The new news 24 thread

[NigeT]

Wife's Ypsilon failed MOT on a leak where hose meets caliper (had somehow got unscrewed) and an indicator bulb that wasn't orange enough. Central Edinburgh MOT garage (i.e. the chancer at the reception desk) was keen to supply a new hose, caliper and bulb for at a cost including the MOT of £705 - SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIVE POUNDS! 3 HOURS labour and £220+VAT for a caliper wtf. Needless to say I told them to fuck off. £80 for new caliper, hose and bulb on fleabay and Amazon plus some new pads because why not. Fail side took me 40 minutes and other side pads 20 minutes and about 15 minutes for a spot of preventitive rustprofing, old caliper & pads were shite. Weren't too friendly when I took it back for retest and I'm tempted to copy this to the grumpy forum - so glad I'm a spannerer as can't imagine how stressful it would be to be at the mercy of commercial repair places. 

[brownnova]

Ticked over 220,000 today… 

Doesn’t look too bad considering!

I bought this as a 6 month stop gap 7 1/2 years ago. It was the gateway into dailying shite! 

[Split_Pin]

Audi has FTPd. Black smoke and stalling but there's no DPF. 

[MorrisItalSLX]

7 hours ago, EightMegs said:

Where did you order these from, out of curiosity? I've been finding it really hard to find spares for my Carina outside of Japan and the US.

Australia.

I'm struggling to find parts here too. The major car parts chain business often have very few parts available, or indefinite back orders, or simply discontinued basic parts.

I ordered these parts online as no physical shops around me had anything in stock or could even guarantee me they could order them in.

[EightMegs]

Just now, MorrisItalSLX said:

Australia.

I'm struggling to find parts here too. The major car parts chain business often have very few parts available, or indefinite back orders, or simply discontinued basic parts.

I ordered these parts online as no physical shops around me had anything in stock or could even guarantee me they could order them in.

AutoDoc was great until a couple of years ago when they stopped stocking old Japanese stuff, RockAuto is alright for now, hopefully yank politics don't get in the way.

[puddlethumper]

I haven't posted much lately. A case of not much going on and CBA ness. Circus finished the end of last October and after a couple of weeks Stourbridge way I buggered off to Dorset for a month. I was then asked to go to Norwich to keep an eye on the circus stuff over the Xmas and new year while everyone was either at the NEC or in Holland. Three weeks pay and £180 fuel bill from Weymouth that gets paid as well. I think it works out at about 11mpg. Which isn't too bad to move my house and shed, although it's only in the back of the Mazda that's used as a shed. The car itself is definitely not a shed. I've had it 2 years now and apart from a few bits of ignition stuff, (leads, ignition module and rotor arm,) about £45 and a full exhaust which cost £76 I've not done much else to it. Mot coming up next month but I can't think of anything it needs. It's been a damn fine machine so far. Always the oldest car on the Mways I've been on. Although a couple of weeks ago I caught up with an M plate red 405 so I slowed down to have a good look and it was being driven by a bloke in a turban so I gave him a thumbs up which he returned. It was in excellent condition.

As I've been sitting on the Norfolk Showground ,boring, since before Xmas I'm going to bugger off for a few weeks the end of next week and go visit a couple of friends and then head for my Mot man in Brierley hill. So keep an eye out for these.

[Split_Pin]

3 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Audi has FTPd. Black smoke and stalling but there's no DPF. 

Also the E46 went into limp mode again, EML, ABS light and yellow handbrake light. 

Oh and the boot button stopped working.

Just what I need right now.

[SiC]

1 hour ago, Split_Pin said:

Also the E46 went into limp mode again, EML, ABS light and yellow handbrake light. 

Oh and the boot button stopped working.

Just what I need right now.

I know the feeling. It doesn't just rain, it fucking pours. 

[PhilA]

2 hours ago, SiC said:

I know the feeling. It doesn't just rain, it fucking pours. 

Probably out of the wiring harness.

[Split_Pin]

On a positive note, I forgot that I still had some money in my PayPal from selling off some diecast so that went towards a C310 Creator code reader. I chose one from Amazon, you could spend as little as £40 and up to £80 on ebay but the listings looked a bit spurious. This way it arrives tomorrow and I've got a robust returns process at hand if needed.

I also found out my work contract is on the old terms (I joined right on the changeover) so my severance will add up to about 7 months' wages and should give me even more time to look for a new job (I've applied for 10 already with 1 knockback so far).

[paulplom]

New uprated springs and shocks fitted to the ex @Kiltox relay yesterday. The arch gap matches the front now.

[Split_Pin]

15 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Audi has FTPd. Black smoke and stalling but there's no DPF. 

Update following investigations:

The jubilee clip connecting the main turbo to intake hose was completely loose, literally dangling about like it hadn't been re tightened after being removed and refitted. Fuck knows how the car drove fine until now!!

Took the airbox pipe and engine cover off and all other air intake paraphernalia is good.

Hopefully that's it.

 

[lesapandre]

More sad news on the historic  GM Luton plant closure.

A sad fact that no other manufacturer has looked at this - given a ready made plant and trained workforce. But there is the modern motor business in the UK.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crr0p080104o

[lesapandre]

And in other news - Railtrack need to survey all their other railway parapets very fast. This should not have broken off hit by something as light as a car. Something has gone very wrong apart from the nut behind the wheel. These things are supposed to be terror proof.

Salford.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c0k5214vn6pt

[High Jetter]

19 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

And in other news - Railtrack need to survey all their other railway parapets very fast. This should not have broken off hit by something as light as a car. Something has gone very wrong apart from the nut behind the wheel. These things are supposed to be terror proof.

Salford.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c0k5214vn6pt

Flipping 'eck!. (Photo credit for that pic is, appropriately, Rowan Bridge)

[lesapandre]

3 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Flipping 'eck!. (Photo credit for that pic is, appropriately, Rowan Bridge)

Shambollock. Utterly 'I don't believe it'. 🫣

[artdjones]

26 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

And in other news - Railtrack need to survey all their other railway parapets very fast. This should not have broken off hit by something as light as a car. Something has gone very wrong apart from the nut behind the wheel. These things are supposed to be terror proof.

Salford.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c0k5214vn6pt

Obviously some weakness there. On the other hand, I'm not sure why it's national news. I was walking to work in 1979 when I came across a Leyland Marathon on its side on a railway bridge. The trailer had just taken out a steel parapet and deposited a load of scrap metal all over the 4 track South Wales Main Line. 

That's where the accident was.  About 10% of the fuss was made in the news media about that incident compared with the one that just happened.

[lesapandre]

Because it closed the line with OMG chaos I suppose. It is a serious fault. If that had happened as a train came through it would have been very nasty. Also just a car did that. Nuts.

[comfortablynumb]

Not unusual, near me there's a bridge over one of the drains ( river channel here in Norfolk) which had had it's parapet smashed out by something which was capable of driving away afterwards.

All the highways lot have done is to put temporary traffic lights on it, been like that for at least a month 

[lesapandre]

No rebar used - just snapped like a biscuit.

[stuboy]

nothing exciting... mondeo is at 16.9 mpg, i need to fuel up as only 33 miles in the tank, i do like this car, other news i drove a horrendous MG hs auto too dartford too take out 3 aca;s after they had woopsies driving ambulances, in the rail and hail stones

[Zelandeth]

I love seeing older equipment still being in use in non public facing settings, especially when there has clearly been an essence of make do and mend going on.  In this case some evidence of the one out of three service life cars and it's call panel that has been replaced with a modern one having donated a number of buttons to the control panel of one of the older cars.

No surprises that these 1981 Express Lifts units run waaaaaaaay more smoothly than the car shinier 2005 ones in the public facing areas of the hotel.  One of which was broken before we even got here (though we almost invariably break one through the course of the weekend), which is why we've been allowed to use the service lifts as well - as having 1500+ people in a hotel this shape trying to use effectively 1.5 lifts (one of the main ones is tiny) in a hotel this shape just ain't going to work!

Would have been better if the hotel had been more on the ball about making sure they were all working before we got here though.  Even though the engineering nerd in me has now been ensuring I make a point to use the older lift just because I can.

I'm not a total lift nerd, but I can see why some folks are.  The older ones really are some of the most nicely engineered bits of equipment that nobody ever thinks about.  I do kind of regret not getting some parts of the service lift from our old work building when it was being demolished.  It was the original one from when the building went up in 1968 and was astonishingly original aside from a couple of timers and a rectifier block.  All relay logic and thermal timers - the control cabinet was a work of art.  Unfortunately it also weighed about a quarter of a tonne and I had no way to move it.  Should have at least grabbed a call panel or something.

[reb]

Not really a grin nor a grump, it just is.

By chance I was sent a photo with my 850 in it

Didn't recognise it at first until I spotted the plate on the dash.

[matt79]

1 hour ago, reb said:

Not really a grin nor a grump, it just is.

By chance I was sent a photo with my 850 in it

Didn't recognise it at first until I spotted the plate on the dash.

Also a Lancia Thema (top right of the pic)

[reb]

Just now, matt79 said:

Also a Lancia Thema (top right of the pic)

That was the car the OP cared about!

It's sheer chance that someone I know spotted my 850 in the foreground!

[bramz7]

Just back from a few days in Bari. Lovely area, Puglia is a real gem of a region (for a tourist like me anyway). And there is loads of tat still on the road. 

 

I took 340 odd photos on my actual camera. And managed to dodge most of the dog poo in the rougher areas. 

[Schaefft]

1 hour ago, reb said:

That was the car the OP cared about!

It's sheer chance that someone I know spotted my 850 in the foreground!

Poor facelift E38 on the right, too 

[wuvvum]

I never knew they sold the FSO Caro with a Daewoo badge!

[barefoot]

I went to a car show this morning, it was OK. I've always fancied a run in a bug...

Bloke took me for a ride in the one on the right. 850cc apparently. You know everything you imagine that a ride in a Bond Bug might be like? It was like that, but ten times that. And noisier and  much narrower. I don't need to go in another.

[bramz7]

40 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

I never knew they sold the FSO Caro with a Daewoo badge!

Yep, badged Daewoo-FSO. Tbh Italy has always been a great market for cheap vehicles so I always end up seeing new budget rubbish and old stuff that's somehow survived. 

 

In other news I've booked in the 525d for an MOT and full service next week. I don't think it's going to tank the MOT, the handbrake is a bit rubbish and maybe the offside front tyre, but it seems fine otherwise. I really like it now, it's nice to cruise in. It's still far too big but I can't really do much about that.