The grumpy thread

[Pat Earrings]

Driving the Ampera on electric only and realise the other day I had no heat in the cabin. Works on hybrid mode so, the electric auxiliary water pump is dead 🥲

not a hard job at all, but I can only find it from RockAuto in the USA. Annoying as other than that it’s been brilliant.

 

[Rust Collector]

More a grump at the work I’ve caused myself; I definitely won’t be parking on the lawn again. Probably.

I didn’t take a before picture because I’m an idiot. Imagine a Land Rover sized patch of bare earth:

Last time I was laying turf at this house (when the back garden tried to swallow an SLK like Artax in The Swamp of Sadness), my mate who owned the Disco was still alive and helping me. I did it on my own this time, but remembered what he taught me at least. I missed him though.

The digging was the worst part, I’m too fat and unfit so I felt like I was going to vomit as I took the top off the old stuff.

It stands out a bit at present, and in an ideal world I’d have done the whole thing and levelled the it entirely as the lawn already had a lot of undulation, but for less than £100 it’ll do for now. After a season of growing/cutting it’ll all blend , like it does at the back of the house now. I imagine I’ll dig it up before the next mud season, and lay something that gives a bit more room for manoeuvring.

On a not grumpy front, a lot of my neighbours stopped for a chat whilst I was working. They were all quite friendly, so it’s good to see I haven’t fucked off everyone to the point of open hostility.

I now can’t* wait to clean out the boot of the XM after lugging the turf:

[jakebullet]

Been tidying up spare room to make space for 3D printer to go. Along comes Ma interfering and announces "we're going to have a sideation". This is one of her made up words that means we're going to throw away anything that belongs to you and keep all the shite that belongs to me.

So my stuff like the mint spare set of capri door cards is for the bin. Er, no.

Things she wants to save include:

Half a tin of paint. What if the kitchen needs touching up? Er, we'd have to take the tiles off the wall first. 

2 square foot of random carpet. Half a roll of wallpaper. Plastic plant pots. So many empty cardboard boxes. 

I try being diplomatic. Go and watch for delivery van coming. Have a cup of tea while I finish up. No chance she wants to rake thru the good stuff pile and try to destroy as much as possible. 

Bonus of helping* by moving the door. The one the pool ball stack is resting against. There's a lot of balls when the stack is 5 foot high and 3 foot square.

[Pieman]

Are you actually 16 years old?

[ruffgeezer]

53 minutes ago, Pieman said:

Are you actually 16 years old?

No mention of razz mags or loose floorboards so it doesn't check out.

[Remspoor]

On 19/01/2025 at 06:53, Metal Guru said:

Of course it directs you to a pay wall.

try this.

https://github.com/bpc-clone?tab=repositories

[MikeR]

drivers door on the C1 made a orrid clacking sound as I opened and shut it last night , turns out the two door strap bolts were loose allowing the mounting to move around ...

as was the passenger side door  with one loose bolt 

10 mins with a 10mm spanner fixed in time for the horrid strong winds on Friday ..

[Dyslexic Viking]

Can't go for walks now in all the snow, so today I finally got the motivation to find the snowshoes and the snow is bad so sank into the snow straight away so can forget about using them.

And I'm going to get more snow on Thursday.

I've had enough of winter now and want spring.

[Bren]

Yesterday I contacted my local garage about a rear silencer for the mondeo. They said they would ring me back with a quote.

I rang them again today as they had not  contacted me. I was told they were still waiting for their supplier to get back to them.

If it is becoming difficult to get hold of a silencer for a mk IV mondeo then lord help us.

[Boycie]

Things haven't been the same since covid , we,ve thousands of MG HS/ZS on fleet , it's a month wait to get cars in for warranty work , and that's using a industry only booking system ...

[barefoot]

Please tell us more.

[Boycie]

Dealers can't get through the warranty work , we are even using our service agent to do work which really should be done through warranty , MG,s it's mostly infotainment and electrical issues ( sensors ) new one is air con units draining batterys meaning new units req , last year was ZS clutch fork faults leaving no gears , not helped by most of our dealers being A Clark , they lost Toyota and Ford last few years due to service provided , Toyota is now Maklin , found them to be really good , to be fair all my communication is electronic

[andyberg]

16 minutes ago, Boycie said:

Things haven't been the same since covid , we,ve thousands of MG HS/ZS on fleet , it's a month wait to get cars in for warranty work , and that's using a industry only booking system ...

When I was at Europcar we had the MG ZS/HS.  We had to wait 6 months for an air conditioning relay!

[Boycie]

Funnily enough the fleet im talking about is ...... over 25 years 

[hairnet]

On 21/01/2025 at 17:58, Dyslexic Viking said:

Can't go for walks now in all the snow, so today I finally got the motivation to find the snowshoes and the snow is bad so sank into the snow straight away so can forget about using them.

And I'm going to get more snow on Thursday.

I've had enough of winter now and want spring.

phil would say teh same

[sheffcortinacentre]

21 minutes ago, Boycie said:

Dealers can't get through the warranty work , we are even using our service agent to do work which really should be done through warranty , MG,s it's mostly infotainment and electrical issues ( sensors ) new one is air con units draining batterys meaning new units req , last year was ZS clutch fork faults leaving no gears , not helped by most of our dealers being A Clark , they lost Toyota and Ford last few years due to service provided , Toyota is now Maklin , found them to be really good , to be fair all my communication is electronic

Renault/Dacia are the same there's a flywheel shortage amongst other things over six months I believe on the wonder of modern motoring the DMF.

[Boycie]

We,ve a lot of Dacia to , only issue I've seen with these is alternators  , there a decent motor , well screwed together ,  

[sheffcortinacentre]

Dealer a mate works at has about a dozen that have seldestructed with a report of one place having over 20!

Main Dacia problems appear to be the Renault bits.

[hairnet]

oi mo ya git

reason ive never seen atomium in the flesh

its kin not actually in central brussels

wtf  @Lord Sterling

[EspenO]

It’s out near the exhibitions area, isn’t it? Remember seeing it when I went to the auto show. 

[myglaren]

Saw it when I went to see Myléne Farmer at the former Heysel Stadium (King Baudouin stadium) in 2009. 

It was close to my hotel, as was the stadium.

[myglaren]

Mazda wiped out by a lorry changing lanes.  Fairly buggered.

But the real grump is that my licence had expired.  They always notify me a couple of months before, but didn't.

Got shoved along the road in front of the lorry.

 

[comfortablynumb]

Not good, hope you're ok @myglaren

Found out my license had expired when my dad died, and I needed it for official ID🥺

[loserone]

Ah feck

[High Jetter]

Ouch, I bet that wasn't pleasant. Hope you're ok

[myglaren]

2 minutes ago, comfortablynumb said:

Not good, hope you're ok @myglaren

Found out my license had expired when my dad died, and I needed it for official ID🥺

Yes, no injuries, the car took it all and is in fact driveable, just not by me and is impounded as my son wasn't available to take it away.  That is proving to be a problem to get it back.

Expecting the insurance to be null and void.

[reb]

I was lying on the sofa half asleep listening to an audiobook when my phone (which is permanently on silent) started buzzing and making end of the world noises.

It wanted to tell me it's going to be really fucking windy.

Edit: I've just checked and the red warning doesn't even cover here, the bastards woke me up for no reason!

[danthecapriman]

8 hours ago, myglaren said:

Yes, no injuries, the car took it all and is in fact driveable, just not by me and is impounded as my son wasn't available to take it away.  That is proving to be a problem to get it back.

Expecting the insurance to be null and void.

Glad you’re alright though, which is the main thing.

Hopefully a bit of common sense will be applied to the license and insurance thing (by the authorities I mean)
 

[myglaren]

Hopefully but unlikely.   Went to retrieve my daughter's C3 (with her driving of course) and he has a white Mazda 6 for sale when he has finished fettling it.  Has my name on it as first refusal.

[Boycie]

My Dad died last night , currently sitting in a farmhouse on a hill waiting on 100mph winds to hit , this is safely going into my top 10 worst day lists , only solace is sitting in my dad's chair