The new news 24 thread

[New POD]

3 minutes ago, BL Bloke said:

I 've been summoned for jury service in September. It says for two weeks but the last time I did it in 1995 it lasted about 10 weeks.  

Did mine in Jan 2019.  They were very clear that if it were likely to be a longer trial, we should let them know if that caused a problem. On my first day a big trial came up, which woukd have been 6 weeks, and my Jury service insurance would have covered most if my lost income, so I was up for it.  But then we were given a list of names and places, and if we knew any if them, we were not able to be on the list.  

I knew one of the policemen who was a childhood friend, so that was me out.  I guess they started with 48 people and had to get it down to 12. 

The bloke I was talking to on the first day was in tears at the lunch break on day 2 so i am glad that I didn't get on it. 

[N19]

4 hours ago, N19 said:

Herpes courier turned up today with the correct starter for the Bluebird. Conveniently, it's parked at the end of the street and the starter has now completely gone - even percussive methods no longer work. Oh well, best do the job on the street... 

Didn't even fit the new part in the end. I was busy noseying at the existing starter and noticed how loose the earth was. A clean up and nipping the nut up nicely sees it fire every time. Could that have been it all along... I suppose if it wasn't making good contact, a whack with a mallet was probably enough to shift it to make better contact for a while. Anyway, we'll see... 

So with the dodgy ebay starter plus this one I now have two spares - very good door stops if nothing else... 

[brownnova]

I’ve been driving half my life, and have never run out of petrol on a journey.... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Until today!!!!!! 
 

I’ll just leave this here and walk back home then.... 

Bother. 

Note to self... fuel gauge reads low = fuel IS low unlike the other 2CV. 

[richardmorris]

Aston Martin Day. 5, 4 and 6. There’s also a dbs under a cover in front . Oddly they didn’t go anywhere, just dragged out on that loader skate thing to enjoy the sun.

 

[Split_Pin]

This had been annoying me for a while.

Unfortunately it was a shite fit and even after careful filing it is only about 60% stuck down.

I managed not to make a mess of it though which was at least something.

[paulplom]

Nice buys from lidl. High pressuee and high volume 12v inflator. £30 reduced from £40. I've never seen a dual purpose one before. Ideal for air beds and tyres. The spray paint is 2 for £4.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Amishtat]

21 hours ago, omegod said:

Enjoy my home town !  

I defy anyone not to! 

[Yoss]

21 hours ago, Yoss said:

Apparently I am allowed to choose a gift from some list online. But the website doesn't seem to work. I'm supposed to enter my username (which was my paynumber) and a code which is in the letter they sent me. Tried three times with variations on the ambiguous 0's and O's but after three attempts they locked my account. Now I have to phone somebody in Reading. I think they are making it deliberately difficult hoping we give up. 

For twenty years service I got a nice simple £100 voucher for most high street shops. I bought this watch. 

That I still have. I don't know why everything has to be so complicated now.  

So I rang someone in Reading and got my password sorted out so I could see what I was being offered. There were lots of things to choose from, mostly tat but I came away with a £100 gift card for John Lewis/Waitrose. Can't be bad. I could have chosen one for Tesco but why would you when could have John Lewis. It was between that or M&S. I could even have had a gift card for Halfords but I don't think I've spent £100 there in the last ten years. 

[paulplom]

You'll just have to hope they don't go tits up before you have the chance to spend it.

[richardmorris]

15 minutes ago, paulplom said:

You'll just have to hope they don't go tits up before you have the chance to spend it.

I think he’s chosen well- both halford and M&S look shakier than John Lewis.  My colleague has been with our company 25 years this month, I will be 25years too in September. 

[Lord Sterling]

Might have a Peugeot 407 2.0 Hdi incoming tomorrow. I wanted to keep the Zafira for a few more months but the 407 being newer (2008 I think) might make me a bit more money on sale time, plus my usual spaces have been locked now so I need to move the cars out of the spaces. 

[wuvvum]

On 7/16/2020 at 8:59 PM, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Reminds me of this:

 

I wonder if Sekonda have been forced to apologise for that advert on Twitter yet?

[willswitchengage]

For those who haven't seen where this has been undoubtedly posted 100 times already on this forum, Nissans have a new logo. I read about it in the business section of the paper, it's supposed to be 'flat'. Whatever that means. I'd go more for 'crap'.

 

[brownnova]

I don’t feel quite so silly now... 

The reason I trusted the 2CV to get me to the petrol station despite the low fuel usage reading was that I was sure it had fuel in it last time... the reason for that was that it did.

 So why the discrepancy?  Having got the car home I left it and later went to put the bins out. Hmmm smells like petrol I thought... so I looked under the 2CV and... ah... 

That’s leaking then.... 

Double bother. 
 

Glad I only put half a Jerry can’s worth in there now! 

[Asimo]

3 hours ago, Yoss said:

So I rang someone in Reading and got my password sorted out so I could see what I was being offered. There were lots of things to choose from, mostly tat but I came away with a £100 gift card for John Lewis/Waitrose. Can't be bad. I could have chosen one for Tesco but why would you when could have John Lewis. It was between that or M&S. I could even have had a gift card for Halfords but I don't think I've spent £100 there in the last ten years. 

There's some good offers on Whiskey at Waitrose right now.

[Tadhg Tiogar]

25 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

For those who haven't seen where this has been undoubtedly posted 100 times already on this forum, Nissans have a new logo. I read about it in the business section of the paper, it's supposed to be 'flat'. Whatever that means. I'd go more for 'crap'.

 

"Do you speak Micra? Or are you just talking bollocks?"

[MarvinsMom]

7 hours ago, richardmorris said:

Aston Martin Day. 5, 4 and 6. There’s also a dbs under a cover in front . Oddly they didn’t go anywhere, just dragged out on that loader skate thing to enjoy the sun.

 

they are waiting for the man to come and make the ejector seats safe, or come to reload the machine guns?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

8 hours ago, richardmorris said:

Aston Martin Day. 5, 4 and 6. ...

Nice to see a DB5 that isn't feckin' Silver Birch. Other colours are available. 

[rickvw72]

Fleet reduction fail.

 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

Delivered three more hoses to Garage Dubois-Loizou....

 

[wuvvum]

WTF is going on with that 75?

[Tadhg Tiogar]

12 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

WTF is going on with that 75?

That thing is one of Monsieur Dubois' race cars. All that's left of the 75 is the shell and tail lights. The rest is homemade...

[somewhatfoolish]

14 hours ago, richardmorris said:

Aston Martin Day. 5, 4 and 6. There’s also a dbs under a cover in front . Oddly they didn’t go anywhere, just dragged out on that loader skate thing to enjoy the sun.

 

[cargeek]

That's a DB6 Mk2.

[/cargeek]

[Angrydicky]

There’s too much talk about overpriced, overhyped, expensive yawnmobiles in here. Can we go back to talking about shite? Please?

[Angrydicky]

My Rover made a friend.

[Angrydicky]

Bought this off Torsten in December, still love it despite being a bit big for it really at 6’ - has anyone ever managed to get the seat back a bit in one?

The mot is coming up soon so once the new headlight turns up (the reflector has gone in one as it was full of water) I’ll get it booked in. 

Its actually quite hard to find a testing station that does Class 3 tests. Out of all the places in town, I could only find three that actually offer it. Never used any of them, but one is a name I recognise as a couple of (fairly rough) old crocks I’ve bought in the past were regularly MOT’d there by their previous owners so that one seems a fairly good bet!

[phil_lihp]

I don't think I've introduced this one - runs perilously close to being a boring modern in my book but I've had it 18 months and love it. 

My 2005 Skoda Octavia 1.8T VRS has done about 9,000 miles in my ownership so far and has been brilliant - covers just about every car need I can think of, it's spacious, comfortable, quick, fun and reliable.  Even decent enough on fuel.  It does suffer from a few typical VAG overcomplications - the central locking on the driver's door was dead when I got it, that turned out to be a hideously expensive module that had to be replaced but in general it's been marvellous, I have no intention of selling it which is remarkable for me this long into a car's stay.  It's in amazing condition considering the mileage, too.

It has been running a bit rough of late when cold and I've noticed a bit of hesitation around 2,000RPM - this deteriorated into a full on misfire when starting from cold and I guessed it was the coil packs.  I took them out to investigate and found 4 OEM VW ones with 2009/2010 dates on them.  A quick clean with some electrical contact cleaner actually did give some improvement but it didn't last so I bunged in 4 new OEM-grade Delphi ones from ECP, despite some reservations as a multimeter test showed all 4 had perfect resistance across pins 3 & 4 - there's another test between one pin and the tip but I couldn't get it to work.

Easy job - if it weren't for the bits bolted to the top of the engine it'd not even require tools.  But did it work?  Yes!  Runs perfectly now, wish I'd done it ages ago.  I think it'll probably need a cam cover gasket soon by the look of it, although the plastic engine cover provides a handy fix by hiding that particular issue.

Next job will be another needlessly complicated gizmo - there's a secondary air pump which only serves to pre-heat the cat when starting from cold for emissions apparently, it's riveted together and over time the rivets fail, so starting from cold provides 45 seconds of high-pitched screaming which is getting more annoying as it degrades.  The fix is apparently either replacing the rivets with bolts or taking it out and stuffing a resistor in the plug so the EML doesn't come on.  I will try option 1 before I resort to bodging with option 2.  

Oh, and the clutch is almost done and that's a pricey job, it's going to be an expensive year for this one, just as well I don't also have a pile of brown BL tat draining my savings....

[Coprolalia]

5 minutes ago, phil_lihp said:

Next job will be another needlessly complicated gizmo - there's a secondary air pump which only serves to pre-heat the cat when starting from cold for emissions apparently, it's riveted together and over time the rivets fail, so starting from cold provides 45 seconds of high-pitched screaming which is getting more annoying as it degrades.  The fix is apparently either replacing the rivets with bolts or taking it out and stuffing a resistor in the plug so the EML doesn't come on.  I will try option 1 before I resort to bodging with option 2.  

Literally the same issue as I have on my 1.8t AUM estate. I investigated the SAI solenoid, but it's a bugger to change, so I'm probably going to try changing the pump like you. Will follow with interest. 

Make sure you have plenty of worm drive clamps to replace the shitty VAG oetiker clips.

On the plus side, the engines in these are good enough on emissions to be ULEZ exempt.

[SiC]

Holy shit in hell. If I saw this pass in the street, I'd just go cool old Porsche*. Not basically a decent house driving down to the road. 

https://collectingcars.com/for-sale/1973-porsche-911-carrera-27-rs

135k, 9 owners too. 

Because of the six-month extension, the next annual test is not due until 7 December 2020. Its wheels are shod in a full set of Pirelli P6000 tyres, in size 195/65 R15 at the front and 215/60 R15 at the rear, which are date-coded to 2009 and remain in good condition with plenty of tread.

You'd think they'd have at least put a fresh MOT on for that price tag rather than relying on a Boris Extension. Also decent 215/60/r15 tyres are dirt cheap. 

World is mad.

* I did see a 70 Turbo shoot past on the M32 in Bristol the other day. No idea of value but that was cool. Absolute racket flying past and then genuine pops, bangs and flames out the exhaust on the overrun. None of this fake computer generated bullshit modern cars are modified to do.

[willswitchengage]

2 hours ago, Angrydicky said:

There’s too much talk about overpriced, overhyped, expensive yawnmobiles in here. Can we go back to talking about shite? Please?

Have you looked in the for sale thread recently? ☹️