The new news 24 thread

[High Jetter]

But, Squire, you were espied, and visioned on this parchment. {Grovel, bow, etc}

[sdkrc]

Drove to Swindon in the Insight. Hands down the best car of all time.

Set off at 3am from Glasgow and thrashed the living shite out of it for 66mpgs and 360 odd miles with no stops. In the office at 10am and on the piss at 5pm.

Had to make the return leg today in less of a rush. 91mpg over 360miles, used 3/8ths of a tank and took 10hrs because of constant traffic and roadworks. 

 

Spotted an 08 plate rover 75.

 

And then there was this absolute hero. Torrential rain for 10mins before this video.

[wuvvum]

Took the Merc for a run up to a mate's this evening - about 12 miles away along a mixture of B roads, villages and single track lanes.  Now I've figured out how to work the trip computer I thought I'd check the consumption on the way back.

It's no Insight but that's not too bad for a car that's bigger than some London flats - it's about the same as the 75 does on the same run.  Anything over 40mpg is fine with me.

I've been playing with some more of the electrics and so far the only thing I've found that doesn't work (apart from the central locking which I already knew about) is the folding rear headrests.  There is a solenoidesque clunk from under the parcel shelf when I press the button, but the headrests don't move so I suspect they may be seized.  It makes it harder to see out the back but it has parking sensors so meh.  Haven't tried the seat heaters yet though.  Auto lights and wipers work but the dipped headlights are just as shit as every other Xenon headlight I've experienced. 

Only other issue is that I have hitherto failed to track down the locking wheel nut key, so I may have to fork out for a replacement one of those.

[Jamie]

My mate just sent me this, the jammy bastard 

[New POD]

9 hours ago, Squire_Dawson said:

I killed two birds with one stone, as it were. Approximately 550 miles covered in Allegro t'other day, down and up the Kingdom, a most successful raid. Keeping up with and exceeding modern traffic, a steady 60-70 and over 40 to the gallon. Not bad for a 46 year old Aggro eh? The only downside was the imbecilic clots on the radio none of whom I wanted to hear, and Classic FM doesn't always do it. Ah well, I made it there and back in safety.
 

Just tune it to radio 3 and relax. 

[Agila]

5 minutes ago, Jamie said:

My mate just sent me this, the jammy bastard 

Bloody hell. No MOT for 11 years. Only two on the database 3 years apart and less than 1k miles apart.

And for a grand.

Obviously it would need to be recommissioned a bit but what a find. That's the sort of shite we dream of.

I wonder what the back story is on this and how your mate found it. I'd assume to was a friend of a friend has one in a barn type chat.

Well bought (obviously). Even shagged rusty shitheaps are near a grand!

[DVee8]

While in Glasgow my car door was damaged. The only place it could have happened was the hotel car, no note on my windscreen, and nothing mentioned to reception.

We spoke to the duty manager, who told us we had to wait till the next day to speak to the facility manager and the general manager. This we did, they both looked at the damage to the car. They asked us to report it to the police, the facility manager said he would look at the cctv and if anything can be seen they will drop it onto a thumbnail and give it to the police.

Yesterday the F/M rang MrsV8 to tell her in the 3.5 hours from parking the car and heading out and returning to find the damage. 1 car parked next to mine. On the cctv the car can be seen to move when hit by the door, the owner looks at my car then moves their car to another space, they return to their car a hour later. Have another look at mine and drive off.

The F/M say over the time there were around 30 empty spaces around my car. Also on cctv they have me walking towards my car 15 seconds after the person that did this pulled out of the "new" parking place and left the car park.

The hotel have all the info of the driver and will pass it onto the police,who rang yesterday morning. They will be going to the hotel to collect the thumbnail drive, they will review the cctv and contact the owner. They explained that the owner could own up apologise and hopefully pay for the damage or deny it then it could go to court for criminal damage.

Fuck, all of this could have very easily been avoided.

In the meantime my car is getting repaired today.

[Jamie]

5 minutes ago, Agila said:

Bloody hell. No MOT for 11 years. Only two on the database 3 years apart and less than 1k miles apart.

And for a grand.

Obviously it would need to be recommissioned a bit but what a find. That's the sort of shite we dream of.

I wonder what the back story is on this and how your mate found it. I'd assume to was a friend of a friend has one in a barn type chat.

Well bought (obviously). Even shagged rusty shitheaps are near a grand!

Yeah it's been sat in a barn for 10 years and hasn't moved. He's got to get it up from Cheltenham mind 

 

It was a relatives who died, said it needs a sill and rear subframe looks a bit crusty 

 

 

[New POD]

17 hours ago, wuvvum said:

Got a letter in the post today from my landlady saying that my rent is going up from 1st September.  Normally this'd be a grump but it's only the second time it's gone up in the 13 years I've been here and it's still well below the "normal" market rate for round here, which has gone through the fucking roof in the last few years along with everywhere else.

I'm not sure how long it will be before I put my tenants rent up. They moved in in Sept 2019, and the rent was lower than an agent would charge, but they have kept paying through the pandemic, and are nice people. Currently, what they are paying would get them a shit hole in Beruit about 2 miles away, but it their area wouldn't  get them a 2 bed flat, and there are only 2 three bed semis for rent in the area below £1000. 

One is £850, and is smaller in a less desirable area, and the other is smaller and £950 in a more desirable street.  

They are paying £675, when the going rate 2 years ago was £725 to £750. 

I'm sure they can afford more, but, I'm inclined to wait, as so far nobody has stayed 3 years. But really we should put it up to £750, but if they stay longer than that. If they leave, the rent will go up to £900. After I replace the carpet in a bedroom, and get new kitchen cupboard doors and worktops. (The layout is perfect) 

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-to-rent/L23.html

[gm]

1 hour ago, DVee8 said:

While in Glasgow my car door was damaged. The only place it could have happened was the hotel car, no note on my windscreen, and nothing mentioned to reception.

We spoke to the duty manager, who told us we had to wait till the next day to speak to the facility manager and the general manager. This we did, they both looked at the damage to the car. They asked us to report it to the police, the facility manager said he would look at the cctv and if anything can be seen they will drop it onto a thumbnail and give it to the police.

Yesterday the F/M rang MrsV8 to tell her in the 3.5 hours from parking the car and heading out and returning to find the damage. 1 car parked next to mine. On the cctv the car can be seen to move when hit by the door, the owner looks at my car then moves their car to another space, they return to their car a hour later. Have another look at mine and drive off.

The F/M say over the time there were around 30 empty spaces around my car. Also on cctv they have me walking towards my car 15 seconds after the person that did this pulled out of the "new" parking place and left the car park.

The hotel have all the info of the driver and will pass it onto the police,who rang yesterday morning. They will be going to the hotel to collect the thumbnail drive, they will review the cctv and contact the owner. They explained that the owner could own up apologise and hopefully pay for the damage or deny it then it could go to court for criminal damage.

Fuck all of this could have very easily been avoided.

In the meantime my car is getting repaired today.

That sucks but a good response from the hotel at least 

[Split_Pin]

2 hours ago, DVee8 said:

While in Glasgow my car door was damaged. The only place it could have happened was the hotel car, no note on my windscreen, and nothing mentioned to reception.

We spoke to the duty manager, who told us we had to wait till the next day to speak to the facility manager and the general manager. This we did, they both looked at the damage to the car. They asked us to report it to the police, the facility manager said he would look at the cctv and if anything can be seen they will drop it onto a thumbnail and give it to the police.

Yesterday the F/M rang MrsV8 to tell her in the 3.5 hours from parking the car and heading out and returning to find the damage. 1 car parked next to mine. On the cctv the car can be seen to move when hit by the door, the owner looks at my car then moves their car to another space, they return to their car a hour later. Have another look at mine and drive off.

The F/M say over the time there were around 30 empty spaces around my car. Also on cctv they have me walking towards my car 15 seconds after the person that did this pulled out of the "new" parking place and left the car park.

The hotel have all the info of the driver and will pass it onto the police,who rang yesterday morning. They will be going to the hotel to collect the thumbnail drive, they will review the cctv and contact the owner. They explained that the owner could own up apologise and hopefully pay for the damage or deny it then it could go to court for criminal damage.

Fuck all of this could have very easily been avoided.

In the meantime my car is getting repaired today.

Liked only for actually catching the bastard that damaged your car. I hope they get nailed for it, even if they don't cough up.

[DVee8]

3 minutes ago, Split_Pin said:

Liked only for actually catching the bastard that damaged your car. I hope they get nailed for it, even if they don't cough up.

As I said in my original post, it could have very easily been avoided, now someone's going to have the old bill knocking on the door, and maybe a lot of explaining to their other half.

[Asimo]

30 minutes ago, DVee8 said:

 and maybe a lot of explaining to their other half.

Reminds me of when an Alfetta GTV collided with the youthclub Minibus I was driving in a remote Welsh lane. The Alfa  driver was extremely apologetic and couldn't offer his details and cash fast enough. I am sure his helpful attitude had nothing to do with his passenger, an over-dressed lass half his age...

[davehedgehog31]

The Lexarse has a comprehensive service history, mostly at the Lexus main dealer. Expecting a clean pass I thought I'd stick it into Lexus in Glasgow and have it serviced while there to keep up this fully stamped book. 

Oh.....

To be fair, the list is a bit worse than it looks and the only issue I'd dispute is the one about the air suspension. It was sitting slightly higher at one corner but was otherwise functioning with no warning lights or whatever, I don't think it should have been a fail. 

I tasked them with investigating the suspension issue as I figured it would be fairly specialised and it was there anyway. An hour or so of (expensive) labour saw them strip all four sensors and recalibrate, the car was then sitting level at the correct height. 

A £45 second hand driveshaft went in to tick off the CV boot issue and at the same time a new brake caliper went on to resolve that fail. Thanks to @davidfowler2000 and @jaypee for the assistance. 

So just the rear brakes to be dealt with. Jaypee and I started investigations and had an absolute war with it. Just getting one rear disc off was a battle. The handbrake cable was seized solid and four hours later we had ran out of time and enthusiasm. 

I ordered up new discs, pads, handbrake shoes, full fitting kit and handbrake cable and enlisted the services of a mobile mechanic who fitted them on Thursday evening for a very reasonable price. 

In for a test yesterday morning and.....

Clean pass! Now just need to get the AC seen to, tracking done and service it...

[Agila]

53 minutes ago, davehedgehog31 said:

The handbrake cable was seized solid

Tadts.

Mine had both side cables done, New shoes etc, and yes the discs were a bastard to get off. My indy lexus specialist charged £500 with a fresh mot ticket.

He said the cables were £200ish lexus only so don't know where you got yours from?

Unfortunately it's a lexus/toyota thing, they make no allowance for the age and mileage and also make a repair sheet very expensive.

 

 

[DVee8]

My X-trail door has now been repaired, you can't see the crease but the lacquar is broken/removed in 1 place.

[PhilA]

Unseasonably cooler weather last night so went for a drive and bought donuts to go with coffee this morning.

The car behaved very well so that's an interesting point to note. Just a few degrees cooler than it is and it works like it should.

Rolled over 2800 miles in my stewardship last night too;  due an oil change and now that it's been driven more I really need to look at replacing the suspension bushings because they're all just about shot.

Phil

[Yoss]

Strange day. Half way round my delivery I get a phone call from Mrs Yoss, who is also a postie. She's just checked her phone and been told to self isolate for 9 days. So I check the NHS app and mine is telling me to isolate for 10 days. So I ring our line manager (Lorraine has already done this so I know the outcome but have to ring her myself just to confirm).

I'm told to come straight back to the office with all the mail I still have on the van and go home. I would have been happy enough to finish my delivery, I mean we're outside but I guess they can't risk it as we're knocking on doors and handing people packets. 

So, back to the office, unload, wipe down all the surfaces on the van (touch points as they like to call them in official speak). Apparently by this point 12 other posties had been 'pinged'. And I put that in inverted commas because it didn't actually ping. If I hadn't opened the app myself I would never have known. Surely it should actually ping, otherwise how would you know? The only times I open the app are when I scan the barcode when entering a pub/shop or whatever. 

It seems to have stemmed from one of our posties who tested positive yesterday. So that's most of Shirley without posties now. This is on top already having 19 absences out of about 120. These are either general sickness or people have left and our management haven't bothered replacing them. I mean this week my partner is on holiday (we are back to van sharing, two in a van). Of the 6 days I've only had a replacement twice. The rest of the time it's just been me. So I've been doing half the delivery one day, then the other half the following day. In fact the half a delivery I bought back today had two days mail in it as this bit didn't go out yesterday. Tuesday was my day off and they didn't cover either side of my delivery, though they did at least sort it in to the frame for me. 

But as of Monday over a quarter of of our office will be off. So if you're planning on posting anything to the Shirley area of Southampton you might want to leave it for a week or so. 

So most of my afternoon has looked like this. 

There's going to be a lot more of this. 

[PhilA]

Written by people who spend their entire day looking at their phone.

If you hadn't seen it at all, you could say least claim you were following company protocol (not having a phone glued to your face as you work).

 

Phil

[Zelandeth]

I don't want to know how much it would take to actually fill this boot... that's about a £250 Costco run!

Usefully large car is usefully large.

Yes some things did get rearranged before we left, that macaroni cheese is looking particularly vulnerable as it is in the photo.

[PhilA]

1 minute ago, Zelandeth said:

I don't want to know how much it would take to actually fill this boot... that's about a £250 Costco run!

Usefully large car is usefully large.

Yes some things did get rearranged before we left, that macaroni cheese is looking particularly vulnerable as it is in the photo.

I have so far found a pickup truck to be more useful, but you cannot have that in the back of a pickup truck there without scrotes nicking it as you stop for a red light.

State of the world etc etc 

[Yoss]

^^ Indeed. If Lorraine hadn't rung me, I wouldn't have known. But I think the news was spreading internally amongst the posties via various social media sites anyway. I don't use any of those, this is the only social media platform I use and I don't think any other local posties use this. 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

1 hour ago, Yoss said:

Strange day. Half way round my delivery I get a phone call from Mrs Yoss, who is also a postie. She's just checked her phone and been told to self isolate for 9 days. So I check the NHS app and mine is telling me to isolate for 10 days. So I ring our line manager (Lorraine has already done this so I know the outcome but have to ring her myself just to confirm).

I'm told to come straight back to the office with all the mail I still have on the van and go home. I would have been happy enough to finish my delivery, I mean we're outside but I guess they can't risk it as we're knocking on doors and handing people packets. 

So, back to the office, unload, wipe down all the surfaces on the van (touch points as they like to call them in official speak). Apparently by this point 12 other posties had been 'pinged'. And I put that in inverted commas because it didn't actually ping. If I hadn't opened the app myself I would never have known. Surely it should actually ping, otherwise how would you know? The only times I open the app are when I scan the barcode when entering a pub/shop or whatever. 

It seems to have stemmed from one of our posties who tested positive yesterday. So that's most of Shirley without posties now. This is on top already having 19 absences out of about 120. These are either general sickness or people have left and our management haven't bothered replacing them. I mean this week my partner is on holiday (we are back to van sharing, two in a van). Of the 6 days I've only had a replacement twice. The rest of the time it's just been me. So I've been doing half the delivery one day, then the other half the following day. In fact the half a delivery I bought back today had two days mail in it as this bit didn't go out yesterday. Tuesday was my day off and they didn't cover either side of my delivery, though they did at least sort it in to the frame for me. 

But as of Monday over a quarter of of our office will be off. So if you're planning on posting anything to the Shirley area of Southampton you might want to leave it for a week or so. 

So most of my afternoon has looked like this. 

There's going to be a lot more of this. 

The dreaded "ping" is sabotaging a lot more than the postal services. It's even causing Court cases to collapse

[SiC]

Factory Dolomite swage lines. Top line the door is too high, bottom line the door is too low.
At least I can stop stressing about getting them fractions of a millimetre accurate! 🤣

[captain_70s]

Dolomite lines are utter garbage, especially the doors.

My car was significantly longer from the bulkhead forwards on one side too, despite no evidence of being bumped. It was just built squint.

[davehedgehog31]

7 hours ago, Agila said:

Tadts.

Mine had both side cables done, New shoes etc, and yes the discs were a bastard to get off. My indy lexus specialist charged £500 with a fresh mot ticket.

He said the cables were £200ish lexus only so don't know where you got yours from?

Unfortunately it's a lexus/toyota thing, they make no allowance for the age and mileage and also make a repair sheet very expensive.

 

 

I only replaced the OS one and paid £75, there are 3 in total so £200 sounds about right! I think I managed to get it through after that fail for somewhere between £500 and £600, which I'd have taken after the Lexus dealers estimate. 

Unfortunately we don't seem to have any Toyota specialists up here, not that I could find anyway.

Most of the undertray bolts sheared, so will need to get the drill and cable ties out and improvise. With that said it really is in very good nick underneath, as JP commented it's nice to work on something that isn't filling your eyes with rust flakes. 

[SiC]

32 minutes ago, captain_70s said:

Dolomite lines are utter garbage, especially the doors.
My car was significantly longer from the bulkhead forwards on one side too, despite no evidence of being bumped. It was just built squint.

Being mines a '74 the tooling wasn't that old (by BL standards). I dread to think how badly things got nearer the end of the cars manufacturing run and trying to make things fit. Not least (iirc) the tooling had been carted between different factories too. It's a wonder they managed to make them fit together at all by then.

No wonder they kept going on strike. 😆

[HMC]

Rather like a scaglietti bodied Ferrari.*

*but in Birmingham and with 8 less cylinders

[Split_Pin]

I had a look at the Audi exhaust today. Some pictures are upside down, because they probably are. It was raining and I was busy with the Civic at the time so just kind of waved my phone under the car whilst tapping blindly at the screen to take a photo

The downpipe is toast but I have a good spare.

The cat looks OK however the rearmost part of it has been badly sleeved to presumably cure a blow.

The middle section is toast at that part and the rest of it is rotten but not yet blowing. It appears to be joined to the cat section by 2 clamps.

The rear section is not separated from the middle by a join so the whole lot will have to go.

So I have bought a middle section for a 2.0 for £68 posted which *looks* like it will fit.

Once I have this I'll lay it under the car and see where joins need to be made. I might just get a new cat section as well as those on ebay look the same as the one on the car. I can bolt it to the replacement downpipe as well to check it actually fits to that part.

If that all lines up then I'll get a back section and at that point I can be confident that it will go on without too much faffing and that is garage would be able to do it.

If not, some or more Scotoshiters may be mysteriously washing their hair that, and indeed every night for the foreseeable!

[Carlosfandango]

Anyone for a boat anchor? Sadly - mostly due to its previous ‘car enthusiast’ custodians, this is locked / rock solid and will go under the bench for a rebuild next year. The Lancia spare is being put to good use. 
 

CFD