The new news 24 thread

[Burnside]

2 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

The Stilo is a design which has aged well I think.  Though being honest I always quite liked the look of them.  Never been in an estate, but we had a couple of the hatchbacks through the garage just towards the time I finished there and they seemed to drive nicely...though thinking about it I don't think I've ever driven a Fiat I didn't like really...even down to a Uno 60S with the 1.1 litre engine in...

This evening's task for me: Get a bloody website update pushed through.  It's not been touched since 2017, and it's about bloody time I did something about that.  I've got nearly a dozen half finished updates sitting in the Work in Progress folder, so time to pick one and run with it.

I must admit as a Fiat fan when they came out. I thought they were rather bland looking, but after spending time driving a hatchback version a few years after they came out. It quickly won me over and as they have gotten older. I've grown to rather love it's styling too. 

Despite the abuse this poor car received by it's previous owner it's held up rather well. Though having what I believe is a genuine 49,000 has possibly helped. I'm not sure how far I can go with improving it, but it's certainly looking better than it did when I brought it last year!

 

 

 

[paulplom]

7 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Just looked on that as it happens! Nothing showing.

The only reason I know what’s likely is because I was in the garden when the new owner was next door talking to some other guy. His words were ‘a two bed in this area and a three at the bottom’. So that’s at least two, on the same size plot as every other house on this street which only has one, and all the houses are more or less in line with each other. By doing what he’s suggesting he wants to means our house and many of the neighbours will be overlooked badly, but also the only house at the rear of the plot will face directly into all our back windows. It’s certainly not in keeping with the other houses in the street. The guy who lives on the other side of that land is in an even worse situation for privacy because of how his bungalow is laid out.

Of course what the developer wants to do is completely different to what he will be allowed to do in the end. But it still means the loss of all those trees.

 

You need to completely fill your garden with horse manure. Pile it really high. Nobody will want to but a house next door to a garden full of horse shit.

[00833827]

Yesterday i changed a rear seized caliper on the wifes golf. I had left it since i noticed it seized when chaging pads but now we were down to the metal so had to go at it. Had a casualty during the change too. The caliper brake pipe / when turning the nut to remove it twisted the pipe and snapped.  A mate of mine is in a local dealership (closed but servicing emergency vehicles so can partially operate) so his mechanic made one up for me with the flagging tool. Fitted last night and 40 min test drive this morning, jumping on the brakes all the time she performed well. I checked the joints for leaks when home and all dry so i am confident enough to send her off in it again this morning. Told her take it easy,  listen out for noise on the ten mile drive to work, stereo off, and if any warning lights come up pull in and call me.

 

 

While at my mates garage, he asked if I was still interested in a 2006 Kangoo I had inquired about a few months back. He had been using it as a van as they had none at the time, but were now done with it. No test since September, 1.2 16v petrol (think its the D4F from same as a clio), roof bars, tow bar, body pretty clean, interior is so sparse that hard to tell but everything seems to work, drivers bolster is torn, clutch is fairly heavy (i had a 1.5 diesel one of these for a while and i remember the same thing so might just be a thing with them) - i think it said 171000 kms on it, i literally just took it and drove it the 2 mins to my house, parked it up the road so my other half didn't see it. will unveil at the weekend

My mate would not take anything for the brake pipe so i felt obliged to take the kangoo off him - thats what i am going to say to herself anyway

 

[richardmorris]

Still looks a very good shaped design.

 

[egg]

Ok so I split open the pressure machine and the power cable has (waterproof?) spade connectors. Do I just yank these sort off? And this makes the reconnection process harder? I was expecting to have bare wires to remove...

[Jazoli]

Just gently (not yank) pull them off, its easy.

[beko1987]

They might have a locking tab on one side, dysons do, then they put those stupid rubber boots over it. Possible to do in situ with a small screwdriver though, push the tab down and it releases and comes up

[brownnova]

Going for a drive to work or shopping is more such an event I seem to photograph it every time... 

I’m so glad the soft top was the one I kept taxed! 

[Lankytim]

The aircon clutch on the V70 seems to be making a right whine, inspection showed the pulley section was a bit wobbly. I’ve got a spare pump in the garage so to avoid letting all the gas out I had a look at swapping the clutches and pulleys over. After finally getting the outer part off and then the large circlip on the outside got stumped by an inner circlip. I’ve broken my elderly circlip pliers, can anyone recommend a decent set? They seem to range from 99p up to £999.

[Ghosty]

New wheels ordered for the C30 as it's driving on 4 eggs. Nice simple five spoke design off a V50, straight swap OE fitment so I can keep my tyres.  But easier to clean and no corroded to hell

[Split_Pin]

Got someone to cut me both front suspension turrets from a dead Corsa to replace the rotten originals on mine.

I don't think all of the strut tower needs replaced but better to have the whole section just in case. 

[Burnside]

More jobs done on the Stilo SW. Have clay barred and polished up the Bonnet. Touched in some more chips an mark's. Then blacked up the exterior plastics. 

A nearside brake bulb had randomly failed, so sorted that. 

Inside looking better too. I've cleaned out the front interior light of dead insects. Yuk. An have replaced one of the rear headrest and the manky drivers door card. As had used replacements already to hand. 

I think long term though some replacement seats would be the best option. An the headlining as that's beyond help.

The pictures still flatter it, but I'm really pleased with today progress. 



[HMC]

Good to read about all the fettling going on; all I did was to take a flattering photo of the Mercedes (The paint is quite rough in parts and it’s been attacked with a golf club at some point) and make an ultra low budget what do we have lying around darth Vader outfit.

 

[somewhatfoolish]

Darth seems to be wielding a broken-off pool cue, so clearly spoiling for a fight.

[chodweaver]

You need to completely fill your garden with horse manure. Pile it really high. Nobody will want to but a house next door to a garden full of horse shit.

Yeah, like Paul sez, if it were me, I'd be doing my damnedest to fuck them up. You might have missed the boat with tree preservation orders, but you might try looking for some endangered species of moth or newt on it. Or find and 'rehome' some badgers onto the land and then make sure their presence is well publicised...

My parents bought their dream plot in 1951. Land adjacent to and being sold by the local church. A 1/2 acre thicket of bramble and apple orchard. Next to it, a paddock, also church land. My folks enquired if the paddock would be available to purchase in the future and the local vicar told them it would be, so they built their house close to the boundary with the paddock, in expectation of buying it too and ending up with their house in the middle of a large garden - they were both keen gardeners.

In 1952, they asked the vicar if the land was available. He told them 'not yet'.

Then developers turned up, and built 13 houses ('bungalows' the plans said) on the paddock.
Four of the houses were within five yards of the wall that separated the two plots of land, every one with four first floor windows overlooking my parents' house and so close that any privacy on that side of my parents house was gone.

Relations between my parents and the local church soured somewhat after that.

When my parents built an extension, they were prevented from putting any windows on that side of the first floor because it would compromise the privacy of the new builds.

So I understand the anger you feel towards the school and the developer. Fuck em up, any way you can.

Sent from my BV6000 using Tapatalk

[mitsisigma01]

Japanese knotweed and asbestos will cost them time and money!! 

[danthecapriman]

9 minutes ago, volvov70 said:

Just report the sighting of a Great Crested Newt to the EA. No end of pain for the developers

What does your local planning portal say about the development? Has it been approved?

There are newts here, wether or not there’s any great crested ones I don’t know. Down the bottom of all our gardens in the land still owned and used by the school there’s a big pond, the land all slopes down towards it with all our houses along the top of the slope along the road. Obviously the bottom half of the land is quite wet and we’ve got loads of frogs and newts around if you look for them. There’s a massive willow tree there too which is usually a big give away for wet ground. This is a concern too, if they build where he’s planning too and then puts an access drive in as well, that could very well mean the run off water ends up in the garden either side. 

Theres problems with waste/sewage water drainage too, the street and underground drains are very old now, they’ve never been replaced or upgraded and now the amount of houses using them has doubled. A few years ago a bent local councillor bought two big old bungalows opposite our house and tried to build 80 retirement flats on the site, it made the local news because of said dodgy deals with the councillor, but planning was rejected a few times before they finally relented and approved 30 retirement flats. Since then in wet winters we get major overflow problems with the drains! Our next door neighbour has the lowest garden and he had a river of sewage in his back garden a few years ago! 

 

This lot trying to develop now didn't even attempt to look for things like newts. They just went straight in and levelled the site, so anything that was there is probably dead now! There’s no plans submitted yet as far as I know, what I know is only from being a nosey bastard and listening to the owner when he was there discussing things a few days ago. I think he was with an architect or something. I think it’ll take him a while to get anything through at the moment with all the virus shutdown etc, but it will come.

[Semi-C]

This prime slice of smut has not been forgotten about since I relieved mr Sri05 of it last May!!

My dad is it’s custodian and hasn’t stopped jetting his malennaise on, at and around it since he took delivery.

There’s been little to report until now, flawless service has been it’s fortê and it has rekindled my dad’s enjoyment in driving (he’s an HGV tramper so not an unimpressive feat), as well as piquing his new found interest in polishing.

An unknown battery drain sapped all the electricity from the car without warning and rendered it incapable of starting or shifting gear. No amount of fully charged batterys could encourage a start so, a journey of googling, component swapping and discovery was embarked upon.

The brake light switch had failed so a replacement was fitted, to no avail sadly. Swapping the body control module did nowt as did replacing the ecu/swapping relays/etc.

With my meagre understanding of cars exhausted, I was directed towards Jaguar smartypants’ Roach Classics in Acton, Suffolk by a pal who was formerly an employee there. 
I had the XJ6 collected yesterday noontime and by 1630 o’clock it was running and driving fine! All of it’s original electrical modules were refitted and reprogrammed so we’re back in the game.

I’ll be fetching the car back home next week as my dad has elected to get the abs pump pre-emptively overhauled whilst the specialists still have it.

 I cannot wait to drive it again, my journey back from Glasgow to Suffolk was blissful and if I didn’t have an LS400, I would be x300 mounted right now.

[Broadsword]

48 minutes ago, Semi-C said:

This prime slice of smut has not been forgotten about since I relieved mr Sri05 of it last May!!

My dad is it’s custodian and hasn’t stopped jetting his malennaise on, at and around it since he took delivery.

There’s been little to report until now, flawless service has been it’s fortê and it has rekindled my dad’s enjoyment in driving (he’s an HGV tramper so not an unimpressive feat), as well as piquing his new found interest in polishing.

An unknown battery drain sapped all the electricity from the car without warning and rendered it incapable of starting or shifting gear. No amount of fully charged batterys could encourage a start so, a journey of googling, component swapping and discovery was embarked upon.

The brake light switch had failed so a replacement was fitted, to no avail sadly. Swapping the body control module did nowt as did replacing the ecu/swapping relays/etc.

With my meagre understanding of cars exhausted, I was directed towards Jaguar smartypants’ Roach Classics in Acton, Suffolk by a pal who was formerly an employee there. 
I had the XJ6 collected yesterday noontime and by 1630 o’clock it was running and driving fine! All of it’s original electrical modules were refitted and reprogrammed so we’re back in the game.

I’ll be fetching the car back home next week as my dad has elected to get the abs pump pre-emptively overhauled whilst the specialists still have it.

 I cannot wait to drive it again, my journey back from Glasgow to Suffolk was blissful and if I didn’t have an LS400, I would be x300 mounted right now.

Thanks for posting on what was formerly one of my many Jags. It’s looking like it’s had some real love, which make me smile. I think it’s the visually the best looking X300 I ever had mainly due to the colour being bang on (I was told it had been resprayed not long ago). The battery drain seems a bit strange. A failed BCM kills the car dead. I think you did the right thing just handing it over to a specialist to get out of hole. Just for future reference if you get that non-start issue again with a full battery out of the blue look carefully at the P on the J-gate. It will not start if it doesn’t illuminate red. This is controlled by a little micro switch which gets tired over time. Usually just wiggle the stick in park and it will be fine. TADTS! There is an interlock on the gearbox that can also fail sometimes (I have a spare). Happy to lend advice if you need it on any other X300 issues!

[danthecapriman]

56 minutes ago, volvov70 said:

When did they level the site? Pre or post March? If it was post March then they will already be in trouble - nesting season and all that.

Doesn't matter if GC newts are there or not, just reporting a sighting of one on a construction site gets the EA in a right tizzy

Your local councils planning portal (may be district council) must have some info - even if it is just a basic site plan

They cleared it a couple of weeks ago. There were loads of bird nests, all gone now! There’s one tree left that has a nest in, but obviously that’ll be gone once the birds fly. Why they cleared the others and left just one I don’t know. Probably just a token gesture to appear to be doing the right thing I expect. I know there’s newts around here though as we’ve got a small pond ourselves, we cleaned it out after winter and found quite a few of them in and around it.

I can’t find anything yet for plans, but they might not have submitted any yet.

[Joey spud]

This development stuff really boils my blood.

Up here in Kent with have Medway city council who are mostly a bunch of corrupt fuckers.

They shut down the local golf course as they claimed it was loosing them money (the only council run course in the country ever to manage this so more like mis management tbh) and within two weeks totally ruined the greens and cut down any tree's and hedges on the site.

They then revealed plans to build a few thousand homes on it but we have kicked the local Tory councillors out and replaced them with our own independent ones to slow the fuckers down.

This has pissed the Tory lead council off somewhat so in retaliation they turned the Golf courses club house and restaurant into offices for the council owned waste and maintenance arm (Medway Norse) and allowed the car park to be littered with shipping containers and used for parking of a fleet of refuse collection trucks,access to the site is down a narrow lane.

You or i couldn't  just turn a golf course in to a refuse site but medway council can and when this was pointed out to them they basically said tough.

So we complained and made them submit retrospective planning permission but as they are the council it obviously got granted as they were already there and said there was nowhere else suitable.

I could go on and on about the amount of money they waste and how their leader blocks any attempt to build in his ward where there is suitable developer owned land sitting empty instead he wants stick 12000 new houses on Hoo penisula which is a mix of farm land and flood plains with one road in and out.

 

[Split_Pin]

Aye let's destroy a public place/green space/local place of manufacture and employment and replace it with 1300 sterile 'luxury homes', instantly creating a cultural desert for Mr & Mrs Whothefuck with an A class and Audi A1 on the drive together with their 2 hyper active children permanently dressed in football strips.

Can you tell how I feel about that?

[SRi05]

3 hours ago, Semi-C said:

This prime slice of smut has not been forgotten about since I relieved mr Sri05 of it last May!!

My dad is it’s custodian and hasn’t stopped jetting his malennaise on, at and around it since he took delivery.

There’s been little to report until now, flawless service has been it’s fortê and it has rekindled my dad’s enjoyment in driving (he’s an HGV tramper so not an unimpressive feat), as well as piquing his new found interest in polishing.

An unknown battery drain sapped all the electricity from the car without warning and rendered it incapable of starting or shifting gear. No amount of fully charged batterys could encourage a start so, a journey of googling, component swapping and discovery was embarked upon.

The brake light switch had failed so a replacement was fitted, to no avail sadly. Swapping the body control module did nowt as did replacing the ecu/swapping relays/etc.

With my meagre understanding of cars exhausted, I was directed towards Jaguar smartypants’ Roach Classics in Acton, Suffolk by a pal who was formerly an employee there. 
I had the XJ6 collected yesterday noontime and by 1630 o’clock it was running and driving fine! All of it’s original electrical modules were refitted and reprogrammed so we’re back in the game.

I’ll be fetching the car back home next week as my dad has elected to get the abs pump pre-emptively overhauled whilst the specialists still have it.

 I cannot wait to drive it again, my journey back from Glasgow to Suffolk was blissful and if I didn’t have an LS400, I would be x300 mounted right now.

Glad to hear this is still going strong. I loved this car and still miss it !

[HillmanImp]

The 'fuck up someone's development just because' is a bit of a shit attitude everyone, especially as you know nothing about it or the developer. All a bit Facebook outragey innit. Yeah, it's not ideal having someone build a house next door, or destroying a nice bit of land to do it but imagine ploughing all your money into something for your retirement or something for some cunt to start making stupid unfounded claims about newts. Y'all sound like a bunch of Karens. *

Anyway, a few years ago a couple down my street bought the house next door to them when the old dear in it died. They bought it for peanuts and let it out for a couple of years which fine. Good on them, especially as the arsehole who'd had his eye on it for years, mowing her lawn etc just to get his mits on it got told to do one. He actually wen't over on the day she died asking if he could buy it and well got the families backs up, the mustachioed tool. What I wasn't happy with was that they then applied to build another house in the quite substantial garden of the rental property. 

Normally I wouldn't mind if it was a good place to build a house but we lived down a narrow cul-de-sac of 1920's semi's and they were proposing building a 3 storey detached house that was totally out of place and there really wasn't room for it IMO.

What I did was I went onto the council website and found other local planning applications and looked at why they were rejected. From memory the main points were: 

• One of the major items was traffic. There had been several rejections due to parking and access in loads of applications so I raised that.
• The location of the property would make it incredibly difficult for builders to access as with limited parking and cars everywhere lorries etc are unable to get up and down the road.
• Another one that was common was privacy as the new property would have looked into the property that they were building on. 
• The houses down my street were all a single build i.e. they all looked the same barring cosmetic differences. The new house didn't fit in, it stood out and ruined the aesthetics of the street and there had been several rejections because of that locally.

Lots of my neighbours etc put in the most pathetic objections like 'It'll spoil my view' or 'I don't like the couple that live there'. Who gives a fuck.

I did have a bit of a dig on my objection as they'd said on the application that they lived in a semi detached house and they wanted a larger detached house for their growing family but I pointed out that they should just knock through their house into the one next door as they own both if they wanted to do that and that this was obviously a land grab, as if they wanted to bullshit the council to try and blag their way through I was happy to knock them down a peg just because I felt like being a cunt. That was a personal issue though as I didn't like the guys wife. Normally  I wouldn't have done that.

It wasn't approved for all the reason I listed. And the fact that in order to get access they plan they'd submitted required their next door neighbours garage to be pulled down and rebuilt and they hadn't even asked her.....fuckwits.

One point is that the architects will submit OTT plans at first with a few items that they will then 'scale back' to keep the planners happy after objections have been received to hopefully get approval second time round. You know like putting your car up for sale for £3,300 because you want £3,000. So some things will be obvious objections that will be easily rectified, it's genuine issues that can't be rectified that you need to look at.

It might be that this is a great place to build a house and whilst it's upsetting for people locally, you'll just have to suck it up but it there is a legitimate reason not to build it object for those reasons not because the noise of the building work will upset your spaniel or something like some of the people down my street did.

*Not applicable to Dan obviously who's well within his rights to have a good moan, I mean all the people telling him to ruin someone when they know barely nothing about it.

[Zelandeth]

Oh FFS.  It's going to be one of those afternoons is it...

[gm]

I hoovered the civic yesterday and found this seat adjuster stuffed in the seat pocket - it doesn't belong to the civic but does seem familiar - Saab, maybe ? Is anyone missing one ? 

 

[danthecapriman]

1 hour ago, HillmanImp said:

The 'fuck up someone's development just because' is a bit of a shit attitude everyone, especially as you know nothing about it or the developer. All a bit Facebook outragey innit. Yeah, it's not ideal having someone build a house next door, or destroying a nice bit of land to do it but imagine ploughing all your money into something for your retirement or something for some cunt to start making stupid unfounded claims about newts. Y'all sound like a bunch of Karens. *

Anyway, a few years ago a couple down my street bought the house next door to them when the old dear in it died. They bought it for peanuts and let it out for a couple of years which fine. Good on them, especially as the arsehole who'd had his eye on it for years, mowing her lawn etc just to get his mits on it got told to do one. He actually wen't over on the day she died asking if he could buy it and well got the families backs up, the mustachioed tool. What I wasn't happy with was that they then applied to build another house in the quite substantial garden of the rental property. 

Normally I wouldn't mind if it was a good place to build a house but we lived down a narrow cul-de-sac of 1920's semi's and they were proposing building a 3 storey detached house that was totally out of place and there really wasn't room for it IMO.

What I did was I went onto the council website and found other local planning applications and looked at why they were rejected. From memory the main points were: 

• One of the major items was traffic. There had been several rejections due to parking and access in loads of applications so I raised that.
• The location of the property would make it incredibly difficult for builders to access as with limited parking and cars everywhere lorries etc are unable to get up and down the road.
• Another one that was common was privacy as the new property would have looked into the property that they were building on. 
• The houses down my street were all a single build i.e. they all looked the same barring cosmetic differences. The new house didn't fit in, it stood out and ruined the aesthetics of the street and there had been several rejections because of that locally.

Lots of my neighbours etc put in the most pathetic objections like 'It'll spoil my view' or 'I don't like the couple that live there'. Who gives a fuck.

I did have a bit of a dig on my objection as they'd said on the application that they lived in a semi detached house and they wanted a larger detached house for their growing family but I pointed out that they should just knock through their house into the one next door as they own both if they wanted to do that and that this was obviously a land grab, as if they wanted to bullshit the council to try and blag their way through I was happy to knock them down a peg just because I felt like being a cunt. That was a personal issue though as I didn't like the guys wife. Normally  I wouldn't have done that.

It wasn't approved for all the reason I listed. And the fact that in order to get access they plan they'd submitted required their next door neighbours garage to be pulled down and rebuilt and they hadn't even asked her.....fuckwits.

One point is that the architects will submit OTT plans at first with a few items that they will then 'scale back' to keep the planners happy after objections have been received to hopefully get approval second time round. You know like putting your car up for sale for £3,300 because you want £3,000. So some things will be obvious objections that will be easily rectified, it's genuine issues that can't be rectified that you need to look at.

It might be that this is a great place to build a house and whilst it's upsetting for people locally, you'll just have to suck it up but it there is a legitimate reason not to build it object for those reasons not because the noise of the building work will upset your spaniel or something like some of the people down my street did.

*Not applicable to Dan obviously who's well within his rights to have a good moan, I mean all the people telling him to ruin someone when they know barely nothing about it.

That’s actually a useful post, thanks.

Yeah, I think the ruination of the guy and his land stuff was meant a bit tongue in cheek. I certainly wouldn’t do it as it’s just not how I do things, all joking aside.

Tbh, this has been a potential issue for a few years. Plots of land like that are like hot cakes at the moment so I can see why (even if I don’t agree with it and the history behind this particular site is a bit off to develop it). But, fair is fair, it’s his land now and that’s that. I bitterly hate the loss of the trees though, and I strongly believe that at least some of them could and should have been retained. Also, doing that would have kept him in the neighbours ‘good books’ and made the finished site much more in keeping with the area and greatly helping with the privacy issues. Plus, for anyone buying one of these new houses it’d have likely made them more appealing by having a few established trees already there.

One good thing though that’s come from this is that he’s been in touch with us and the neighbour the other side and wants to completely replace both of our fences at his cost. I know that’s for his benefit as well but he didn’t have to offer that. He could have just as easily turned around and told us our fence is fucked and leaning over his way and he wants us to sort it! 

 

As far as the building is concerned (and forgetting about the trees for a mo) I wouldn’t be nearly as bothered if he went for a single house like the rest of the street already is. That would be absolutely fine by me if that’s the way it is. The problem will come if/when they try building a 3 bed detached house at the rear of the property. This will be completely out of character for the area as no other property on this street has this - all are long gardens with nothing at the far ends. Of course this will cause serious privacy issues as that one house will have its front facing everyone else’s rear windows, living room, bathroom, bedrooms etc etc and also it will overlook several private back gardens. But, I suppose that’s our argument when the time comes ref the planning and approval stage.

 

Im desperately trying to get a head start on this though, hence the new trees! I’d like to get them in the ground so they can start growing and giving me the privacy and wildlife back that’s been lost.

Do they actually take notice of objections then? I was of the opinion that it was just a case of letting the residents have their say then ignoring it and letting the developers carry on regardless! But then, I’m a negative fucker!

 

[Dannyk]

Washed this thing yesterday, thought it looked alright then today the year old back box has fallen off, so it now sounds like a rally car* its like being 18 again with a nova with a cherrybomb, 

all Volkswagens are shit.

[lesapandre]

Buses. Are you a fan? I just came across this on the web. Lots of films and the buses featured with lots of detail. Quite fun:

http://www.busesonscreen.net/

[Pete-M]

Car washed. I sense a day of claying and polishing coming along tomorrow. 

Top tip: when running your fingers over bodywork when claying, put your hand in a plastic freezer bag and the detritus on the paint will be much more noticeable. Makes claying much easier.