The grumpy thread

[robinmasters]

I've just seen a Vauxhall Astra advert. The ONLY thing they tell you about it is that it's got LED headlights. 

[Cavcraft]

I've just seen a Vauxhall Astra advert. The ONLY thing they tell you about it is that it's got LED headlights. 

 

Even that's TMI. You don't need any info, except where to buy one.

[Supernaut]

I've just seen a Vauxhall Astra advert. The ONLY thing they tell you about it is that it's got LED headlights. 

 

That really does show exactly what target demographic they're aiming at.

 

"YOU WANT CAR? YOU BUY CAR. THIS CAR HAS SHINY HEADLIGHTS. BUY CAR NOW. NOOOOOWWWW!"

[MrDuke]

Bizarrely, every single piece of info and footage from that ad (I saw it too) made me more unhappy that such a car would be sold.

 

Is it just me, or does anyone else look at all the 'assistance' features on new cars, add in the facts that 1) new cars are all designed with finite lifespans and 2) each generation of drivers is less equipped to actually "drive", and wonder wtf will be happening on the roads in 10 years' time?

[Supernaut]

Bizarrely, every single piece of info and footage from that ad (I saw it too) made me more unhappy that such a car would be hitting the nation's roads.

 

Is it just me, or does anyone else look at all the 'assistance' features on new cars, add in the facts that 1) new cars are all designed with finite lifespans and 2) each generation of drivers is less equipped to actually "drive", and wonder wtf things will look like in 10 years' time?

 

The answer you're looking for is "striding headlong towards fully autonomous cars" sadly.

 

We'll be considered weirdos, like Will Smith's character in I,Robot, for owning a fully manually operated vehicle that uses something as crude as an internal combustion engine.

[puddlethumper]

I had an accident in Portugal some years ago in a Bedford crew cab pick up. Seat belts in pick ups were not obligatory and the one I was in didn't have them. 

Unfortunately driving home one night, alone, at about 11 o'clock after it had rained, I came round a corner to find the local council had put new tarmac on the inside of said corner. No signs to say so.

Corners where I lived were such that you couldn't drive faster than 30mph round them and it was ALL corners. 

On one side was a rock face and the other a 45 degree slope down to a river 50 metres below. No barriers.

Back end slid out on the greasy new tarmac and the rear corner hit the rock, spinning me round one eighty and throwing the pick up over the other side and down towards the river. I don't know how many times it rolled, not the kind of thing one starts to count in that situation, before landing on its side about a metre from going into the river. 

I ended up in the back and felt like I had been in a mental cement mixer. Pitch black, mobile phone gone, raining. one piece of glass left under which I had to check myself out for any damage, to me not the truck obvs. Luckily no wetness , apart from the rain, and no broken bones. 

If I had been thrown out and injured badly enough, dead. If I had ended in the river, dead.

I had to sit under that one piece of glass until 6 in the morning before I could climb out of there, and looking down from the road you couldn't see any sign of the pick up at the bottom.  Thats why, if i had been badly hurt on the way down and couldn't get myself out it would have been all over.

Two weeks later two old boys in a PICK UP went over in the same spot. One died and the other was in hospital for 8 weeks.  I think I used up a lot of luck that night.  Only accident I've ever had in 40 odd years.

[saucedoctor]

Scary stuff. I think it was something like that that happened to Gerhard Berger.

[alf892]

When I was a kid there were no kid seats and no one wore seat belts.

 

This was countered by my mum's left arm which had many uses

 

It was used to belt you one if you were fighting with your sisters in the back.

 

If you were sitting in the front she would put her arm across the front of you if she had to brake hard......always fuggin worked.

 

Sadly she also smoked with her left hand so there was always a risk of burns.

 

Now I always wear a belt.......and grand daughter sits in a child seat with an after market anti escape clip.

 

Times change.........sometimes for the better

[EssDeeWon]

I was in the back of my dads Rover in the 80's as a kid when he wrote it off, in those days I used to ride in the middle behind the two front seats, the SD1 had a huge transmission tunnel you could sit on.  All I remember is a white mk2 escort van pulling out and being told  'hold on'  which I did. I Lived. A small kid also climbed out the back of the van after the collision, he lived too. Imagine that gave him a shock right though.

[MrDuke]

Thinking about it, I used to sit in the middle seat of our Mk1 Granada as a wee squirt, and on long journeys I'd be given a massive, heavy, deep-dish wheel (presumably out of a 60's truck or summat) to put between my knees and 'steer'. Why yes, I was 'easily amused' as a child. The mind boggles at what kind of injuries I'd have sustained in a crash, though.

[rrsix]

I've just seen a Vauxhall Astra advert. The ONLY thing they tell you about it is that it's got LED headlights. 

 

 

That really does show exactly what target demographic they're aiming at.

 

"YOU WANT CAR? YOU BUY CAR. THIS CAR HAS SHINY HEADLIGHTS. BUY CAR NOW. NOOOOOWWWW!"

 

 

Why is making a nocturnal animal squint a good example of how good the headlights are? you could do that with a sealed beam. arrrrrgggghhh!!

[Noel Tidybeard]

not just any led lights NO, LED MATRIX LIGHTS

[AlabamaShrimp]

I honestly never knew people wearing seat belts or not was such a contentious subject...

 

If it helps I like wearing the belt but I also like my seat full boy racer does that effect how it works?

[vulgalour]

You might submarine and smash your knees into the dashboard.  At least you're wearing a belt.

[Eddie Honda]

I got done for no seatbelt in about 1995 [snip] but I still got the £60 fine (as it then was).

 

What was the £60 fine for? (I ask because my £30 fine was around 2001)

 

Between 1st April 1992 and 31st October 2000, the the fixed penalty for not wearing a seatbelt was £20.

 

So:

 

a) did you mis-remember the amount?

b ) incur a fine for something else at the same time? (2 additional non-endorsables or 1 additional endorsable which would have been £40?)

c) talking barry?

 

[and yes, I shift work]

[beko1987]

Turns out the Zafira hasn't actually been insured since we have had it...

 

Just went online to take the Meriva off and got an error, so I rang up. The guy looked at something then put me on hold. Then he asked me if I received our policy documents for the renewal. We had recieved the original renewal stuff (the day after I put the zafira on but I reckoned that those would have been raised a few days before, so whatevs, updated ones would come. They never did thinking about it

 

So after being uninsured but not (it was showing as insured on MID thank god), all the chap had to do was swap the meriva for the zafira rather than remove the meriva itself. He then waivered the fee for me calling up on my questioning of that, so meh, but FFS It's a good job amy didn't have a massive crash or something.

 

Net result is £9 less a month, so swings and roundabouts

[alcyonecorporation]

VAG shite goes in for warranty work.

 

Tell the dealership several times I know the front tyres are low and not to try and scalp me over them unless they want to match the online price for new rubber (which they've refused to do in the past). Told them last time and I told them again when it went in this morning. I get the service bloke to write on the job sheet that: CUSTOMER AWARE FRONT TYRES NEAR LIMIT.

 

Can you guess what they've just called me about?

That's ten minutes I'm not getting back.

[Supernaut]

That's "customer service" for you.

[alcyonecorporation]

That's "customer service" for you.

You know what? Had they matched the price I'd found for exactly the same tyres I'd have had them done. But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

 

Yes, and 4mm of tread on a car that covers less than 8000 miles a year is not the end of the world. 4mm is LOW and not ILLEGAL, you scaremongering gits. They must rip so many people off this way it's untrue.

 

The tyres will be replaced next payday. I cannot give that car any more money at the moment.

[doobietoo]

As most tyres start out with 8mm of tread and the legal limit is 1.6mm then 4mm is only 60% used so they are suggesting that you should replace an item as a matter of urgency that is only just over half way through its life. unbelievable....

[alcyonecorporation]

As most tyres start out with 8mm of tread and the legal limit is 1.6mm then 4mm is only 60% used so they are suggesting that you should replace an item as a matter of urgency that is only just over half way through its life. unbelievable....

Well, I did try explaining that to them, also that the Leonard wasn't used a lot and that I drive far more powerful RWD stuff in the driving rain so I wasn't exactly about to stack the thing.

 

Edit: fuck, no, sorry. I did the depth on my VOSA/DVSA calibrated gauge and it was at 2mm, not 4mm. That's me being a tit. Argument still stands. They need doing, yes, but not OMFG DEAD NUNS AND KITTENS AND MUNTJACS NOW NOW NOW.

[HillmanImp]

I wear seatbelts in my more modern cars and sometimes wear seatbelts in my old stuff.  

 

If I'm tootling slowly around a town with traffic etc where the greatest risk is being hit by another vehicle, I generally don't wear a seatbelt as I view the ability to be able to move away from the object that is hitting me seems preferable to being tied into a seat where someone in a modern brick is trying to park.

 

If I am going anywhere else I will pretty much always put on the seatbelt as I don't want to be thrown from/around the inside of the car.

 

Basically, I look at the road situation and make a decision based upon my assessment of the risk.

 

I don't not wear a seatbelt to 'stick it to the man' or to look 'ard, I wear a seatbelt when I think its necessary. If I think that wearing a seatbelt in a situation is more dangerous than wearing one, I don't.

[wuvvum]

I've just seen a Vauxhall Astra advert. The ONLY thing they tell you about it is that it's got LED headlights. 

I saw a new shape Astra hatch today.  I actually thought it was quite an elegant shape from the side.

 

Sorry.

[anonymous user]

I saw a new shape Astra hatch today. I actually thought it was quite an elegant shape from the side.

 

Sorry.

What does the front look like, or were you blinded by the lights?

[sporty-shite]

 AND they did me for the german look plates that the Golf I was driving was wearing (which was Sporty-shite's fault for leaving them in the boot, naturally)

 

 

 

I thought I'd left them on the car..

 

I IZ SCENE HOE, YO

[gordonbennet]

 

Basically, I look at the road situation and make a decision based upon my assessment of the risk.

 

I don't not wear a seatbelt to 'stick it to the man' or to look 'ard, I wear a seatbelt when I think its necessary. If I think that wearing a seatbelt in a situation is more dangerous than wearing one, I don't.

This ^^^

 

For years i didn't wear a seatbelt in the lorry, and wouldn't still except the old bill and VOSA now nick you where at one time they didn't.

 

The reason is purely because the mirrors on previous model FM volvos and the MAN i now have were designed and fitted by ex bedroom fitters, who happened to have a glut of wardrobe door mirrors left over from their previous employ so nailed them up right beside the bloody driver allowing scandalous blind spots, especially on the drivers side, you can literally miss transit vans on the approaches to junctions, helped* by the supersensitive seatbelt locking up on you so you can't move to see round the poxy things.

So, its ok now lads, us lorryists are safe as can be with seatbelt on you'll be pleased to know, and more importantly* boxes ticked yay, bad luck all the poor buggers on bikes in cars in vans.

[beko1987]

 

 

I don't not wear a seatbelt to 'stick it to the man' or to look 'ard, I wear a seatbelt when I think its necessary. If I think that wearing a seatbelt in a situation is more dangerous than wearing one, I don't.

When my mate had a landrover and we used to go OLLI greenlaning, billing etc he always took the seatbelt off as he said he could lean forward/stand up and look at what was coming/not be tied down if we rolled or stopped in water.

 

We always wore ours in the back mainly to stop us bouncing out of the bloody bench seats. Which I did once actually, we were filming driving around for some reason and I was unbelted in the back holding the camera. He floored it over a small lump in the woods that turned into a full on 4 wheels off the ground jump, I floated for a bit before coming down hard on the seat frame. It took alot of weed and beer for that pain to stop...

[Rover414]

I've only been involved in one crash, I was driving an Optare Solo at 25mph and a Vectra B came out a side street doing at least 30mph without even looking or stopping, I was thrown out the cab sideways from the impact and the bus ended up hitting a wall. I do wonder if having a seatbelt (I've driven a Solo with a seatbelt fitted) would have kept me in the cab and prevented the bus from hitting the wall. I walked away from it mind, he had to be cut out and was unconscious:

 

[xtriple]

Finally got teeth that fit... after a fashion. Feel massively too big and I can't talk, eat or drink coffee.

[chaseracer]

What does the front look like, or were you blinded by the lights?

 

Revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night...?