The grumpy thread

[Rusty_Rocket]

Went and collected FREE DIZZLE 25.

 

It got me home without issue.

Enjoyed the trip back.

 

Today, the drive belt cacked itself and snapped clean in two. An L Series has one massive poly V belt driving everything, so I lost the servo and the PAS.

 

An easy job or so I'm told; it went two seconds from the unit. Battery was man enough to drive inside, so lobbed it on charge once parked up. Belt job looks pretty easy and the engine wasn't running long enough to cook or boil its coolant.

 

Hurrah*. I still like it.

 

Check the drive belt tensioner very carefully.  A colleague has had a few L-series engined cars and this part has always failed; sometimes the bearing goes, sometimes the alloy housing wears and the pulley sits at an angle, throwing the belt.

The diesel part is expensive but the 2.0 petrol part fits if you remove the locating dowel from the back and fit it 180deg out!

[strangeangel]

'The A Word' programme on BBC1. My missus has been raving about it and it's a hateful mishmash of truly appalling acting and those stupid fucking camera angles that are all over the shop.

 

I watched it by proxy (Our Lass had it on) and wasn't much impressed either. I did raise a smile, though, when whoever wrote it managed to work one of my favourite songs ever into the dialogue, and then play a bit of it

 

[rainagain]

I work in a huge open plan office and there's people asking for donations/sponsorship/raffles about twice a week at least. I don't give anyone anything, otherwise I'd be about £30 a month down or accused of favouritism and I can't be bothered. If you want to go for a run, go for a bloody run.

 

This reminds me of a grump I used to have when I was an agency worker and you only worked with a particular company for a couple of months. You'd always get people coming round saying we're having a collection for Bob's birthday, we know you're agency so you don't have to chip in if you don't want to, which really meant give us some money or we'll think you're cheap. Naturally when your birthday came round you were only an agency worker so got sod all. In the worst place I worked for this, the woman who went round collecting the money expected everyone to chip in £10 and she kept a spreadsheet to record who had and hadn't paid. She would then tell whoever's birthday it was who hadn't chipped in.

 

Worst work charity thing was when I worked for a Bank for a while and you were forced to take part in every charity drive they came up with, just so the Managers could get a picture in the local paper with the big cardboard cheque acting like it was them that did all the work. There was constantly something new every month and it always had to be carried out in your own time, like baking cakes, decorating an Easter bonnet and other stupid ideas. I do give to charity but only ones I want to and when I want to.

[fordperv]

It's pissing down, looks like the only constructive thing I'll be doing is clean the house

[purplebargeken]

Eastern european bloke at the garages has about 4 cars and a couple of vans. Happily blocks everyone and everything in regardless.

 

He was working on his Vivaro van at the weekend, 2003/2004 plater. His other van had died.  I pulls in to the garage today and lo and behold, the UK reg Vivaro is now wearing the plates from his Eastern European van. Other van nowhere in sight. Hmm. That does piss me off hugely.

[Alan_Green]

I've never ever understood sponsored charity events that produce nothing.  Sponsored walks...parachute jumps...absailing...running on a treadmill 1,000 miles...driving to Mongolia.  All that effort and no end product.  Why not a sponsored litter pick? Or paint an OAPs house? Or cleaning a canal?  Anything productive. Anything.

[Norbert]

Worst work charity thing was when I worked for a Bank for a while and you were forced to take part in every charity drive they came up with, just so the Managers could get a picture in the local paper with the big cardboard cheque acting like it was them that did all the work. There was constantly something new every month and it always had to be carried out in your own time, like baking cakes, decorating an Easter bonnet and other stupid ideas. I do give to charity but only ones I want to and when I want to.

 

Ah, The mandatory 'Voluntary' event.

 

Thankfully, this hasn't reached my workplace yet, despite my company division's head office being in a part of the world famous for such things. Recently someone here has started a weird thing where there's a themed group photo in the lobby every month or so. First one was at the end of last year, the theme was Christmas Jumpers (groo) and got about 40% attendance in a 200-person building. I've been glad to see that attendance has slowly been getting smaller, to the point where last Friday's 'World Book Day' (bring your favourite book, apparently) got a grand total of 6 turn up, 2 of whom were holding engineering textbooks (of the proper-hard-sums type) and one guy had the Cromwell Tools catalogue. I predict that within 2 months the guy who's idea it was will be reduced to taking a selfie.

[dugong]

Overtaking on the A605.

 

Yes, you in the Punto. When you're in the RH lane, I expect you to fucking well overtake, not fart past the car in

the inside lane 0.02mph faster than they're travelling.

 

This particular lane merges after a 500 yard stretch; it took him nearly all of that to get past a lorry on the nearside.

How about not getting pissy and indignant when I've cleared three cars in that stretch and could have cleared you

too had you simply used the pedal on the right?

 

Or just stay in the left hand lane. Clearly too difficult.

 

I can't stand the A605. "I'm driving on a Sunday, no-one needs to go anywhere in a hurry on God's day, fuck you Jack, I'm alright."

[rainagain]

It's probably an unpopular opinion, but I give an extremely small amount to charity and the big national ones get sod all off me. I'll put some money in at independent museum/car collection type places as I count that like an admission fee to keep something I like ticking over. Otherwise I just help out people I actually know. I don't make a fortune and it's the only way I know the cash isn't being spent in a well-meaning but inept way, or worse paying for some charity boss to have a company car.

I just treat big national charities as large companies that don't pay tax. There was a bit about one of the cancer charities in the news a while ago, the bosses had set up a separate profit making company to manage the sponsored runs, they charged a flat fee to take part in the run and made the directors a nice bit of money.

[Ghosty]

There's a woman who has a daughter at my daughter's school.  She's been dropping off and collecting her child from school in LHD Range Rover Sport for 3+ years - it's had Italian plates the whole time - how can that work?

 

Plod don't care. 

 

Someone's been knocking about my town in an eastern European registered 2007 Mondeo with a roof box for a few months, and I used to know of a purple Swedish registered Kangoo that didn't move for a couple of years, and it was parked on a main road.

 

Also re: noisy residential areas: we've lived where we do 17 years, I'm home most of the time as uni isn't demanding timewise, Old Man works from home and the mother doesn't work.

The road for about 14-15 years was just older retired couples and/or couples without children, with one or two families here and there. It was nice.

Last two years or so, all the older residents keep dying off and new money keeps coming in with their white Kia Sportages and buying the houses (Help to Buy?), making them look fucking shit, and the road's been a constant mess of noise and tradesmen's vans for the whole time.

Doesn't help that one of these families have no idea how to park outside their own house, and have an M3 with a funny exhaust that wakes everyone up at 6:50am every day. I can hear that thing clearly from the back room in my house (it's over the road and down a house) - start the A4 outside our house and I can barely tell...

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Ghosty man. You're a student so I'm guessing under 25. Stop worrying about parking in your street!!! That's reserved for old bastards who have nowt else to think about

[Guest Hooli]

There's a woman who has a daughter at my daughter's school.  She's been dropping off and collecting her child from school in LHD Range Rover Sport for 3+ years - it's had Italian plates the whole time - how can that work?

 

Provided they leave the country once every six months it's totally legal. So maybe they drive home to see the family?

 

Not of course that any records are made to prove if they have left or not...

[Richard]

It's gross misconduct if a customer service person is caught answering the question they were asked.

[vulgalour]

Rover towed over to the specialist garage to get the fob repair sorted.  As soon as I get home there's a phone call asking me to come and get my car.  Not because it's fixed, but because they've found it has a 3 pin rather than a 12 pin connector which their one of is broken and is going to take a week to sort out.  So can I come and get my car?  They won't store it even overnight as they haven't the space.

 

I am not thrilled at all about this.  No money given to them but cost incurred as I did have to buy a towing pole specifically for this and now I'm being fannied about having to collect my non-functioning car and possibly redeliver it.

 

This is my first experience of booking a car into a garage and it is not a good one.

[castros_bro]

Provided they leave the country once every six months it's totally legal. So maybe they drive home to see the family?

 

Not of course that any records are made to prove if they have left or not...

 

If it is a private vehicle then Not True as that only applies if you are on holiday.  If they are resident in UK as shown by any of........ have a job or pay rent on a not-a-holiday place or kids go to school or....goes on and on.......then it is not legal

 

Your government  says 

 

6. Temporary imports

You can usually use a vehicle with foreign number plates without registering or taxing it in the UK if all of the following apply:

you’re visiting and don’t plan to live here

the vehicle is registered and taxed in its home country

you only use the vehicle for up to 6 months in total - this can be a single visit, or several shorter visits over 12 months

If you become a resident or stay for longer than 6 months you must register and tax your vehicle in the UK

[Tamworthbay]

If it is a private vehicle then Not True as that only applies if you are on holiday. If they are resident in UK as shown by any of........ have a job or pay rent on a not-a-holiday place or kids go to school or....goes on and on.......then it is not legal

 

Your government says

 

6. Temporary imports

You can usually use a vehicle with foreign number plates without registering or taxing it in the UK if all of the following apply:

you’re visiting and don’t plan to live here

the vehicle is registered and taxed in its home country

you only use the vehicle for up to 6 months in total - this can be a single visit, or several shorter visits over 12 months

If you become a resident or stay for longer than 6 months you must register and tax your vehicle in the UK

it's a bit silly though, I have worked on the continent but always short term contracts. why would I reregister a car when I know I am only there six months? Simple answer is that I wouldn't and didn't, nor would I expect anyone else to. It's just another stupid rule that no one bothers with and the dodgy ones slip through as the police don't really care.

[cort1977]

This reminds me of a grump I used to have when I was an agency worker and you only worked with a particular company for a couple of months. You'd always get people coming round saying we're having a collection for Bob's birthday, we know you're agency so you don't have to chip in if you don't want to, which really meant give us some money or we'll think you're cheap.

 

I'm quite comfortable with being thought of as cheap because when it comes to buying crap for some nonentity who happens to work in the same office as me I am very cheap.  I just politely say 'I don't know them' and then let them stand in uncomfortable silence until they leave me alone.

[vulgalour]

Rover towed from first garage to another garage who seem optimistic they can fix it and offered vastly superior customer interface.  They even said if they couldn't do it they knew someone who probably could.  They asked we leave the car with them and they'll call sometime tomorrow to tell us what the score is.  They also showed some positive interest in the car itself which was nice.  Not a grump, but an update to the previous grump which is why it's here.

[loserone]

Rover towed over to the specialist garage to get the fob repair sorted.  

 

Surprised by this, they did have a good reputation (but, I haven't yet owned a rover for more than a few hours)

 

Wonder if this is still going:

 

[vulgalour]

I was surprised by it too, I'd not heard anything bad, even Chompy took his MG ZT to them and had no bother.  Guess I just got stung by having an awkward car or something.  They did seem genuinely surprised it was on an early version of the security system and it's not the first time this car has caused issues like that.  It's almost like it's a series 1 car that Rover held back for a long time, but it isn't.

 

Here's hoping the more personable BMW and Land Rover specialist the Rover is now with are more successful.  They get brownie points just for showing a positive interest in the car and being remarkably accommodating about trying to sort it out.  I don't have a quote yet, they'll provide that when they've actually found out if they can do it or if they have to get their key-and-fob guy to come in and do it but I can't see it being more than garage one wanted to charge.

[Eddie Honda]

it's a bit silly though, I have worked on the continent but always short term contracts. why would I reregister a car when I know I am only there six months? Simple answer is that I wouldn't and didn't, nor would I expect anyone else to. It's just another stupid rule that no one bothers with and the dodgy ones slip through as the police don't really care.

Fixed term contracts don't make you resident where you're working though, nor does being a student.

 

Anyway, the plod do care occasionally. e.g.

 

https://twitter.com/hashtag/opjessica

 

but they do have muggers and rapist to catch as well y'know.

[dugong]

People are horrid and they can't spell.

[Eddie Honda]

Shooting fish in a barrel this one

 

Barnet MPS â€@MPSBarnet  3 Sep 2015

 

UK resident driving a foreign registered vehicle. No UK insurance or Road Tax. Vehicle #Seized #OpJessica #OpCronus

 

[sporty-shite]

Bet this fucker's never even seen Bulgaria. RHD with a BCC dealer sticker? Proper piss-take.

 

[Tamworthbay]

Fixed term contracts don't make you resident where you're working though, nor does being a student.Anyway, the plod do care occasionally. e.g.https://twitter.com/hashtag/opjessicabut they do have muggers and rapist to catch as well y'know.

that's why we have the traffic womble division, but they are too busy nicking people for doing 80mph on an empty motorway in the middle of the night. I spent two years in the Netherlands in total, that would put me over the six months limit so what happens then?

[Eddie Honda]

It depends on residency status, which depends on economic and social ties.

 

http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/work/taxes/income-taxes-abroad/index_en.htm#!lightbox-uid-0

 

Traffic wombles = HATO, Highways Agency Traffic Officer, they're called Wombles as they clear up the rubbish that everyday folk leave behind.

 

Traffic plod = Black rats.

[HH-R]

Rover towed over to the specialist garage to get the fob repair sorted.  As soon as I get home there's a phone call asking me to come and get my car.  Not because it's fixed, but because they've found it has a 3 pin rather than a 12 pin connector which their one of is broken and is going to take a week to sort out.  So can I come and get my car?  They won't store it even overnight as they haven't the space.

 

I am not thrilled at all about this.  No money given to them but cost incurred as I did have to buy a towing pole specifically for this and now I'm being fannied about having to collect my non-functioning car and possibly redeliver it.

 

This is my first experience of booking a car into a garage and it is not a good one.

 

That's pretty shitty for a specialist, a 3 pin connector is what I'd expect on one of these and I'm far from an expert.

[vulgalour]

I reckon nobody bothered to check.  Most of the stuff they had in was much newer and I know when this problem rears most owners just scrap the car.  I can understand why too, it's been a proper ball ache getting this sorted out.  Getting info about people and companies is great, but not of any use if messages aren't replied to and phones not answered, which is why I ended up using garage one in the first place; pure desperation.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Have to ask, why are you buying tow poles and dragging the car from A to B to C? Half-arsed googling throws up several companies who will test/repair/reprogramme fobs and Lucas 5AS boxes via mail order while you slurp tea and read a book.

[dugong]

I reckon nobody bothered to check.  Most of the stuff they had in was much newer and I know when this problem rears most owners just scrap the car.  I can understand why too, it's been a proper ball ache getting this sorted out.  Getting info about people and companies is great, but not of any use if messages aren't replied to and phones not answered, which is why I ended up using garage one in the first place; pure desperation.

Immobiliser faults (and Steven Seagal) scrapped a lot of Ford Probes.