches 200,000 miles before I change it.
• Skoda Octavia II (2004 - ) - Five weeks with the Octavia 6 Jun 2008 (Forum)
  Thought I would give a report on how I was getting on with the Octavia. Had it just over 5 weeks and it has done nearly 5k so getting run in nicely. This includes two business trips to Broxburn and one pleasure trip to Antibes so a fair few motorway miles. Car is slightly noisier than the Honda but not really noticable except at idle where nothing comes close to the Honda diesel.
• Vauxhall Astra G Petrol (1998 - 2004) - 04 1.6 kangarooing and engine dying 2 Jun 2008 (Forum)
  This was after a combination of round town and motorway driving at about the 45 minute mark there seemed to be what I thought was a lack of fuel as I couldnt keep the car running and the revs just dropped, I just about managed to pull over and the car just died. It wouldn't start and there were no lights displaying on the dash board. After about an hour of scratching my head and kicking the tyres I tried to start it and it started just fine as though there was nothing wrong.
• Tax Disc Revenue - How is it allocated? 18 Feb 2008 (Forum)
  You know if you were to imagine for a moment that this system had never previously existed and some Chancellor was to try to justify its introduction it might just sound slightly ludicrous. "You pay tax on the purchase of the car and the fuel to run it and the money you earned to buy it in the first place and I know...... lets have a tax on owning it as well!"
• FIAT Cinquecento (1993 - 1998) - 1999 - Parasitic drains and removing alarms 11 Jan 2008 (Forum)
  GF is selling her 99(P) Fiat Cinq but we are having a little problem with it.... when left overnight after a run, the battery is flat the following morning and car won't start.... To check the battery, I disconnected the battery, left it for three days, reconnected and it started first time so the battery is obviously holding the charge ok and can't be the problem...