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Posted
Why do Vauxhall rear view mirrors have a serrated back on one side?

 

for catching pedestrians?

Posted

If a tyre has a M+S (mud and snow) marking, is it automatically considered an 'all season tyre'/'winter tyre', or can it be a summer tyre that has been tested to safely move at 3mph in the snow?

Posted

I think M+S means the tyre has a traditional 'open' tread design, the marking is usually found on cheaper tyres. it's ultimately meaningless - especially for a RWD car with wide tyres if you're talking about the Scorpio.

Posted

Excellent! I just put a set of Firestone M+S on. :shock:

 

At least they are nearly new and were a good deal- 100 quid plus 40 for fitting and balancing (I know 40's a bit dear but I was so pissed off with the broken mirror this morning and just grumbled 'ok' instead of trying to get that tenner off). Well, at least they're made in Japan and bound to be better than the Infinity (aka faux-premium brand of LINGLONG!) shit in the front and the Lassa with the worn-out inner shoulder in the back.

Posted

If they've got M+S on them they should be proper winter tyres. As well as a different compound, winter tyres have lots of little sipes (=cuts) in the tread blocks. I have Marangoni Meteo HPs on the Skoda, which were GR9.9 in the epic snow/ice/low temperatures driving in and to northern Germany last December:

 

6291650758_4d40a4cbba.jpg

Yeti in the snow by Skizzer, on Flickr

 

Actually I never got around to putting the regular Dunlops back on and have been running the Marangonis all year. They've hardly worn, which is very impressive, and don't seem to hurt the fuel economy much if at all. Bit noisier probably, but it's a diesel Skoda FFS and the last word in luxury compared with a knackered Golf or a motorbike so I'm not bothered.

Posted
E46 3 Series isn't worth a shit. Badly designed, and badly made from poor quality materials. For example, a neighbour's 80k miler looks and feels totally shagged despite FSH and not being driven hard. Just feels cheap, and despite all the bollocks about Beemers being "driver's cars", it doesn't handle all that well either.

 

Mine wasn't too bad and whilst not the best made car in the world it ceerrtainly went and handled well. I'd also suggest it was better built (not by much though) than the E36.

Posted

Mine wasn't too bad and whilst not the best made car in the world it ceerrtainly went and handled well. I'd also suggest it was better built (not by much though) than the E36.

 

There ain't much on the roads that isn't better built than an early E36....

Posted

Incorrect about 'M+S' marked tyres, as I pointed out, the marking can be found on almost any tyre including the Chinese ditch finders on my Golf which are hopeless in the snow, a good effort considering how skinny the tyres are.

snowtire[1].gif

It's the mountain and snowflake symbol that marks a proper winter tyre.

Posted

Nipped out yesterday & bought an alternative set of wheels for me to bung my set of winter tyres on

(as I'm guessing that tyres that are repeatedly swapped from rim to rim will wear out sharpish)

I shall be having a go at fitting them myself using just a couple of spoons from the kitchen drawer in a day or two.

Bloke I bought them from had an identical Scirocco GT which he'd lowered, debadged, exhausted, cammed, put racing seats into

& cut the gear lever down - to about 3 inches long - it was horrible, but appeared to be very quick.

I also found the holy grail of Autoshite & will be nipping back on Monday with my camera...

Posted
mountain-snowflake-158.jpg

 

(Think the site needs a jpg image to show it)

 

True, I wouldn't imagine my tyres being much use in 40cm of snow somewhere in the Alps or even the Highlands, but the tyre industry helpfully has a confusing number of different designations such as:

 

"snow tyres"

"winter tyres"

"all season tyres"

"cold weather tyres"

 

So the question is whether the M+S marking designates tyres as belonging to one of the above categories (realistically, one of the latter two) or whether they most likely (as Len seems to suggest) are summer compound with a marginally more siped pattern.

Posted

Leonard, I stand corrected. Apologies for perpetuating a myth.

 

http://www.snowtyres.com.au/faqs said:

What’s the difference in snow traction between an M+S (Mud and Snow) branded tire, an All-Season tire and a purpose-built snow tyre?

The original definition of M+S tyres is based on the geometry of the tread design. The M+S designation was first used to differentiate the knobby bias ply tyres intended for use on muddy, and/or snow-covered roads from the straight rib tyres used on early cars or trucks. Tyres with tread designs that meet the definition may be branded with the letters “M†and “S†in several different ways (e.g., M&S, M+S, M/S, MS, etc.) at the discretion of the tyre manufacturer.

 

When early radial ply tyres were also found to deliver more snow traction than the straight rib, bias ply tyes, the tire companies introduced “All-Season tyres.†Supported by advertising, All-Season tyres have presented an unspoken promise that they, throughout their life, can provide traction for all seasons…through spring’s rain, summer’s heat, autumn’s cooling and winter’s snow. While this combined offering has made All-Season tyres popular, many drivers have learned that a geometric definition doesn’t guarantee winter snow and ice traction.

Posted

Is it possible to embed YT videos on this forum as I have seen on others? If so, how?

Or is the only option to paste in a link to the YouTube page?

Posted

No, because this forum doesn't support html in posts. Or it didn't last time I tried.

Posted

If a particulate filter is by-passed in a 2.2hdi engine can you switch the limp mode off easily?

Posted

This is a bit of a computer related question, I know sod all about them really but i expect a few of you have a idea, My current PC is a desktop which is about 5-6 years old, It's pretty good but it's getting old now, It can run a bit slow, crashes often and the fan is a bit noisy when it's working.

 

I have some insurance money coming in soon and i was thinking about spending some of it to treat myself to a decent spec PC, But i don't know what to get.

 

I have been looking at all in one computers, These appeal to me as they have a big screen and are neat and tidy but are they any good? I'm worried about them going wrong and not being able to repair them, This is the one I'm most tempted by at the moment. http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/packard-b ... 4QodhnXbnA

 

It's expensive but I don't mind paying that for a good one that will last as I spend alot of my time on it.

 

20111030140838.jpg

 

This is my current PC's spec, I'm looking for a bigger memory for my photos and a faster processor and a decent graphics card, I don't play games on it, I only use it for the internet and photos mostly, Any suggestions?.

Posted

Replace the fan, add a couple of gig of RAM and a fresh install of XP or whatever and it'll be like new. My equally ancient IBM fair whizzes along with 3GB and a fresh install of XP.

Posted

^ This ^

 

No reason to spend a lot of money to replace something that can be mended so cheaply and easily.

Posted

Hammer a smaller copy of ubuntu over it?

Posted
Hammer a smaller copy of ubuntu over it?

 

I tried that & then I bought a Mac, I've not had to hammer a smaller whatsit over anything for yonks.

Posted

Or get a refurb from the likes of Argos. I got a Toshiba satellite thing for £200 with a years warranty. It's about a quarter of the weight of my old HP zd thing but that was a piece of shit so not worth chucking money at.

Posted

Mac's are mega money, I would of had one by now if not, my biggest worry with upgrading my old one is that by the time it's all up to spec it will basiclly be a new computer and be nearly as much as that PB all-in-one one.

Posted
Or get a refurb from the likes of Argos. I got a Toshiba satellite thing for £200 with a years warranty. It's about a quarter of the weight of my old HP zd thing but that was a piece of shit so not worth chucking money at.

 

I bought my wife one of those in laptop form and it was utter shite, it was sooooo slow that it never got used and i ended up selling it at a big loss on ebay.

Posted

Jim Teversham, of Police Memorabilia Collectors, believed there was still a place for whistles in modern policing.

He said the last operational whistles were phased out in 1974/75. The only ones still made were for Metropolitan Police officers' dress uniforms.

 

 

From Here

Posted

Apologies if this has been answered, ever, but: Retrogeezer, in your signature, who are/were Julie and Maisie?

Posted

What a terrible story. I was hoping that the answer was to that question was about a couple of Hilman Imps that got sent over the bridge.

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