The grumpy thread

[garbaldy]

Sometimes it's just for owning and old car. We all experience that laughable predujice.

By the amount of times certrain makes get slaged of on here, Some members on this very forum also has a seriouse problem with audi bmw merc and now pickups what's the difference.

[cort16]

Those Merc handbrakes are bollocks and 10 times worse when you've got a manual gearboxed car. It's still better than an electric handbrake though.

[Wilko220]

Those Merc handbrakes are bollocks and 10 times worse when you've got a manual gearboxed car. It's still better than an electric handbrake though.

It mystifies me that manufacturers persist with all this rubbish. Who ever said that an ordinary handbrake was a flawed or un-user friendly piece of equipment?

[chaseracer]

By the amount of times certrain makes get slaged of on here, Some members on this very forum also has a seriouse problem with audi bmw merc and now pickups what's the difference.

 

The forum 'hive mind' just has a very odd sense of humour, sometimes.  Dinnae fash yersel... 

[cort16]

Everyone one here hates one manufacturer or another so all bases are pretty much covered. Except vauxhalls, which we all agree are shit.

[garbaldy]

The forum 'hive mind' just has a very odd sense of humour, sometimes.  Dinnae fash yersel... 

 

 

hahaha fash never heard that for yonks

[Spiny Norman]

It's always a giggle slotting a Mills-o-Matic into P while you wait in traffic, because you have to go through R. And that scares the living shit out of the bloke behind.

 

Twice.

 

THIS.

 

Which is why I don't use 'park' if I'm just stopping at the lights. I've had people toot and flash me when I used to do that years ago when I first got an auto and gave up on it as a bad idea.

I'm also a bit wary of having someone give the car a bump while the park mechanism is engaged, isn't it supposed to be really easy to damage the wee pawl that engages on the splines in the gearbox and bits can break off causing OMGGEARBOXKAOS!!?

 

As for the foot operated parking brake, I gather our transatlantic cousins prefer them so that's why BMW, Merc & Lexus fit them to their bigger cars. (Doesn't explain the XM though....)

It seems such a waste of money though, having to tool up for two completely different sets of mechanism for RHD & LHD markets when presumably the central handbrake between the seats is universal. I always used to think that about the old Volvo Amazon I had, which had the handbrake lever by the sill to the right of the driver's seat. Not only was it a PITA to use, it needed a different set of bits for the RHD market. Don't Porsche 924s have their handbrakes in the same place?

[garbaldy]

Everyone one here hates one manufacturer or another so all bases are pretty much covered. Except vauxhalls, which we all agree are shit.

 

yes but its all the time constant name calling aimed at one make or another, it just gets a bit irritating.

 

as a car nut I can safely say there are no makes of car I hate,

there are to many cars in this world and I have only driven a small percentage of them. 

[oman5]

I LIKE vauxhalls. at least they tried to inject a bit of excitement to the range with the monaro and vxr8. to my mind the astra is also quite an adventurous design, looks as if it WAS actually designed rather than a set of requirements simply fed into a computer.

[dollywobbler]

Not unless you have weak-ass tail light bulbs and no third brake light.

Otherwise, slip that sucker into P. Or N, your call.

 

Problem is, the gearboxes don't like it when you do that. I tried behaving that way with the Merc, but it just shunted about and sounded pissed off. The handbook actually states that you should use the footbrake to hold the car and leave it in D. And yes, the handbrake is a joke. Impossible to release smoothly (though I never tried the trick someone told me of keeping your left foot on the pedal to try and release it smoothly).

 

It drove me mad, because I HATE people who keep their foot on the brake, blinding you as you bask in much wattage from their rear lights - especially some of those LED ones. I'm sure a modern Merc once gave me a sun tan. I was taught to use the handbrake if stopping for more than a couple of seconds, so this is what I do. I'll hold my foot on the pedal if I'm last car in the queue, just to alert approaching cars.

[dollywobbler]

Aye. One-marque bores really piss me off. It turns into a football-esque "our side is the best" competition. Ignoring the fact that in any given season, only one football team is the best. That's kind of how it works. I can't say I'm really loving the Golf, but it's good to get away from Frenchies for a bit. I love my Citroens, but I don't go around thinking they're the best cars in the world. They happen to be designed very much to my tastes, that's all.

[Richard]

I sometimes go through reverse before setting off from a junction to make the driver behind think I have an automatic.

[chaseracer]

(Doesn't explain the XM though....)

Strangely, it does. The XM was supposed to spearhead the Double Chevron's brave return to the world's biggest car market, but they somehow forgot to make it comply with US Federal construction & use regs, a point made very clearly on a plate under the bonnet.

 

Good work, Pierre.

 

About 30 very shady grey imports dribbled across the Pond...

[Sigmund Fraud]

yes but its all the time constant name calling aimed at one make or another, it just gets a bit irritating.

 

as a car nut I can safely say there are no makes of car I hate,

there are to many cars in this world and I have only driven a small percentage of them. 

 

I think a fair bit of the 'name calling' is tongue-in-cheek, though this may not always be obvious.

 

You must remember that 'shitters are a group of individuals who are prepared to own and drive even the most abominable four-wheeled creations of this world. If that is not evidence of someone being a car nut, I don't know what is !

[dollywobbler]

Yet the CCC's G-Section chappy owns a Renault 16 and 18 and a Maxi! I'm still hoping to be convinced that the GS/GSA is the best car ever, just as soon as I can scrape some measly pounds together.

[chaseracer]

A decent GS is a thing of sublime beauty. And Chris Salter is a top bloke.

[Lord Sterling]

Fucking weather is relenting, wanker little kids outside making too much noise right into the night, and now there is this fucking wanker twat outside who has taken to shouting and screaming in the evening to make the stupid little girls in the street giggle. This is starting to royally piss me off, I'd like to shoot the little fucker. I seriously cannot wait to pack up and leave.

 

I feel very sorry for my next-door neighbours where the noisy bastard kids have taken to sitting on thier wall, shouting, screaming as if thier fucking deaf or something.

[beko1987]

I pulled a Vax Turboforce V006 off the side of the road last week, and despite stripping it, cleaning it, rebuilding it, spunking £15 of a new brushroll, belts and filters, it decided to shit one of its rear wheels and some surrounding casing out.

 

Fuck it, its gone back upstairs until I can be arsed to half strip it again and glue it back together. Shame, it worked very well

[Barry Cade]

Brother in law picked up his brand spanking Volvo V40 R design today, and I spent a good hour leafing though the handbook, pressing all the buttons and taking in that new car smell. I really really like it and now I feel unclean. Off for a shower and 50 lashes with a dogeared copy of jalopy.

 

Also found out today that my brother is no longer being allowed to drive for medical reasons- he spends most of his life touring in his big camper van, which is gonna have to go.. His Kia Soul is going back too. I feel bad enough for him, so feck knows how he is feeling.

[vulgalour]

I was a passenger in a new Polo.  That is not the grump.  While I was the passenger, I saw a two tone beige over brown Wartburg 353 Tourist on matching beige probably Ford alloys.  That is not the grump.  I did not have my camera or even my phone camera with me, that is very obviously the grump here.

[wuvvum]

Fucking weather is relenting, wanker little kids outside making too much noise right into the night, and now there is this fucking wanker twat outside who has taken to shouting and screaming in the evening to make the stupid little girls in the street giggle. This is starting to royally piss me off, I'd like to shoot the little fucker. I seriously cannot wait to pack up and leave.

 

I feel very sorry for my next-door neighbours where the noisy bastard kids have taken to sitting on thier wall, shouting, screaming as if thier fucking deaf or something.

My mate's mum had a similar problem with kids sitting on her garden wall and making noise at all times of the day & night.  One evening her husband went out and poured used engine oil liberally over the top of the wall.  Funnily enough the kids haven't been back since.

[KruJoe]

Human faeces would have the same effect, and would be biodegradable.

[vulgalour]

If you fancy clearing up after the dog here you're welcome to all the kid-deterring-poop you can carry.  Actually, now I think on, Will was collecting sheep poo prior to Shitefest for some reason, I bet he can furnish you with plenty of material.

[jakebullet]

Repairing your car with quality* used ebay parts would be a lot fuggin easier if sellers of said parts pulled their finger out and actually sent them.

 

Also tosser insurance finally phoned up today:

Well we've had your car collected by our salvage agent and we just need a few details....

 

Er, excuse me one moment ~looks out window, disco still dumped at bottom of garden~ No you haven't, and you're not going to either. Bugger off you vultures.

[mattblack]

When did a remake of a film become a fucking 'reboot'?

[robinmasters]

Fucking weather is relenting, wanker little kids outside making too much noise right into the night, and now there is this fucking wanker twat outside who has taken to shouting and screaming in the evening to make the stupid little girls in the street giggle. This is starting to royally piss me off, I'd like to shoot the little fucker. I seriously cannot wait to pack up and leave.

 

I feel very sorry for my next-door neighbours where the noisy bastard kids have taken to sitting on thier wall, shouting, screaming as if thier fucking deaf or something.

 

You could try one of those high pitched noise generator things, that adults can't hear. Used engine oil is probably more entertaining to watch though.

 

When did a remake of a film become a fucking 'reboot'?

 

About the same time tossers started calling a series of films a 'franchise'.

[autofive]

My mate's mum had a similar problem with kids sitting on her garden wall and making noise at all times of the day & night.  One evening her husband went out and poured used engine oil liberally over the top of the wall.  Funnily enough the kids haven't been back since.

 

we used to have a railing next to the side gate of our house (leftovers of oldfarter who used to live here) kids used to climb the railing, to climb the gate and use our garden as a short cut into the field at the rear. One day I bought some cheap margarine and covered the railings in it

Laid in bed that night I heard an odd noise sort of a: BONG, CRACK. next morning there was blood and a tooth laid on the path and no one tried it again.

[Lord Sterling]

I saw a two tone beige over brown Wartburg 353 Tourist on matching beige probably Ford alloys.  I did not have my camera or even my phone camera with me, that is very obviously the grump here.

This has happend to me a number of times. Only yesterday after getting off the motorway to go "home" crossing the bridge over the m'way I spotted a Rover P4 on the motorway below. A few days after I came back from Brussels, I pulled up on another motorway bridge to listen to something on Radio 4 when I saw in the distance, another Rover 800 on the m'way. Then, I also spotted a early White mk2 Sterling and countless other things I could have got pics of.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Remember a couple of weeks ago I posted that I'd found a note in my car from someone claiming they'd bumped it, but I couldn't find any damage?

 

I found some damage. Just noticed the sun catching a new crease in the rear wing, with tiny cracks and a bruise in the new paint. Annoying. Can't help but feel an insurance claim for rear quarter damage on a 45 year old hand painted car would end in far more grief and hassle than just living with it. 

 

Ah well, he gets honesty points for leaving a note. 

[dollywobbler]

Lovely weather forecast, so we started ripping the conservatory roof off today. Naturally, once we'd removed one piece, it started raining. Fortunately, the roof covers an area that was originally outdoors, so it's sort-of ok ish.