The grumpy thread

[Zelandeth]

Fecking eBay sellers.  Still trying to get a refund on a defective part.  Which the seller is now claiming didn't work because it was not the right part for my vehicle.  Despite my having physically checked the parts numbers matched - and the same part having been used on the model from 1979-93.

It's my word versus theirs, and PayPal have sided with the word of the seller, so looks like I'm £200 out of pocket.

[mercedade]

7 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Fecking eBay sellers.  Still trying to get a refund on a defective part.  Which the seller is now claiming didn't work because it was not the right part for my vehicle.  Despite my having physically checked the parts numbers matched - and the same part having been used on the model from 1979-93.

It's my word versus theirs, and PayPal have sided with the word of the seller, so looks like I'm £200 out of pocket.

Have you spoken on the phone with eBay? They're usually much, much better to deal with that way

[Noel Tidybeard]

it seems if you are *cough* over 40 sitting om the floor albeit on a screwfix freebe pad, polytroling all the arch & bumper plastics on a honda civic type-s can make you ache in many, many places

[Zelandeth]

Oh **** you, UPS.

I was literally outside on the driveway when the supposed delivery was attempted, and I can assure you that no UPS van so much as drove down our street.

[iainrcz]

Fitting a new shower screen, the old one was thick toughened glass.

So what did I do with it? Drop it and smash a tile 🙄

[Pieman]

8 hours ago, dozeydustman said:

Another neighbour has chickens. Don’t mind that, I’d love 2-3 hens clucking around in the garden. Except they have a rooster which is non-stop from 4am-is to whenever the sun goes down.

[cobblers]

2 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Oh **** you, UPS.

I was literally outside on the driveway when the supposed delivery was attempted, and I can assure you that no UPS van so much as drove down our street.

Wankers. 

At work I watched DPD drive up, hold his phone out of the window of the van and take a picture of our front door, then speed off. 

then a few seconds later "We missed you" 

[Metal Guru]

22 hours ago, sheffcortinacentre said:

Sick of needs fixed, needs clean, etc no you cunt " it" needs " a,to be, ING "

I can see where you’re headed!

[High Jetter]

6 hours ago, cobblers said:

Wankers. 

At work I watched DPD drive up, hold his phone out of the window of the van and take a picture of our front door, then speed off. 

then a few seconds later "We missed you" 

Yeabbut, why, FFS?

[RoverFolkUs]

29 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Yeabbut, why, FFS?

He was clearly running behind schedule, if they achieve a certain number of deliveries (or indeed, simply "attempts") within a certain timeframe then they get a bonus. Probably explains the widespread dangerous driving/parking

[Mrcento]

On 7/23/2023 at 12:51 PM, andyberg said:

Home insurance renewal time. With SAGA coz I am old. Last year £61, this year renewal £183!!! FFS. Along with a letter giving the usual crap about this is the best deal we can find blah blah blah... 

Goes onto compare the market, exactly the same details and SAGA comes up at £47!!! How is this possible? Phone SAGA they say they cannot match the £47??? Why? How come? So I cancel my renewal and take out a new policy. 

It seems every type of insurance renewal involves spending an hour of my time wasted getting new quotes then invariably staying with the same insurance company but having to take out a new policy. I thought there were new rules to stop the insurance companies over quoting for existing customers?

Boils my piss this does 

Same with car insurance.

My particular favourite is multi-car. Which no insurer lets me have at a sensible cost. They just what a ridiculous rate per car that would out way more expensive than just taking a second policy with zero NCB would be.

The absolute bare faced cheek of them is unreal.

If car A costs me £600 a year to insure and i want a multicar policy with a very similar car B, they will want £1400 for car B plus the £600 for car A, a 2 grand policy.

If i take out separate policies with the same company that offered the multicar price, car A obviously costs me £600, but car B, with a new policy and zero NCB applied, can now be insured for around £1000 (still ridiculous and a no for me, but still a saving of £400 v a multicar 'deal'). £1600 together.

But that's not even the best part.... if you go back to the multicar, they will CONGRATULATE you and say WE HAVE SAVED YOU £500 WITH MULTICAR 🤣 vs what exactly?, They themselves have just offered me a deal on 2 policies for £400 less than the policy they are now claiming to be saving me £500 on! a £900 difference between the figures they are pulling out their arse.

They absolutely make it up. Complete con artists.

[cobblers]

You picked the wrong day to double cross me again, dyson. 8 years, nothing but constant aggro. 3 new batteries, filters, brush motors, hours and hours stripping and rebuilding it and it would never work for more than a few weeks at a time. I'm not throwing any more good money after bad. GTF!

[Surface Rust]

17 minutes ago, Nyphur said:

Any chance I can have the battery off you please, if it survived? 😂 

Mine works nicely (scant consolation I'm sure!) bar the battery being a bit tired now.

If you have power tools that run on 18v you can almost certainly get an adapter for your Dyson. 

Someone on here recommended it and as my battery was dying I thought I'd give it a go. Picked up an adapter for my Makita batteries for £13 and it works a treat. 

[dozeydustman]

On 24/07/2023 at 16:39, Pieman said:

When I find the neighbour I may have to borrow my dad’s .22

[cobblers]

1 hour ago, Nyphur said:

Any chance I can have the battery off you please, if it survived? 😂 

Mine works nicely (scant consolation I'm sure!) bar the battery being a bit tired now.

The battery and fan actually still work, as well as they ever did. But I honestly could not allow this cursed beast to sour anyone elses life. It will drive you to violence, as it did me.

[horriblemercedes]

On 7/21/2023 at 3:24 PM, Dave_Q said:

When you get an offer of a course you book through an online portal.

But in that portal they are listed by police force, Manchester, West Yorkshire and so on.

If you go into the listing for each police force they have dates and online/in person options but they are all slightly different prices, presumably they all have different arrangements of how much cash they are trousering from the course fees.

Top advice here from @Dave_Q

 

I went on and the others were around £90+ but Hartlepool was £73. The only thing was that their only available slot was tomorrow, which I can't do.

 

Emailed them and within ten minutes I'd got one sorted out for a convenient date in September for £73. All done.

[sierraman]

On 7/25/2023 at 12:50 AM, RoverFolkUs said:

He was clearly running behind schedule, if they achieve a certain number of deliveries (or indeed, simply "attempts") within a certain timeframe then they get a bonus. Probably explains the widespread dangerous driving/parking

I have heard that recently they insist on at least some Grand Prix experience or at least a personality trait that applies no value to human life. 

[MikeR]

Today I sat on a bench , a nice one , then I moved to another which rocked , a rocking bench to replace the rotting swing seat in our garden ... great , Took a picture of the label to do a Tinternet search and check out the pricing , nice Xmas pressie springs to mind .

get the picture ! ,

wife comes back with her pile of shopping , and I said "nice bench"  hoping to get a nod of approval to confirm my plan to buy ... Oh good we will have one of those , any in stock , can we take one now !! 

Cher Ching .......

 

[EyesWeldedShut]

Morning coffee - read the 'news' on the BBC Website including - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66165920

Then go  to transfer dosh from my current account to fruit of my wife's womb and the Halifax block it with all sort of alarming popups basically saying 'contact us or we freeze your account'.

I have just spent 30 minutes on the phone with a bloke plainly working through a scripted interview as the bank thinks "this is an unusual transaction to a new payee".
"Do you know her?" Yes                                                                   << may as well replied 'no' to this one for all the good it did
"How do you know her?" She's my step-daughter            << different surname though = fraudster 
"How long have you known her?" Twenty three years    << that cut no ice apparently
"Are you sure?" Yes                                                                               << he ignored that as I am plainly a giffer
"Did she ask you for the money?" Yes                                        << Red flag apparently in his script
"Have you sent this person money before?" Yes                 << He's getting edgy thinks I'm being groomed for my millions

"Not to this account though?"             No - look you'll see she's already a payee under her old account number
"You don't think that's unusual?"       What? People getting separated and no longer using a joint account? No.

It just went on and on and on, several questions repeated (trying to catch me out eh? Herr Flick? I tell you nothing). I told him to just cancel the transaction. Paid the cash to my wife who has forwarded it to sprog in about two minutes flat.

It's made me feel like a grumpy criminal caught with their hand in the till. I was a bit pleased that I never swore or lost my temper with the guy  

I wonder if that'll be part of the 2023 £55m fraud prevention  claim.

[EyesWeldedShut]

On 7/24/2023 at 11:21 AM, Noel Tidybeard said:

polytroling

That's what you get for winding up  parrot - they're clever birds.

[captain_70s]

30 miles into the drive to FOTU, Dolly started pressurising it's coolant. Bastard.

Also when I pulled over the crank pulley nut fell off...

Swapped to the Volvo for attempt no.2...

[SiC]

1 hour ago, captain_70s said:

Dolly started pressurising it's coolant. Bastard

Head needed the nuts tightening up after its run? Iirc @Matty needed to do that on his A40 when that showed HGF symptoms.

[Zelandeth]

Had someone stop me during walking the dog today and just openly ask me for cash to buy drugs.  Not even the slightest attempt to make me believe it was for food, a coffee, a room for the night...no, just straight out said he only had £12 to his name and needed more to get his next fix.

What a lovely area we live in.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

2 hours ago, captain_70s said:

30 miles into the drive to FOTU, Dolly started pressurising it's coolant. Bastard.

Also when I pulled over the crank pulley nut fell off...

Swapped to the Volvo for attempt no.2...

Either that car hates you, or it's agoraphobic. How many more chances does it deserve?!

[Bren]

The definition of depression.

Looking at the classifieds.

When did cars approaching 200k with lots of faults and visibly worn smooth become worth £4k?

Sadly most of the shit is being offered by traders.

 

[Stanky]

38 minutes ago, Bren said:

The definition of depression.

Looking at the classifieds.

When did cars approaching 200k with lots of faults and visibly worn smooth become worth £4k?

Sadly most of the shit is being offered by traders.

 

...Offered by traders who bought the shitboxes for 95% of the current asking price at the height of the bubble and are now stuck with the fucking things.

Look at it slightly differently - they've already paid £3.2k for the tired out of heap, rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of selling it the following day, after a quick wipe over with a wet rag, except they've overdone it - no one wanted the shitty car then, and no-one wants it now - not now they can get hold of a brand new car on PCP with a lead time in weeks not decades. they've slowly dropped the price as its sat mouldering away, but they can't drop it any more or they'll be losing money on it.

They've got the millstone round their neck already, you have the luxury of not needing to buy it from them. Sit it out, before much longer we're going to see a lot of these dealers who bought stock at vastly inflated prices go bust. They've got 20 cars on the forecourt worth* £4-20k each, except they're worth fuck all if no-one buys them. You can't eat them. You can't use them to pay your mortgage or gas bill. And you don't want to sell them for less than you paid for the thing 18 months ago.

The market will adjust, because like fuck am I buying a 15 year old ford focus diesel with 198,000 miles, no service history, that I can't drive in most cities and which smells of childrens sick and vape fumes for £4k. And I bet I'm not the only one.

Wait for 6-12 months and watch them go bust left right and centre, flooding the market with shitty fucking cars sold at auction by the liquidators for 10% of their 'asking price' to recoup some of the debts that bazzas bitchin' Autos has run up before the bank called time on it all and sent Bazza to prison for tax evasion.

From what I've read, this is afflicting the big boys too, Cazoo share price is down 99.4% over 5 years. They have a fucktonne of stock bought for top dollar which they can't shift and which the market can't absorb. Supply of this fucking tat massively exceeds demand, especially when cost of living is skyrocketing.

5 years ago when your 15 year old focus blew its head gasket because you'd not fixed the leaky radiator, you fucked it off and bought a near-identical one for £500. Now, that same car is probably worse than your own one, and costs £4k. Shady Dave's garage charging £1500 for a head gasket job (old head not skimmed, head bolts reused, refilled with tap water) suddenly looks like a less shit option. So you walk on by Bazzas Bitchin' autos...

Yeah its grim looking at what's on offer, but imagine having spent £100k of money that's not yours buying the stock and now its just sitting there, unsold, while you get increasingly threatening letters about your mortgage arrears and imminent disconnection of your gas supply.

 

EDIT - info on Cazoo taken from https://cardealermagazine.co.uk/publish/cazoo-share-price-tanks-to-record-low-valuing-used-car-dealer-at-just-79m/276540 & Google share price search for reference.

[Matty]

3 hours ago, SiC said:

Head needed the nuts tightening up after its run? Iirc @Matty needed to do that on his A40 when that showed HGF symptoms.

No Si, I needed to skim the head and replace the gasket after failing to do that 🤣

[artdjones]

6 minutes ago, Stanky said:

...Offered by traders who bought the shitboxes for 95% of the current asking price at the height of the bubble and are now stuck with the fucking things.

Look at it slightly differently - they've already paid £3.2k for the tired out of heap, rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of selling it the following day, after a quick wipe over with a wet rag, except they've overdone it - no one wanted the shitty car then, and no-one wants it now - not now they can get hold of a brand new car on PCP with a lead time in weeks not decades. they've slowly dropped the price as its sat mouldering away, but they can't drop it any more or they'll be losing money on it.

They've got the millstone round their neck already, you have the luxury of not needing to buy it from them. Sit it out, before much longer we're going to see a lot of these dealers who bought stock at vastly inflated prices go bust. They've got 20 cars on the forecourt worth* £4-20k each, except they're worth fuck all if no-one buys them. You can't eat them. You can't use them to pay your mortgage or gas bill. And you don't want to sell them for less than you paid for the thing 18 months ago.

The market will adjust, because like fuck am I buying a 15 year old ford focus diesel with 198,000 miles, no service history, that I can't drive in most cities and which smells of childrens sick and vape fumes for £4k. And I bet I'm not the only one.

Wait for 6-12 months and watch them go bust left right and centre, flooding the market with shitty fucking cars sold at auction by the liquidators for 10% of their 'asking price' to recoup some of the debts that bazzas bitchin' Autos has run up before the bank called time on it all and sent Bazza to prison for tax evasion.

From what I've read, this is afflicting the big boys too, Cazoo share price is down 99.4% over 5 years. They have a fucktonne of stock bought for top dollar which they can't shift and which the market can't absorb. Supply of this fucking tat massively exceeds demand, especially when cost of living is skyrocketing.

5 years ago when your 15 year old focus blew its head gasket because you'd not fixed the leaky radiator, you fucked it off and bought a near-identical one for £500. Now, that same car is probably worse than your own one, and costs £4k. Shady Dave's garage charging £1500 for a head gasket job (old head not skimmed, head bolts reused, refilled with tap water) suddenly looks like a less shit option. So you walk on by Bazzas Bitchin' autos...

Yeah its grim looking at what's on offer, but imagine having spent £100k of money that's not yours buying the stock and now its just sitting there, unsold, while you get increasingly threatening letters about your mortgage arrears and imminent disconnection of your gas supply.

Same in Ireland. My old boss is still selling a few cars, in my opinion she is too ill to bother, but she's been in the habit so long she can't seem to stop. One good thing, she won't sell rubbish,  but she's got a 13 Polo 1.2, fairly low mileage, about 105k Kms, but €9950! That's what other dealers have them up for. And a 2016 Partner, around 160k Kms,£10000. And someone is buying that and getting finance for it.

[Matty]

2 hours ago, Dick Longbridge said:

Either that car hates you, or it's agoraphobic. How many more chances does it deserve?!

Don't listen to him @captain_70s 😄. In all serious, pull it back down using a known quantity torque wrench, use that on the crank pulley nut as well and go again. Be reet

Edit

Was it a copper gasket you used. Supposedly they have a lacquer on them which melts when hot and helps create a good seal. You fit them, torque the head down and for the first start just use water not coolant. Get it warm enough for the stat to open then shut it off, let it cool then pull the head down again and add antifreeze. Then just pull the head down one more time after a few hundred mile. 

Edit edit

I blew mine accross 2 pots while going full pelt. It was going accross the other two as well. The (very) light skim was precautionary. Again, it'll be reet. The amount of graft you've put onto that dolly is an inspiration.

[SiC]

Isn't the crank pulley nut supposed to be a lock tab washer on them? 😬