The grumpy thread

[cort16]

I've got the rusty old ford blues. Can you count all the new holes I found?

Getting a bit fed up of this shite heap I might sack it off once I've fixed thes holes and fitted the new seats .

[xtriple]

I have a storage unit. I have had it since Christmas 2013. I have NEVER seen it as a mate took all my stuff from the house and put it in the unit for me as I was a very crippled cripple at the time.

 

Today, another mate asked me if he could put his roof box (fucking great thing on a new Hyundia x35) in the unit as his wife wants to use the X35 for work next week and with it on, carparks are a no- no!

 

So off we go with a certain sense of trepidation on my part and after fucking around for ages getting in the place then even longer finding unit 40 (their numbering system knows no rhyme or reason - must be an economics graduate!) couldn't even get the key in the lock as the lock was rusty as fook. Engine oil from dipstick got key in lock, but no way will the bastard turn. So grumpy me, grumpy mate and now left with the prospect of trying to get the lock to work.

 

Was a bloody expensive lock as well, bought from them and with covers all over it. How the flaming hell has it gone so rusty in 18 months?

[chaseracer]

Because it's shit.  Have you discussed this unacceptable failure to perform - and be fit for purpose - with the vendor?

[xtriple]

Because it's shit.  Have you discussed this unacceptable failure to perform - and be fit for purpose - with the vendor?

Tomorrow.

 

No bugger there on a Sunday... or a Saturday for that matter!

[EssDeeWon]

Got the Primrose 75 on the road now, all cleaned up and looking lovely, been out in it this afternoon and all seems fine but the coolant temp was in the late 90s, hmmmm well the fan defo works as I tested it twice before buying it....

 

Well, It doesn't now !!! 

[Parky]

Clearing the bottom of the garden. Dug out loads of crud, removed an old patio and realised the end is just a little higher than the rest of the garden.

 

So I decided to dig the area out with a fork. No biggie thinks I, turn it all over, dig some out and level off. No worries.

 

Fork goes half an inch down and CLANK. Something there. Tried again in a few other places, same result.

 

Further investigation reveals that under my old patio is - Another Patio! Arse biscuits, that's another twenty trips to the tip disposing of that. Tempted to fuck it off, put some shutter boards around the area and fill it with soil from other parts of the garden. "Yes, it's a raised feature area, very de rigeur in the gardens of Paris don't you know....."except Mrs P specifically wants that area flat and has said we will have to get someone in if I won't do it. And getting someone in is against my religion (am practicing member of the Seventh day Church of tightwadedness)

 

i am thinking the old patio must be pretty solid if someone preferred to go over it rather than dig it out.

 

Either way a job I thought was nearly over is, in fact, only half done. Bugger.

[purplebargeken]

These 75's eh? They'll have ya when you you least expect it. 

[EssDeeWon]

Its going in Wednesday for some work, I think I might drop it off then go straight to my bank and file for bankruptcy.

 

However, every time I look out the window at it parked in the evening sun all is forgiven again 

[mercrocker]

I've got the rusty old ford blues. Can you count all the new holes I found?

Getting a bit fed up of this shite heap I might sack it off once I've fixed thes holes and fitted the new seats .

 

Exactly where I was last month....Scored a pair of comfy seats for the Minor. Tenner. Nice proper bases from Minor specialist, prezzie from SWMBO. Knackered old seats out, carpets out, bugger. £300 weldage. And I paint the bastard underneath every year. Must brush harder next time...Hang in there you might like it with new seats!

[Split_Pin]

Just watching You Tube and stumbled upon a guy who parted out a lovely old Phaeton as he wanted the engine for a 'project'. As expected his videos are full of shit t3 synchro westfalias fitted with engines from other once decent performance VAG stuff. Probably completely without foundation but I can't stand when people break dynamically excellent cars and fit the bits to something flipping wretched. Flaming lefty twats the lot of them.

[DeeJay]

Have you considered the Brookside option?

[chaseracer]

Just watching You Tube and stumbled upon a guy who parted out a lovely old Phaeton as he wanted the engine for a 'project'. As expected his videos are full of shit t3 synchro westfalias fitted with engines from other once decent performance VAG stuff. Probably completely without foundation but I can't stand when people break dynamically excellent cars and fit the bits to something flipping wretched. Flaming lefty twats the lot of them.

 

Eh?

[Lord Sterling]

Ma had a face on today because our gardens are overgrown. Our limited gardening equipment can just about handle a normal garden, plus with me suffering from bad hayfever doesn't make a great combination, however I braved it just to get it down bit by bit. Working outside reminded me why I am so glad to be leaving here soon. Chavvy fuckers all gathering outside to be as anti-social as you can imagine, even Ma wants to leave which is something I don't think even she would've imagined a year back.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Eh?

 

"From each [Volkswagen] according to his ability, to each [Volkswagen] according to his need [of pineapple-ing]"

[purplebargeken]

Fox shit on the garden hose pipe, didn't see it and have spent nearly an hour achieving almost surgical levels of hand cleaning and there is still the smell. 

 

Foxes - pretty creatures but their shite really stinks.

[autofive]

young drivers GGGGGRRRR

 

or, one in particular

 

young whippersnapper (i know his dad, sort of) passes his driving test and uses dads phone to ring me to ask if i know of any cheap cars. I explain that bangers are cheap at the moment, price of scrap is low so beware the shiny turd, etc etc. His dad seems wise enough, so I assumed he would look em over for the boy before he buys.

 

Couple of days later a straight looking, old lady smelling, 106 XR turns up. owner wants 100 quid with 3 months MOT, 'noisy gearbox' she says. I text the dad with details, no reply. Two more days and the price goes to 70 quid, I text again. no reply. I buy the 106 for 70 quid, drive it about 8 miles in rushhour, everything is fine apart from a growly front wheel bearing (its tinny, gutless and i have to take my boots off to find all 3 pedals, but its a tiny car)

Very next morning I get a phone call from the kid. Do I have a car to swap for a french people carrier has just bought, he hates it. We meet, I drive the unMOTted picasso, he drives the 106. He loves it and wants a straight swap. I tell him he can have the project 106 for 100 quid spare or repair and i dont want the picasso (even though it seems like a cracking deal for me) He insists he is happy with a straight swap. Deal is done. I park up the picasso and ignore it, as I expect a phone call from an angry dad, and the deal to collapse, no harm done.

 

Next morning (Friday) I get a phone call from the kid - gear linkages have fallen off the 106. Hes being all gangster on the phone with me, The gearchange was a bit sloppy when i drove it, so I stop him short by agreeing to come and change the rods for him, or does he want his picassso back? (which is what i think he wants) no he says. I arrive at his house at 9:15am to look at the 106 and he has 3 rods in his hand, he doesnt remember which is which and where they came from.  I go to the local breakers and get the rods off a saxo, noting their position etc. go back fit the rods, but the gearchange is odd and i cant get 2nd. All the other gears are fine, I drive around the block. I suggest he drives it to scaryoldcortinas yard so I can have a better stab at solving it. (he lives on a steep hill and its not ideal for jacking up cars in the street.) He doesnt want to and starts a long and loud rant about how the 106 had cost him 350 quid and now i need to sort it out etc etc. I explain to him (after offering him his own car back, again and he refused) that he may have paid 350 for the picasso, but the 106 is worth 100 quid, as that was the asking price. I now suspect its an attempt to extort funds from me. I say 'do you anyone who has knowledge of these saxo/106 linkages?'. He says yes his mate, but he will charge 20 quid to sort it. I immediately agree to pay 20 quid, once the job is done and leave.

 

Saturday, early morning phone call. His mate has had a look at it, says its loose rods, buy new rods, oh, and wants me to give him 20 quid for his 3 second look under the bonnet. I laugh and decline. I go to kids house where I again, in front of his dad (who has remained totally silent on the matter thus far), ask him if he wants the picasso back and offer to drive him to it right now. No, no, no he says. I look at the dad, who raises his eyebrows and says nothing. I agree to get the 106 sorted before monday. He is happy, Im biting my tongue, but now just want to end this jeremy kyle parallel life and get back to my own. I ask umpteen people about the rods and no-one really has any answers. 4pm saturday I return to his house and tell him i cant sort it out and the best solution is a swap back, no harm done etc etc He absolutely refuses and says he hates the picasso and i should give him money for it, as he is 'late with a payment on it'. I smell a trap, I havent seen the v5 for the picasso yet, and now it looks like he swappd a car he doesnt own. I refuse and ring his dad, perhaps he can make the kid see sense and take his picasso back, dad arrives and has an indoor heated argument with the kid while I sit in my car. Dad comes out and tells me the whole sorded tale. Kid is in hock to a local part-time car dealer, part-time talc salesman. URGH. I have seen this bloke 3 times drive past while huddled over the 106 and each time he gave me a 1000 yard stare, now i know why. Kid is still insisting he doesnt want the picasso. Dad says he will have a word with pablo daley and find out details and I leave.

 

Sunday morning I set off for 200 mile round trip to collect an engine. several missed calls later I returned the dads call ' can he have his picasso this morning'. I explain that i wont be back until 2-3pm but I will pick the kid up and take him to collect his picasso. later, I hand the kid the key to his french lovely and then he starts bleating on about how he put 10 quid of fuel in the 106, I ignore it and open the gates for him to leave. He starts the picasso and before it can move it runs out of petrol. He has no money. No fuel. Im not providing either. He rings his dad to borrow a fiver. I push the picasso outside, and enlist scary to tow-in the 106. scary looks at the 106 and says - those rods are on wrong and the gearstick mechanism has been played around with. we tow it in. On the flat a finally have a look underneath and find a very clean car for a 1998 106, good sills, floorpan, chassis etc, but still no gears. scary has a play with it and manages to get all gears apart from 2nd, again. drive it into the picasso's space in the yard and forget about it. I remove all the petrol from the 106, only one 6 litre can, and do a few odd jobs in the sunshine and quiet of a sunday teatime. scary rings - he has discovered the rods are connected wrongly, the bottom rods connects to a totally different place on the gearbox.

I start to think its not a grump, but a grin. I lose out on time and money for the rods etc, but I have got away unscared by chav society one more time.

 

Repeating the whole saga to SWMBO last night and she asked - what do you think you were storing in the picasso for the last 4 days. URGH, now its a grump. Have I just been played by a semi-illiterate, chav and his puppet master?

[Rusty_Rocket]

autofive- what a bloody nightmare!

This is exactly why I don't help people find a car nowadays!

[autofive]

me too,

I dont buy and sell cars to avoid these idiots, but I was tempted, and sucumbed.

lesson learnt.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

LOL What a palaver!

[hairnet]

Have you considered the Brookside option?

sounds like thats already happened

[D Spares & Tyres]

That Picasso / 106 incident reminds me of a Corsa I sold....

 

To a local girl for £350. She then asked if she could pay in instalments. Like a fool I agreed just to help her. Most were late

 

A few weeks later her husband ( who I have still never met ) rings me: `This Corsa has broken down, what are you going to do about it?`

 

`What do you think is the problem? I ask `I don`t know, you sold it her` was the reply

 

After a few heated words he threatened to come down and sort me out. I told him that was fine and I would wait in for him ... ( he never arrived )

 

She turned up a few days later acting all sweet, I agreed to have a look at it

 

Turns out someone had changed the cambelt and not tightened up the bottom pulley nut. You could tell it was a brand new cambelt with fresh tippex marks....

 

She denied all knowledge of this but I just gave her £200 back on it to shut her up as she is a bit trappy and works in the local shop so I knew she would bad mouth me otherwise. All ended peacefully and 3 door corsa Bs are good breakers so i got my money back but I was annoyed at the lies.

 

Cards marked / Karma etc...

[Parky]

Have you considered the Brookside option?

It has occurred to me that there might be something underneath that the previous owner wanted to conceal. After all his wife did leave him (apparently) which may have been an excuse to cover up for her disappearance.

 

Either that or he was a pirate and has been concealing booty with view to coming back one day. If that's the case I might leave it as he will be digging it up himself at some point!

[chaseracer]

"From each [Volkswagen] according to his ability, to each [Volkswagen] according to his need [of pineapple-ing]"

 

Ah.

[hairnet]

was in somewhere and they said yeah come back in the meantime we will arrange an appointment at .......    for you

 

yeah great but they didnt say when - was expecting it confirmed thru the post

 

 

 

went to see them today and - oh you didnt seem them on this date...... it was written on the thing we gave you......

 

yes because you didnt give me a date there and then (the docs they gave me dont have a date or appointment on them) and why didnt you tell me id missed it when i spoke to you last week??

 

oh err.......

sent them a letter asking them why if i missed an appointment that i didnt have a date for they then take a month to tell me ive missed it (mess with their minds  )

 

 

FFS

 

im going on holiday on wednesday fuck them

[MarvinsMom]

talking of things buried in gardens, back in olden times i used to collect the pools money (remember them?) from a few houses round and about.

 

one was an old council house a young couple had bought, the garden was huge, but a real jungle.

 

coming past it one day, the fella had dug a huge hole, like almost swimming pool sized in the middle of this wilderness.

 

he had made a start to dig it over, when he hit something with the spade. clearing the soil back, he saw something yellow underneath. this turned out to be a mark one escort mexico. a previous tenant had buried the bloody thing instead of getting the scrap man to come and take it away. the crater it left on the yard was enormous, and it took some shifting. the car had been buried complete, interior, engine everything was in it. it was well ripe by the time it got dug back up, and there was quiet an oil slick in the bottom of the hole.

 

sad thing is now the damn thing would be worth a ruddy fortune!!

[autofive]

JUNGLE FIND cars are always good sellers

 

on a similar note I know someone who was clearing the jungle at his grandparents house and decided to remove the hump of weeds from the centre of the garden, after a bit of digging the hump gave way and he fell into 3 foot of dirty water and soil that now filled the tin shed air-raid shelter forgoten about for 40 odd years.

 

oh how we did laugh

[scaryoldcortina]

Autofive - Haha, I did warn you! Not only did you do a deal with kermit the frog* you bought a 106....

 

 

I recently bought a late 106 1.5D because a friend of a neighbour asked me to find a small cheap car to replace the greek registered 106 the police told her she had to stop driving. TWO WEEKS of faffing and thinking about it, brought friends/relatives to have a look, asked stupid questions (it's a £200 small diesel with a valid MoT ffs) and then went and bought a rover 200 somewhere else for £800.

 

Total waste of time.

 

 

 

 

 

*small, green squeaky voiced muppet that's sleeping with a pig

[scaryoldcortina]

Also, while I'm complaining.... our MoT station went "live" on the new improved web 2.0 computer system.

 

1. They gave us less than 24 hours notice, so I had to use my laptop for tests today.

2. I'm spending my evening prepping another computer so I don't have to do that again.

3. It's a total mess. Buggy, wierd and makes you print documents via a PDF that it generates.

4. No more VT40 information sheet. All the vehicle info is on the computer screen instead, and nowhere to write brake results or failures.

5. My AE is not tech literate at all. He sends emails by tying the laptop to a pigeon and hoping.

 

This week is going to be SUCH FUN.

[Tetleysmooth]

I'm getting seriously pissed off with driving and my job now, unfortunately, the two are linked.

 

Last Friday, I was given three drops in what we call a 'puddle jumper', a seven and a half tonner.

Aldgate, Brixton Hill and Waterloo. Aldgate and Brixton Hill went off without too many problems, apart from the usual twats on the road during rush hour on Friday and Brixton Hill being three cages short on their delivery.

Got to Waterloo, had a good laugh with the store manager while unloading. When we were finished, we were having a quiet fag at the back of the lorry. Then this old biddy appears. Can we be a bit quieter please? Whinge, whinge, fucking whinge. With people like that, I just want to remind them that if I don't deliver it, they won't get their jar of Dolmio at half nine at night. Seriously, it's a convenience store, when the shelves start emptying, more stock as to be delivered. The poor old manager had to listen to her ramblings and agree with everything she said.

 

Saturday night. I was given another puddle jumper with another three stores on it. Lambeth, Isle of Dogs, and one in the City.

On the way to Lambeth, I used the A13, then branched off past Canary Wharf and into the Limehouse Link tunnel. Traffic was pretty heavy. It normally is on Saturday evening around there with people heading for a night out up town. No congestion charge.

So, we're in the Limehouse Link tunnel. All moving ok. The car in front of me starts behaving erratically. Slowing down using gears/clutch, no brake lights, so naturally, the gap closed between us. I obviously had no warning, but opened the gap again when I realised. This happened a few times. Then, a girls' arm came out of the passenger side window and I got the middle finger. No reason whatsoever. About a hundred or so yards up the road, the car had moved to the right hand lane and I was alongside. The girl looked up at me with a look of absolute hatred on her face. I've never quite seen a look like that before. Nice looking girl too. The rest of the journey went off reasonably without trouble, but that incident left me feeling a bit miserable TBH, because there was absolutely no reason for it.

 

Had Sunday off, thank all the gods in all the heavens.

 

Last night, yet another 7.5 tonner, two calls, West Green Rd, Tottenham and Aldersgate, in the City again.

The delivery point for the Tottenham store is round the back, in a private car park. It's controlled by gates, which we have the entry number to.

So, I duly went through the gates and pulled up behind the cars parked there. Straight away, a woman came out of her flat and took a photo of the lorry. Got loads of filthy looks while waiting, as I'm not allowed to reverse without supervision there. Anyway, I got into position and we started unloading. One of the lads who was taking the cages off the tail-lift was a decent boy. He was nattering to me about where I lived, how long I'd been doing the job etc. Usual chit chat. Until that is, I saw him look to his left and say 'pardon'. Apparently, one of the residents had told him to stop talking. We're not allowed to talk while working there.

 

What the very fuck is going on. People are becoming so bloody nasty and intolerant.

I've had people going incoherant with rage, wagging their fingers at me, threating all kinds of action. My crime? Delivering goods to their local CONVENIENCE store

 

I wasn't involved in this, but one of our drivers was doing a delivery at Catford store one day, and the residents above threw a fridge over the balcony at him.

 

That's how it's getting people and I'll be glad when I retire in three or so year's time.

 

Sorry about the abnormally long grump, but all this has got to me somewhat over the last few days.

[Pillock]

That's madness. People are just, I dunno..... miserable doesn't seem to cover it.

I have a shop on the next road over, a little  convenience store that's part of a chain so it's all branded. They get deliveries twice a week, always at about 7am so the driver just double parks to avoid walking a cage half a mile down the road. I usually leave for work around then so it's mildly inconvenient, you tend to get traffic that has to (shock horror) sensibly deal with the fact the road is down to one lane for ten minutes. But then when I realise there's no milk for my coffee, I'm quite glad I have a shop there. I've never once considered gobbing off to the driver that's filling it up for me.