Showing results in  Forum [Show all channels]

Sort by: Relevance | Newest first | Oldest first

• Ford Focus TDCi - Not enough grit this winter-all weather tyres? 15 Oct 2010 (Forum)
  From the BBC - Many councils 'waiting for grit' : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11454665 We have a pretty cool climate, yet the majority of cars in the UK run on summer tyres all year round - which don't function properly below 7 degrees C. I only realised this after I started regularly driving to Germany and Austria a couple of years ago. There, during winter months, it's the law to drive either winter tyres, or all-weather's with the snowflake symbol.
• Cars people race 17 Sep 2010 (Forum)
  Because of traffic I got passed him and for the next couple miles the guy sat on my bumper trying to get passed, he forced his way through by making other cars on the other side of the road brake, then he braked had forced me to stop and shouted at me for nearly running him off the road. After that incident I had a camera fitted but it has broken and I had not had the time to take it back When in the Mazda I occasionally get raced off the traffic lights by a eager 17 year old in his Coras, but rarely as aggressively as I do in the Alfa Also why are people more inclined to let some makes of cars out of junctions for example then others When driving the Jag people let me out rarely, same is true off my Probe I once owned, yet again people seem more willing to let the Mazda out?
• Peugeot 306 - small list of problems..... 7 Sep 2010 (Forum)
    when i turn off the engine i can turn off the ignition remove the key and the engine will continue to run for a few seconds. On a short trip the car wont be affected as much. i am thinking prehaps fuel pump not shutting off fuel or something to do with the idle?  And lastly the steering wheel is off center although the tracking is fine.
• Citroen Xsara Picasso 1.6 HDi - allen key fell in clutch housing: Help please!! 12 Jul 2010 (Forum)
  At present I see no way to get it out without dismantling by a garage for a 'clutch change' - and it would need transporting as I am scared to run the engine in case it jams the allen key... Ok - any other solutions/good ideas? I have taken off the under-engine pan - nothing useful seen except am horrified by how small is the clearance between flywheel teeth and the casing - bang goes my hope that maybe I could either forget about it, or find clearance to fish it out...
• Peugeot 306 (1993 - 2001) - 96 1.9 slow to start-glowplugs replaced-what next? 19 Mar 2010 (Forum)
  There is a little bit of grey/white smoke once it does start but this disperses in seconds and the car runs and drives lovely once it is started. When I first got the car a relay was clicking all time ,but since the glow plugs were replaced it has stopped clicking , however when the key is turned to initiate the glow plugs there is a slight faint buzzing sound until the light goes out , sounds a bit like the radio is on but not tuned in .
• BMW 3 Series 318i SE Touring - Used car dealer refuses to fix fault on BMW 18 Mar 2010 (Forum)
  (don't know how yet) Realistically i'll give them longer to try and fix it, but i'm worried that the warrany will run out and then they'll tell me to b***** off. I know a demister is not an important thing but this is the most expensive car I've bought and it's soooooooooooo lush, better than the last tin can i had.
• Honda Civic UK (2001 - 2005) - Trying to get a good deal from Honda Main Dealer 18 Dec 2009 (Forum)
  They knocked 500 quid of the price and gave me £100 for the prelude which has had some rear arch welding done, and with the mot to run out in Jan, I didn't refuse. They want £4395 plus £150 to tax it. The car has a main dealer service history and drives well and is in good condition. I checked in Parkers (Nov 09 edition) and this price seems about right.
• Mazda MX5 (1998-2005) - Engine overhaul disaster: Any recourse? 6 Dec 2009 (Forum)
  AA said take it to the tip. Molten bits of metal falling out of it. The AA man was staggered, said he'd assumed I'd run out of petrol. "MX-5 engines never go wrong," he said... Towed to a main dealer (different one) who agreed to take it in part exchange for another MX5. (I needed a car desperately.) They gave me only £500 for it...
• Alfa Romeo - Issues with getting refund from garage? 18 Nov 2009 (Forum)
  However, after a while, I got an intermittent problem with the clutch slipping after being stuck in traffic for a while. The chap who runs the garage couldn't get it to slip and even borrowed the car for a week to use it to try and provoke it. Anyway, eventually I managed to demonstrate the problem to one of his colleagues, and they took the car back and did some work - don't really know what they did though.
• Problems with a Well Known Breakdown Co. 19 Oct 2009 (Forum)
  the same thing happened again. Fortunately no one was injured, but the vehicle now had to be recovered as it had run out of tyres. Because of a series of cock -ups (the WKBC twice apparently sending recovery to the wrong location) this took over 3 hours before they were eventually rescued. So obviously we complained to the WKBC.
• Porsche Boxster 986 + Boxster S (1996 - 2004) - 00 2.7 Claim against 10 Year body warranty, help o 14 Aug 2009 (Forum)
  The author Peter Morgan had had the paintwork restored under a claim agaianst Porsche's Long-Life Warranty. as my car still has a year of the warranty to run, i didn't see a problem. But i was wrong, customer services at reading have rejected the claim and say its not covered, despite their being a known problem and never getting the dealer to fit softs gaskets when it next had a service.I've asked for the reasons why in writing, basically the chap called Richard reckons anything that comes into contatc with the body ain't covered.
• Peugeot 306 (1993 - 2001) - 99 1998 major fuel leak Dangerous 12 Aug 2009 (Forum)
  after temp sealing it with tape and getting it home i had to wip the pipe off my old car and swap it with the one on my new car, oh yea had a full tank so technically needed to drain it first but being in a rush with daylight running out one off one on with the petrol gushing out in to a bowl did the trick loosing only a minimal ammount. just one of them things i dont think this is very common but if you are servicing your car or can smell petrol but cant find a leak its worth checking if it looks perished or split at all its worth replacing as it will save a lot of pain not to mention nearly half a tank of petrol i left all over hampshires roads.
• Renault Espace (1997 - 2002) - 02 2.2 Dci engine rattle under load 20 Jun 2009 (Forum)
  Is it likely to be cam belt or cam belt tensioner related? Anyone got any ideas? anyone had a similar experience? Car, by the way runs fine, does about 38-39mpg, nothing else untoward (well except the obvious impending doom of replacing EGR valves almost every 12 months or so!)
• SAAB - SAAB 93, good opportunity or bad idea? 4 Jun 2009 (Forum)
  We tend to drive the cars until they die (my MD has a 51 plate V70 which is still going strong at 180k miles or so), but running costs are a consideration (one of the reasons why I changed my Volvo to a BMW when the Volvo was getting tired). £12,500 seems a reasonable amount of money to buy a 1 year old / 10-15k mileage car and is roughly what we tend to spend.
• Motoring & memory - how about you? 9 May 2009 (Forum)
  Memory distortion and motoring then? How do you perceive things?........ Remember watching the Brighton run (Genevieve) with one of the lead actors being Kenneth More? Now the shock is to see the film again and realise that both the vintage cars in the film AND the 50`cars in the background are merging towards each other and are starting to look equally ancient.
• Dirty old `soot ball juggling` diesel? - at 6.5yrs 16 Dec 2008 (Forum)
  The engine sounds like new though actually - perhaps in part due to its half distance oil and filter changes. And worth noting that this is the constant cold running - ultra short journey - stop start, home care car. Averaging 53mpg on this sort of work. Its around double the mpg of the petrol engined car that did the same round before the diesel was bought.
• Ford Mondeo III (2000 - 2007) - tdci 160,000 mile report 10 Dec 2008 (Forum)
  Had a choice of just changing one and putting it through the ring hoping that the engine light would stay off but decided that the extra money on changing all four would be worth it. Only time will tell. I've had the car back a week, its running as well as ever and is preferable to drive on potholed icy roads. Apart from that I've recently put four brand new michelin pilot premacys on it. That has improved the grip and handling, it breaks away at a higher speed now and also breaks away more progressively.
• Which one for the chop ? ( or not...) 12 Nov 2008 (Forum)
  Car 3 - is a 2003 Vauxhall Signum 2.2 petrol Design which I bought in the Summer on a bit of a whim to replace the Mondeo because it looked like a bit of a bargain. Bought it with 33k on it and have already run it up to 45k. Remarkably economical as discussed elsewhere and I quite like it. Lovely, smooth as chocolate engine and fairly toy laden. SWMBO wouldn't care which one she had. She just wants wheels.
• BMW 3-Series E36 Compact (1994 - 2001) - 316 overheating problems 3 Nov 2008 (Forum)
  Ok heres my boring story im hoping someone can help me. I bought mt BMW 316icompact 1.5 years ago. When i first bought it i noticed it was running at alot higher temperature than my Corsa 1.5TD. Assumed this was normal. 2 months later car severley overheats on the motorway i pull over and let the car cooldown coming off at the next exit and driving home carefully without the car overheating.
• Audi A4 B8 Avant (2008 - - 2.0TDi CR v PD 31 Oct 2008 (Forum)
  John Farrell wanted my thoughts on the comparison - see Audi TT diesel running in thread. I've had a new A4 Avant for the last two days which has the 2.0TDi CR unit - output unknown, but I suspect 140. My last courtesy car a couple of weeks ago was an A3 with the 2.0TDi PD engine.