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The grumpy thread


outlaw118

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5 hours ago, wuvvum said:

I bought a new driver's side wiper blade for the Renault 6 as the rubber was splitting.  Up until recently the wiper blades I normally buy had a little bag of different attachments in the packet.  This has now been replaced by a single "universal" attachment.  Which is great, except that the Renault has 5mm bayonet fitting wiper arms, which I used to be able to finagle the 7mm bayonet attachment onto well enough that it'd stay put, but that isn't possible with the new universal clip.  So I'm going to have to start buying "classic" wiper blades as they will be the only ones that fit.  A pair of 14" blades off eBay (should be 13" but I couldn't find any that size with the right fitting) is £10.99 so not exactly going to bankrupt me, but it's still an annoyance.

Ive just thrown 4 lots of clips in the bin. 

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9 hours ago, 155V6 said:

Came home from work in the Laguna with the windows down & the big sunroof open & wondered whether it was worth trying to fix the aircon.

Of course,when I got home,the driver's window wouldn't go up properly.Looking online,it seems this is a common problem.

At least the parts to fix it are cheap.

My silver laguna did that to its rear windows. They got wedged up... The drivers one had done the same but been repaired before fairly bodgily, but it worked! 

Good luck getting them back up... 

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Cars have gotten way too big. ?

Parked my Polonez, which was a reasonably big car back in its day, next to a Peugeot 307 and the FSO was absolutely dwarfed. What the shit.

IMG_20200611_121336.thumb.jpg.0297031e4e064a3cffcf82766cb4308d.jpg

Also, I just noticed how mahusive the current Fiesta is. It has absolutely no business being longer than 4m. Ridiculous!

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6 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Time to adopt the Japanese method of taxation based on physical size?

I'd just put everyone in 126s. :P

If you need something huge you can have a VW Up!.

IMG_20190914_162112.thumb.jpg.21bcadafdabef7a05f40cade9280fabe.jpg

In all seriousness, I just wish carmakers regained their senses and stopped making everything so stupidily bloated. Imagine how much easier parking would be.

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1 minute ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

I wonder if making cars "safe" has led to drivers becoming "unsafe"

It's definitely lead to cars being impossible to see out of. Had a sitdown in a Tipo not too long ago, and was absolutely appalled at the visibility and amount and amount of window area in general. And then there's stuff like the Toyota C-HR. A lady driving one almost backed into me the other day because there's absolutely zero rear 3/4 visibility.

Cars are massive and impossible to see out of; what could go wrong, eh?

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My engine mounts have been sitting in the post office since I received the red card of doom on Friday. I finally managed to find to go collect them to discover they are only open a generous two hours a day :(

IMG_9369.thumb.JPG.57242c3779496d4e30e17d703df53214.JPG

looks like an early start tomorrow then. Except they're not open at all tomorrow. Fucksakes. It will Friday by the time I can get them now, over two weeks since I ordered them and I can't get any work done on the kit until they come :( 

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2 hours ago, gm said:

My engine mounts have been sitting in the post office since I received the red card of doom on Friday. I finally managed to find to go collect them to discover they are only open a generous two hours a day :(

IMG_9369.thumb.JPG.57242c3779496d4e30e17d703df53214.JPG

looks like an early start tomorrow then. ...

Yes, I had that when this whole thing kicked off. Local DO was very quick to cut its hours.

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12 hours ago, beko1987 said:

My silver laguna did that to its rear windows. They got wedged up... The drivers one had done the same but been repaired before fairly bodgily, but it worked! 

Good luck getting them back up... 

Managed to get it up bit by bit,so not too bad ?

 

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A while ago I bought a 2nd hand server cabinet thing off ebay. £80 I paid. Went to pick it up and the guy was fucking loaded - genuine loaded, not dodgy. A few porsches, an AMG Gwagen and such, I would say conservatively there was £400k of motors outside the place, he was shitting money out his arse. I was a bit bemused - I'm not a rich man by any stretch but I'd much rather skip something than invite "ebay" people to my house to collect it for £80 - I usually expect to turn up to some bombsite to collect that kind of stuff.

Anyway, I paid him £80 cash and took the cabinet off away in my van, down his driveway and rang him up to get him to open the gates to let me out again. 

Three weeks later he cancels the ebay transaction to get his £4 seller fees back! 

 

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1 hour ago, cobblers said:

A while ago I bought a 2nd hand server cabinet thing off ebay. £80 I paid. Went to pick it up and the guy was fucking loaded - genuine loaded, not dodgy. A few porsches, an AMG Gwagen and such, I would say conservatively there was £400k of motors outside the place, he was shitting money out his arse. I was a bit bemused - I'm not a rich man by any stretch but I'd much rather skip something than invite "ebay" people to my house to collect it for £80 - I usually expect to turn up to some bombsite to collect that kind of stuff.

Anyway, I paid him £80 cash and took the cabinet off away in my van, down his driveway and rang him up to get him to open the gates to let me out again. 

Three weeks later he cancels the ebay transaction to get his £4 seller fees 

Myself and @rwd are very familiar with the guy in the link below having rented storage yards and units from him in the past.

 https://thebristolcable.org/2020/02/alan-dykes-violent-assault-ex-landlord-the-office-in-speedwell/ 

 

It not unusual to see him walking around with string holding his trousers up instead of a belt. Always drive round in a fucked mid 80's Suzuki Alto.

Guy who rented a unit next to me used to own a 2nd hand shop and had one of those commercial flip top bins out the back which all the unsellable stuff got chucked in.

The shop proximity alarm went off one Xmas eve, so he goes rushing down there expecting the worst only to find Alan upside down in the bin with his feet poking out looking for a cutlery set ???

The old Strachan & Henshaw site he used to own which burnt down was VERY sketchy. The whole upper car park level was one giant breakers yard and an absolute death trap. You could barely navigate around the site there were that many cars. Main breaker owner there was a beast of a guy known as "Fatty" Farthing who used to collect Dykes rent.

I always remember going into his office to buy parts and he'd have a massive mirror on the wall which his desk faced. He was so immobile that he couldn't be bothered to move and would chat to you in the mirror!

 

He definitely was not the best landlord and his properties were cheap for a reason but you knew what you were getting so you couldn't really grumble too much. 

Some did though!

http://theweekin.co.uk/news/landlord-is-jailed-for-health-and-safety-offences-at-premises-in-speedwell/

Even a spell in clink didn't change him.

Nice enough to talk to, total tight ass and  VERY VERY dodgy.

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On 7/21/2020 at 9:28 AM, Tadhg Tiogar said:

I wonder if making cars "safe" has led to drivers becoming "unsafe"

Back in the early 90s when Lucas were starting to ramp up Anti-lock braking the insurance industry were thinking about increasing the premiums on those cars with ABS, as there was statistics showing that those types of people who choose it as an option, were the type of people who then assumed that because it was safer, they could drive faster.  It was obviously safer at the same speed as non Abs, but if you have zero friction between tyre and road, say on the ice or due to aqua planning, it wouldn't fix your accident. The number of accidents were therefore very marginally higher, but the speed involved, was significantly higher, causing more damage, to cars and people. 

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Looks like it was documented in this:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=rI4c24VTriEC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22R.M.+Trimpop%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiqvMWa6eXqAhVFolwKHURLB0kQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

which also has an interesting short history of risk assessment and insurance in the introduction. Earliest records showing its use date from 3200BC up to the fall of the Roman empire in 700AD, with it then not reappearing till the 12th century. Interest rates of 200% were common in Babylonia...

So, being fleeced for cover ain't a new thing

Sent from my BV6000 using Tapatalk

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Latest from Garage Dubois-Loizou: none of the new hoses, supplied by CX-Basis as being direct replacements, fit! Disastrous.
Going up there in the morning to see how deficient the new hoses are.
It seems ridiculous to me that Garage Dubois-Loizou whom I assume promote themselves as somewhat of a specialist in old Hydroneumatic french cars don't have the required contacts to get the parts for them, making you do the donkey work and shrugging their shoulders when they can't put it together!

Sent from my SM-A505FN using Tapatalk

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2 minutes ago, Floatylight said:

It seems ridiculous to me that Garage Dubois-Loizou whom I assume promote themselves as somewhat of a specialist in old Hydroneumatic french cars don't have the required contacts to get the parts for them, making you do the donkey work and shrugging their shoulders when they can't put it together!...
 

I think even if they had the contacts, the parts supplied would still have been wrong, because there is only one main supplier of new CX hoses.

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... I ordered ATS mot on cunton. After I ordered I discovered the hull branch doesn't do mots.

 

I live chat for a refund, we can offer you cunton credits. ?

I order an mot for the credit price from some back street garage, where the reviews state they don't do the mot. They take it somewhere else.

So for £18, this dude is making money...and cunton... and the bloke writing out the certificate.

 

Seems like a plan.

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18 hours ago, Floatylight said:

It seems ridiculous to me that Garage Dubois-Loizou whom I assume promote themselves as somewhat of a specialist in old Hydroneumatic french cars don't have the required contacts to get the parts for them, making you do the donkey work and shrugging their shoulders when they can't put it together!
 

Update: turns out they forgot to open the extra box of CX-Basis hoses. Have personally verified that this box of seven are in fact correct, so these will be fitted.

It was the earlier set of silicone hoses that were not.

 

20200725_113220.jpg

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39 minutes ago, mitsisigma01 said:

Did you have to open the second box for them....... ?????

No. Seems one of their trainees had opened one box, seen the discrepancies in the silicon hoses, then assumed that the hoses in the other two boxes (which the trainee did not open) were equally deficient.

You couldn't make this up.

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2 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

No. Seems one of their trainees had opened one box, seen the discrepancies in the silicon hoses, then assumed that the hoses in the other two boxes (which the trainee did not open) were equally deficient.

You couldn't make this up.

That's ridiculous of them to have done that- not a good service at all!

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Just now, Fumbler said:

That's ridiculous of them to have done that- not a good service at all!

Dunno.... It begins to look like a comedy of errors to me; Monsieur Dubois sez his trainee is trying to make him look a fool. Anyhow, we did establish that the CX-Basis hoses are a straight swap for the original expired set, and the alerte générale is over.

At least the head gasket and associated bits were done correctly and the engine runs, having been flushed several times with the help of dishwasher / washing machine cleaner.

 

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5 minutes ago, Tadhg Tiogar said:

Dunno.... It begins to look like a comedy of errors to me; Monsieur Dubois sez his trainee is trying to make him look a fool.

Ah. I can see a lot of je ne sais quoi and profuse shrugging of shoulders happening in the office.

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