The new news 24 thread

[eddyramrod]

Regular readers will remember that my compact digital camera died.  With our European road trip looming I bit the bullet the other day and bought one in Argos, and this morning I took my first snap with it.

Not the most exciting shot, you might think, but a potentially valuable record.  This poor little thing has been parked in this spot, undisturbed, in our back alley for a good six weeks now.  It shows up as taxed and MoT'd, and the back is loaded with decorating kit.  Up front, the driver's window is down an inch or so, and both seatbelts are fastened.  I've seen a police van apparently taking an interest, but no Police Aware sticker has appeared yet.  Interesting...

[SiC]

51 minutes ago, eddyramrod said:

Regular readers will remember that my compact digital camera died.  With our European road trip looming I bit the bullet the other day and bought one in Argos, and this morning I took my first snap with it.

Not the most exciting shot, you might think, but a potentially valuable record.  This poor little thing has been parked in this spot, undisturbed, in our back alley for a good six weeks now.  It shows up as taxed and MoT'd, and the back is loaded with decorating kit.  Up front, the driver's window is down an inch or so, and both seatbelts are fastened.  I've seen a police van apparently taking an interest, but no Police Aware sticker has appeared yet.  Interesting...

According to TotalCarCheck it is stolen.

Link is here: https://totalcarcheck.co.uk/FreeCheck?regno=Pn60ytm

 

Phone the police now to say it's been abandoned there and total car check says it's stolen. Also let them know where it is. I had it at my old place and they leave them in a quiet area to see if it's still hot or not. It was recovered shortly after phoning. 

Some poor bugger is probably lost a fair bit of money thinking they've lost all their tools. 

Might be the plod that investigated it didn't enter the reg number correctly or wasn't logged properly as stolen when they went around. 

Also don't touch it as it may go off to forensics and better off not having your prints on it too!

[eddyramrod]

Thank you, that was interesting!  I didn't know about TotalCarCheck.  I've just 101'd it.  The nice police lady said it came up on her system too.  Now they know where it is we might see some action!

[eddyramrod]

As I was saying... just over an hour ago I had a visit from a child dressed as a policeman (tbf he's probably 28 or so; I'm just old now).  Since then a recovery truck has appeared and hoisted the Citroen away.  PC said they think they know who the culprit is, and he's now doing time for something similar.

Score one for Neighbourhood Watch!

[bigfella2]

Probably the newest car you could get with the rugged TU engine, non of this prince rubbish, what a shame.

[RoverFolkUs]

15 minutes ago, eddyramrod said:

As I was saying... just over an hour ago I had a visit from a child dressed as a policeman (tbf he's probably 28 or so; I'm just old now).  Since then a recovery truck has appeared and hoisted the Citroen away.  PC said they think they know who the culprit is, and he's now doing time for something similar.

Score one for Neighbourhood Watch!

Great work! 

Autoshite: solving vehicular crimes, one Citroen C3 at a time 😁

[brownnova]

15 hours ago, Justwatching said:

I know, every time I go you're not there! I was hopeful of seeing your Pontiac.   

Next time you come here’s hoping I’m there! 

[High Jetter]

Uh, did you really mean that? 🤣

[GagaStan]

New shite acquired. 2007 Kia Rio 1.6 pez automatic - was going great until it developed a misfire an hour from home. Maybe it's just trying to be a 3 cylinder 'cos it knows I love them...

Hopefully will be more reliable in service. Seems like a nice little motor, the slushbox is actually very nice and it even has a dipstick! None of this sealed for life crap. Does 2500rpm at 100km/h (60mph) so cant complain about that.

Hopefully just needs an ignition coil and isn't completely farked. We'll see.

[LightBulbFun]

who wants a set of smart car wheels with 4 miss-matched and worn tyres? can be quite amusing what people will just randomly dump in stairwell landing zone...

nicely curbed

just wondering now who on our floor has a Smart car LOL

[wuvvum]

Took the R4 to work today.

Smoll car is smoll.

[ProgRocker]

16 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Took the R4 to work today.

Smoll car is smoll.

Hopefully I'll have the pleasure of seeing this fine motor in the flesh in the near future but I'm on annual leave this week. 

I park my modern thing in the ajoining car park in space number 1. The individual spaces are a decent width. 

[Floatylight]

Starter motor fell off (literally) been to Audi and bought new bolts now attempting repair on friends driveway where it broke down

Ballache of a job, given up, needs recovery to friendly garage

[Cheggers]

Wondered about MX5 seat upgrades: mk2 seats drop straight into mk1s. The standard cloth mk1 seats in my car had been replaced with early low spec mk2 seats. Both are completely undesirable and worthless, but the mk2 seats are slightly more hard wearing and comfortable.
Anyway a quick foray into Marketplace reveals that seats for MX5s are extremely easy to get hold of, much like every other part. They're also cheap... the basic UK cloth seats with adjustable headrests are worth under 100 quid and for sale everywhere for £40-80. mk1 tombstone seats (the ones with headrest speakers) start at around £80, a bit more for leather, and then £150 can get you a set of heated leather mk2 Sport seats, albeit at that price the driver's bolster will be fucked. However, there was a tidy set for sale in Derby for £180, messaged the seller and he replied instantly, so I went down and picked them up last night.
Gave them a quick clean with an old bottle of Liquid Leather that was lying around, bolted them in, they make a phenomenal difference to both the look and driving experience, and the cabin has a nice smell to it too. The mk2 seats have heating elements, I'm not utilsing these but making them work could be an interesting project.
Next, interior wise, I think I'd like to source  some nicer door cards, the replica teardrop speaker trims are just screwed straight on to the standard cards.

MX-5 seats used to be a popular upgrade for Scimitar owners (maybe just the SE5?) as very few other modern seats are narrow enough.

[Ghosty]

Heralds, too.

[wheel nut]

My land rover had a flat battery from lack of use over the winter.  My battery charger is the modern "intelligent" type and it wouldn’t recognise the battery. I heard that you can work around this problem by connecting a good battery to the charger in parallel to the dead one just to get it to start charging. However I never got to try this as after getting a good battery out of another car, the charger then decided it was happy with the land rover’s battery and started to charge it.

[hairnet]

On 4/29/2023 at 3:45 PM, wuvvum said:

Collectioned. 

Oof

[BorniteIdentity]

New plan worked a treat tonight. 

Went to a car meet without a car just to have a nose and talk to some friendly faces. Decided we’d have our chips in the corner, so picked the most salubrious cars to perch behind. All night people asking “is it yours” and me modestly nodding like some slightly younger George Harrison type. 

never had that with a Sierra. 

Some nice old stuff out because wealthy village and Willy waving. Whatever. 

[hairnet]

2 hours ago, Floatylight said:

Starter motor fell off (literally) been to Audi and bought new bolts now attempting repair on friends driveway where it broke down

Ballache of a job, given up, needs recovery to friendly garage

Wtf

[Floatylight]

34 minutes ago, hairnet said:

Wtf

Indeed! Absolutely no sign of the bolts!

[GagaStan]

22 hours ago, GagaStan said:

Hopefully just needs an ignition coil and isn't completely farked. We'll see.

Diagnosis complete - all it needs is a coil, phew. Going to replace all four to avoid the others giving up the ghost in sequence... and give it a service too. Robert's your mother's brother and reliable motoring will be restored!

[Pat Earrings]

Taking my chances with this shit/good weather and cracking on with a full service of the goona

[Rust Collector]

If you will believe it, contact cleaner and a toothbrush has got my Discovery 3 into a driveable state.

I can’t really believe it, and I’m now waiting for the other shoe to drop 😅

[alcyonecorporation]

Took the SVX to the tip. 






All the shit fitted in the boot, and it was good. 



I listened to a terrible MiniDisc mix I compiled on my NetMD machine at home. 
It's silver, bulky, not that useful, heavy on juice, and a bit weird. Yes, it's the SVX in MiniDisc form. 

Said SVX likes to go wrong in weird ways; its favourite by far is 'blow H3 bulbs sporadically'. Earlier this week, however, on a business trip, see if you can work out what it decided to do: 



Yes, that's right, the rear plate fell off. I'm eventually having some fancy full size dealer jobs made, but they're pricey and I needed to keep the car legal lest I want to fart around in it (not that I think the local 5-0 would give much of flying fuck about a car without a rear plate; I drove it back 130 miles bereft, and nary a goose was booed). 





Halfords stepped into the breach, and gifted me a replacement, slightly on the piss plate for a trade card friendly £18. They're now ally instead of ABS plastic, and the face is printed/laminated in one go over the top. 

[The Vicar]

Took this old girl out for it’s final spin before it gets picked up by it’s new owner 

 

[stuboy]

My son out in Hastings and he seen these... anyone idea them..

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I collected my new car. 

I love it. It's great fun. Surprisingly perky. I was worried it'd feel slow, but it doesn't at all. The pedals appear to be designed for the feet of a Barbie doll but it's otherwise comfortable. Massive boot, and 50mpg on the hundred mile trip home. 

It's only my second car ever with a tape player, so I bought an old stereo and made a couple of mix tapes for the trip down there in Junkman's Citroen CX and my trip home - well... the tape player in the CX doesn't work at all, and the one in the 106 warbles so much anyone singing sounds like they're about to burst into tears. Time to revisit the lost art of belt replacement! 

[andyberg]

These are great little cars. My son bought the yellow one from here. It's a cracking little thing, more comfortable than it should be and a decent engine. He loves it, it's his first car.

[Zelandeth]

2 hours ago, Conrad D. Conelrad said:

I collected my new car. 

I love it. It's great fun. Surprisingly perky. I was worried it'd feel slow, but it doesn't at all. The pedals appear to be designed for the feet of a Barbie doll but it's otherwise comfortable. Massive boot, and 50mpg on the hundred mile trip home. 

It's only my second car ever with a tape player, so I bought an old stereo and made a couple of mix tapes for the trip down there in Junkman's Citroen CX and my trip home - well... the tape player in the CX doesn't work at all, and the one in the 106 warbles so much anyone singing sounds like they're about to burst into tears. Time to revisit the lost art of belt replacement! 

Great little cars.  That's a cracking interior colour option too.

[somewhatfoolish]

5 hours ago, stuboy said:

My son out in Hastings and he seen these... anyone idea them..

 

Bottom looks like a Lotus Elan.

Actually they both could be Elans.