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14 hours ago, Yoss said:

Funnily enough I actually saw a new beige Transporter today. 

Meanwhile for the last two days I've been given this. 

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Don't need to be quite so paranoid about this one as it already has 35k miles on it and a bit of a dent in the side door.  It also only has four buttons on the steering wheel that I'm never going to use instead of the 18 on the Transporter which is frankly ridiculous. 

I would probably upset a lot of people (not on here but all those dub scene people) if I said this is a better van than the Transporter. The seat is lower which does make it easier to get in and out of and once in the view ahead is better so the dashboard on the VW is too high for a van. The VW may be better as a long distance delivery vehicle but I only do seven miles in about six hours (usually four hours when it's not a Lockdown Christmas Armageddon Crossover) so I can't judge that. This is better as a start stop delivery van. 

Mind you they're both better than our normal Pug Partner. At least I have more room to spread my packets out. I like to sort them in to little piles for the different areas I do but at the moment I just have too many. One day last week I had to leave some packets behind as they physically wouldn't fit in the Pug. 

One thing with this Vivaro, it has this big green light... 

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... under the digital speedo which I have no idea what it is supposed to signify. It comes and goes but has no symbol in or around it. It's green so I assume that's a good thing and therefore ignore it. 

I look after a fleet of 6 vans at work-we have 2 of these on fleet just now, both around 5 years old and sitting on over 100k. They've had a few issues but nothing major and are great to drive. We're replacing them with Transporters though (not my choice but the numbers do add up) so I'll report back. Initial thoughts are that the Trafics are a better drive though. 

It's so far taken VW almost a year to deliver 2 of the new vans. Well, they tried to deliver them in March but somehow had managed to build us completely the wrong spec of vans. It's not gone well so far! 

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Had an interesting fault with the Skoda last night - went out at about 10pm in sub-zero temperatures and the driver's door wouldn't unlock.  I sprayed deicer at the lock but that made no difference.  Got in via the passenger door, tried unlocking the driver's door from inside, but it still didn't want to play ball.  I was only driving for about 10 minutes, but in that time the (very efficient) heater had got the car nicely warmed up, and when I got back the driver's door unlocked and opened fine.  So it must have been the mechanism inside the door which had frozen up.  Odd.

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2 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Had an interesting fault with the Skoda last night - went out at about 10pm in sub-zero temperatures and the driver's door wouldn't unlock.  I sprayed deicer at the lock but that made no difference.  Got in via the passenger door, tried unlocking the driver's door from inside, but it still didn't want to play ball.  I was only driving for about 10 minutes, but in that time the (very efficient) heater had got the car nicely warmed up, and when I got back the driver's door unlocked and opened fine.  So it must have been the mechanism inside the door which had frozen up.  Odd.

Our ZX goes the other way lets you open the door, then won't let it relatch until it has warmed up.

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Driving the XM 2.0 16v Auto out of Milton Keynes this morning as I accelerated from a roundabout I found a old looking US Ford van was catching me so I pushed harder, then my hardest and it just rushed on past me. I quite liked how this quite large van picked up its skirts and ran.

I caught it at the queue for another roundabout and papped it, says it is an E150 on the back and total car check says it is 4600cc and 2004. Thing is it comes up as taxed but no MOT, how is this?

IMG_20201209_101205 broad.jpg

IMG_20201209 E150 Van.jpg

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2 hours ago, wuvvum said:

So it must have been the mechanism inside the door which had frozen up.  Odd.

My favorit used to do this aswell, a kettle of hot water over the door lock and handle area used to unfreeze it. 

Its a Common thing, on mother rews felly she finds a car top cover this time of year helps massively. 

 The lock barrels can corrode and become weak aswell. 

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31 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

Driving the XM 2.0 16v Auto out of Milton Keynes this morning as I accelerated from a roundabout I found a old looking US Ford van was catching me so I pushed harder, then my hardest and it just rushed on past me. I quite liked how this quite large van picked up its skirts and ran.

I caught it at the queue for another roundabout and papped it, says it is an E150 on the back and total car check says it is 4600cc and 2004. Thing is it comes up as taxed but no MOT, how is this?

IMG_20201209_101205 broad.jpg

IMG_20201209 E150 Van.jpg

If it's over 3.5 tonne gross (which many of those Yank vans are) it'll have a LGV test which doesn't show up on the normal checkers.

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33 minutes ago, egg said:

Scored an OEM rear tailgate seal for the Mondeo, New Old Stock as a reward for selling the Mazda. If I can fit it properly should keep everything a bit drier at the rear. It feels new and flexible!

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I was looking for a door seal for the Sigma, found a website OK, alas no Sigma seals but a Maserati one was over 1k!!!!! 

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1 hour ago, wuvvum said:

If it's over 3.5 tonne gross (which many of those Yank vans are) it'll have a LGV test which doesn't show up on the normal checkers.

just checked on the Governments 1st party checker, no MOT history at all

little bit weird, even truck and bus MOT history  show up in the 1st party MOT checker so I dont think its that

the vehicle shows up but just no history, wonder if someone imported it and just never MOT'ed,

and I wonder if its managing to slip through the system undetected since it would not come up as MOT expired since it has no previous one to expire

(and maybe on top/in combination of this, it is riding on what historic vehicles use, since plenty of those went straight into the 40 year MOT exemption without having had any since digital records began in 2005)

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3 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

Driving the XM 2.0 16v Auto out of Milton Keynes this morning as I accelerated from a roundabout I found a old looking US Ford van was catching me so I pushed harder, then my hardest and it just rushed on past me. I quite liked how this quite large van picked up its skirts and ran.

I caught it at the queue for another roundabout and papped it, says it is an E150 on the back and total car check says it is 4600cc and 2004. Thing is it comes up as taxed but no MOT, how is this?

IMG_20201209_101205 broad.jpg

IMG_20201209 E150 Van.jpg

It could also be that it actually has no MOT.

If you have a direct debit set up for a vehicle that has a current MOT, when it runs out of MOT, the tax will still be debited and show as taxed but, the MOT isn't valid anymore.

 

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7 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Had an interesting fault with the Skoda last night - went out at about 10pm in sub-zero temperatures and the driver's door wouldn't unlock.  I sprayed deicer at the lock but that made no difference.  Got in via the passenger door, tried unlocking the driver's door from inside, but it still didn't want to play ball.  I was only driving for about 10 minutes, but in that time the (very efficient) heater had got the car nicely warmed up, and when I got back the driver's door unlocked and opened fine.  So it must have been the mechanism inside the door which had frozen up.  Odd.

I had a VW Polo that used to do that. It was indeed the mechanism inside the door, apparently water used to get in. It was OK when the passenger door would open, but once that froze up too and no amount of boiling water or de-icer would touch it.... I got into the boot, but it was a Polo Classic and folding the seats was only possible from inside the car! I had to get a lift to work that day, and left one seat folded at all times for the rest of the winter! 

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Legacy nearly passed it's MOT today. Just a droplink and some advisories on tyres. I'll take that.

Because I live in Bradford, I've used some local places recently as I'm not working in Leeds thanks to COVID and it's been pretty shit. I took the 944 to a local place (good reputation as a classic car place, restore Mini's) and they fucking butchered the bottom of the sills. I had been in the sills a few weeks before as I was obviously selling it and they were a bit fucked but after the MOT they weren't there anymore, instead I got a quote for their repair which fucked everything up for me and the buyer who up to that point was getting a bargain and I was planning on getting my sanity back by not owning it.

After that and some other experiences of local places (I took the Legacy down to another garage that does classic rallying and instead of actually repairing the car they condemned it with loads of made up problems, charged me £50 for not doing what I asked them and said I should sell it for spares locally, probably as they were after the parts) I drove into Leeds to the MOT testers I know and love (and probably hate me for all the shit I drag over their ramps) and a MOT test I can trust. They only do MOTs, they don't do repairs so ain't angling for extra work.

It's no wonder people just buy new cars to avoid this kind of shit.

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7 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

Driving the XM 2.0 16v Auto out of Milton Keynes this morning as I accelerated from a roundabout I found a old looking US Ford van was catching me so I pushed harder, then my hardest and it just rushed on past me. I quite liked how this quite large van picked up its skirts and ran.

I caught it at the queue for another roundabout and papped it, says it is an E150 on the back and total car check says it is 4600cc and 2004. Thing is it comes up as taxed but no MOT, how is this?

IMG_20201209_101205 broad.jpg

IMG_20201209 E150 Van.jpg

Could be owned by someone in the USAF. 

Saw a LHD X5 yesterday with a rear fog light drilled and attached to the bumper. Also had a US plate on it. So likely the same thing.

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