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sierraman

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Tyres with a sidewall height less than 70% of their width.

Just impractical in their own right on real-world roads and responsible for all sorts of hellish and expensive complexities in the suspension neccessary to accomodate them to a saleable car. 

Tyre makers like them because they are more costly, car makers like them because they help promote the sale of fantastically profitable optional fashion wheels. 

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22 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Bloody stupid electronically latching indicator stalk used on the later Vectras, Signum and probably others.

Tap to turn indicators on, then tap the other way to turn off if they don't self cancel.

Except at least two cars I've been in where this doesn't work and this renders it essentially impossible to manually cancel the indicators...you end up going down the road alternately signalling left and right trying to turn the damned things off.

 

5 hours ago, 320touring said:

That and the "is it off" factor..

 

oh good not just me/im not alone there then!

especially when I first started driving, the indicator stalk in the Pug 208 im learning to drive in, was annoying as hell, id go to cancel and then just end up indicating the other way, then try to cancel that, and so on and so forth 

(not helped by that flash 3 times thing, so im not sure if I have managed to center the damn stalk and its just still finishing that, or if I am really still indicating whatever...)

 

that and self cancelling indicators, that dont cancel when you want them to, and then cancel when you don't want them to...

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Bmw and others putting their timing chain at the rear of the engines as just like their auto fluid it’ll never need changed , which it would if they cared about their customers rather then just money  and fitted double chains. Also and making their timing chain guides out of Edam cheese, which shreds and blocks the oil strainer probably isn’t a great idea either .

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4 minutes ago, cort16 said:

Automatics with no dipstick or worse a dipstick tune but not dipstick . 
You ended up rolling around on the ground under the car sticking your finger in the filler hole like you’re giving a guinea pig a prostate exam .

That sounds suspiciously like the voice of someone with direct experience.

You must have either very small fingers or a very large roll of gaffer tape....

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2 hours ago, JimH said:

Cars used to rot like vampires in sunlight 

A mate worked for ford in the early 70s  he said there was another manufacturer nearby who stored all the steel sheets used to press the panels outside under huge canopies which kept the rain off but they didn't have any sides so the panels were rusty before they even became a car.

He said ours were shit but not rusty before they were built, I believe underseal was an optional extra applied at the dealer though so depending how quick it sold it might've been standing in a field for months.

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1 hour ago, Asimo said:

Tyres with a sidewall height less than 70% of their width.

Just impractical in their own right on real-world roads and responsible for all sorts of hellish and expensive complexities in the suspension neccessary to accomodate them to a saleable car. 

Tyre makers like them because they are more costly, car makers like them because they help promote the sale of fantastically profitable optional fashion wheels. 

This!

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2 hours ago, LabRat said:

Mg6 (that's probably enough for this thread right there) keys/doors/ignition set up. You get a whacking great slab of plastic for a key:

IMG_20200227_120354.thumb.jpg.c3fd1c486fc4afbf940275dbb071a3d4.jpg

This in turn goes into the dock to start the car.

IMG_20200227_120452.thumb.jpg.54709e685e5dcb2a94393d41d15a47e7.jpg

 

However, because it is made of finest chinesium, the dock will shit itself and require replacent at totally random intervals. This needs coding to the bcu at a dealers, cos no bugger else has the software.

Also, the door locks are made of brie and will pack up if not oiled on a monthly basis. This means that you have to use the emergency key, hidden in the slab of plastic.

IMG_20200227_120421.thumb.jpg.17e4df9bb12f9559e29eb852bb53d48e.jpg

As you can see, this also is plastic and guaranteed to snap in the seized lock, the moment you try it. 

Once you do eventually gain access with the emergency key, you're fucked anyway as the dock has thrown a wobbly and you can't start the fucker. Also, you have to pull the door cards off the doors, whilst they're closed to get to the locking mechanism.

 Still. It not like the parts are hard to come by or anything...

Anyone who buys an MG 6 deserves a world of a pain. 

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17 hours ago, Talbot said:

Same as the head bolts (basically the same engine family) on a Staaaag V8.  Actually that engine was a complete load of bollocks.  The design of it is utterly awful and it has zero redeeming features.

 

Also.  Foot operated parking brakes on a manual car.  They can FRO.  Works fine in an automatic, but you need three legs to drive a manual with one.

Stag V8 is basically two Dolomite engines welded together.....amongst it's myriad of faults is a timing chain only marginally shorter than Hadrian's Wall, which had to be changed every 30,000 miles...............

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18 minutes ago, SiC said:
32 minutes ago, colc said:
And [and this is open to interpretation] illegal under construction and use regs

Citation please!

"The braking system shall not be affected by the non rotation of the power plant" Try disengaging most electric hand brakes when your battery is dead.

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Engines with ‘precats’ like the MR2 spyder. 

As the precats break down over time, and because they are so close to the combustion chamber (in the top of the manifold) small dust particles are drawn into the engine as you start the car, drawing those lovely fine abrasive parts down between your cylinder walls and pistons. 

This results in what was once a fantastic engine in one that you can measure miles per pint of oil. 

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7 hours ago, RoadworkUK said:

VAG 1.8T engine has possessed this "feature" since '97. 

Right now I quite like it; when my coolant header tank was full of Primula cheese spread and I feared OMGHGF; replacing the water/oil cooler, the water pump, radiator, header tank, most of the pipes and flushing the entire cooling system was much less of an ordeal than a head gasket would have been.

They’ve had that a lot longer than that. Bloody hopeless box sandwiched between the oil filter and the oil filter mounting thingy.  My 87 Coupe had a header tank full of cheese one morning, and like you i was affeared of the HGF. 

6F0F1500-E105-4324-9170-8410E75A1EA0.jpeg

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Cars which have too many functions on a smear screen, requiring eyes off the road whilst dancing through menus that a few easily found buttons/switches used to manage without difficulty or distraction. The answer? Rationalise the smear screen functions? No, too easy. What's needed is auto lane keeping and self driving gizmos. Still manage to crash? Blame the gizmos for not protecting you whilst distracted. Incompetent driving? Nah!

Feeling secure in a modern SUV or saloon/hatch with millions of airbags and thick pillars? Pity about the motorcyclists and cyclists who get wiped out by the resulting poor visibility, particularly at junctions. No worries, a dash cam which obscures the visibility even further will *prove that the incompetence was accidental. 

Me a cynical old luddite? ?

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Automatic transmissions. Especially the traditional epicyclic type coupled to a small torqueless engine, or one where the auto version of the say 1.6 is detuned compared to the manual version. They got better once 4 or 5 ratios became the norm, but a 3-speed auto with a bottom gear somewhere between 1st & 2nd in the equivalent manual and no overdriven top ratio meant that an already gutless little runabout became even more lacklustre.

Modern DSG type autos are a bit better but some still faff and fartarse between 2 ratios instead of staying in the one most suitable for the conditions, making the driver use a hold or manual shift function, thus negating the point of an auto.

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1 hour ago, Roobarb said:

Engines with ‘precats’ like the MR2 spyder. 

As the precats break down over time, and because they are so close to the combustion chamber (in the top of the manifold) small dust particles are drawn into the engine as you start the car, drawing those lovely fine abrasive parts down between your cylinder walls and pistons. 

 

How are they able to do that? Only if your exhaust valves are shot to fuck. 

 

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7 hours ago, JimH said:

Let's turn a lump of steel into a service item. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

I don’t know on a diesel these days with care you should see 100k from the DMF, they’re fucking horrible without them. Everyone wanted a diesel that would do 50mpg and hit sixty in less than 10 seconds, only way to do that was fitting variable vane turbos and all that jazz you get on modern diesels. 

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4 minutes ago, sierraman said:

on a diesel these days with care you should see 100k from the DMF, they’re fucking horrible without them

Depends an awful lot on the vehicle.  Mk6 transit for instance, the DMF is utterly pointless.  So much so that Ford sell their own SMF kit for them, and apparently you cannot tell the difference between a DMF or a SMF equipped one.

Some other engines do suffer without a DMF though.  Clearly a far more fragile design.

But I agree.  DMF is a completely stupid thing.  I'd rather suffer a fractionally (and it is truly fractional) less efficient engine and not have a big risk bill for when the DMF shits it's pants on you.

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7 minutes ago, Talbot said:

Depends an awful lot on the vehicle.  Mk6 transit for instance, the DMF is utterly pointless.  So much so that Ford sell their own SMF kit for them, and apparently you cannot tell the difference between a DMF or a SMF equipped one.

Some other engines do suffer without a DMF though.  Clearly a far more fragile design.

But I agree.  DMF is a completely stupid thing.  I'd rather suffer a fractionally (and it is truly fractional) less efficient engine and not have a big risk bill for when the DMF shits it's pants on you.

I’d disagree on that I’ve driven many Mk6 Transits and without the DMF it felt rougher. The ones we had went through a DMF and clutch every 30-40k but that was down to the use they were put to. Also vans usually get driven hard, I wasn’t giving the clutch an easy time as I wasn’t getting the £1200 bill for a new one. 

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1 hour ago, colc said:

"The braking system shall not be affected by the non rotation of the power plant" Try disengaging most electric hand brakes when your battery is dead.

I don't see a problem there as if an engine is stopped and not running, an electronic handbrake will still engage and disengage? There is no mention that an electronic handbrake must not be affected by electrical power failure. Electrical power failure is a very different definition from a powerplant not rotating. 

I'm more surprised that the scrolling indicators got through. I suspect it's because individual LED sections in the scrolling light happen to flash at the right intervals to meet the spec. Bet the engineer who figured that out is chuffed with themselves. 

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