The grumpy thread

[Guest]

I don't like those tax credits adverts with the jaunty reggae, they make it all sound like a whole load of fun. It should have some really stern-sounding and slightly threatening man. And no music.

[VWPowered]

snapped rear engine on passat and some fuckwits nicked my jack

[shite_meister]

snapped rear engine on passat and some fuckwits nicked my jack

Simply continue your journey using the front engine then I take it you mean mount? I bought a mk2 golf last year and how the twat before me drove it I've no idea, all of the mounts were totally goosed.

[Cavcraft]

Still women.If you ask me a question once and I give you an answer it'll be the same fucking answer the next fifty fucking times you ask too.What is it someone once said? Pissed women are only funny when they're not your's.Tell you what it's nights like tonight that remind me why I fucking hate staying in on a Saturday. It's like gobshite tennis in our house, when one stops the other one starts

[Mr H Sceptre]

Still women.If you ask me a question once and I give you an answer it'll be the same fucking answer the next fifty fucking times you ask too.What is it someone once said? Pissed women are only funny when they're not your's.Tell you what it's nights like tonight that remind me why I fucking hate staying in on a Saturday. It's like gobshite tennis in our house, when one stops the other one starts

Thought you were out for a meal with the outlaws Billy?

[Dukestar25]

Some fooking idiot scrappaged a nice R-reg MG Midget at out Vauxhall dealer and worst of all the day it was taken away (thursday gone), it was raining heavily and the barstewards left the hood down :evil:On the Friday I found the burned out remains of a previously well-kept MR2 on my way home along with a very upset lady-owner of said car who was inspecting what was left of her prized motor. On top of that, it's half-term so all the little darlings are off for two weeks...

[Cavcraft]

Still women.If you ask me a question once and I give you an answer it'll be the same fucking answer the next fifty fucking times you ask too.What is it someone once said? Pissed women are only funny when they're not your's.Tell you what it's nights like tonight that remind me why I fucking hate staying in on a Saturday. It's like gobshite tennis in our house, when one stops the other one starts

Thought you were out for a meal with the outlaws Billy?

Been and done mucker. My ears still hurt

[Mr H Sceptre]

Still women.If you ask me a question once and I give you an answer it'll be the same fucking answer the next fifty fucking times you ask too.What is it someone once said? Pissed women are only funny when they're not your's.Tell you what it's nights like tonight that remind me why I fucking hate staying in on a Saturday. It's like gobshite tennis in our house, when one stops the other one starts

Thought you were out for a meal with the outlaws Billy?

Been and done mucker. My ears still hurt

Did you take my advice & get inappropriately pissed & embarrass yourself, thus incurring the wrath from the other half?

[Cavcraft]

*Not brave enough!

[Mr H Sceptre]

*Not brave enough!

Prob a good move.

[VWPowered]

snapped rear engine on passat and some fuckwits nicked my jack

Simply continue your journey using the front engine then I take it you mean mount? I bought a mk2 golf last year and how the twat before me drove it I've no idea, all of the mounts were totally goosed.

err yes rear engine mount

[Claypole]

Arguing with Barclays since they've taken a fancy to raking money out of my current account whenever they take a fancy to it. I wrote them a stern letter so they gave me back the £600 they'd robbed then a few days later they raked out £595... ffs.Wrote to them again to ask for that back then found out Thursday (letter arrived today - very helpful - not) they'd raked out another £395... words fail me. (back ground is I had a loan a while ago - paid back 90% of it but told them to wait for the rest while I was dole scum but no they have to pay back the Arabs).

[Negative Creep]

Another prospective buyer for the Honda today. However, since there is some old oil around the rocker cover "the head gasket has gone mate, only worth $600 at the most". Well his accomplice was a mechanic so what do I know Didi I mention all of the timewasters so far have been, ahem, minorities? Just mentioning.............

[wuvvum]

French cars.Went to work in the Espace on Thursday as per usual. I'm too tight to pay for parking so I usually sling the pushbike in the back, park up on the outskirts of Norwich and cycle the rest of the way in. On Thursday the tailgate suddenly decided it wasn't going to unlock when I got to Norwich. Now being a modern(ish) Renner there's nothing sensible like, say, a keyhole on the tailgate to allow you to unlock it manually. The only keyhole is on the passenger side front door - everything else is totally reliant on the central locking. So I spent an enjoyable 15 minutes manoeuvring the bike out of the side door, which made me late for work. I took the tailgate trim off yesterday afternoon and it looks like the lock motor has packed up - it locks and unlocks fine when I pull on the little arm, but it won't do anything on the central locking. Which means that I'm going to have to leave the tailgate unlocked, which means I can't leave anything valuable in there.The Peugeot 104 has decided it's going to develop a really strange problem whereby it's completely gutless under about 3,000 rpm but takes off like a scalded cat (by 954cc standards) after that. It's not misfiring or owt like that - it runs just as evenly at low revs as high revs - and pulling the choke out doesn't seem to make a great deal of difference so I don't think it's a fuelling problem. I can only surmise that the ignition advance mechanism has got stuck (although any other ideas from people with more mechanical knowledge than myself would be welcome), which is a bummer as the distributor is a royal pain in the arse to get to. It also has a sticky NSF brake when it hasn't been used in a while - I noticed the other night that it was struggling to maintain 50mph, pulled over and the disc was glowing red. Which would be cool if I were on a trackday, but not so great at 11pm at the side of the A149 in the pissing rain.I sold the other Espace (the D reg one) on Wednesday evening. I'd spoken to the chap several times on the 'phone and discussed the condition of the car and the fact that it had driven a total of three miles in the last three years. He said he was still interested and was going to come up and have a look. Wednesday morning he called and said that someone had hit his car and he wouldn't be able to drive up to Norwich (oh yeah, here we go, thinks I), but then he announces that he's coming up on the train and asks me to meet him somewhere.Me: Oh right, no problem, do you want me to run you back to the station afterwards?Him: No, I'm going to drive the Espace home [Hertfordshire].Me: Erm... you do know it's not running right, don't you? And that it's not moved for four months, and before that it hadn't moved for three years?Him: Yeah, but I'm sure it'll be fine. I'd trust a 25-year-old Renault more than I'd trust a 5-year-old one.Well that struck a chord with me, so after checking that he had breakdown cover I arranged to meet him off the train. Long story short, after running the Espace out of petrol backing it out of the drive, and discovering that the sticking brakes were actually due to a sticking pedal, and easily cured by hooking one's foot under the pedal and pulling it up) he got in and buggered off. I was expecting a 'phone call within ten minutes to say that it had died in a cloud of smoke and steam, but in fact I didn't hear from him till Thursday morning, when he rang to inform me that the old crate had driven the 80 miles home without missing a beat. Fugging typical - the first fully-functioning Renner I've bought in years, and I go and flog it.

[Cavcraft]

The Espace tailgate thing is a common problem. Can you not open the glass seperately to get stuff in/out of the boot?When mine packed up I was fortunate enough to be able to just spray WD40 on the handle and keep moving it about and I believe removing the rear trim to access the latch isn't too bad a job, Google will show up how iirc.

[wuvvum]

The Espace tailgate thing is a common problem. Can you not open the glass seperately to get stuff in/out of the boot?

Nope - mine isn't as posh as the one you had so it doesn't have the separate opening window. Getting the trim off to access the latch isn't difficult when you can get to the tailgate, but when you've got a bootfull of crap it's not quite so easy. It's either the motor itself that's packed up or a wire's broken somewhere as there's no noise or movement from the mechanism when I plip the central locking.Another Renner-related grump: I need to get the NSF wheel off the 21 Turbo to grease the caliper up before the Marham trackday on the 28th, and it has one of those stupid locking centre caps covering the wheel nuts, which I don't have a key for. So that's going to have to be chiselled or crowbarred off then.

[pogweasel]

Another Renner-related grump: I need to get the NSF wheel off the 21 Turbo to grease the caliper up before the Marham trackday on the 28th, and it has one of those stupid locking centre caps covering the wheel nuts, which I don't have a key for. So that's going to have to be chiselled or crowbarred off then.

What does the key-hole look like?May have something to help.

[wuvvum]

What does the key-hole look like?May have something to help.

It's not a keyhole as such, it's lots of randomly-spaced little holes which the pins in the "key" fit into. Unfortunately the holes are too small to get a pair of long-nose pliers into, and the bolt is too tight for my circlip pliers to do anything with.

[M'coli]

Could they be drilled slightly larger to get the long-nosers in?

[Pillock]

Maplin used to sell a little doofer, a round tool with loads of spring pins coming out of the end, and a hex attachment on the other end. It was meant to go over rounded bolts and grip them (the pins on the nuts slide in, the ones next to the nut surround it and grip the odd shape).We soon found that they were perfect for undoing certain types of locking wheelnut, and we used to get all sorts of shady characters in buying them. Sounds like the same sort of bolt it works on, a flat top with a series of shallow holes - the pins will drop into the holes and undo.

[Pillock]

a nice R-reg MG Midget

I can see your first error right there

[Volksy]

Another Renner-related grump: I need to get the NSF wheel off the 21 Turbo to grease the caliper up before the Marham trackday on the 28th, and it has one of those stupid locking centre caps covering the wheel nuts, which I don't have a key for. So that's going to have to be chiselled or crowbarred off then.

These can be a Biatch to get off even with the right key, as the steel bolt into an alloy wheel causes electrolytic corrosion and they stick fast. I found an angled 'tap' with a centre punch was enough generally to loosen them off though.

[Father Ted]

ArrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghBloody Cars.

[Milford Cubicle]

What does the key-hole look like?May have something to help.

It's not a keyhole as such, it's lots of randomly-spaced little holes which the pins in the "key" fit into. Unfortunately the holes are too small to get a pair of long-nose pliers into, and the bolt is too tight for my circlip pliers to do anything with.

What I've done in the past is hammer a socket onto the locking wheel nut, but that's only good if you have a regular wheelnut spare as the socket usually holds onto the locking one for eternity.

[brammy777]

Yep, my phones broken, good thing I kept my old one.Its insured, so hopefully vodafone wont play the 'Apple' card and simply blame it on water damage. Even though it probably was that, I didnt throw it into a puddle.

[Polystratus]

ArrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghBloody Cars.

Hole in the front crossmember ??

[wuvvum]

Got the centre caps off the 21 - mate managed to get a punch into one of the holes and whacked it round with a hammer - fortunately the bolts weren't seized in. So it's off with the wheel tomorrow, weather permitting. Otherwise I'll just sit at the dining room table cleaning the grit, stale petrol and other crap out of the CZ carb.

[maxpower]

seeing all the cars on here and thinking back to all the "retro classics" that you have owned only to let them slip thruogh your fingers because you wanted as new as possible vauxhall vx 2200 and my fave renner 18 (LYB12V) where are you now now kids and wife are moaning because i want to live my teen years again and get an older car but do i care 1 jot??? nope

[Mr H Sceptre]

seeing all the cars on here and thinking back to all the "retro classics" that you have owned only to let them slip thruogh your fingers because you wanted as new as possible vauxhall vx 2200 and my fave renner 18 (LYB12V) where are you now now kids and wife are moaning because i want to live my teen years again and get an older car but do i care 1 jot??? nope

Too bloody right. Thats the spirit. Suffer the invitable consequences as and when they occur.................

[Father Ted]

ArrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghBloody Cars.

Hole in the front crossmember ??

1)Hole in front cross member - wasnt there till I poked a "suspicious bit" with a key. Then fucking great big hole appears and big pile of rust on drive way now. Fortunately only one little bit so Im hoping it can be plated.2)Driveshaft CV gaiter split. I hate doing them.3)Zafira a bag of shite to tow with.4) Decided I fucking hate cars. After I spent HOURS fitting a bloody towbar to the Micra too.