The grumpy thread

[DodgeRover]

Karma’s that thing where someone experiences some sort of Godly revenge/a similar fate, I think.

 

My sort of revenge will be entirely different.

Ah - Karma may take many forms

[clayts450]

Ah - Karma may take many forms

 

Hmm - like this, you mean ?

 

[Lord Sterling]

Bollocks. I bothered Red5 into helping me retrieve a sofa that was being given away, a nice brown leather long 2 seater job. Myself and Red5 just managed to get it up the stairs as they are narrow, then I got it into my flat and set about cleaning and hoovering it, but there was a bit of a horrible smell coming from somewhere. I thought some spray and cleaning chemicals might get the smell away. Nope. This morning I ripped off the underside of the sofa and found that the wood and sponge inside smelt like a truckers toilet, really BAD. I decided that I just couldn't have this and got rid. Also, it was a cheap sofa, a 'Dong Ling' thing whereas my old one was a locally made one, not that itnreally made much difference, it was supposed to be better for me as it was a bit wider so visitors wouldn't be squashed up together.

 

Spent I've most of the early afternoon ripping the arms off the sofa and getting it downstairs ready for collection, hoovered the stairs and landing and cleaned all the marks off the walls. Why can't things be simple?

 

Still, I've still got my single chair and foot rest and my old sofa has been reinstated.

[AlabamaShrimp]

Sulking at myself again. Just had a look at all the calender picture threads and seen loads off good stuff. I must have missed ton of good threads with people doing all kinds of stuff, like there's a Minor with its engine on a hoist and various other random garage shots. How have I missed so much??

[Kiltox]

I’ve made a REALLY STUPID eBay purchase but the seller (despite being all “no time wasters collection within 2 minutes of the auction end” etc) has gone radio silent.

 

May have dodged a bullet but fuck eBay.

 

Fuck... contact made... lets go back to OMG REALLY STUPID PURCHASE

[The Moog]

Did my sums wrong and now have a big ish tax bill. Admittedly I can pay over the next few months but going to mean tighter belt time.

[DodgeRover]

Did my sums wrong and now have a big ish tax bill. Admittedly I can pay over the next few months but going to mean tighter belt time.

What you need to do is employ the ex leader of the HMRC as a financial advisor and I'm sure you will be looking at a substantial rebate....

[cobblers]

For the first time in years, I took a car to a garage. It's not through being tight, but every time I ask a professional to do a job I have to redo it myself because they fuck it up. I'm just unlucky I think.

 

The Talbot express was leaking from the master cylinder and the exhaust manifold was blowing from some snapped studs. I knew I'd end up with problems bleeding up etc and I really didn't fancy it at the side of the road in the perpetual darkness and rain. I told them to just have a look at the manifold and only bother if it looked doable without taking the head off etc, because I didn't want to open up a can of worms.

 

2 days later, I get a call. "All done. Turns out the manifold wasn't blowing, it was everywhere else so we've redone it all with new clamps and new hangers and it's sound. £285 plz"

 

I picked the van up this morning. Brakes are spongy and after 45 miles, the low fluid light is on again. The exhaust manifold is blowing exactly as bad as it always has, and while the rest of the exhaust does sound better now, I didn't really ask them to do owt with that cos it's piss easy work I was happy to do myself once the manifold was sorted.

On top of that, they trod a load of greasy muck all over the carpet.

 

Surely I'm not being unreasonable? They'd have noticed most of the problems if they'd taken the time to run it round the block. I told them to take as long as they need, I don't need the van for weeks.

 

Had a good look over this today. The master cylinder was wet with fluid along the bottom which is what I noticed yesterday presuming a leak. but the fluid level itself was OK.

There was some plastic shroud inside the reservoir that surrounds the level sender float which was flapping about inside, broken off? It must have wedged the float down and turned the light on.

The brake pedal is still really spongy so I'll have to take it back cos it's definitely not bled up properly. I can't be arsed to argue about the exhaust though.

[Pillock]

Just as we finished eating sunday dinner, I heard a funny noise from the kitchen. It sounded a bit like "phut".

I walked into the kitchen and saw nothing amiss.

 

About half an hour later, I heard something a bit more like an angry wasp using a massive vibrator. Back into the kitchen I went to find that all the smoke in my induction hob (three years old, Hotpoint) had fallen out into the drawers below. Literally, I pulled the drawers out and they were both full of smoke. Quite a pleasing effect, reminiscent of a 1980s Top of the Pops act, except this had added ACRID SMELL.

 

It had already tripped the cooker circuit, so I shrugged at the fusebox and got the screwdrivers out. The plinth below the hob has got two great big scorch marks on it, although pleasingly the wiring and terminal box is fine.

 

This was 4 hours ago and it still stinks.

 

Don't think I got Careplan on the hob (it was from Currys when I worked there, it was about 75% off list price and due to the way Careplan works now you only ever get the price you paid back, it's not unlimited like it used to be - and £70 isn't enough to buy a new hob anyway) so I'm now gonna have to shell out £250-odd on a new hob on the run up to Christmas. Joy.

[Guest Hooli]

 I heard something a bit more like an angry wasp using a massive vibrator.

 

Sorry but actual laugh at that phrase.

[Des]

Fuck the careplan, go in and demand a new hob, to comply with the durable quality part of sales of goods or whatever it's called, a cooker should last longer than a few years. My cookers barely post war and still going, and the one in my campers about 30 ffs.

[DeeJay]

Didn't your smoke alarms go off?

[MrDuke]

Grump 1: Visited the folks dahn sarf last week, and decided at the last minute to take the 850 so I could help my brother move his stuff into his new flat. The MOT ran out at the end of Oct Nov, and I figured that I'd get away with doing it down there as the worst thing it could fail on was a blowing exhaust. In fact, the exhaust didn't even show up as an advisory - but it did fail on a seized handbrake. That's right, the same handbrake that I never, ever use because it sticks on and squeals like a pig, and that I'd completely forgotten about. The garage managed to fix it with a thorough strip, clean & reassembly - no new parts required apart from 2 sidelight bulbs, just a £40 test and a 'few hours' labour. Final bill.......£370.

 

Grump 2: My 'new' retro MTB project arrived today (should've been here Friday, but apparently DPD didn't understand my specific instructions to deliver it next door) in a completely shredded bike box with a worryingly large hole punched right through the middle. Upon unpacking it, the frame has a massive dent in the downtube and a 3-inch section of paint removal down to the metal, which definitely wasn't there when the sender packed it. Being TruTemper OX tubing, it should be OK to ride, but it'll need a proper fill & respray job before I can look at it again. Chances of DPD coughing up sufficient funds in compensation - negligible.

[Guest Hooli]

Sharp thing in road plus car coming the other way equals a torn sidewall in one of my new front tyres.

 

 

Arse.

 

 

Edit, never forgot the good* bit, spare tyre at about 10psi even though it's a 'new' part worn on the odd alloy. I hve a compressor though so no space saver fun for me.

[Cavcraft]

Put a mobility scooter on Gumtree. 18, yes eighteen, messages from the same person in about 15 minutes. Initial request for me to deliver 25 miles away, knocked them back.

 

'I'm housebound, cannot go out'. Sorry to hear that.

 

'Can you bring it to me?'.  No sorry.

 

'Is there any other way something cheap? I could meet you at my local railway station if you wanted.

 

'Can't soz, I'm housebound' Oh, ok thanks anyhow.

 

'I can hire a van and collect it tomorrow if you want?'   Ok, no problem message me in the morning.

 

It's still here, of course.

[cobblers]

 

Grump 2: My 'new' retro MTB project arrived today (should've been here Friday, but apparently DPD didn't understand my specific instructions to deliver it next door) in a completely shredded bike box with a worryingly large hole punched right through the middle. Upon unpacking it, the frame has a massive dent in the downtube and a 3-inch section of paint removal down to the metal, which definitely wasn't there when the sender packed it. Being TruTemper OX tubing, it should be OK to ride, but it'll need a proper fill & respray job before I can look at it again. Chances of DPD coughing up sufficient funds in compensation - negligible.

 

I don't know what's happened at DPD but in the last month they've gone from being "OK" to being a complete clusterfuck.

 

We use them at work for about 40 collections a day, and send out about 60.

For the last two weeks they failed to collect 50% of our parcels, and about 30% of the outgoing stuff gets delayed.

It's got to the point where we have two of the lasses in the office pretty much chasing DPD all day every day.

We've got about £15k worth of stuff "stuck in the system" at the moment

[HH-R]

Put a mobility scooter on Gumtree. 18, yes eighteen, messages from the same person in about 15 minutes. Initial request for me to deliver 25 miles away, knocked them back.

 

'I'm housebound, cannot go out'. Sorry to hear that.

 

'Can you bring it to me?'.  No sorry.

 

'Is there any other way something cheap? I could meet you at my local railway station if you wanted.

 

'Can't soz, I'm housebound' Oh, ok thanks anyhow.

 

'I can hire a van and collect it tomorrow if you want?'   Ok, no problem message me in the morning.

 

It's still here, of course.

 

I've had similar selling white goods.

 

Stringing me along, arranging a date to collect then asking if I can drop it off after, surprise surprise, a no show.

 

I really want to tear them a new one, but suspect they're a bit down on their luck so politely explain that I can't carry the items on my own and they won't fit in the car, so no, like I said on the advert - I can't deliver.

[Kiltox]

Took out a new policy for the van of doom with Admiral today - who also insure my Duster

They are insisting on checking my driving licence by means of me sending them a check code etc - which means I need to get my finger out and actually change the address on my licence

 

...... so insuring a brand new car for the past 9 months is fine, but a £1300 shitter of a van puts you into full investigation mode?

[Sheefag]

I believe in karma, (it helps keep me calm) when karma catches up with certain people I hope karma has had a bad day and is carrying a baseball bat..

 

Being an impatient bastard, I always make sure that Karma gets a helping hand. Or two.

 

[Bren]

Had my teeth scraped and polished. Normally painless, this time I am in pain - I am sure dentist used a router....

[Matt]

Took out a new policy for the van of doom with Admiral today - who also insure my Duster

They are insisting on checking my driving licence by means of me sending them a check code etc - which means I need to get my finger out and actually change the address on my licence

 

...... so insuring a brand new car for the past 9 months is fine, but a £1300 shitter of a van puts you into full investigation mode?

 

Don't try and make sense of it. It's a fruitless endeavour with car insurance stupidness.

[beko1987]

Took out a new policy for the van of doom with Admiral today - who also insure my Duster

They are insisting on checking my driving licence by means of me sending them a check code etc - which means I need to get my finger out and actually change the address on my licence

 

...... so insuring a brand new car for the past 9 months is fine, but a £1300 shitter of a van puts you into full investigation mode?

First direct have bombarded me with about 7 letters confirming who I am over the last 2 weeks, then the other day sent me 6 forms to fill out and get countersigned and post back, wtf it's 2017 let me do it online!

 

Luckily I made our solicitor at work a tea and he did it all but fuck me, remind me never to go with a bank who have been busted for money laundering again! I feel your pain.

 

Wait until they find out I've spunked £200 of the overdraft on an old Renault and not paid anything in yet (needs to be set up and switched from our old joint account before I pay my wages in)...

[Kiltox]

Dont even get me started on HSBC - I have two business accounts with them.

They are HELL.

[Guest Hooli]

i was with First Direct for a while when they first appeared. They were utterly shit & couldn't count ffs.

[beko1987]

I want the switch to happen as I get £130. Shame their application form failed to say they can't switch a joint account to a normal one, so I've had to fill out another 5 pages of forms and get amy to sign them...

[Kiltox]

TBH First Direct seem to be 100000x better than HSBC 

[Kiltox]

They're the same company?

 

Yes - HSBC is the underlying bank of First Direct but they have very different attitudes to customer service.

[BavarianRetro]

I'd be opening a Metrobank account if there was a branch less than 350 miles away.

[Kiltox]

I'd be opening a Metrobank account if there was a branch less than 350 miles away.

 

Very tempted to move my contracting Ltd to them - given I'm in Laaandaan 4 days a week anyway.

[AlabamaShrimp]

I want the switch to happen as I get £130. Shame their application form failed to say they can't switch a joint account to a normal one, so I've had to fill out another 5 pages of forms and get amy to sign them...

Exactly the same with us about a year or so ago. Nowhere does it says anything about splitting a joint account when you move to them.