The new news 24 thread

[dollywobbler]

The Sirion started making that squeaky noise from the brakes that usually signals a sticky caliper. Only around town. Was quite loud though. Braved the drizzle, whipped the front wheels off, and found nothing untoward. So I spent a bit of time squirting underbody wax all over the inner wheelarches and front subframe. These engines that don't leak oil are a stupid idea.

[cort16]

Congratulations, Mr Martymicra Shed!

 

 

 

Right, after some piss-arsing about looks like my lad should be getting his new car tomorrow. Only fly in the ointment is that he can't get insured online this evening because the reg. no. has only just been released by DVLA so not showing on computers apparently.

I might buy his Audi off him (wanker! twat! two faced bastard!) and whizz round in it for a while, not decided yet though.

 

Did he get a new 1.2 Corsa?

[Cavcraft]

Sure did!

 

Talking of Corsas, I've just offloaded the automatic. I've actually taken a £15 hit on it but I might have accidentally kept the stereo and the decent spare tyre.

[stuboy]

not much got a parking ticket

[Barry Cade]

 

Ok Vladimir, It was funny the first time, but I'm getting pissed off now....

 

[trigger]

ALL MODERN CARZ ï RUBBIZH.

 

My Focus has been at the diesel specialists since Wednesday morning and every time i've rang chasing it up i've been getting rubbish replies getting me more and more worked up, they said it was the fuel pressure regulator valve yesterday, today i ring up and it's now the fuel pump...

 

I threw a hissy fit as I've been getting myself worked over it but it's turned out that it's not toooooo bad, £404 + vat for a recon pump fitted including the diagnostics and the last 3 days work, the only trouble is that i have to use the Acclaim and Civic as my main cars until Tuesday, not that that should be a problem.

[RobT]

400 quid for a recon fuel pump? Takes the piss. Now you've sorted the Acclaim I reckon that'll do you reliable service as a daily, even if it is a bit more tiring to drive on a long run.

[dollywobbler]

I keep looking at Tiff's 'Vladimir' post. It's brilliant.

[Lacquer Peel]

Hey Trig, should have bought a petrol. Bye

[Cavcraft]

Took the afternoon off to take my lad to get his new car. He's gone out now for the obligatory 'driving to mates houses' thing, whilst grinning like the proverbial Cheshire Cat. To be fair it's a nice little car and very eye catching, though the lack of a temp gauge is stupid.

[derskine]

ALL MODERN CARZ ï RUBBIZH.

 

My Focus has been at the diesel specialists since Wednesday morning and every time i've rang chasing it up i've been getting rubbish replies getting me more and more worked up, they said it was the fuel pressure regulator valve yesterday, today i ring up and it's now the fuel pump...

 

I threw a hissy fit as I've been getting myself worked over it but it's turned out that it's not toooooo bad, £404 + vat for a recon pump fitted including the diagnostics and the last 3 days work, the only trouble is that i have to use the Acclaim and Civic as my main cars until Tuesday, not that that should be a problem.

 

I wasn't joking when I said sell it and buy that escort...

I only own older cars and must admit that it makes motoring very, very cheap for me, because they're so easy to fix myself.

[trigger]

I has put me off diesels now, I do around 12000-15000 miles a year which isn't massive but i need it to be reliable plus i have a sister in Cornwall who i visit as well as regular 50 mile round trips to and from Colchester so I've always bought diesels, now what with the premium it costs to buy the car in the first place over a petrol model and the savings in fuel coupled with the over complications of these new diesel engines I'm starting to think modern diesels really aren't worth bothering with.

[nigel bickle]

I have never owned a diesel (Bellel excepted) as I've done the sums several times & its never worked for either of us.

 

Sadly, we cover monumental mileages.

[cort16]

A lot of the diesel thing is driven by company car buyers who're after the lower C02 outputs that can't be achieved by petrols in larger cars.. The drive for lower C02 outputs is what brought in the DPF stuff. When I was looking at cars recently I noticed that Skoda offer the Octavia VRS diesel with or without a DPF. There's a largish C02 output difference between the two but they're basically saying if your a company car driver get the DPF one if you're not so affected by C02 by the non DPF one.

 

If this doesn't affect you then it's harder to justify the extra fuel consumption and slightly higher road tax from running a petrol than a diesel.

[dollywobbler]

I has put me off diesels now, I do around 12000-15000 miles a year which isn't massive but i need it to be reliable plus i have a sister in Cornwall who i visit as well as regular 50 mile round trips to and from Colchester so I've always bought diesels, now what with the premium to costs to buy the car in the first place over a petrol model and the savings in fuel coupled with the over complications  of these new diesel engines  I'm starting to think modern diesels really aren't worth bothering with.

 

This is increasingly the way of the world. Car Mechanics carried a piece (written by Sward of this parish I think) warning folk away from diseasels. They've had their time. The need to squeeze cleanliness out of them is just making them a nightmare. I like diesels, but only old, mechanical-pump style ones. Once you start adding complication, you start removing more and more of the advantages.

 

Here's another thought. When we did our 1300-mile trip to north Scotland, my sums reckoned taking the 45mpg Sirion instead of a 34mpg car saved me £60. Which isn't so much really in the big scheme of things. Certainly cheaper than a dual mass flywheel or a fuel pump.

[trigger]

I have a work mate with a 2004 Mondeo TDCi, last year he spent nearly £2000 getting his injectors repaired and having a new fuel pump fitted, last week the same thing happened again, his isn't even a high mileage car, think it was something like 80000 miles.

 

Then another work mate has a 06 plate Kia Sorento 4x4, driving into work last week it had lost power and was knocking really badly, he dropped it of at his mechainic and was expecting the engine to be knackered, turned out the pressure of the fuel system blew the diesel injector out of the head, he was really lucky, the garage re-threaded the head again and manage to refit the old injector back in and now it's fine.

 

I'm hearing more and more stories about diesel problems, even the garage where mine is was was packed with cars this afternoon.

[trigger]

In other news my mum's partner has just told me about a 1968 Ford Corsair GT that's being in a garage since 1989 that for sale, his mates a painter & decorator and it's one of this elderly customers, It will be interesting to see what comes of it, nothing probably!

[Cavcraft]

You have to go and look at that, Trig. If you're double jammy it'll be a 2 door.

[Richard]

Why can't a family car with a petrol engine do 45-50mpg now? I was getting low-mid 30s from clapped-out 1970s crocks with rubbish carburettors 25 years ago, and that was before I discovered that throttle pedals have an intermediate position. I would expect to get mid-high 40s from the modern equivalents with their engine management etc, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

[derskine]

Corsairs are great.. and GT corsairs are pretty rare.

[Sigmund Fraud]

 I like diesels, but only old, mechanical-pump style ones. 

 

^ WHS !

 

Over the last year I've been doing lots of driving up and down motorways at the national limit, and I really believe that an old-school, naturally-aspirated diesel is the best choice for this kind of work.

[cobblers]

I absolutely fucking love my mk3 golf with its clacky NA diesel in, it does 50mpg NO MATTER WHAT and I drive it totally flat out all the time on nice windy A roads to work and back. I've bought a TD to go in there but I dunno if I'd spoil it. Twice as much BHP would definitely be nice though

[Ratdat]

This is my daily. I've had much more modern daily transport before but this does the job better than any of them. It cost £700 and in the last 10,000 miles, I have spent about £25 on it not including oil changes. It cost buttons to insure, it starts every time without fail and gets me where I need to go at a decent speed and a degree of comfort ...and can carry pretty much anything I ask of it. It's been halfway down France, towed a caravan and all my shit to Beaulieu autojumble. It's had a ride on mower in it, a cement mixer and even had half a tonne of coal in the back of it. It averages 35mpg but the extra fuel cost is offset by the minimal running costs. It's now coming up to 156,000 miles and still feels like it'll go forever. 

 

Autoshiteing. You're doing it all wrong.

 

[derskine]

I do about 9000 miles a year in my polo.

The car has cost me about £600 in total.

It returns 50mpg and it's possible to fix ANYTHING that breaks in a weekend - and the parts are massively cheap.

But there isn't that much to go wrong really.

The fact that you have a couple of roadworthy cars makes it even easier, since if one breaks you don't have to rush around fixing your only car.

[Mr Lobster]

I has put me off diesels now, I do around 12000-15000 miles a year which isn't massive but i need it to be reliable plus i have a sister in Cornwall who i visit as well as regular 50 mile round trips to and from Colchester so I've always bought diesels, now what with the premium it costs to buy the car in the first place over a petrol model and the savings in fuel coupled with the over complications of these new diesel engines I'm starting to think modern diesels really aren't worth bothering with.

At that sort of mileage I reckon you'd be a lot better of with a petrol tbh.

 

Our family wagon ('10 Mazda 5 2.0) covers around the same mileage as you incl a few trips down south and abroad a couple of times a year. Given that when we bought it it was about £3k cheaper than the equivalent diesel, but petrol is cheaper than diesel to buy and over that sort of mileage the saving of diesel over petrol isn't that great anyway. Plus theres a lot less to go wrong on a petrol.

 

It might be a bit harder to sell on in a few years (plan was to run it to 10 years old / 140k miles or thereabouts) but it should be a lot cheaper on maintenance. 

 

Personally I reckon that as far as diesels go then the older n/a stuff is probably where its at and for petrols then a decent capacity petrol engine should give you reasonable economy and low enough running costs.

[Pete-M]

Offside drive shaft decided today would be a nice day to sit in the sun instead of making my car move.

 

Had all the offside front bits off earlier in the week to replace the front struts. I suspect that's dislodged it a tad, but on inspection there was half a drive shaft circlip in the CV boot - and a full one still in the CV joint. Methinks someone (in the past) has replaced the CV joint and not noticed there was already a circlip in the joint, so it's not actually been fitted properly for at least the 2000 miles I've done in the car. 

 

It's all back together now. Seems happy enough.

[Heidel_Kakao]

The SC100 is booked in for an MOT retest tomorrow as it failed last week on a few items, I have rectified most of the fail points but the one I am still worried about is "Steering wheel retaining device insecure (2.1.6)", there is basically a tiny amount of play in the steering wheel if you make a decent effort to move it up or down.

 

I never noticed it myself before the tester pointed it out & when I have had a look to see where the problem lies I have not been able to find anything loose so I think it may just have been like this from new & they are being a bit over zealous with it. Is there any possibilty I will be able to argue with the tester and get them to pass it as it has gone through previous tests like this.

[TagoraSX]

I've just agreed to buy a 1979 BMW 633 CSI in JRG with 34k

[Cavcraft]

I absolutely fucking love my mk3 golf with its clacky NA diesel in, it does 50mpg NO MATTER WHAT and I drive it totally flat out all the time on nice windy A roads to work and back. I've bought a TD to go in there but I dunno if I'd spoil it. Twice as much BHP would definitely be nice though

 

 

I vote leave it as is and keep the engine tucked away somewhere 'just in case.'

[Barry Cade]

The SC100 is booked in for an MOT retest tomorrow as it failed last week on a few items, I have rectified most of the fail points but the one I am still worried about is "Steering wheel retaining device insecure (2.1.6)", there is basically a tiny amount of play in the steering wheel if you make a decent effort to move it up or down.

 

I never noticed it myself before the tester pointed it out & when I have had a look to see where the problem lies I have not been able to find anything loose so I think it may just have been like this from new & they are being a bit over zealous with it. Is there any possibilty I will be able to argue with the tester and get them to pass it as it has gone through previous tests like this.

It's knackered. SC100 steering stuff is no longer supplied and cannot be repaired. I think you should just give up and give it to me. I sold my last one to pay for a wedding ring...