r.welfare

I think the French are just good at designing out rust traps. My 2003 Espace was virtually pristine underneath. By comparison most of the fasteners on the 2009 Touran I replaced it with are seized with rust. And my wife’s 2010 Qashqai is covered in surface rust underneath, although bolts still come undone easily.

I reckon auto.

Ooh! I saw that in traffic last week. Very unusual colour.

Hill out of Burghfield towards Burghfield Common, it’s a steep one on a bike so I take my hat off to you. Don’t know about the swearing thing but as I never see many pedestrians there I reckon you’re alright.

Good work. That Tomcat you spotted has never moved in the last 15 months I’ve been commuting on that road.

Blimey, I’d forgotten how dicey it felt to enter the Robin Hood roundabout from the Thatcham end of the A4 before they put traffic lights onto it. Also, as SiC says, the rurality of Pinchington Lane before the retail park, Tesco and migration of the town’s car dealerships is quite something.

You can do it without taking off the rad but you do need to remove the air cleaner trunking and inlet manifold.

Good luck, I hope the BMW designer responsible for the E46 check straps didn’t do this as well.

I’ve gone for a set of Autoshite’s favourite, the Uniroyal Rain Expert 3, at just under £200 for 4 in 195/65R15 size from F1 Autocentres. Replacing a set of Maxxis that were on the car when I acquired it some 13k miles ago; probably about 3-4mm left but I was beginning to lose confidence in them. I understand they are a soft compound so will see what kind of wear I get from them.

Mk1 GLS got to be rare too? Ref. the Mitsubishi Sigma estate, they can’t be that rare as Shite Knight and I have both owned one.

Two for the saloon, two for the estate.

It makes a hard man humble.

Like Alan Whicker on acid.

In answer to Stuboy, the plastic on the moulded clips used to connect the handle to the tailgate frame on a Qashqai isn’t up to the job and eventually snaps. I’m lucky, ours is black so I just bought an aftermarket unpainted one as a replacement. There’s three different types depending on whether you’ve got keyless entry and/or a reversing camera. I’ve seen a lot of hideous chrome ones, Qashqai owners can go almost as mad with the stuff as PT Cruiser owners.

Www.yoyopart.com?