The new news 24 thread

[dollywobbler]

26 MPG would be easily possible if I'd welly it less.

 

I was hooning around Welsh mountains when I did it. This is when I discovered just how shite autos are for engine braking...

[Skoze]

Just swapped £60 worth of brand new land rover parts with my neighbour for some beer.

 

I don't think i'm a very good businessman. 

[EssDeeWon]

How much beer? Quite a lot I would hope...

[Timewaster]

Could be Britpart shit in which case Skoze is genius.

[forddeliveryboy]

I was hooning around Welsh mountains when I did it. This is when I discovered just how shite autos are for engine braking...

 

You've to remember to change down, just as in a manual clutch gearbox.

[Pete-M]

Five years and four days later, the MOT hurdle has finally been cleared.

 

No advisories. Good, me. Especially when it's the first test the car has had since 1992, and it's first evah UK MOT.

[Junkman]

Just swapped £60 worth of brand new land rover parts with my neighbour for some beer.

 

I don't think i'm a very good businessman. 

 

You should now drink the beer, and then watch some Land Rovers in need of some parts on Ebay.

[dollywobbler]

You've to remember to change down, just as in a manual clutch gearbox.

 

Well duh! Believe me. You can slam a P6 Auto into first and if you're coming down a REALLY steep hill, you'll still be glad P6s have excellent brakes. I may as well have put it in neutral. It also sounds horrible. 

[forddeliveryboy]

Oh. I associated 'hooning' with speed and didn't know your P6 autobox/engine didn't slow you much. If the hills were so steep, 26omg looks even more impressive. Was that between two places at the same altitude?

[dollywobbler]

It included a 60mph A-road cruise from Northants. The gearing felt rather different to the 2CV that's for sure. We actually drove the Rover through our village, two house moves before it became our village.

[Wackeldackel]

Picking the missus up from Potsdam train station,waiting at the lights to turn right. Blöde Kuh (stupid cahhhh) in front of me decides she's in the wrong lane...cue reversing lights lighting up, hardly a glance in her mirror and me hooting and shouting HALT....STOP.....SCHEISSSSE. next thing I know my left headlamp is twinkling on the tarmac and the bumper has a large jagged scar. Her little merc A190 has a scuff on the back bumper. Fan bloody tastic.

 

Fair enough she's very apologetic, no other bugger in the queue of traffic stopped to say they saw what happened. She calls her son, who of course is a panel beater. His advice? Go through insurance mum. This fills me with dread, visions of the damage assessor pissing himself laughing at my crusty old merc and visions of towtrucks and scrapyards beckon (or more accurately, a container ship to Nigeria). So I pick the missus up and head home. Just about to phone her insurers and the phone rings in my hand, its the aforementioned silly cow. She has had a think and a work out of her insurance costs, would €200 in a brown envelope be acceptable?

 

Second hand headlight €50

Second hand bumper €100

New fan belt tensioner €40

New fan belt €10.

 

Crash for cash? In this case, yes please. Still a bit of an arseache to collect the parts and fit them as well but on the whole a lot better outcome than previously thought.

[cobblers]

You'd want a drink or two for your fannying about really, just tell her it'll cost you X +50%( for ballache factor) for the bits and a oner for a days labour fitting them, You don't really owe her any favours, you wouldn't work on her car for a day for nothing so why should you work on yours? I'm all for being nice to people and stuff but it'll deffo save her well over that kind of money in NCB etc.

 

 

 

After work today I went to the MOT garage round the corner, that incidentally last tested that 106 GTi (that two people have recommended to me) to see if they could collect it from the sellers house cos I don't fancy dayinsuring it (the >£1k value and "fully motd" clause on it puts the willies up me) and they were dead sound. They are collecting it in the morning for free, and are quite happy to store it for a while until I sort out insurance/tax etc cos I've no off road parking. Cracking!

 

I even said the mental "if it needs anything minor for the test up to about £100 then just do it" line but I suppose £600 for an MOTd car isn't going to really bankrupt me. 

 

I'll find out tomorrow morning if I've been sold a dog/the mot garage are not anywhere as near sound as they seem/some other unfortunate outcome.

[saucedoctor]

€400 more like, taking into consideration your inconvenience.

[steve_earwig]

You'd want a drink or two for your fannying about really, just tell her it'll cost you X +50%( for ballache factor) for the bits and a oner for a days labour fitting them, You don't really owe her any favours, you wouldn't work on her car for a day for nothing so why should you work on yours? I'm all for being nice to people and stuff but it'll deffo save her well over that kind of money in NCB etc.

I think I'd bite her hand off in case she has another think - back of mine, front of his, no witnesses...

[Wackeldackel]

I wouldn't want to take the piss too badly. I need to take the fan belt and tensioner offf anyway to do a power steering fluid change, so the new belt and tensioner aren't a result of the knock but just a bit of bunce from the extra €50. I don't generally tend to factor in my time as I have bugger all better to do, plus it keeps me away from the pub. Rather pay out for car parts (slightly prolonged enjoyment of getting to know the car and engine better, hopefully improved performance and greater peace of mind when driving a 25 year old car across Europe) than just for beer (enjoyable only until I wake up the next morning). Still better a result than an arsehole van driver back home who drove into the side of my old 406, again I was stationary, and just said "KNOCK 4 KNOCK M8".

[cobblers]

With Cpn Earwigs post in mind, just make sure you save any messages from her that accept blame for reversing into you, possibly print them out on MS comic sans on lined paper, then take a photo of them with your phone. That's how they do it on the news.

[philibusmo]

Today I got two new tyres fitted to the front wheels of the Avantime. Two Bridgestones with a really good amount of tread, picked up quite locally for £55 and then fitted for £30 (which I didn't much care for, I really must learn how to fit tyres some day soon) so that I was quite pleased with that seeing as a single new 235/50/17 was going to cost over £170.

 

After popping the alloys back on I slid under the car to check out the cross member that's sat under the radiator as these apparently rot out quite regularly. Mine as a couple of very small scabs of surface rust but is overall exceedingly solid. I gave the rest of the underside a quick look over and was very pleased, not a spot of rust anywhere else obvious. Then as I slid back out from underneath I grabbed hold of a slightly flimzy looking bit of box section running the length of the back of the passenger side sill which proceeded to crumble to dust in my hand and fall in its entirety into my eyes. The metal around it is perfect and it's not going to be difficult to fix - I'm not annoyed, just disappointed.

 

I've had a good search around and can't find any reference to rust in this section - or in fact any where other than the panel under the radiator so it looks like I've achieved the feat of inadvertently buying the rustiest example of a car in the country!

 

I'll finish off the last three welding patches on the Supra before fixing this as it doesn't seem to be an important piece of box section and I'm not having two cars up on axle stands at once or I'll have the neighbors curtains twitching even more than usual.

[TimothyClaypole]

One for the Renault folk - There's a skip at Brian Leighton (Garages) Ltd in Howden and I'm sure the Renault sign/symbol is in it - it looks to be closing down as it's been cleared and they have taken bits off the outside etc.  I'd have a look but the gates are always locked.

 

I'm assuming it's plastic so of no scrap value etc.

 

 

 

[beko1987]

One of the taxis working for the hotel we used to share a carpark with bashed the meriva one night. I went inside and spoke loudly to the duty manager and since the taxi driver was a mate* of his would I settle for cash? Score for me as that's what I wanted, I got £140 and me and SWMBO were wined and boozed for an afternoon.

 

I spent half an hour machining the damage back and filling in the white bits with a sharpie and spent the money on holiday.

 

The sharpies wearing off now, should really go top it up...

[Lord Sterling]

Brill. Auld_lad_Sterling's Volvo V40 took a bit of a whack by the right-hand side rear light. Rear lamp casing broken and the rear wing by the light is bashed in. Thankfully it's a small bash but in quite a difficult place to repair. This might put old man's new Toyota Avensis on hold for a bit which means by the time all is sorted out, I'll be back in the UK and won't see it for a while.

 

At least I've got my lightly breathed on Honda Legend Rover 827 Coupe to look forward to.

[wuvvum]

Well Operation Fleet Reduction isn't going very well at all.  The Rover hasn't sold (only had one view so far, he came while I was at work and decided he didn't want it), nor has the LNA (this place isn't what it used to be etc. etc.).  The Delica is advertised in various places and have had quite a few calls / emails, but nobody's bothered to turn up to view as yet.  On a slightly brighter note, deposit taken on the Talbot but the chap can't get down to pick it up for a while yet (he's in Scotland) - but at least it's found a buyer and will be going to a good home.

 

I'm hoping the LNA sells soon as it's out of tax at the end of the month, which means I'll either have to park it up or fork out for another six months' rent.  I might have to move the Cav on if the others don't sell soon - don't really want to sell it yet (and it'll be awkward to sell to Joe Public with the braking issues) but my car park is starting to look overcrowded again.  Plus I need some moneyz to get the Volvo brakes sorted, which I would really like to do ASAP so I can start getting it ready to go back on the road before I run out of summer.

[barefoot]

Yesterday I saw that lovely young blonde woman from the Available Car advert, she was attempting to cross the road to get to the aforementioned garage.

She didn't look quite as smiley in real life as she does on the telly

but I put that down to her being stared at by some dodgy looking old bloke in a manky old car.

[dollywobbler]

I feel for you Wuv. The Rover is mightily tempting, but living on completely the other side of the country is very unhelpful. How dare you!

 

The LNA will be a pain in the arse to sell I'm afraid. It's a very limited market, even though it shares much goodness with the 205 really.

 

In my own news, I'm off to Telford today to interview a bloke for a mag feature and, while I'm there' have a look at a non-T&T Volvo 940 saloon to see if I reckon it's a go-er. Then I'm off to Coventry to meet the buyer of the Maestro van. He's driving up from Milton Keynes with a friend. By the time they get there, I'll have either bought a Rover 620SLDi or a train ticket to get home.

[cort16]

Today I got two new tyres fitted to the front wheels of the Avantime. Two Bridgestones with a really good amount of tread, picked up quite locally for £55 and then fitted for £30 (which I didn't much care for, I really must learn how to fit tyres some day soon) so that I was quite pleased with that seeing as a single new 235/50/17 was going to cost over £170.

 

After popping the alloys back on I slid under the car to check out the cross member that's sat under the radiator as these apparently rot out quite regularly. Mine as a couple of very small scabs of surface rust but is overall exceedingly solid. I gave the rest of the underside a quick look over and was very pleased, not a spot of rust anywhere else obvious. Then as I slid back out from underneath I grabbed hold of a slightly flimzy looking bit of box section running the length of the back of the passenger side sill which proceeded to crumble to dust in my hand and fall in its entirety into my eyes. The metal around it is perfect and it's not going to be difficult to fix - I'm not annoyed, just disappointed.

 

I've had a good search around and can't find any reference to rust in this section - or in fact any where other than the panel under the radiator so it looks like I've achieved the feat of inadvertently buying the rustiest example of a car in the country!

 

I'll finish off the last three welding patches on the Supra before fixing this as it doesn't seem to be an important piece of box section and I'm not having two cars up on axle stands at once or I'll have the neighbors curtains twitching even more than usual.

 

Ive not looked under mind yet I'm just going under the sound* assumtion that as most of the body is plastic the underneath will be rot free. My front cross member doesn't look too clever. It's solid enough but looks like it's been dragged out quarry.

 

You know that skittles advert were the everything the guy touches turns to skittles? Have you ever though that you're like that but with rust?

[catsinthewelder]

I tried that theory when I bought a £200 Espace blind off the bay,  It's the only car I've ever scrapped because of rust and I own an 1100 and a Disco

[Asimo]

 slightly flimzy looking bit of box section running the length of the back of the passenger side sill which proceeded to crumble to dust in my hand and fall in its entirety into my eyes. The metal around it is perfect 

 

 

Any chance of a photo of that bit, for possible future Avantime inspecting purposes please?

 

Such a shame to go to all the trouble of doing the only truly effective thing to rustproof a steel structure (hot-dip galvanizing), and then spoil the finished job with a few supplementary parts that are made to Lancia Beta standards.

[Cavcraft]

That 205 really is superduper.

 

I have just got off the phone from a young and enthusiastic** shiter who has a Plan.  WCPGW?  There's a pretty epic tat collection thread in the making, ladies and gentlemen, oh yes.  It involves rust, royalty* and southerners.

 

 

**mental

I'll have a tenner on Maestro Van in the 3.05 at Derby.

[Junkman]

Well duh! Believe me. You can slam a P6 Auto into first and if you're coming down a REALLY steep hill, you'll still be glad P6s have excellent brakes. I may as well have put it in neutral. It also sounds horrible. 

 

That's because the Rover V8 engine has less than average engine braking capabilities, entirely irrespectively of which kind of gearbox is mounted behind it.

I've noticed this with several such engined cars that had antediluvian gearboxes. On steep down slopes, they just rev into the red and would still accelerate,

if you didn't use the brakes for assistance.

Good thing the brakes are little prone to fading even when used hard.

[brickwall]

TVR owners will tell you that. it will just rev like hell and then you disappear through a hedge.

[Skoze]

A guy just came and picked up my Capri Turbo Tail. In a Mini. With a passenger. If anyone sees a burgundy Mini going round the M25 with a big black slab of fibreglass hanging out the rear window, worship him. 

 

Also still waiting on my beer from yesterday's business deal.