The grumpy thread

[Ghosty]

also, the recent trend for driving at night with sidelights on along with fogs/spots instead of dipped beam. WTF is wrong with people?

My mum and I also agree, it keeps blinding us when coming at us, or reflecting off the mirror into her eyes from behind.

Personally, I'd blast a bit of full beam at these fuckers and see how they like it.

My mum knows I'd do this, her response to someone doing it behind us the other day was to try and blind them with the foglight....

[Inspector Morose]

My laptop has decided it will no longer play genuine DVDs through PowerDVD. I can copy DVDs on the laptop and PowerDVD will play the copies happily but genuine DVDs stall at the Copyright screen.

Try VLC player. Seems to play most things I throw at it.

[Richard]

I'll give that a try, thanks.

[chaseracer]

Anyone noticed the latest thing,people who indicate when turning right,but not when turning left?.Really starting to do my head in 

I had one in Brummagem on Friday who signalled left then turned right. He nearly got a three-pointed star embossed hard into the side of his 5-series... 

[Cavcraft]

Is it possible to like a VAG product enough to pay actual money for one? Most disturbing if so...

 

Quite probably. In fairness a lot of my dislike for them is because of the (admittedly clever) marketing and the way some people bang on about how great they are. A bit like a motorised iphone/ipad/ipod/Beatles record, I think I sometimes rail against them because I'm sick to the bastarding back teeth of people going on about how good they are, when actually, maybe they ain't all that great.

[Angrydicky]

Finally got the Maestro back home, and did a compression test on it. Result: the head gasket has gone between 1 and 2 cylinders. Bollocks. That would explain the complete refusal to start for me and the poor running during the latter half of Gary's ownership.

 

I've ordered a head gasket set and I'm just hoping the head didn't get warped when the car overheated. In any case, I think the best thing to do now would be to fit an unleaded head from a post-1990 car. If I can find one.

[M'coli]

I've got one sitting in my lean-too, £45+postage...

[retrogeezer]

Plus one for VLC. Used it for years.

[Richard]

I'm still a bit annoyed that PowerDVD, which I've paid for (bundled with my new laptop, but still paid for), is incapable of playing DVDs, which I have also paid for. I wouldn't mind so much if I was trying to play knock-off DVDs on pirate software.

 

It also exposed me to shouty Saturday night TV, which I can't forgive.

[Angrydicky]

I've got one sitting in my lean-too, £45+postage...

Sounds great! PM sent.

[HillmanImp]

Had booked the Visa in for its test tomorrow. Everything seems to have been working but I did one last check and the side indicator is proper borked FFS. Has probably never worked, I just never noticed. Will still take it along for the test though as I may as well see if owt else is up with it and just drop it back for the free retest once the new fitting arrives. 

 

What a pain though. The new fitting was a whopping £22 too.

[Asimo]

Foglights

Rear ones I understand. In fog, obviously useful, but front foglights? 

 

I have had a few cars with front fog lights and have found them useless to see by in fog and as said ^^^, annoying to others if used at any other time.

Are they just "here I am" lights for day time fog driving? If so they ain't as good as headlights.

[hennabm]

^^

There aren't many occasions when front fogs are of use.

In recent times the only time I have found them useful was driving back through Eire, one early morning, and the fog was very thick. In my Tjet (Punto GP), even dip was glaring back at me. I switched off dip and left just the side lights with the fog lamps and that let me see the road and cats eyes.

 

Other than this they are for the lame minded who don't know where the of switch is

[MrDuke]

Front fogs on european chod are excellent for painting yellow, allowing you to look supremely and effortlessly cool without getting comments about illegal headlamps.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I occasionally have to drive with my front fogs and sidelights looking like a wanker. The headlights on my Chrysler randomly start flashing off side to side , the fact the bulbs are £50 each and the power packs £150 each secondhand mean I'm waiting for whatever it is to give up completely before I start replacing bits on the off chance. It goes weeks without playing up, so I forget about it, until cars on the motorway start pulling over!

In the meantime if you see an embarrassed fat,bald bloke in a black 300C with his fogs on, it's not my fault!

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I'm not the type to complain about the weather, but good lord this is getting tiresome.

 

[coalnotdole]

You live in rustington?

 

I'm not the type to complain about the weather, but good lord this is getting tiresome.

 

wet.jpg

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

No, Manchester's weather has a solitary cloud icon which ruined the screenshot! Half my family used to live in Rustington so I keep the location in the app because I'm fond of the place. 

[Cavcraft]

I'm another who puts my fog lights on if the person behind is displaying theirs, and as I haven't got front fogs I just switch my headlights to main beam if the person in front has rear fogs lit up, unless it actually is foggy, of course.

Two wrongs don't make a right and all that caper, but I look on it like I'm doing them a favour: if they can't see the road behind or in front well enough in normal driving conditions and can't spot a big fuck off light on the dashboard then they need every bit of lighting help they can get.

[drum]

No wonder it's called rustington with that much rain.

 

Note to self- don't by an old ford from rustington.

[dollywobbler]

Crikey. It has even managed to be sunny here in Wales today!

 

But I'm still grumpy. I was just about to start filming the 2CV video that I've been waiting for good weather to start. Had planned out the opening scene with the car's point of view of the garage door opening. Then a mini-digger appeared outside my house and is ruining everything. Ugh!

[dugong]

Today. Today can get shredded. 

Five hours to sort out the C4's renewal (shocking fact : insurance companies lie), the cold \ flu from hell, no real sleep the previous evening and yet more freelance 'pay' issues. Massively behind on jobs as a result. RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Today can do one. 

[wuvvum]

I very, very rarely use my rear fogs.  The only time I ever put them on is in thick fog in daylight when I'm either on my own or at the back of a queue of traffic.  At night, normal taillights are visible enough 99.99% of the time even in thick fog.  If I have them on, I switch them off once someone is behind me - if he's sat 10 feet off my back bumper, chances are he's seen me and he doesn't need 42 watts of high-intensity red light searing his retinas.  And don't get me started on the people who can mange to turn their rear fogs on as soon as there's a light swirling of mist, but can't grasp the concept of switching them off when visibility returns to normal.

 

Front fogs are GR9 though, especially in the dark when headlights just light up the wall of fog.

[dollywobbler]

Rear fogs are almost entirely pointless. Like Wuv, I turn them off if there is someone behind me. If they're not right behind me, chances are that if it's foggy enough for me to need to put the light on, they won't be hurtling up behind me anyway, because they won't be able to see. Possibly, it could be useful if stationary, but holding the footbrake works just as well - something I always do if I'm the last car in a queue anyway, even if I've put the handbrake on.

[beko1987]

After leaving work at 10am on friday to go rescue my girlfriend who was being very sick, I now feel very sick...

 

ffs

[marcus]

AA roadside and relay = £132 to renew, even though I never used them during the year.

 

New customers can get the same cover, plus a £10 amazon voucher for only £79.

 

That is a crap way of doing business I reckon.

[fordperv]

Can you not renew, then take a policy out on the New customer offer?

 

Agreed it is a bad thing not dangling existing customers a carrot to get them to renew

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Might be worth looking into Quidco and switching between the providers every year as some do. AA currently offering £45 back on policies between £101-150. But they all have terrible reviews for payment, so caution. 

[marcus]

To be honest, I am only covered for the Almera and it's a 200 quid shiter. Going to run without breakdown until the Spitty's back on the road and it becomes a necessity. Then I can shop around as a new customer.

[twosmoke300]

Aa do that to me every year . One year I left and went with rac . Actually used them that year and the subcontractors they used couldn't blow down a fuel line as the vehicle never had an airline despite it having airbrakes.

Got the fil out at 3am with his little compressor and had it running in 10 mins. Cancelled rent-a-cunt membership .