The new news 24 thread

[BorniteIdentity]

1 hour ago, vtec-e said:

Was packing away the historic battery charger and noticed a worn positive lead with a nick in it. It's about 45 years old so has done well.

So a bit of work with screwdriver, sharp knife and cutters it was repaired and put to the test on the Clio

Fixing stuff like this gives such a buzz eh? Well done. 

[barefoot]

RSPB birdspotting day yesterday. 

After an hour in the front room with the binoculars, the fair wife returned and announced, "I've seen 9 finches, 14 starling, a female blackcap,  and I got two great tits".

[Spottedlaurel]

Not at maximum capacity, but the driveway is quite well stocked this morning:

And a glimpse out of the window at the other bit in front of the garage:

Oh, hello, what's that?.....

[Momentary Lapse Of Reason]

17 minutes ago, barefoot said:

 the fair wife returned and announced, "...  and I got two great tits".

Photo or it never happened! 😀

[auntiemaryscanary]

We knew that the 107 belonging to Mr & Mrs amc's eldest dtr was leaking so we parked it up a month ago covered in a tarp. Her driving instructor reckons she's now got enough experience for us to take her out in her car.

Can put off fitting the new seals no longer... A lot worse than expected...

Definitely coming in via the high level brake light and the boot.

Balls..

Dtr and I had 4 hours fitting new seals and cleaning and spot washing to get rid of the mould. I've had to scrape most of the sound deadening out of the spare wheel well as the water has got underneath that.

Dehumidifier now in car with a fan heater. Going to take a good while to dry out.

I've disturbed a rear light fitting 

which means no lights on the offside cluster bar an indicator. Worse thing was that the light seals were good. Ungrateful barstool of a 107. Someone has been in here before as this fitting has been bodged into the loom with electrical tape. 

Approach of darkness stopped play with this light fitting and the cleaning of the boot carpet being left for another day.

[bigfella2]

Unless the car has huge sentimental value and you intend to keep it for the next fifty years I would just drill the tiniest pin hole in the boot floor and don't worry about the seals. At least it will stop the interior getting worse, and let the swimming pool escape.

[auntiemaryscanary]

21 minutes ago, bigfella2 said:

Unless the car has huge sentimental value and you intend to keep it for the next fifty years I would just drill the tiniest pin hole in the boot floor and don't worry about the seals. At least it will stop the interior getting worse, and let the swimming pool escape.

I've removed the rubber bungs, that sorted it! Before refitting them I'll put a small hole in each bung.

[stuboy]

Not much today, just driving about in oliver Reed, and was supposed to date night with missus but the plans got changed.. so ended up BK lunch date and shopping in lidl.. woop woop

 

Edited January 24 by stuboy
Im a div

[comfortablynumb]

I'd just hardwire that rear light if I was you @auntiemaryscanary, just leave enough flex you can pull the lights away from the body.

As said, not looking for originality are you?

[dozeydustman]

Bit of a productive afternoon seeing as I have no car jobs I can do at the moment in time so the tidying and sorting of the junk in the garage continued for a couple of hours.

The shelving I rearranged the other day, and using some loft boards I made a decent worktop. I’ve set it to a height comfortable for me.

I may take a level off the modular unit I nicked from the work’s workshop scrap bin and put a 1-board length return along the wall so I can fix down my bench grinder and have a better height for the parts washer. Currently at chest height for me which is uncomfortable and too high for most under 6ftz

[grogee]

Just had a cream horn. 

[DavieW]

On 23/01/2026 at 18:45, BorniteIdentity said:

Fixing stuff like this gives such a buzz eh? Well done. 

If it's electrical I would hope you didn't get a buzz 😂😂

[Lord Sterling]

Anyone shed any light on this one?

In my thread, I spotted 2 forlorn cars spotted out on the street. One is SORN but this Cavalier is still taxed despite being out of test since 2011:

Also, note how it says 'taxed' only instead of being accompanied with "Tax Due: xx month xxxx year". Disabled tax?

[RoverFolkUs]

Spotted this Pug 205 'Trio' edition today - it was no show pony - only 40-odd thousand miles on the clock if the MOT history is anything to believe, but check out the wear on its driver's seat 😆

[Cord Fourteener]

So my new dodgy Audi made it from NE Wales to Lichfield, Buxton, Holywell then Cumbria over the weekend on my first serious road trip.

Performed flawlessly, scared the bejeebus out of me when I negotiated junctions on country windy roads (and ones I'm familiar with) by trying out S mode on the autobox. Approaching an uphill T junction on to a main road, still in S mode, give some throttle to get onto the road, forgetting the S mode thing and it shoots off. Fun!

[bunglebus]

Is it me or is this a bit cheeky? Car is on the drive, taxed but no MoT currently 

[comfortablynumb]

10 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

Is it me or is this a bit cheeky? Car is on the drive, taxed but no MoT currently 

Had a similar threatening letter for the range rover of too many wheels, insurance had lapsed, MOT exempt, but still taxed, because I hadn't bothered doing anything about it, and obvs it's tax exempt too.

TAX OR SORN NOW OR WE SEND THE BOYS ROUND 🤣

[Zelandeth]

33 minutes ago, bunglebus said:

Is it me or is this a bit cheeky? Car is on the drive, taxed but no MoT currently 

I don't think so.  It is in breach of the rules after all, even if it may come across as petty.

A LOT of people don't ever think about things like this and would be completely unaware their insurance had lapsed as well - so this would be useful in their cases.  Better this than getting pulled over and your car impounded and fines.

[Markeh]

Hopefully some good news on my friend's 2008 today - to recap, 2 months ago she bit the bullet and got the cambelt done (15 plate with the 1.6 e-HDi lump, was due on age but not quite on mileage) at the best part of £1k with some other bits. Then the traction control started throwing codes, knocking out hill hold and cruise intermittently. Then 5th gear left the chat. Then the front brakes were about ready for doing, so we talked about where she could go that weekend to just get those sorted until the garage near her work could get it in to sort the gearbox. Not 12 hours after this conversation she stacked it down my stairs and broke her leg, which has naturally put paid to driving for a bit.

The garage her family normally use (which because they only work weekdays she normally doesn't, as she'd have to take time off to use them) were scaremongering with over the phone suggestions of £2k+. Fortunately her mother had looked up some local gearbox specialists, and today I went over (she doesn't have third party on other cars or drive manuals any more) and hit gold with the first one we found. Old school manual gearbox specialists, yep it's a common fault, bring it in Monday, about £500, haven't even got to drop the box, we can get the garage across the way to look at the other faults once that's done (particularly keen on getting her cruise going again because it'll help with her leg once she is safe to drive again). He did clock a potential coolant leak, mind, and was kind enough to top it up for us. Exactly the sort of specialist I hoped we might be able to find.

Let's see if it works out. Other than those faults the car drives absolutely fine, and once she's got it sorted it should need nothing save for a clutch in the future.

[SiC]

2 hours ago, bunglebus said:

Is it me or is this a bit cheeky? Car is on the drive, taxed but no MoT currently 

Not if you haven't SORN'd it. If taxed, it needs to be insured. If not insured then it needs to be declared off the road with a SORN. That's just what the law is. 

Only cheeky thing is that the tax you loose from doing so if there is a short period where it's not on the road and you don't want it insured. 

[barefoot]

A couple of more obscure issues of Jalopy on ebay this morning;

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/206027703385?mkpid=0&emsid=e11021.m164380.l178264&ch=osgood&euid=60da24fbf9ba42ba8d870a2f576b2d21&bu=43132799590&ut=RU&exe=0&ext=0&osub=-1~1&crd=20260127012011&segname=11021&recoId=206027703385&recoPos=1

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/305735842583?mkpid=0&emsid=e11021.m164382.l178272&ch=osgood&euid=60da24fbf9ba42ba8d870a2f576b2d21&bu=43132799590&ut=RU&exe=0&ext=0&osub=-1~1&crd=20260127012011&segname=11021&recoId=305735842583&recoPos=2

[lesapandre]

Number of US-style ‘battering ram’ pickup trucks on UK roads has nearly doubled in a decade

Usual 'news' story.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/27/us-style-pickup-trucks-uk-roads-up-data-shows

[Markeh]

8 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

Number of US-style ‘battering ram’ pickup trucks on UK roads has nearly doubled in a decade

Usual 'news' story.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/27/us-style-pickup-trucks-uk-roads-up-data-shows

Amazing how at no point the article mentions one of the main reasons there'll be more of them on the road, the BIK situation for double cab trucks prior to April.

[The Vicar]

Check this out, stopped by traffic plod in Ireland over the weekend..

[comfortablynumb]

1 hour ago, The Vicar said:

Check this out, stopped by traffic plod in Ireland over the weekend..

Now, if he'd towed the Agricultural trailer on the road, and piled the others on top, "Agricultural innit mate! All good here..."😁

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, The Vicar said:

Check this out, stopped by traffic plod in Ireland over the weekend..

Why? Was he speeding? 🤣

[beko1987]

Had someone park their massive blobby modern fake SUV next to my smaller middle aged fake SUV today

[PhilA]

What an odd thing. 

Everything's covered in frost. 

The roof tells me the air duct above my desk needs looking at, it might be leaking, or it might be the tube is up against the inside of the roof, I'll take a look at that.

It's set to get even colder, -5°C on Thursday. 

Before you foo-poo that away, keep in mind I'm the same latitude as Morocco and Western Sahara. It doesn't really get cold here. We're sub-tropical. Last year's snow was weird, but we're seeing this flip-flop into cooler winters now with milder summers. Unusual. 

Reminds me I need to call and order a starter motor for the Pontiac. 

Phil

[JJ0063]

Finally have full fibre!

 

Had FTTC round here for donkeys years and being in rural Norfolk, I never thought we’d see the day of actually getting fibre. Had an email in November saying the ducting is now in and we can put an order in. 
 

Morrison data were subbed the job and came out last Thursday and put the ONT in but the lad was a lazy cunt and said he couldn’t get the fibre to the house because his rod wouldn’t fit the ducting (bullshit)

Openreach came out this morning, opened the lid on the path and found the rope that the dig team had kindly already fed (so didn’t need rodding anyway) and fitted the fibre. 
 

gone from 40mb to 450mb so it’s a nice difference for £4 extra on the BT bill!

 

[PhilA]

Nice. GPON or XGS?