The grumpy thread

[Noel Tidybeard]

the Lucas name is held bt Elta Lighting

https://eltaeurope.com/lucas-bulbs-wipers-switchgear/

[camryv6]

21 hours ago, sheffcortinacentre said:

Management material if ever was.

I laughed, but so true !

[Ghosty]

I once had to wait SIX MONTHS for a £60 refund from Autodoc as I asked them to cancel an order, they agreed, then said actually it's too late, it's gone now. Refuse the delivery and it'll be returned to us.

Spent several months going in circles at German customs in the tracking.

[Bren]

1 hour ago, Saabnut said:

Yes. I was told that Lucas does not exist anymore as a manufacturing company. Apparently the licence to use the Lucas name for a 5 year period is auctioned off every 5 years to the highest bidder. The winner is invariably a chinese company making the cheapest tat so they can recover the cost of the licence. My source was not an official one, but have no reason to doubt. I have stopped buying anything new labelled Lucas after many failures.

Chinese company? Pyrotechnics?

[Remspoor]

1 hour ago, Saabnut said:

Yes. I was told that Lucas does not exist anymore as a manufacturing company. Apparently the licence to use the Lucas name for a 5 year period is auctioned off every 5 years to the highest bidder. The winner is invariably a chinese company making the cheapest tat so they can recover the cost of the licence. My source was not an official one, but have no reason to doubt. I have stopped buying anything new labelled Lucas after many failures.

Like a lot of companies. Philips is another one.

[Popsicle]

2 hours ago, Saabnut said:

Yes. I was told that Lucas does not exist anymore as a manufacturing company. Apparently the licence to use the Lucas name for a 5 year period is auctioned off every 5 years to the highest bidder. The winner is invariably a chinese company making the cheapest tat so they can recover the cost of the licence. My source was not an official one, but have no reason to doubt. I have stopped buying anything new labelled Lucas after many failures.

 

1 hour ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

the Lucas name is held bt Elta Lighting

https://eltaeurope.com/lucas-bulbs-wipers-switchgear/

Thanks for the heads up chaps.

Think I'll empty most of my biscuit tin of bulbs in the bin then.

[cobblers]

Everything made by lucas is complete dogdirt, the brand is dead and the name used to resell any old chinese rubbish. The bulbs are the worst stuff they make sell.

At work we go through dozens of bulbs every day, occasionally I fuck up and end up with a box of lucas bulbs and maybe about 50% of them will last more than an hour.  If they last an hour they will be alright, but they mostly don't.

[Mrcento]

Yup, I ordered a bunch of bulbs for the old discovery dash clock, box of 10, took me 4 bulbs to find one that worked, and it lasted approximately 3 weeks then blew.

Not the first time i've had that with Lucas bulbs either.

[HarmonicCheeseburger]

Lifespan of Liz Truss then.

[RoverFolkUs]

On the subject of Lucas, I fitted one of their Alternators recently, dead out of the box

Was a Disco 2 TD5 so not a particularly straightforward job to have to do twice either

Had me second guessing my diagnosis but after spending another hour going over everything (again) I tried a Denso one and it was obviously ok 

Obviously Starline and RTX are no good either so don't bother with ECP unless they list a Denso one. Bit more expensive, but it should last, or more importantly, actually fucking work out of the box!!

 

[mitsisigma01]

Who actually makes bulbs for Halfrauds , probably some other Chinesium outfit🤔

[adw1977]

1 hour ago, HarmonicCheeseburger said:

Lifespan of Liz Truss then.

But hopefully brighter than her.

[Popsicle]

1 hour ago, mitsisigma01 said:

Who actually makes bulbs for Halfrauds , probably some other Chinesium outfit🤔

It doesn't say on the back of the numerous ones I have, it just states 'Produced for Halfords'.

[Metal Guru]

5 hours ago, Saabnut said:

Yes. I was told that Lucas does not exist anymore as a manufacturing company. Apparently the licence to use the Lucas name for a 5 year period is auctioned off every 5 years to the highest bidder. The winner is invariably a chinese company making the cheapest tat so they can recover the cost of the licence. My source was not an official one, but have no reason to doubt. I have stopped buying anything new labelled Lucas after many failures.

I bought some Lucas branded windscreen wipers via eBay last week. Seem pretty good , as good as Bosch ones but about 40% cheaper.

[somewhatfoolish]

Not much justification for buying incandescent bulbs from China either, it's an exercise in shipping fresh air; @LightBulbFun are there are still plants in Hungary/eastern europe making tungsten lamps?

[LightBulbFun]

50 minutes ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Not much justification for buying incandescent bulbs from China either, it's an exercise in shipping fresh air; @LightBulbFun are there are still plants in Hungary/eastern europe making tungsten lamps?

yeah there are a number of Factories in Eastern Europe still churning out Tungsten lamps, as well as in India as well, the company that made "STATUS" branded bulbs that most corner shops stocked, is still churning them out over there, and they where/are pretty damn good, made on ex Osram-GEC machinery shipped out from here when the factories where wound up in the late 90's

 

sadly of course getting ahold of these lamps is another matter, since officially they are banned here, (I mean a personal import is no problem, but a company is not allowed to sell them to the UK etc)

 

although I realise this is in reference to Automotive lamps, for which none of the above really apply LOL I believe there are a few factories even in the west still churning out decent auto lamps

 

but yeah the Lucas bulbs and likely halfords ones will just be cheap Chinese crap!

 

 

 

[somewhatfoolish]

All the more irritating as the tech is literally ancient, no excuse for making shitty bulbs at all.

[hairnet]

Ouch

[Remspoor]

17 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

yeah there are a number of Factories in Eastern Europe still churning out Tungsten lamps, as well as in India as well, the company that made "STATUS" branded bulbs that most corner shops stocked, is still churning them out over there, and they where/are pretty damn good, made on ex Osram-GEC machinery shipped out from here when the factories where wound up in the late 90's

 

sadly of course getting ahold of these lamps is another matter, since officially they are banned here, (I mean a personal import is no problem, but a company is not allowed to sell them to the UK etc)

 

although I realise this is in reference to Automotive lamps, for which none of the above really apply LOL I believe there are a few factories even in the west still churning out decent auto lamps

 

but yeah the Lucas bulbs and likely halfords ones will just be cheap Chinese crap!

 

 

 

I am confused by that.

I thought incandescent were tungston bulbs.

The EU not just the UK have banned the sale of these for house hold use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs#European_Union

 

[reb]

17 minutes ago, Remspoor said:

I am confused by that.

I thought incandescent were tungston bulbs.

The EU not just the UK have banned the sale of these for house hold use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs#European_Union

 

Shockingly there are a number of eastern european countries not in the EU. And at least one prominent western european country...

[Talbot]

Fire.

More specifically, fire where I didn't want there to be fire.

😡

[somewhatfoolish]

1 hour ago, Remspoor said:

I am confused by that.

I thought incandescent were tungston bulbs.

The EU not just the UK have banned the sale of these for house hold use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs#European_Union

 

Phased out for general use but specialist uses are still allowed to kill kittens and nuns, although given how shit the quality is of most tungsten lamps I encounter(inspection lamps, indicator lights etc blowing more frequently than a purveyor of negotiable virtue) I won't miss the bloody things when they go.

[Pieman]

1 hour ago, Talbot said:

Fire.

More specifically, fire where I didn't want there to be fire.

😡

Is everyone ok?

[somewhatfoolish]

21 minutes ago, Pieman said:

Is everyone ok?

W210 severely wounded.

[Talbot]

24 minutes ago, Pieman said:

Is everyone ok?

I got a lungfull of crap I didn't want, but other than that, as mentioned above, the only casualty is some plastic trunking and wire insulation.  Fingers crossed the short didn't do any other damage...

(info in "mercedes" sig link.)

[goosey]

A guy turns up this morning to buy some jeans we had on listed on Facebook Market place for £3 and wants to pay for them with PayPal, I told him to just take them for free and fuck off (or words to that affect) which he did . 

although thinking about it is this just a contrived way of getting my email address?  As he already has my name and full address, not sure what he could really do 

[myglaren]

SIL has an Audi A5 that he is no longer happy with, many expensive repairs.

It was hit by a bin wagon five weeks ago.  He was hoping to have it written off as he wants rid of it.

Insurance gave him a loan car while a decision was reached whether to repair it or bin it.

£240 a day for the loan car.  Would have cost less to replace that stupid thing.

[Rust Collector]

35 minutes ago, goosey said:

A guy turns up this morning to buy some jeans we had on listed on Facebook Market place for £3 and wants to pay for them with PayPal, I told him to just take them for free and fuck off, which he did . 

although thinking about it is this just a contrived way of getting my email address?  As he already has my name and full address, not sure what he could really do 

Probably skint and trying to use a credit card or something

[horriblemercedes]

On 1/18/2023 at 10:29 PM, RoverFolkUs said:

On the subject of Lucas, I fitted one of their Alternators recently, dead out of the box

Was a Disco 2 TD5 so not a particularly straightforward job to have to do twice either

Had me second guessing my diagnosis but after spending another hour going over everything (again) I tried a Denso one and it was obviously ok 

Obviously Starline and RTX are no good either so don't bother with ECP unless they list a Denso one. Bit more expensive, but it should last, or more importantly, actually fucking work out of the box!!

 

Aren't the Lucas ones just refurbished?

I fitted a Lucas alternator from ECP and it was just a refurb Valeo

 

I've also done well with Lucas bulbs, but I don't fit enough bulbs or alternators to make my data reliable. I also know that Lucas is not the Lucas that we all know and love. I just chose those parts because they were cheap

[Zelandeth]

Sodding GP.

Ordered medication on the 9th and they haven't done anything with it yet.  So I'm going to need to go down there and tell them a question in person.

Again.

Edit: Roofers have just showed up.  Why are tradespeople so fscking incapable of letting you know when to expect them?!?  I'm glad they're here, but had zero knowledge they were expected.  I now feel completely unprepared, and have had to put of nowhere shelve plans for absolutely anything I was going to be doing this afternoon.

I'm also embarrassed to have to let them into the side garden as it's kinda a mess at the moment.  Had I known they were coming I'd have done my absolute best to do a thorough dog litter pick and to have at the very least jet washed the paths so they're properly clean.  I do try to keep on top of it, but at this time of year it's a bit of a losing battle sometimes.