robinmasters

Collection collected. 

This car came with rear discs and pads, the previous owner hasn't had time to fit. When the MOT rolled around last November, I had a go at fitting them; turns out someone had rounded off the bolts holding the rear calipers, so I gave up rather than making them worse as access was terrible-i couldn't have done it myself in the road. 

Funds etc being in a before Christmas state meant I only took it for an MOT today; obviously it failed (there were also ABS and airbag lights on, the seller had told me about these). 

In addition to these known faults, it turns out someone has "repaired" the rest suspension mounts at some point, but the repair wasn't even MOT standard, and the garage quoted me £1,500 in total. I had expected £500-£600 for the bits I knew about but couldn't or hadn't fixed myself, but the additional £1k for the welding (obviously subject to further issues being discovered when the previous patches came off) means this just isn't viable for me. Is be lucky to get £1,200 for the car, once repaired. 

So I've taken James Brown's advice. 

Apparently the current surfacing on the A303 was designed specifically for Jaguar XJ220 drivers.  

On 20/10/2023 at 17:40, Barry Cade said:

The 68-70 Charger has been the star of quite a few  films and TV programmes,  off the top of my head..

Dukes of Hazard

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry 

Bullitt

Vanishing point remake

Deathproof

Fast and furi*out..  

Christine (remake coming soon I believe!)

 

Any more?

 

 

 

Blade. 

9 hours ago, GrumpiusMaximus said:

I drove from Cheltenham-Kent via the A40, M40, M25, M2, yesterday and I had a situation like this almost all of the way back.  I'm very happy to sit in the inside lane doing 60 on longer journeys, especially in the BINI.

I don't know if this has always been a problem but many, many drivers just do not seem to understand that the inside lane is the lane that you are, by default, meant to be in and that the other two are for overtaking.  If you're doing 70, I can understand being in the middle lane if there's a train of lorries.  Because you're overtaking them.  Otherwise, get the fuck to the inside lane and use the motorway properly.

See also, people overtaking you when other cars are merging from the left at junctions (despite there being signs of an impending junction for at least a mile) and cars getting arsey and flashing you from 150 Yards back when you safely accelerate, indicate and pull over to let traffic in prior to a junction.

Case in point, there's a very marginal junction on the A2 just before you get into Canterbury whereby the traffic entering the A2 from the left gets a very short slip road and it's very hard to actually see the A2 until you're on the slip itself trying to merge:

So, as a courtesy I always try and pull over to the right-hand lane (of two) about 400 yards beforehand as I've seen so many near-misses there.  Did that yesterday and a van that was in the right-hand lane suddenly decides to do 85, catch up with me and start flashing their lights.  They only realised what I was doing when they saw two merging cars nearly have an accident with two cars on the inside lane at the junction and backed off.

The lack of situational awareness on our motorways an A-roads is staggering.

I was on the A2 a while ago, in lane two, overtaking. A grey van closed very quickly on me, really aggressively tailgating. When I was past the traffic I had been overtaking I moved back into lane one, and gave the van driver the Gareth Hunt hand gesture. Only then did the (unmarked) van put their blue lights on. There's a police vehicle compound at Nackington. 

I split daily duties between a 2000 Xantia and a 2002 Rover 75,  the former being relatively modern and the latter the sensible, reliable, safe modern, but both normally the oldest car in the car park at work. Pretty much anything from the nineties onwards can be treated as an car and as long as normal maintenance is kept up it'll be fine. Anything before that, as long as you avoid rust, can get parts, and know how maintenance differs from a modern, will also be fine. 

Also, run two cars, on the proviso that as soon as one breaks, fix it. 

On 7/23/2023 at 9:45 PM, grogee said:

Whether anyone would actually want such a creation is a different matter entirely. To paraphrase a fellow shiter: "people like Adele and Love Island so who cares what they think".

(Apologies for not crediting the shiter, you know who you are). 

As they were paraphrasing Super Hans I think you can get away without crediting them. 

I've had a Citroen 'Desire', an 'Aura', and my wife currently has a 'Flair'. 

The whole concept of giving cars, or any other product, a name is daft. Give it an alphanumeric code or a factual description. Anything else is marketing, which Shirley no-one with an IQ higher than single figures falls for?

I was a bit concerned that LED sidelights might look a bit Halfords, but the 'candles in a jam jar' sidelights had to go, especially next to the projector headlights. 

Gave it a good hoover and glued up the flappy grill bit too. Little wins. 

In other news, the Berlingo van is for sale. Thread in the appropriate forum. 

Busy busy busy at the moment, so a full introduction to the 75 won't be here for a while. Suffice to say it's lovely; took over five hours to drive back from Colin's, only stopped once (near Grantham, for a pasty, see above), and thoroughly enjoyed the whole drive including M25 misery, biblical rain, and much tiredness. 

I've had a quick look at it this morning, cleaned out some rubbish, and discovered a load of parts in the spare wheel well. For those that didn't know, the boot floor in these has a hydraulic strut and a light; LUXURY. 

Sightly improved the cloudy headlights. 

It needs a thorough clean, the headlining is drooping, and it's got ABS and airbag lights on. 

Other than that, it's flippin' lovely. 

No pez shot, the pay at pump thing messed me about for ages and I forgot. Have a pasty shot instead:

Destination reached (well some time ago actually). 

Incoming car. As is often the case, collection involves an epic train journey. A long, unexciting train journey. More interesting updates to follow, or possibly not as I'm bored of this already. 

3 hours ago, chadders said:

We used to drop the kids of off at school about 1/2 mile away and then carry into work. There wasn't time to walk them there, walk back and then set off for work. Add in the stuff for projects etc. that they often had to take in.

I could understand it more if it prevented you going to work. At least by the sound of it the school run mums don't wield knives.

I strongly suggest that you do some proper research next time, after all buying a house doesn't happen overnight does it?

I've done literally hundreds of school runs, but have never blocked someone's drive or otherwise parked cuntily. 

I don't understand any of the comments trying to blame @Zelandeth for this; if he was grizzling about the amount of traffic at 08:30, the criticism might be justified, but these people are actively being twats. 

Obviously I don't condone driving around without road fund licence, but on the other hand...

10 hours ago, MiniMinorMk3 said:

Well if we're posting pictures of Mr Baxter...

3 hours ago, cms206 said:

One of the lads I work with became a dad for the first time last year at the age of 53. His missus is 29 years his junior.

Today is his 54th birthday.

Another colleague chose to wish him a happy birthday on facebook... 😂

He's done better than Alan. 

Cashback!

Those little transparent plastic clips on the edge of the windscreen for holding your car park ticket are flippin' amazing. 

Electrically adjustable passenger side mirrors are also pretty handy. 

The only really modern feature I'm currently lusting after is a 360 degree camera on our work vans. 

17 hours ago, Austat said:

"D'ya fancy folding all the seats down love?"

/thread

https://eu.detroitnews.com/story/business/autos/ford/2020/02/03/fords-lending-arm-generating-profit-ever/41133523/

Quote

Ford Credit, the lending arm that’s become accustomed to propping up the company in good times and bad, now generates about half the automaker’s profit, up from 15% to 20% in the past.

I haven't watched Wheeler Dealers for ages, I didn't even realise Ant had gone and been replaced by Elvis (ELVIS? Really?). 

Just saw the Shogun one; loads of time and effort put into fabricating a new front bumper, so as to close the gap caused by the body lift. The end result looked like something off a Judge Dredd prop, on an otherwise fairly standard looking car. And the standard rear bumper was left as is, leaving the 2" gap it was so important to close on the front. 

Absolute shitehawks. 

What is wrong with these people?

On 9/15/2022 at 9:04 PM, garethj said:

Can’t talk about the police Rover SD1 without mentioning this dash through London 

 

Blimey, they don't drive that carefully now!