The grumpy thread

[purplebargeken]

I want snow! Nothing here but shitty rain and wind. Meh!

[bub2006]

I am suffering with the brown rain at the moment.

 

Went to the toilet 13 times last night and my arse is like a certain Johnny Cash song.

Rusty cage?

[Timewaster]

I've "been" everywhere man?

[Lukas]

One Piece at a Time?

 

 

Too right! We had a few flakes yesterday, although barely any has settled overnight (at this height anyway) but people seemed to not understand the importance of momentum!

 

 

Funny to look at.  Show it to an Austrian (except from Vienna) and you would cause massive laughing. 

[beko1987]

Went out at 10am to fit my new head unit. It went rather well tbh, and was almost worthy of the grin thread but...

 

I also decided to pull out all the old amp wiring that was there, and as I began to pull them out of the passenger side, noticed they were wet...

 

So, 5 hours later, I have a fully stripped out car. Carpet is out, sodden and dripping underlay is out and the Vax has been at work. Whole passenger side was full of water. No idea where its coming from, a watering can over the roof hasn't shown anything yet, so I've fitted the drivers seat, put the rear seat in the shed and laid the passenger seat in the back, and will drive like it for a week and see what shows up! Is very annoying. On the plus side, I can do a full vulgalor on the lot as it goes back in! Hardly any pics as my phones been nearing death all day!

[Alan_Green]

• I use a Mobius dash cam 99.9% of the time.

8am this morning I passed an Ipost (Parcel Pete) LWB Transit reversing up lane 1 of the M3. Yes, actually reversing up the motorway. No hard shoulder at that point so he was reversing up lane 1. And guess what? No dash cam.

The last time I forgot the cam I was boxed in and pulled over on the M25 by 5 marked and unmarked police cars. (Police do sometimes pull you over from the front). My new van still had "markers" from the previous owner. Serves me right for buying a van off a bloke on a travellers site. Was disappointed he didn't throw a dog in with the deal.    

[HH-R]

One Piece at a Time?

 

 

Too right! We had a few flakes yesterday, although barely any has settled overnight (at this height anyway) but people seemed to not understand the importance of momentum!

 

Were people really getting stuck in that? It's usually like that 3-4 months of the year in the north east :s

[twosmoke300]

If you want a good laugh come and watch the Cornish drive in snow. Just no idea .

[MrDuke]

I reckon a skid-pan session should be a compulsory part of the driving test. The amount of people who have absolutely no concept of simple things like traction, momentum, grip, and basic water/ice-related physics, is frankly horrifying. I don't consider myself to have orsum skillz (in fact I tend to drive like a twat) but I can count on 2 fingers the number of times I've got stuck in snow in 18 years of driving, and one of those times was my own fault for not thinking far enough ahead.

[dollywobbler]

Sorry but I discovered this year that all skid pan sessions do is make people THINK they know how to drive, so instead of getting stuck, they go flying off the road into the scenery instead. 

 

What you drive makes all the difference. I remember just about managing to overtake a stuck AMG Merc thing on a country lane in Northants in a Pug 306. I had to reverse (nervously!) back down the hill past said stuck car for a second go, but I made it. The AMG, with 476bhp, traction control and wheels like steam rollers, was going absolutely nowhere. Wide tyres are the absolute worst thing to have in snow, and it's what every modern thing seems to come with these days. 

[Angrydicky]

I did get stuck in the snow last year, but it was a narrow, steep one way street and it was only because the road was blocked by an idiot in a Mondeo with spinning wheels, that I had to stop and lost my momentum. Got both vehicles going again with the use of a bag of rock salt I fortunately had in the cab.

[MrDuke]

Sorry but I discovered this year that all skid pan sessions do is make people THINK they know how to drive, so instead of getting stuck, they go flying off the road into the scenery instead.

At least then the rest of us would be able to continue on our way... 

 

 

What you drive makes all the difference. I remember just about managing to overtake a stuck AMG Merc thing on a country lane in Northants in a Pug 306. I had to reverse (nervously!) back down the hill past said stuck car for a second go, but I made it. The AMG, with 476bhp, traction control and wheels like steam rollers, was going absolutely nowhere. Wide tyres are the absolute worst thing to have in snow, and it's what every modern thing seems to come with these days.

Word. I remember when we lived at the edge of Dinorwic quarry and had a brutal winter, one of the neighbours had a spanking new Freelander... on normal road tyres, which couldn't even get beyond the end of their drive. There was also the time when I piloted Mrs_Duke's 205 past a totally immobile, wheelspinning newish Fiesta at the top of our lane - the driver actually got out and stopped me to ask how I was managing to drive. I helpfully* informed her that lightweight (old) car + narrow tyres = win, but it seemed to make her more annoyed for some reason.

 

It also occurs to me that newer stuff isolates the driver from the road conditions so much, that they probably couldn't gauge the level of grip or traction even if they wanted to. Older cars tend to give you a lot more warning when you hit awkward patches, and allow you to compensate in time.

[dollywobbler]

This is very true. In the 2CV, I can feel if there's ice on the road through the steering wheel, even when travelling in a straight line. I can't do that in the XM. The steering just doesn't transmit that sort of detail. 

[fordperv]

Modern drivers also rely too much on a computers to bail them out whilst driving they just don't know how to deal with situations.

[gordonbennet]

Telling proof of tyres was loading BINI's at Cowley factory in 4" of snow.

 

In the load lanes there'd be your puled load of 12, a mixture of specifications, some on super wide elastic bands and some on normal tyres with real air inside 'em, the normal tyred ones would move, especially backwards, the elastic banded apparently more desirable would spin helplessly no matter what you did.

 

I couldn't work out why the lorry was all over the place today at Duddington roundabout, A43/A47, climbing the hill towards Peterborough away from the roundabout the lorry was trying to spin out sideways, snow cleared etc, then i saw the pretty spectrum on the road caused by a handy Diesel leak from roundabout right up the hill, thanks tosh very useful that, any bikers out would be your bestest mate.

[twosmoke300]

I've said it before but letting some air out of your tyres makes a huge difference

[mat_the_cat]

Were people really getting stuck in that?

 

Yup! You can see them spinning the wheels of the Audi at the front, and some cars had already been abandoned. Even more higher up the hill. It's not unusual around here either, but still seems to cause the same problems every year...

[Bren]

People cannot check oil or coolant.

 

Driving on snow for most of them is similar to understanding quantum mechanics.

[xtriple]

If I was in any worse a mood, you'd be seeing scenes of carnage in Torbay on the telly!

[jakebullet]

Saw on the news you can now search for wills online. When da giffer snuffed it his 'family' said there was no will, and trousered everything.

Guess what... There is a will registered. So I've spunked a tenner and am waiting for the results.

 

It's a guaranteed loser though. If will says "I leave my son a hammond organ that smells of wee" then no doubt pikeys will have flogged it and I get nowt. If I'm not mentioned then I'm down ten quid.

[The Moog]

6 hours to do 3 hour journey tonight. Fucksakes

[RobT]

Nearside headlight bulb on the 75 went tonight. I had a hunch it won't be an easy fix being a modern, and I've just been reading on the 75/ZT forum that you have to take the wheel off or some such bollocks. One bloke even says about taking the bumper off, which is easy apparently. WTF??

[dollywobbler]

Codswallop. IIRC, there's an access hatch in the wheelarch which can be easily accessed without having to remove wheels.

[MarvinsMom]

yep thats bollocks if its the dipped beam bulb, turn the steering right over to give you some room, feel up the inside of the wheel arch and undo the 2 clips holding the access hatch which pulls down so you can reach in to the light unit and change the bulb.

 

if it is the high beam (full beam?) that can be done from inside the engine bay.

 

it is fiddly, and was a chew on for me, so i chickened out and and got halfrauds to do it. it took the fella 30 seconds to do.

 

i also had to change to bulb on the otherside about a week later too....... bloody thing

[sheffcortinacentre]

last lot of snow I passed a bloke on a moderate hill weaving all over the place in his nearly new mondeo, the look as I passed him in a mk3 Cortina est was priceless!

[RobT]

 

it is fiddly, and was a chew on for me, so i chickened out and and got halfrauds to do it. it took the fella 30 seconds to do.

 

i also had to change to bulb on the otherside about a week later too....... bloody thing

I'll probably do the same for an extra 2 quid or whatever it is, saves me shredding my hand to pieces!

[MarvinsMom]

I'll probably do the same for an extra 2 quid or whatever it is, saves me shredding my hand to pieces!

 

i think it was a fiver..... but, as it was cold, dark and very wet i wasn't about to go digging around under the car in those conditions!!!!

[Station]

I hate it when you are working under a car and you move your head and a pointy part of the car body removes your hat. I can tolerate getting bits of wire wheel stuck in your clothes but when the car just takes the wooly hat off your head really annoys me.

[steve_earwig]

I thought that was going to be "a pointy part of the car removes your eye" or something.

 

You can add drops rust/antifreeze/oily cludge in your eye, pours transmission fluid down your neck, or that bit where you've been using a spanner but suddenly, it's gone! So you clamber out from under the car, banging your head in the process, only to find you were lying on it. Or there's the joy of welding under a car, stuff like suddenly realising that the lump of foam you're lying on is actually on fire. Or the "snap, crackle and pop" as a hot lump of weld finds your ear. 

 

My grump is: 3" of snow, hardly enough to bother getting the shovels out but enough to hide the solar panels from the sun. Current power: zilch

[cobblers]

There's a lamp post right outside our bedroom window that shines in all the time, not so bad when it's just "on" but at the moment the snow is playing havoc with the sensor, so it's flashing on and off like a zebra crossing and doing our head in.

 

I haven't got a stick long enough to knock the snow off the top of it.

An aerosol of deicer didn't make a difference.

The hosepipe won't reach through the house, up two flights of stairs and out of the window to blast it off, but after remembering that there was a simple lad at school who used to spend hours every night just shaking lamp posts til the bulb blew, at 2am I was out there giving it this action trying to rattle the snow off (not my video!!) 

 

Didn't manage to knock any snow off it at all and all I had was our lass pissing her sides at me out of the window as I was stood there in my dressing gown and wellies like an absolute twat, then I slipped on my arse walking back round the end of the row of terraces to get back in the house and got dog shit on me, and there was no hot water left by then to have a bath.