The new news 24 thread

[vulgalour]

Just back from my second job interview.  I had a bad feeling all morning about this one and the interview itself felt really clunky and off.  Don't know if that's because I just wasn't feeling it or because I messed up somehow.  I'll know in a couple of weeks, they said they reply to all applicants regardless so that's nice.  I'll find out about job interview one in a couple of days, should get a response by the end of this week.

Princess' new headlights don't appear to be of any concern to local law enforcement, drove past a couple of woowaas and I might as well have been driving a modern hatchback for all the attention they paid, which is nice.  I don't mind a bit of attention, so long as it's the right sort.

[Dyslexic Viking]

There was a car crash 1 hour from me this evening and there were no injuries but a 1980s Mazda 626 has met its end.

[barefoot]

The five are abroad...

Well, just the four then.

[grogee]

Some Maestro bits came today. A Man turned up with a tailgate for the Maestro. This has been a convoluted saga starting with top parts sleuth @vulgalour. The part was in Lincs but despite me trying to collect it twice while visiting family, it didn't work out.

Anyway in the end the fella brought it to me for £40. Can't really complain for that, they're like hen's teeth anyway. 

Unfortunately the lower left corner is pretty crumbly. It's the wrong colour anyway (red, but my car is white) so as well as a paint person I will be needing a bodywork person to patch it up. 

I would say I'd have a go myself - it's a flat section and not too fiddly - but I have an impending move to consider and could really do with farming this job out so that it'll be a quick* bolt on job to replace. 

[JJ0063]

Spotted a cheap clean looking Honda Izy mower on Facebook so decided to treat myself to an upgrade. What a difference in the cut! Mountfield always used to leave a trail of cuttings too, Honda picks the lot up.

[dozeydustman]

Took the 205 out for a blat at lunchtime down to Littlehampton and back picking up some old tat I found on Freecycle.

Had it cocking its hind leg at the big roundabout near Bognor hospital without booting it. My previous XS and XL did exactly the same without being provoked.

I think it’s covered more miles in 2 and a half weeks than the last 2 and a half years, I’m up to 320 since I first sat in it in the Midlands.

[EyesWeldedShut]

On 16/05/2024 at 07:34, lesapandre said:

The big SUV things at the back....

Sorry - that's just Fugly to me. (I bet I wouldn't send it back if I won it in a roffle though?)

[MrGTI6]

1 minute ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Sorry - that's just Fugly to me. (I bet I wouldn't send it back if I won it in a roffle though?)

Looks like it's been involved in an accident.

[vulgalour]

4 hours ago, grogee said:

Some Maestro bits came today. A Man turned up with a tailgate for the Maestro. This has been a convoluted saga starting with top parts sleuth @vulgalour. The part was in Lincs but despite me trying to collect it twice while visiting family, it didn't work out.

Anyway in the end the fella brought it to me for £40. Can't really complain for that, they're like hen's teeth anyway. 

Unfortunately the lower left corner is pretty crumbly. It's the wrong colour anyway (red, but my car is white) so as well as a paint person I will be needing a bodywork person to patch it up. 

I would say I'd have a go myself - it's a flat section and not too fiddly - but I have an impending move to consider and could really do with farming this job out so that it'll be a quick* bolt on job to replace. 

It's been a while since I saw that tailgate, didn't remember it being crumbly like that on the corner.  Like you say though, just about the hardest bit of a Maestro to find and at least with it off the car you can get it fixed hopefully fairly easily.  Glad it finally got to you!

[EyesWeldedShut]

1 minute ago, MrGTI6 said:

Looks like it's been in an accident.

Looks like it's ready to gobble up these:

[lesapandre]

10 minutes ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Sorry - that's just Fugly to me. (I bet I wouldn't send it back if I won it in a roffle though?)

There was not much enthusiasm coming from the visitors to the showroom. They are worse in the metal. 

But it's a good place to visit for the sports cars. I was given a warm welcome even though I was upfront about not being a buyer. I did not get to sit in one. The 2.5M car is very beautiful.

I get the impression they are trying to rebuild the brand - and we had a long chat about British design DNA. They do factory tours I understand and you can pick up a new sports from the factory. 

Jaguar should be doing this - it's all such a pity.

[EyesWeldedShut]

News just in:
Most single marque car forums on t'interweb are full of fake news (or well intentioned bollocks)

2007, 2.1 Mercedes CLK diesel with engine fan on full blast: all.the.time.from cold start.
MB car owners forums
.........
Needs new fan £££££
Needs new fan controller £££££
Needs new ECU ££££
Needs new MAF ££££
Needs new aircon compressor ££££
..........

Mercedes Sprinter forum "check the inlet temperature sensor, M8. They fuckup".
My dodgy Ali express scan thing says 'non, you have no engine in this car' @95 quid Peugeot's scanner thing - "You have an inlet manifold temperature of 149 degrees centigrade".

£8.90 Chinesium part rocked up this morning. No more hovercraft noises.
Happy Days  

 

[richardmorris]

I am hoping to swap fiats around next month and dad has booked the x1/9 for a quick oil change service at Allitalia in Wrexham on the 7th. I had thought we’d last had it serviced before I brought it to Bicester last year but it seems to have been 2021 ( although that wasn’t 1000miles ago). Now just need to get the 2cv fixed to use as the daily car.

[stuboy]

15 minutes ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Sorry - that's just Fugly to me. (I bet I wouldn't send it back if I won it in a roffle though?)

bloke in my close works at a dealer and brought a yellow one home is gopping

[EyesWeldedShut]

Just now, stuboy said:

bloke in my close works at a dealer and brought a yellow one home is gopping

Did his missus tell him to park it around the corner?

[richardmorris]

3 minutes ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

News just in:
Most single marque car forums on t'interweb are full of fake news (or well intentioned bollocks)

2007, 2.1 Mercedes CLK diesel with engine fan on full blast: all.the.time.from cold start.
MB car owners forums
.........
Needs new fan £££££
Needs new fan controller £££££
Needs new ECU ££££
Needs new MAF ££££
Needs new aircon compressor ££££
..........

Mercedes Sprinter forum "check the inlet temperature sensor, M8. They fuckup".
My dodgy Ali express scan thing says 'non, you have no engine in this car' @95 quid Peugeot's scanner thing - "You have an inlet manifold temperature of 149 degrees centigrade".

£8.90 Chinesium part rocked up this morning. No more hovercraft noises.
Happy Days  

 

I think @richykitchy mentioned a good scanner on his YouTube , and had said he would do a video on it…..

[EyesWeldedShut]

3 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

I think @richykitchy mentioned a good scanner on his YouTube , and had said he would do a video on it…..

I have a Delphi ds150e knock off which does everything on this car bar the engine - it's probably US software - so it's only got specific links for two pez engines.  It will give me generic OBD engine data on the engine (OM646) though.
95quidpug's scanner is an iCarSoft, Mercedes specific thing which does read out engine data on this car. Between that & the Delphi I can get access to more data/information that I think I'll ever need (or want tbh   ).

A younger me would have spent hours, days, weeks fiddling and tweaking the computational aspects of this sort of car. Older me is quite happy just to troubleshoot and fix the obvious problems.

 

[stuboy]

54 minutes ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

Did his missus tell him to park it around the corner?

he did actually

[Split_Pin]

11 hours ago, EyesWeldedShut said:

single marque car forums

I have found the Audi A8 Facebook pages to be surprisingly bereft of any real mechanical knowledge. Nobody could give me any anecdotal  experience of the job so I really was playing a guessing game.  I find with lower range models like the Rover 75 and Saabs that there are many more people with practical knowledge.

[EyesWeldedShut]

16 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

I have found the Audi A8 Facebook pages to be surprisingly bereft of any real mechanical knowledge. Nobody could give me any anecdotal  experience of the job so I really was playing a guessing game.  I find with lower range models like the Rover 75 and Saabs that there are many more people with practical knowledge.

Bini ones can be a bit 'take it to the dealer' on mech stuff but OK if you want to know how to change the colour of your dash LEDs 🤷‍♂️ (although North American Motoring  does have some good mechanical threads). The US Subaru forum I used to use is ace for mechanical stuff - maybe more out of town/redneck owners? UK Ovlov forum is also good for the likes of the 940 - US ones tend to be all about drifting. (I try to avoid YouTube but that seems to be the up to date place to find stuff ??)

A lot of the older MB/BMW stuff is getting stale as it predates cheap third party scanners so the older posts are telling you 'dealer' or you must scan it with the MB Lexia equivalent etc. etc. when you can just stick it on something like the Delphi and there's the data looking at you (things like sprogs C4 it can force a DPF regen and the like which I think is really cool.
I am a bit sad.

 

[GMcD]

On 15/05/2024 at 20:27, GMcD said:

A collection of sorts.

Brought baby gmcd home from the hospital this afternoon.  To say I'm buzzing is an understatement.  Mrs gmcd is a superstar. 

Not sure I can justify having a brace of two-seaters now 😆. 

Day 5 of bub gmcd and on the way out for supplies, dad of the year* took a smoll detour to the scrappies for some seats....

...Thank you everyone for the warm wishes for baby gmcd ☺️

[Joey spud]

The rear pads starting groaning on my Avensis recently so I splashed out £44 for replacent bits from 'Car parts in motion' via eBay who I use alot and seem to be a good reliable seller who use royal mail too so delivery is mostly painless.

APEC blue was the brand of the new bits and fitted without fuss and my calipers (Bosch not jap) even pushed back nicely.

While the wheels were off I had a look behind the arch liners and wasn't overly surprised to see corrosion had started to form behind them (car is 16 years old and rarely gets washed).

But surely this area should have been under sealed when new and not left in primer.

So digging in the shed I found a tin of red primer the father in law bought for £2.75 over thirty years ago from Par Plant Centre back when he lived in St Austell and i also dug out the shitters favourite my dented gallon can of Waxoyl.

Not at all pretty but it'll do for now and although the ends of the f-r brake pipes are a bit scabby they'll go another year.

I keep looking at replacing the old girl, I've owned it for nearly six years now it has been a faithful servant and it owes me nothing but being an old diesel I can't go near London or its Kentish suburbs in it.

Labour have recently taken over Medway council and their leader says he has no plans to introduce a ULEZ scheme here but financially they're broke so I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did a U turn in the near future to raise some cash (sorry improve the air quality) then it would have to be replaced.

I fancy a mk9 Civic tourer next but can't decide diesel or big petrol assuming its not a wet belt engine and also a Panda for carting the dogs and crap about.

[Jim Bell]

 

Well that wasn't connected at all. 

 

 

[Wibble]

It’s the Basingstoke festival of transport tomorrow, if anyone nearby fancy’s a visit.

[egg]

Stop people hitting your wing mirrors with WingAware! As seen on TV!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/202681692648

[SiC]

6 hours ago, Joey spud said:

I fancy a mk9 Civic tourer next but can't decide diesel or big petrol assuming its not a wet belt engine and also a Panda for carting the dogs and crap about.

Both are chain and not made out of chocolate either. Diesel does 50+ mpg easily. Petrol is the same engine out of the mk8 civic but optimised for less drag. We get 40mpg-ish out of ours. Not amazing by today's standards but not awful. 

Petrol is old fashioned Honda naturally aspirated and so needs the knackers with little torque low down. Hurts the fuel economy quite a bit doing that. Multi port injection with no turbo and loads of room to work around it in the engine bay through. Should basically be bulletproof. Ours is currently on 108k and have no reason to not truck on with it. 

Only late 65 plate onwards are CAZ and ULEZ exempt though. We went petrol as knew all would be okay. Petrol a lot simpler than a diesel too of course and no DPF or such bollocks. Faster as well. (Still not quick but it's acceptable). 

I don't particularly like ours but it's a car that does everything we need to. Primarily my wife's car and she really likes it. So that is all which matters! It also means I can buy old knackered German cars and always know there is a car on hand for any eventuality. I.e. if a family member is ill in hospital or such emergency travelling, it's the go to car that we 100% know is solid and won't cause any drama to get there & back. 

They're pretty rare cars. I think because the demographic of them tends to keep them for a long time rather than the type changing every 3yrs or so. Our requirement for a facelift petrol meant even smaller pool of cars. When we bought ours two years ago, there was 6 facelift cars in our budget and only 2 petrols. Ended up travelling ~4.5hrs from Bristol to Doncaster way and bought it there and then. Other was up in Edinburgh 😅

[stuboy]

Bloody actuator rod stuck again on the galaxy.. long nose pliers and lots of wd40... seems to be sorted now

[Snake Charmer]

Our 18yr old apprentice turned up for work Wednesday in his first car, an '08 E200 Kompressor. Used well over £60 of fuel out with his mates that night. Good lad.

[BorniteIdentity]

I suppose the News 24 thread is the right place to say that I took control of my first BBC Radio 4 programme this week. I started this Studio Director role about six weeks ago and this week I’ve run the 1800 News twice. 

Now- I’ve worked in radio for 22 years now, and the shine wore off after about 18 months. Since then, it’s a job that paid (certainly me) very well and avoided any manual labour.

But, let me tell you. When Big Ben bongs and Chris Aldridge is smiling back through the glass at you - it’s an amazing feeling. 

Me! With the Home Service at his fingertips. Lunacy. 

 

 

[Joey spud]

2 hours ago, SiC said:

Petrol is old fashioned Honda naturally aspirated and so needs the knackers with little torque low down. Hurts the fuel economy quite a bit doing that. 

😅

Ah I'd hoped the petrol engine was now better than that. I had a petrol Accord and the need to thrash it to progress just didn't sit right with its wafty exec leather interior.

I love Honda's build quality and engineering but not their VTEC system.

It'll have to be the 1.6 dtec then which is even fitted into the CRV and seems to move it along well enough and give good mpg.