The new news 24 thread

[TheOtherStu]

No snow in Roundabout city. Was hoping to take a drive out in the MR2 with the hood down tomorrow as it's looking sunny (and cold). Unfortunately, we're isolating possibly until next Friday. We had a PCR on Wednesday, but they've lost it. So did another today. They're saying it's likely we'll find out Monday.

I think it's just a cold, but the Missus has the worst cough. I just feel as rough as old boots.

The dog has got the proper hump, because she's not getting a walk other than round the block. One of the disadadvantages of living in a village where you don't really know anyone. I've hinted at my son that the dog might fancy a walk, but he's not biting and I believe he's quite busy this weekend anyway.

At least we have food, or will have, when Morrisons rock up at 9pm. Have deliberately ordered a litre of rum and a couple of tubs of heroes with the weekly shop. Getting the priorities right 😂

Oh and annoyingly, the new S204 Merc definitely has a radiator leak. Not huge - bearing in mind I've done around 1500 miles, but it's lost about 100ml. I'm going to be chasing that one round forever aren't I. I'll see what the folk on the Mercedes forum think.

[clayts450]

On 11/24/2021 at 6:37 PM, clayts450 said:

TBF, I will be up in the Derbyshire Dales/Peak District on Saturday on a regular delivery run, and the white stuff might make an appearance up there. Cos the Express says so. And Sky

So armed with my new Cross Climate Pluses, the van and I did the run from Nottingham to Mcr today. Annoyingly, an extra pick-up manifested itself, meaning I had to divert to Sheffield, right next to the A57. Sheffield was OMGSNOKAOS in parts but the Michelins made short work of that.

I knew Snake Pass would be fucked, so bobbed up the 61, then up to Stockbridge to meet up with the 616, with the aim of going over Woodhead. Nah, road closed. FFS.

Had to continue up the 616, through Last of the Summer Wine-ville, then Huddersfield and  onto the M62. Probably earned a speeding ticket too, as I battled to get past some dimwit who pulled out in front of me with zero notice, and then proceeded to dawdle at 20mph on perfectly clear and well sighted roads. Shot past him, only to be greeted by the 'bing bing bing - fixed camera' warning from TomTom. Ah fuck. Might just have lost enough speed, but with any luck the snow on the road may have wiped out the marker lines. 14 days of agony whilst I await the kiss of the brown envelope through the letterbox.

M62 hilarious - no snow (in spite of the 120 trucks that got caught out in Rochdale last night), but fuck me it was windy up there. The weekender drivers were struggling big time. Got to Salford at 1.30pm, having added 30 miles to my outbound trip - normally I drop around 12.30. 

Mind you, not as bad as being stuck in a jam at the Mottram end of the M67 last night. Enough time to listen to all of the A-side singles on New Order's Substance (about 75 minutes). Bah.

[Markeh]

In a slight* surprise to me, I'm now arranging a collection mission.

A good friend's mum sadly died after a lengthy battle with various illnesses last week, and they have a limited time to clear out the house. A discussion that started with "Can you help us get/wipe data off her old tech?" led to a jokey "Know anyone who wants a car?"... and now here I am booking train tickets. Paying a little less than scrap price to cover the cost of the tickets - did tell them they'd get more for it on marketplace/through cartakeback themselves, but given everything else on their plate at the minute they decided they were happy for me to just come and get it and no further hassle.

It's got 3 weeks MOT, it's not moved for 9 months, it's in Berkshire, I haven't seen any photos of it, and I only know what car it is (I'll save that for the inevitable collection thread) from reg lookup. What could possibly go wrong?

[Asimo]

Topical.

 

[stuboy]

I broke the autoshite rule... I spent more than £3.62..was in aldi and thought do these fuggers work, the galaxy is my 2nd motor so spends lot time parked up, and get steamed up so thought stop being a tight miser and get one... better work at £7.99...

[andy18s]

Friend of ours ended up with a new optional extra on their Disco

They have no idea where it's from as there are no immediate neighbours 

 

[DVee8]

No1 son was parked the other side yesterday 

[eddyramrod]

Snow in Barrow, as we speak... I doubt it'll last.

[grogee]

38 minutes ago, stuboy said:

I broke the autoshite rule... I spent more than £3.62..was in aldi and thought do these fuggers work, the galaxy is my 2nd motor so spends lot time parked up, and get steamed up so thought stop being a tight miser and get one... better work at £7.99...

Please report back and let us know. I hate misting up!

[barefoot]

1 hour ago, stuboy said:

I broke the autoshite rule... I spent more than £3.62..was in aldi and thought do these fuggers work, the galaxy is my 2nd motor so spends lot time parked up, and get steamed up so thought stop being a tight miser and get one... better work at £7.99...

I used to have them in my camper over winter, they used to fill with water but the van remained the same.

[wuvvum]

One down...

[wuvvum]

Offside fitted, shocks back on - just refit the wheels and we're done.

A fairly major job on a modern French car which was straightforward even for my modest skills.  I'm now worried I might have caused some kind of disequilibrium in the cosmos...

[NigeT]

On 11/26/2021 at 11:53 PM, Metal Guru said:

Can’t imagine you could detect the difference between 5 and 10% ethanol unless you were a trained wine taster / blender.

As a trained professional in such matters I'll volunteer to do a blind sniff test at any meet I end up in. 

[cort16]

I'm in the process of moving out half of my lockup and decided to build a big shelf in my council lockup I can drive the front of the car under so I can get the rest of the tyres, gold clubs and other large shite out of the other garage. I wish I'd done this before as this garage is water tight and this gives me quite a lot of extra space as all I've ever kept in here is a car.

When I went back to get some more stuff from the other lockup this beauty was in it. Not a gift unfortunately it's a customers car from the garage. It's very very tidy.

 

[clayts450]

1 hour ago, cort16 said:

I'm in the process of moving out half of my lockup and decided to build a big shelf in my council lockup I can drive the front of the car under so I can get the rest of the tyres, gold clubs and other large shite out of the other garage. I wish I'd done this before as this garage is water tight and this gives me quite a lot of extra space as all I've ever kept in here is a car.

 

What a brilliant piece of lateral thinking. I've lost count of the number of times I've tripped over, crashed into or kicked various bits and bobs around the surroundings of whatever car is in the council garage. You should patent that - the Shelf of Shite has a certain ring to it.

[clayts450]

Long overdue purchase of a replacement battery for the van, as the original one is deffo on its last legs (keeps chucking up stop-start unavailable, even though I have it permanently switched off). Love how all the retailers say 'you must purchase a stop/start battery or kittens will die'. What complete bollox. Just turn the stop-start off, and a normal battery is golden.

Ordered up an Exide Premium with OMG Maximum CCA (640 vs the 450 currently under the hood), but as I cannot fuck around waiting in during the week, I had to visit Euro Car Parts (sorry Tayna - deffo my goto battery supplier, but no good when you need one now). Anyway, could I get anywhere near the Lenton branch of ECP ? Could I fuck - doing some critical roadworks with every single access road to the site coned off. Had to park miles away then lug a heavy battery back to the Streetwise.  BTW Lenton ECP are really good - never had a bad part from them, unlike the one literally five minutes drive from my house - I have an attic full of Hyundai oil filters from when I had the Honda.

Got home and then it started snowing heavily. Not fucking about in that to change a battery, so my need for a battery now clearly wasn't as critical as I thought. Ah well, tis only money.

[richardmorris]

2 hours ago, cort16 said:

I'm in the process of moving out half of my lockup and decided to build a big shelf in my council lockup I can drive the front of the car under so I can get the rest of the tyres, gold clubs and other large shite out of the other garage. I wish I'd done this before as this garage is water tight and this gives me quite a lot of extra space as all I've ever kept in here is a car.

When I went back to get some more stuff from the other lockup this beauty was in it. Not a gift unfortunately it's a customers car from the garage. It's very very tidy.

 

Where are all these damned allegros? You never see them on the road.

[TheOtherStu]

5 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

Where are all these damned allegros? You never see them on the road.

Plenty of them at the NEC a couple of weeks back, plus Festival of the Unexceptional

[richardmorris]

3 minutes ago, TheOtherStu said:

Plenty of them at the NEC a couple of weeks back, plus Festival of the Unexceptional

Yes, but not in use on the road.

[auntiemaryscanary]

41 minutes ago, clayts450 said:

Long overdue purchase of a replacement battery for the van, as the original one is deffo on its last legs (keeps chucking up stop-start unavailable, even though I have it permanently switched off). Love how all the retailers say 'you must purchase a stop/start battery or kittens will die'. What complete bollox. Just turn the stop-start off, and a normal battery is golden.

Ordered up an Exide Premium with OMG Maximum CCA (640 vs the 450 currently under the hood), but as I cannot fuck around waiting in during the week, I had to visit Euro Car Parts (sorry Tayna - deffo my goto battery supplier, but no good when you need one now). Anyway, could I get anywhere near the Lenton branch of ECP ? Could I fuck - doing some critical roadworks with every single access road to the site coned off. Had to park miles away then lug a heavy battery back to the Streetwise.  BTW Lenton ECP are really good - never had a bad part from them, unlike the one literally five minutes drive from my house - I have an attic full of Hyundai oil filters from when I had the Honda.

Got home and then it started snowing heavily. Not fucking about in that to change a battery, so my need for a battery now clearly wasn't as critical as I thought. Ah well, tis only money.

Road closures might have still been due to this: 

[TheOtherStu]

Feeling sorry for myself. Every time Six Cylinder puts up asking for help, something gets in the way.

The wife and I officially have the plague. Not allowed out until next Friday. Annoyingly, we never got the results from the first PCR test back, so did another yesterday. Came back positive this morning.

I don't know for certain, but I think one of my work colleague's "colds" wasn't a cold. This is very much showing symptoms of a cold.

Eldest son came round this afternoon to take the dog for a walk. Have another friend who is going to take the dog for a few days tomorrow. Otherwise she isn't getting walked.

Feeling very sorry for myself. I had some jobs to do around the house and the car this weekend and just don't have the energy. On top of that, looking up the issue with the leaking radiator in the Merc, it's a common fault. Mercedes apparently around 2010-2014 put plastic water pumps on the cars. They're prone to leaking. I'd be shocked if after 180k this one's original, but it's still likely to be the source of the issue. Either that or the O ring on the thermostat.

[grogee]

7 minutes ago, TheOtherStu said:

Feeling sorry for myself. Every time Six Cylinder puts up asking for help, something gets in the way.

The wife and I officially have the plague. Not allowed out until next Friday. Annoyingly, we never got the results from the first PCR test back, so did another yesterday. Came back positive this morning.

I don't know for certain, but I think one of my work colleague's "colds" wasn't a cold. This is very much showing symptoms of a cold.

Eldest son came round this afternoon to take the dog for a walk. Have another friend who is going to take the dog for a few days tomorrow. Otherwise she isn't getting walked.

Feeling very sorry for myself. I had some jobs to do around the house and the car this weekend and just don't have the energy. On top of that, looking up the issue with the leaking radiator in the Merc, it's a common fault. Mercedes apparently around 2010-2014 put plastic water pumps on the cars. They're prone to leaking. I'd be shocked if after 180k this one's original, but it's still likely to be the source of the issue. Either that or the O ring on the thermostat.

Sorry to hear you've got the Rona. We had it in September. I was knocked out for a few days, Mrs Grogee was totally fatigued for about 2 weeks (we'd both been double jabbed before that). Bloody annoying being stuck inside, luckily we had friends making food drops on the doorstep which helped. 

Hopefully you'll feel well enough to get under the Merc and sort the leak soon. 

[grogee]

OMGSNOKAOS again in Warwickshire. Since this pic it carried on a bit and has semi-settled. Probably the worst outcome, as people will just carry on barrelling along the roads as if it's a summer shower. Then slither into an accident where the gritter missed.

Mrs Grogee is very blasé about driving to work in the snow but I'm extremely wary. Probably nothing* to do with my shoving my 205 GTI into a Tipo back in 2003.

[New POD]

There's snow in JCB town (Uttoxeter) 

I decided not to park the car on the main road outside the house, because it's predicted to be minus 4 tonight and the locals drive mostly like twats. 

[grogee]

4 hours ago, cort16 said:

I'm in the process of moving out half of my lockup and decided to build a big shelf in my council lockup I can drive the front of the car under so I can get the rest of the tyres, gold clubs and other large shite out of the other garage. I wish I'd done this before as this garage is water tight and this gives me quite a lot of extra space as all I've ever kept in here is a car.

When I went back to get some more stuff from the other lockup this beauty was in it. Not a gift unfortunately it's a customers car from the garage. It's very very tidy.

 

I like that a lot (the shelf and the Allegro). I too have a council box which is pretty tiny. For some reason I've always been reversing into it but I've just realised it would be a lot easier to reverse out of it.

Not sure I really need another hoarding  storage shelf and I'm telling myself the council garage is winter months only

[Yank Tank]

fabulous amount of snow in the peaks this weekend, to the point that even a 4x4 on snow tyres struggled foolow to  bradwell. 

I read countless posts on endless forums saying that 4x4s are pointless and all you need is a saloon with half decent rubber, and these posts are always made by well meaning but ignorant people from south of leicester. 

i love snow. unpopular opinion no doubt, but I do.

[cort16]

14 minutes ago, grogee said:

I like that a lot (the shelf and the Allegro). I too have a council box which is pretty tiny. For some reason I've always been reversing into it but I've just realised it would be a lot easier to reverse out of it.

Not sure I really need another hoarding  storage shelf and I'm telling myself the council garage is winter months only

I'd taken everything to the dump I could and desperately needed some space for all the shite I didn't want to chuck out. I was impressed the megane swallowed the 2.4 metre lengths of wood no bother too.

[clayts450]

2 hours ago, auntiemaryscanary said:

Road closures might have still been due to this: 

Turns out it was actually this

https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/more-disruption-expected-update-issued-6268786

[grogee]

29 minutes ago, Yank Tank said:

fabulous amount of snow in the peaks this weekend, to the point that even a 4x4 on snow tyres struggled foolow to  bradwell. 

I read countless posts on endless forums saying that 4x4s are pointless and all you need is a saloon with half decent rubber, and these posts are always made by well meaning but ignorant people from south of leicester. 

i love snow. unpopular opinion no doubt, but I do.

I kind of like it. Growing up in Devon it was a rarity so very exciting when it did arrive. We'd all pile down Station Hill with our empty fertilizer sacks and barrell down it. Happy days. 

Nowadays it just tends to interfere with Plans, I've got next week booked off to do car stuff at a mate's house (he has a lift) so don't want to cancel, especially as I had to move it from last week. 

Saying that if we have a big snow and we're stuck at home, it's fun taking 7yo to the park with his plastic sledge.

[Zelandeth]

I enjoyed snow when I lived in rural Aberdeenshire and owned this.

Which was damned near unstoppable unless you did something stupid enough as to get yourself high centred.  Think I only ever actually put the diff lock in once, and that was more a precaution than requirement!

Best "Oh crap" moment in the snow I can recall was taking a run at a drift which I expected to be quite solid and to bounce over it like the last five...however that one was just loose powder...so the instant I hit it, it just exploded and the whole world turned white.  Was just a case of "keep straight and pray" at that point!