The grumpy thread

[Spottedlaurel]

Apart from a visit to a client in Sussex next week, Shitefest in June and a visit to my parents in July, I have absolutely nothing planned beyond this week.

 

And Marham at the end of May!

[Captain Furious]

Admin charges are like the new bank charges, companies demanding money for doing next to fuck all

 

Change a minor detail on the computer, sure that will be £30 please, gets right on my gruff

[nacho man]

Yeah that pisses me off I have added three drivers to my policy of the year and it's 25 quid a pop.

 

Cheers nob cheese.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Station]

Admin charges on renting a house are daft. You're paying 300 quid plus for them to hand the keys over and put a signature on a piece of paper (probably).

[dave21478]

Pressure washers. Oh my fucking good God......

 

I used to have a wee handbag sized no brand washer bought for under 50 quid from a supermarket over 15 years ago. It worked fine....no complaints. It finally died a while back and I looked into replacement.

 

Me being me, I got a bit anal about it and spent an unhealthy amount of time going back and forth between a few shops and online places comparing pressures, flow rates, duty cycles and the like. I eventually bought one from a local DIY shop with specs a fair bit higher than anything else in the same price range. In use its less powerful than the old cheapy. Turns out that at the bottom of a page near the back of the manual is the disclaimer saying that the stated pressure is obtained "under laboratory test conditions for a short time." and the actual pressure it gives is significantly lower. The internet suggests that this translates as "we threw 500 volts into the pump and it gave this really high pressure for half a second then burnt out, so thats the number we put on the box" 

Its a massively heavy cumbersome thing which wouldnt bother me if it was super high power, but its weaker than the old thing which was literally the size and weight of a womans handbag.

Fucking Farce.

I got a massive rage on with it and threw it in the fucking bin and I bought a different one, which is lighter, gives better power and seemed great. Until I tried to wind the hose around the built in reel.....literally impossible. There is no slip ring or anything to carry the water through to the reel, the hose exits the body of the machine near the base. So how do I wrap it round the reel? its just not possible. even if you disconnect the hose, the reel diameter is too small so it kinks the hose. Fuck it - I never bothered and just put up with the usual big knot of pipework whenever I used it.

This thing lasted exactly until the end of the guarantee and then started leaking from every joint. Its only o-rings, how hard can it be? Well, pretty fucking hard actually. They seem to be neither metric nor imperial sizes. I went to a decent hose fittings and hydraulics place and they were stumped. "These will be off some piece of Chinese shit, yeah?". Apparently this is not uncommon. They gave me the closest they had, both slightly under and over sized. Undersized leaks everywhere and oversized are too big to allow the joins to fit together.

Surely with the awesome power and collected knowledge of the entire internet at my fingertips I could resolve this? So I typed the model into ebay and it came up with an o-ring kit for 7.99. brilliant.

Except they dont fit. I appear to have bought four standard metric o-rings for 8 fucking quid, (plus postage) and they are not the right size for the washer.

 

*grinds teeth* Jesus fucking.....Just.... oh forget it. 

 

 

Can someone please recommend me a GOOD pressure washer for a max of 200quid. And if anyone says Lavor or Ermbauer I will come round to your house and shit in your cornflakes.

[eddyramrod]

She must also be thinking something, as she tells me I'll be wanting a younger model.

I get that one too, a lot.  I thought it was just about her having been married before, and being three years older than me, but perhaps it's more common than I imagined.  You just have to keep reassuring her that you love her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's what i do and it doesn't seem to work very well as she keeps saying it....................

[vulgalour]

Sewing machine has decided it doesn't want to sew, it would rather make knots.  What makes this extra annoying is that it's gone from sewing perfectly fine, and without changing fabric type or thickness and without fiddling with any settings it now won't sew more than 5 stitches without jamming up.  I had an old Agfa machine do this a few years ago and I couldn't get it to come right again, gave it to a neighbour who then had absolutely no issues with it for years.

 

I suppose it's just a foible of a 50+ year old machine.  I only have one and a half lines of stitching to go before this headlining is ready to fit so I'm pretty annoyed about it.  Just got to wait for the sewing machine to decide it would like to sew again, there's no point fiddling with any of it.

[dollywobbler]

Pressure washers. Oh my fucking good God......

 

 

 

I've got a cheapy Nilfisk thing, which is very noisy, but works very well. 

[vulgalour]

Huh, that whinge worked, the machine behaved itself when I retried and I'm now pressing the headlining ready to take it to the car for a trial fit.

[beko1987]

I buy £60 Nilfisk pressure washers. I had one die after 3 years after being kept on the floor of a freezing garage every winter and not draining it out afterwards. I then went onto ebay and bought just a new machine for £30 and kept all the tools, still working fine now, although noisy as DW says they get. One of the lance tips also doesn't work, but the pressure's not that great enough to be a problem with the patio blaster lance so I just use that.

 

When this one dies I might look at a whole different one, but what I will probably do is buy another £60 nilfisk, but get the full kit, so a new lance and hose as mine are pretty fucked

[Kiltox]

£35 Argos pressure washer is working well for me at the moment with their £10 extended warranty in case it goes the same way as my Karcher did (dropped it and fucked it real bad)

[beko1987]

Thinking about it, I need to either get a new nilfisk or a new foam lance when the time comes, both of which cost about the same...

[oldcars]

Pressure washers. Oh my fucking good God......

 

I used to have a wee handbag sized no brand washer bought for under 50 quid from a supermarket over 15 years ago. It worked fine....no complaints. It finally died a while back and I looked into replacement.

 

Me being me, I got a bit anal about it and spent an unhealthy amount of time going back and forth between a few shops and online places comparing pressures, flow rates, duty cycles and the like. I eventually bought one from a local DIY shop with specs a fair bit higher than anything else in the same price range. In use its less powerful than the old cheapy. Turns out that at the bottom of a page near the back of the manual is the disclaimer saying that the stated pressure is obtained "under laboratory test conditions for a short time." and the actual pressure it gives is significantly lower. The internet suggests that this translates as "we threw 500 volts into the pump and it gave this really high pressure for half a second then burnt out, so thats the number we put on the box" 

Its a massively heavy cumbersome thing which wouldnt bother me if it was super high power, but its weaker than the old thing which was literally the size and weight of a womans handbag.

Fucking Farce.

I got a massive rage on with it and threw it in the fucking bin and I bought a different one, which is lighter, gives better power and seemed great. Until I tried to wind the hose around the built in reel.....literally impossible. There is no slip ring or anything to carry the water through to the reel, the hose exits the body of the machine near the base. So how do I wrap it round the reel? its just not possible. even if you disconnect the hose, the reel diameter is too small so it kinks the hose. Fuck it - I never bothered and just put up with the usual big knot of pipework whenever I used it.

This thing lasted exactly until the end of the guarantee and then started leaking from every joint. Its only o-rings, how hard can it be? Well, pretty fucking hard actually. They seem to be neither metric nor imperial sizes. I went to a decent hose fittings and hydraulics place and they were stumped. "These will be off some piece of Chinese shit, yeah?". Apparently this is not uncommon. They gave me the closest they had, both slightly under and over sized. Undersized leaks everywhere and oversized are too big to allow the joins to fit together.

Surely with the awesome power and collected knowledge of the entire internet at my fingertips I could resolve this? So I typed the model into ebay and it came up with an o-ring kit for 7.99. brilliant.

Except they dont fit. I appear to have bought four standard metric o-rings for 8 fucking quid, (plus postage) and they are not the right size for the washer.

 

*grinds teeth* Jesus fucking.....Just.... oh forget it. 

 

 

Can someone please recommend me a GOOD pressure washer for a max of 200quid. And if anyone says Lavor or Ermbauer I will come round to your house and shit in your cornflakes.

Sorry i should not laugh but reading this cheered me up no end. Sorry, as for pressure washers they don't like me and all seem to grenade after the warranty expires. The one i have now that's due to grenade mid June is some b&q own brand, as much use as and ashtray on a motorbike as im sure your in France.

[Bren]

The glass on the focus' foglights is going opaque- but on the inside.

 

Guess what? They are sealed and cannot be separated without breaking something.

 

Nads.

[beko1987]

FFS is it an Aux belt, serpentine belt, V belt or any other belt? Trying to do some research as I;m bored at work, and see all these things mentioned.

 

I've ordered a belt from ebay in the vain hope that it's the right one, I even put my reg number and mobile number in the message box as asked. Place your bets now! (it wont come until next week)

[jakebullet]

Idiot sister saga continues. Story so far, in Cyprus, decides eye is defective, makes up xenophobic reasons not to get it checked out there (I've always wanted to use xenophobic in a sentence), books easyjet and comes back.

 

Today she drives to a&e, who realise what an important case she is and plonk her fat arse in the waiting room for 4 hours. Doctor doom then sticks her on the eye machine, examines her eyes and pronounces there's absolutely fuck all wrong with her. He cheerily tells her you can fly back to Cyprus now if you want.

 

She then drives back with dilated eyes 'cos she's not walking for 10 minutes to get to the hospital. 

 

No doubt she'll kick off on Saturday that it's definitely worse and she wants a 'real doctor' (read not a foreigner) to look at it.

 

TLDR: idiot sister is idiot.

[Parky]

Finally got my replacement wing for my car. Good condition you say??

 

Needless to say when I saw it wrapped up in ripped brown paper with no protection whatsoever I should have known there would be problems. Giving the seller (208 feedback, 100% record) 3 days to comment or I am negging and opening a claim against him. If it was cheap I would have lived with it but it was more than a new part in primer. Was hoping the paint would have been somewhat better....

[Parky]

Sorry i should not laugh but reading this cheered me up no end. Sorry, as for pressure washers they don't like me and all seem to grenade after the warranty expires. The one i have now that's due to grenade mid June is some b&q own brand, as much use as and ashtray on a motorbike as im sure your in France.

My Karcher expired third time I used it. Apparently "water got in it". Really? Water in a pressure washer? Who'd have thunk it.....

[cort16]

This guy can be annoying but his how too's are pretty interesting including this one on hydroforming steel using a a pressure washer.

 

[cort16]

too much shouting, but I agree what he creates is good

[3VOM]

Signum failed the MOT. Broken spring - not unusual on Signum/Vectras. Both back tyres, which are Dunlops, have splits in the inside sidewalls, so are dubiously legal as well as MOT fails. Worst of all the front subframe has a hole in it right where the suspension hangs on it. I daren't think how much a new one is, even if they exist, but I don't know how easy a weld repair would be and it would be one of those situations where you could find more damage as you attempt the fix. Plus, as the frame is pretty thick, I suspect my welder and little skill will not be enough for me to effect a repair.

[MarvinsMom]

^would it not be easier to get a second hand sub-frame off of a scrapper and swap it over, rather than try to repair it?

[doobietoo]

Like most youtube videos I watch them with the sound off same effect but no irritation...

[purplebargeken]

He's a fucking lunatic. Mad as a box of stoned frogs. 

[Kiltox]

Signum failed the MOT. Broken spring - not unusual on Signum/Vectras. Both back tyres, which are Dunlops, have splits in the inside sidewalls, so are dubiously legal as well as MOT fails. Worst of all the front subframe has a hole in it right where the suspension hangs on it. I daren't think how much a new one is, even if they exist, but I don't know how easy a weld repair would be and it would be one of those situations where you could find more damage as you attempt the fix. Plus, as the frame is pretty thick, I suspect my welder and little skill will not be enough for me to effect a repair.

If you're near Cheltenham, it's a rear spring and they're the same as a Vectra C estate, I have one in my workshop somewhere you're welcome to have

 

(Or if you want to pay the postage)

[cobblers]

I'd love a pressure washer but you need a full, empty 8x6 shed to store one in because the FUCKING PAIN THE THE ARSE SHITTY NYLON HOSE is completely impossible to coil up in any meaningful way and keep it that way for more than about 5 seconds without it springing all over the place. Do the better ones have a rubber hose like proper hydraulic stuff? I've only ever used JTF or AA branded bollocks.

[Kiltox]

I'd love a pressure washer but you need a full, empty 8x6 shed to store one in because the FUCKING PAIN THE THE ARSE SHITTY NYLON HOSE is completely impossible to coil up in any meaningful way and keep it that way for more than about 5 seconds without it springing all over the place. Do the better ones have a rubber hose like proper hydraulic stuff? I've only ever used JTF or AA branded bollocks.

Cable ties?

[UmBongo]

My Aunt just bought herself a very good pressure washer.

 

I will be using it to do my car.

 

The downside is that I'll have to clean her car and her paved driveway for the privilege.

[cobblers]

Unless she's going to pack it away after, just pay £2000 and get your car resprayed, its easier. The bodyshop will probably wash it for you.

[3VOM]

^would it not be easier to get a second hand sub-frame off of a scrapper and swap it over, rather than try to repair it?

First I'd have to source one in sufficiently better condition than mine to justify the effort in swapping it. Second I have nowhere to work indoors. I also suspect I'll need an engine lift or frame of some sort (seen someone on a Vx owners forum do it). I'm just worried that there is so much hung off the subframe that I have to remove and refit that it becomes an expensive job e.g. re-gas air con.