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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.

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

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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!

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1 hour 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 took the fucking prop off my Syncro last week otherwise I'd have been out up the Sir William Hill way in it. 

I was out camping near Monyash and there was over a foot of snow in places.

It is amazing what good tyres will do though, there was a 4x4 audi absolutely skidding all over the place unable to get up a hill (with summer tyres on) and I drove past him in a 3200kg FWD van quite comfortably with a set of KO2s.

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Considering how shite the forecast was I've actually had quite a productive weekend.  Got both rear springs changed on the Scénic and also fitted the temporary stick-on rear reflectors as the replacement rear fog lamp hasn't turned up yet (and it won't be a 5-minute job to fit when it does arrive as it's rivetted onto the bumper).  The weather stayed dry and sunny pretty much for the duration - it started hailing just as I was putting the wheels back on.  Just need to tweak the headlamp aim now and it should be ready for a retest.

I also upgraded the rather pathetic horn on the Mazda and got rid of the water in the spare wheel well which has reduced the sloshing noises and should also help with the condensation levels.  I haven't got around to Gun Gumming the exhaust - I'm going to wait until the ground dries out a bit before I go crawling underneath.  I had a look at replacing the thermostat but the housing looks a right twat to get to (jammed under the distributor) so I might have to just put up with the crap heating for now.

I got the shiny new mechanical fuel pump fitted to the Volvo - that wasn't too bad of a job except that the gasket / spacer was reluctant to part company with the old pump.  It's pumping fine but I haven't had a chance to take it for a run yet to see if it's running better.  I was thinking of treating it to a set of plugs but when I pulled the leads off the plugs look almost new - I must have changed them at some point, although I have no memory of having done so - they definitely haven't been in there for 17 years though.  Odd.

Next on the list is to fit an air horn to the Daihatsu and get the stereo working - then it'll be time to get the Rover MOT'd, I'm hoping that won't need too much as it's not really the time of year to be doing major surgery now.

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18 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.

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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.

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Fantastic idea! I definitely have some thinking to do as my lockup strategy* evolves...

16 hours ago, richardmorris said:

Yes, but not in use on the road.

One near me in daily use for sure

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The guy who's fixing this one also has my old one. He had it sitting outside, which is what caught the attention of this ones owner.  Allegros attract Allegros

This one has just had brand new spheres I think from the same place that did MarvinsMoms mini.

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We had a power cut from Friday night to Sunday at 1.30pm. I came home from being away for a few days at 1.35pm.  Wife was not amused.

Getting back to normal here now, schools are shut for two days but I think most services are now restored.

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We've had our midwife's house visit today to discuss the birthing plan for SprogHarris2.0 (since when has any birth gone to plan?)

Before MrsH went back to work though, I took her out for a quick spin in the Beat, as she was unlikely to be able to do so for at least a couple of years. Dropped the top too, which helped the noise levels in the cabin immeasurably.

Her verdict? She gets why I like it but it's not really for her.

Still, she said she's happy that I'm happy so that's something. Even took the boy to pre-school in it today which made his day, and now it'll sit outside the garage with a dehumidifier running to counteract the rain and the poorly soft top.

Still smitten though.

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Sent from my VOG-L09 using Tapatalk

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2 hours ago, cort1977 said:

We had a power cut from Friday night to Sunday at 1.30pm. I came home from being away for a few days at 1.35pm.  Wife was not amused.

Getting back to normal here now, schools are shut for two days but I think most services are now restored.

No power here since Friday either, beginning to get thoroughly pissed off with it too. It is beautiful out though. 

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42 minutes ago, Leyland Worldmaster said:

Well pleased with the set of four Michelin Crossclimate 2 tyres fitted last week! Felt secure and safe this morning in temperatures of minus two! 🥶🥶🥶

-3 in Surrey this morning, below my cycling threshold. New fiat seems ok on the falken tyres.

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AS Shatis update.  This glorious thing got us to Geneva and back last week no bother.  With the cruise set it's like driving my living room, but with more comfortable seating.

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You'll have to believe me that Mont Salève is in the background and not the Malverns.

The trip wasn't without drama, as I managed to kill the battery whilst leaving the lights on during the day.  I knew that would be an issue at some point as there's no warning noise as you open the door.  Not surprised it happened whilst abroad either, as I was tired and relaxed which is often a recipe for fuckupery.  I engaged with the locals and managed to get a jump, so that was alright.  The jump pack I took with me wasn't up to the job, so lesson learnt I've now bought a NOCO GB40 that I'll take everywhere.  It's already been used once this week to jump the Skizzer Espace, which is my fault for not using it enough.  Stating the bleedin' obvious but old cars need to be used, don't they. 

Gratuitous shot with a pogweasel Corrado.

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1 hour ago, RobT said:

AS Shatis update.  This glorious thing got us to Geneva and back last week no bother.  With the cruise set it's like driving my living room, but with more comfortable seating.

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You'll have to believe me that Mont Salève is in the background and not the Malverns.

The trip wasn't without drama, as I managed to kill the battery whilst leaving the lights on during the day.  I knew that would be an issue at some point as there's no warning noise as you open the door.  Not surprised it happened whilst abroad either, as I was tired and relaxed which is often a recipe for fuckupery.  I engaged with the locals and managed to get a jump, so that was alright.  The jump pack I took with me wasn't up to the job, so lesson learnt I've now bought a NOCO GB40 that I'll take everywhere.  It's already been used once this week to jump the Skizzer Espace, which is my fault for not using it enough.  Stating the bleedin' obvious but old cars need to be used, don't they. 

Gratuitous shot with a pogweasel Corrado.

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Fun fact: A mark 1 Espace was the first vehicle I ever experienced 100mph+ in.  My uncle was an ex copper who had pursuit training and... didn't hang around. 

Being used to our Metros, Novas etc it was uncanny how smooth and quiet this was sitting at an indicated 120 flying up the M1.  This was in the mid 90s, so before the days of speed cameras being everywhere!

Right up there on my "I'd love a shot at driving one" list. 

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6 hours ago, RobT said:

AS Shatis update.  This glorious thing got us to Geneva and back last week no bother.  With the cruise set it's like driving my living room, but with more comfortable seating. I managed to kill the battery whilst leaving the lights on during the day.  I knew that would be an issue at some point as there's no warning noise as you open the door. 

It used to have 'auto on' lights, which lit up on their own & had to be switched off manually. When pulling under a garage forecourt for example! An idiot idea that I disabled.

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Fair enough, sounds irritating. A bit like the variable intermittent wipers that seem to have a mind of their own.  For example toggling the switch between frequencies doesn't have the desired effect.  Not sure if it's me being a twat or the auto wiper function getting involved when it shouldn't.

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On my 75, disconnecting the auto wipers sensor behind the rear view mirror restored actual variable intermittent wipe for which the rotating part of the stalk was, laughably, still there.

My Civic is the only car that I have owned with auto wipers where the function actually works extremely well. 

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I only realised the other day that my 75 has the rain sensor behind the mirror.  Thankfully the auto wipers have never worked in my ownership, it just has variable intermittent - the only automation is that the delay becomes longer when the car is stationary, which makes sense.

In Renault-wiper-related news, the Scénic now has a full MOT - I picked a dry day to run it in for a retest just in case the wipers decided to go on strike, but they were working this morning.  Recently I've been finding that if the wipers aren't working, the old IT fix of switching the car off and restarting it will often get them going again.

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11 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

In Renault-wiper-related news, the Scénic now has a full MOT - I picked a dry day to run it in for a retest just in case the wipers decided to go on strike, but they were working this morning.  Recently I've been finding that if the wipers aren't working, the old IT fix of switching the car off and restarting it will often get them going again.

I had that on my Laguna II wipers. If you switched them off and the park switch doesn't detect them parked after so long, it'll disable the wipers entirely till car is restarted. Not particularly handy and would have made much more logic to just stop them after timing out while still working when turned on. But that's Reno logic for you. 

I replaced the wipers mechanism and motor with a second hand replacement. Worked fine from then. 

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Spent yesterday doing stuff on an SLK that lives outdoors in rural Perthshire - having once been a decent car it's now starting to resemble something hauled up from the deepest oceans. Broken spring took a while to replace - no chance of removing the shock to free up space - nut on one side ready to disintegrate and bolt welded in.  Still, eventually got the coilf@cker out using a £70 made-in-China copy of the Mercedes compressor tool that seems safer than conventional spring compressors. Mercedes jack served a useful function of keeping lower arm in place whilst the compressing tool was wound in with a socket from below. Also took dash cluster out to remove annoying SRS light, got indicators working with some WD40 in fusebox, and reinstalled heater blower after water ingress had taken its toll on the connectors. 

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2 hours ago, dean36014 said:

Really chuffed it made it there and back without mechanical incident. 

Same here!  Once home I was on alert for a few days, as the last 'modern' car I took on a long trip (a Volvo S60 to Sweden) shat its alternator a week later.

Next job is the MoT which I need to book for next week.  Possible fails are the front brakes and last year's TRE advisory, but I'll be getting the front discs and pads changed anyway.  Plus I need to clear that fault code again so the EML remains off for long enough.

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I pre mot'ed it at my usual place before I leant it my friend. Front discs and inner track rod joints an advisory. Actually would have failed on handbrake effort on I think the offside. It basically needed new rear discs and pads. Unless the trip has worn something out all the suspension and steering joints were fine.

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