The new news 24 thread

[Noel Tidybeard]

On 11/21/2019 at 5:58 AM, paulplom said:

I'd like to think it would go back to it's natural home, in The Cotswolds.

ovlovs were designed for antique stealers, they are in the cotswolds ergo that is the true home for any self respecting I roll

[Eyersey1234]

2 hours ago, BorniteIdentity said:

I find literally anything interesting. Ironically, that probably makes me a dullard - but if someone tells me something that I don’t know, I’m almost transfixed by it for a short moment. I’ve realised twice in the last 24 hours that my world is a small one, and there’s a whole world out there I never knew existed.

Talking to a girl at football yesterday - she runs a company who specialise in pet friendly things. Hotels, foods etc. Do you know there’s a world glass shortage? Me neither?? Know that green glass is particularly hard to come by? Didn’t think so. Boring but interesting.

Then I saw a gorgeous £30 magazine in a shop today, dedicated to architecture and design. I had no idea this was a thing. Check this!

Blueprint magazine. A whole piece on junction design. It could probably be a 60 minute documentary for BBC4 tbh.

Beautiful publication. 

I thought they were designs for wind turbines for a moment then 

[wuvvum]

Been doing a lot of driving today.  I ran the LDV down to Mr. Foxhake of this parish, who then kindly drove me to Reading to pick up this.

I've been wanting to try one of these for a while - I just love the look of them - and this one came up for a price that was too good to refuse.  Its main issue is that the EGR valve has been removed so under hard acceleration it puts out an impressive amount of clag and occasionally it'll splutter briefly until it clears its throat, but cruising at motorway speeds you'd never guess there was owt amiss.  It's the 150bhp JTD so goes well enough, and 70 is 2,000rpm in 6th so it's pretty quiet at speed, and the stereo is decent.  It's an old Alfa so it has a couple of minor warning lights (parking sensors and a spurious warning about the bonnet being open), but all the essentials work.

It feels a bit different to a 156 - not quite as poised - but it certainly handles nicely and feels a lot more Alfa than Vectra.  It has the typical high-geared Alfa steering, which means the twin mini roundabouts down the road from me can be dispatched with a flick of the wrists rather than the manic arm-twirling required to get the Elantra round them.

 

Speaking of the Elantra, it and its incongruous spoiler have been doing sterling work running me to work and back for the last week.  It's the first car I've owned where the trip computer is notably pessimistic when it comes to average fuel consumption - the computer reckons it's doing 42mpg, but I make it high 40s - it's definitely better on diesel than the 75.  It drives OK, although it's by no means a driver's car - the steering is light, vague and oddly low geared.  The clutch has been behaving itself all week, even when caning it through the gears.  It's quite an old-fashioned car in some ways, from the general styling which is vaguely Carina E / P11 Primera to other features that weren't seen much by 2004 such as an electric aerial.

I still need to refit the driver's door card and reseat the window seal after the window derailed last weekend, but other than that all I've done to it is fit a pair of wiper blades (which I had lying around anyway) and swap the bulb holders round from the rear fogs to the reversing lights - the reversing lights didn't work which made reversing on unlit roads interesting - now I just flick the rear foglight switch and I can see behind me.  I almost never use rear fogs anyway, but if I did ever need them it'd be a 2-minute job to swap the bulbs back round.

That spoiler really is ridiculous though.  I mean look at it.

[bramz7]

I was feeling quite canny with my 156 purchase today @wuvvum, but that's a beautiful 159. 

 

Dibs. 

[LightBulbFun]

2 hours ago, Eyersey1234 said:

I thought they were designs for wind turbines for a moment then 

happy to know I was not alone with that thought!

[brownnova]

2 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Been doing a lot of driving today.  I ran the LDV down to Mr. Foxhake of this parish, who then kindly drove me to Reading to pick up this.

.

 

Mrs_brownnova has currently got a hankering for one of these. As I do too I’m encouraging said hankering.

Its either a 159, a V70 or a Freelander... apparently.

I think a 159 may well end up gracing the driveway soon... 

[jonathan_dyane]

Your Skelmersdale correspondent reports a spot

[paulplom]

10 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

I'm not sure we should even begin to ask how that came to be. 

Obviously the famous zafira dash fire.

[egg]

Amazing that Hyundai were making that Elantra in 2004....and look at them now...the spoiler is a little better 'integrated'

[Timewaster]

15 hours ago, BorniteIdentity said:

I find literally anything interesting. 

Blueprint magazine. A whole piece on junction design. It could probably be a 60 minute documentary for BBC4 tbh.

Beautiful publication. 

I went for starfish and mermaids purses. 

[ProgRocker]

Yesterday I bought 4 new tyres for my Almera. All season 'Nexen' tyres. The car steers beautifully now. I may put the car up for sale after Christmas so I decided just to go a budget brand. 

The old mid range Cooper tyres needed replacing. I got advisories about them from the MOT in July. The rear ones were 7 years old, still had plenty of tread but were perishing. The front n/s one appears to have been suffering with a slow puncture and was getting near the limit. 

[clayts450]

Just kicked the 214 back into life by buggering about with the ignition coil - it helps* that it's located in the nearside front wing behind the headlight where it definitely won't* be exposed to all the elements, including all the torrential rain we've had recently.

Disconnected battery, pulled off the HT lead and connectors, wazzed a load of WD40 in there, checked the primary/secondary resistance (all good, coil  not fucked) , cleaned up the connectors and smeared a load of Vaseline all over everything. Hooked the battery back up and it started first time. Free fix FTW.

Will reward it with a run out tonight. Not far, mind, in case the ungrateful bastard stabs me in the back.

[barmatt]

21 hours ago, JeeExEll said:

???

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-50529593

 

21 hours ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

I'm not sure we should even begin to ask how that came to be. 

Having lived on the Outer Herides for a few years in my earlier days, I would say there is an eleventy million percent chance alcohol was involved.

[rusty998]

Could be another Tesco PR stunt gone wrong?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

1 hour ago, ProgRocker said:

Yesterday I bought 4 new tyres for my Almera. All season 'Nexen' tyres..... 

Nexens are good all-rounders. I had them on the diesel Borat, and may have them on the CX when the current Maxxis set gives up.

[egg]

My Sister's Tigra has a leak from the sump (haven't seen it, just reported to me). Is that a known problem before she takes it to a garage? Perhaps better in ask a Shiter.....soz.

[richardmorris]

I have spent most of today travelling to and from, and attending the Traction Owner’s Club AGM. It would be a fair assumption that I was the youngest person there ( and my beard is already turning white) - I was going to add, by a couple of decades, but suspect @Three Speed was next oldest and he was in charge of the meeting and not that much older I expect.  

Does anyone here attend the NEC restoration show? I’ve not been but the Citroen clubs are considering a joint stand next year.

[richardmorris]

1 hour ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Nexens are good all-rounders. I had them on the diesel Borat, and may have them on the CX when the current Maxxis set gives up.

Stone the Heretic! Putting non Michelin’s on a CX will get you excommunicated from the club ( it’s why I no longer look at the club website as people are very intolerant of such heretical thinking).IE Michelins aren’t what they used to be.

 

i like Goodyear efficient grip performance- good in the wet, wear well and are quiet and not very expensive in the size I need (£55).

[egg]

Did you buy one?!

[Tadhg Tiogar]

1 minute ago, richardmorris said:

Stone the Heretic! Putting non Michelin’s on a CX will get you excommunicated from the club ....

Would you want to be a member of any club that would have you as a member?

[richardmorris]

1 minute ago, egg said:

Did you buy one?!

Me? A traction? 

No, not yet. The car that may be for sale belongs to a very long standing member of the club who is now in hospital following a fall. He is in no position to handle a sale at the moment and his ex wife will be sorting his affairs.  Another car was mentioned on the drive back that is in a lockup near my Citroen 2cv specialist’s garage so I am going to look at that in a week or two ( it’s another car that may be for sale at the right price). However it’s a legere not a normale ( small car, rather than the bigger, stanced resistance/gangster look I prefer).

[Three Speed]

1 hour ago, richardmorris said:

suspect @Three Speed was next oldest and he was in charge of the meeting and not that much older I expect.  

You flatter me Richard. Thank you!

[richardmorris]

21 minutes ago, Three Speed said:

You flatter me Richard. Thank you!

Just think we had the most non white hair between us, I seem to be heading rapidly,  non-stop,  towards not mid-forties. Life, don’t talk to me about life ( to quote a depressed robot).

[Saabnut]

2 hours ago, richardmorris said:

 

Does anyone here attend the NEC restoration show? I’ve not been but the Citroen clubs are considering a joint stand next year.

@richardmorris next year will be the third year I will have had a UKSaabs stand there (jointly with the Saab Owners Club - we get a double sized stand that way) and can highly reccomend it. Great show with genuine enthusiasts in attendance.

[wuvvum]

Been having a look through the paperwork for the 159 I bought yesterday.  There are quite a few bills with it - in fact it's had more spent on it this year than I paid for the car, including a bill for £462.48 just two months ago for a replacement turbo core and oil & filter change.  The last MOT in March cost nearly 400 quid.  It also had a cambelt and water pump last year, together with an alloy inlet manifold and piss flap removal.

I also had a poke round the car itself, and can confirm that the manifold does indeed look nice and shiny.  I'm assuming this weird little concertina pipe is the EGR bypass - I'm surprised you can get away with that on a diesel this age (in fact you obviously can't given that, as previously mentioned, it clags like a bastard when you floor it).

I've also discovered that unfortunately the boot is too small to fit my pushbike, and that the cruise control does in fact work - I couldn't get it to work on the drive back yesterday, but that might have just been me being useless.  The tyres are decent Goodyear Eagle F1s on the back and borderline Cooper Zeons on the front - I think those will be getting swapped round in the very near future.

Otherwise I've been driving it around today and it's been great.  In fact if you don't look in the mirror and see the clag cloud you'd not know there was anything amiss with it.  I'm hoping I don't grow to love it too much, as I might then want to start spending money on it to get it fixed, and that is a very slippery slope...

[somewhatfoolish]

EGR deletion won't have much if any effect on clag, it's a NOx reduction measure; the clag is more likely to be some half-arsed tuning measure like winding up the fueling.

[Mrcento]

That pipe 100% won't be an EGR bypass itself, i've seen pipes like that on a few cars that lead to the EGR, The bypass, if it has one, will be a small metal plate fitted between the valve and the manifold to blank it off.

[paulplom]

12 hours ago, egg said:

My Sister's Tigra has a leak from the sump (haven't seen it, just reported to me). Is that a known problem before she takes it to a garage? Perhaps better in ask a Shiter.....soz.

Not a tigra but, my 5 year old transit developed and oil leak from the sump. It had rusted out and became porous. The garage said I was very lucky it didn't just 'go' with the expected results. Did I mention it was only 5 years old at the time?

[wuvvum]

7 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

EGR deletion won't have much if any effect on clag, it's a NOx reduction measure; the clag is more likely to be some half-arsed tuning measure like winding up the fueling.

I did wonder whether it might have had a slightly dodgy remap.  The chap I bought it from reckoned the DPF was playing up, but it GLF and there's no warning lights on the dash so I'm not convinced by that - unless the DPF is missing altogether I suppose, which would increase the smoke levels.

[SiC]

4 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

I did wonder whether it might have had a slightly dodgy remap.  The chap I bought it from reckoned the DPF was playing up, but it GLF and there's no warning lights on the dash so I'm not convinced by that - unless the DPF is missing altogether I suppose, which would increase the smoke levels.

I reckon it's had a Remap with DPF and EGR delete. Then DPF gutted and EGR blanked off. The remap will stop warning lights from coming on. 

A DPF isn't a pass through filter that should allow black soot particles through it.