THE GUBBERMINT ALWAYS KNOWS BEST

[Lankytim]

...Just like a Golf..

 

My neighbour had a 2004ish Golf and that was a troublesome sack of scrap. Let water in, forever breaking down, electrical probs. Dashboard fell to bits too. He couldn't wait to get rid it.. so much so he let "we buy any car" have it.

 

Anyway, today I wrenched the rotted Maestro tailgate from its mountings and installed a freshly resprayed mint example. Next time, ill ask a friend to help, phew! (if only I had any friends to start with). Its finally in place, with the tailgates wiring loom fished and prodded down the rear pillar and all connected up and the wiper motor, lock and catch also all installed and adjusted- I'm actually pretty pleased with myself. The old Maestro looks pure class!

 

The headlining was removed to allow access to the tailgate mountings and is going to be recovered. Its in a right state!

 

Of course.. I cant find my lead to upload any of the pics... so you'll just have to believe me.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

 

I like my Golf, it seems to be the last of the solid, simply engineered Volkswagens. Alright, it's a bit 'cost reduced' in places, so it's rusty and has faded paint but all the other stuff works well.

The engine, even though it's a dirty non-turbo diesel pulls really well and doesn't use much of its delectable petrol/used vegetable oil mix, especially since I fixed the tank sender. The clutch cable broke off the clutch lever, but that was fixed with a bit of washer.

I've owned one before and thought it was stodgy to drive, this feels a lot livelier. It's no Peugeot, but I managed to coax it into a bit of controlled lift-off oversteer the other morning. [/Troy Queef]

[Mike D]

Took the 928 rad to the local radiator menders, yep, he can recore it, but he hasn't got an oil cooler to fix the busted one..

 

Do I just sod the cooler off? It has an external one too, or do I keep looking for a used radiator, or try a seemingly more common, but 8mm narrower core one from a later 928?

 

Decisions decisions!

[garethj]

Its like a high-maintenance glamour model girlfriend, but in car form.

A high maintenance glamour model who looks like the tea lady?

[Negative Creep]

On the subjects of Golfs, mine was the biggest pile of shit I've ever owned. So much grief it almost put me off old cars completely. Despite being a shed, when I checked a few months ago somehow it's still on the road

[Pillock]

Louise, might be worth talking to a dealer as you're not the first (or fifth, or tenth) person I've heard complaining of randomly opening windows. Might be a recall?

 

We had an issue at work where the owner of a Mk4 Golf used to lock his car with the remote fob, and another chap's Leon used to unlock. Thought there was meant to be a gazillion codes on those things?

[Mr Lobster]

We had an issue at work where the owner of a Mk4 Golf used to lock his car with the remote fob, and another chap's Leon used to unlock. Thought there was meant to be a gazillion codes on those things?

 

That was also a problem on early Focus C-Maxs. They also had an issue that certain radio frequencies - mobile phone transmitters and taxi offices were favourite - would immobilise the car. If you pushed them out of range which wasn't normally that far, they worked fine.

[Tayne]

.

[Pete-M]

P38a Range Rovers suffer from this until you change the remote receiver. Alarm picks up a signal which puts the alarm into 'spooked' mode, if it keeps getting signals which aren't the right one, it'll go into lockdown mode....

[ashmicro]

Speaking of electronic devices in cars and radio signals - a former colleague of my Dad's had a Ovlov 240 in the 80s, which he let his son drive from time to time. Unbeknownst to Dad's mate, said son had bought a cheapo radar detector, and would use it when going to visit his girlfriend, just across the Irish border in Dundalk.

 

One balmy evening, while on his way to re-enter the UK, he switched on the radar detector as he aproached the border. Cue 2 Land Rovers screaming into the road ahead of him, and about two dozen members of The Ulster Defence Regiment pointing their SLRs at him. Chummy is out of the car, face down on the road, about to be eaten by a large Army dog.

 

It all ended up OK, though, as it turned out that the cheapo radar detector gave off an RF signature known to the Army as being used by terrorists in remote controlled bombs!

 

My Dad's mate chucked the radar detector in Lough Neagh.

[trigger]

I haven't been very impressed with my 2002 Bora (Golf with a boot), The drivers window doesn't always go all the way up, only half way then back down again on it's own and the boot doesn't always unlock, You have to keep pressing the unlock button on the key and pressing the boot catch until it pops open.

 

I'm seriously thinking of buying a Mondeo now instead.

[M'coli]

Lifted the head on the Imp today, found some pitting between cylinders 2 and 3, the thermostat housing has siezed on and the outlet broke as I was trying to get the housing off because it has corroded. It'll be off for a nice skim sometime this week.

[seth]

Hello. Here is the News.

 

Bong!

Multi layered floor pans.

 

 

Bong!

Big holes

 

 

Bong!

Single Layer Butt Welded

 

 

And finally. An outrigger

 

[dean36014]

I've had better days.....

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

It was birthday yesterday, 41 one years young. My eldest daughter came over for a visit. As we were all sat taliking around 4pm there was an almighty bang out in the street followed quickly by an even bigger one. Rushed out into the road expecting to see an explosion, but instead found a Renault Kango van embedded in a neighbours wall. Call an ambulance and police as the chap driving was trapped by the wall in his vehicle and he seemed out of it. Whilst dealing with them another neighbour shouted over, have you seen your car? It turns out he bounced of my car first before demolishing the wall. Front bumper/wing/door smashed, and the front wheel severely buckled and pushed into the inner wheel arch, so its probably a write off Someone from the next road then arrives to say the driver had done the same in her street, hitting another car and wall, reversing away and drove off. Police man on scene tells me that the ambulance crew suspects he's had a heart attack and no booze involved.

So spent a unhappy few hours sorting out the car insurance while wifey has to catch a bus to go to work. As i work nights, it was soon time to drag the motorbike out to go to work myself. Off i potter, going down the binley Rd in Coventry, I reach the queue in the left filter lane I need to take and pull up to a stop behind a red Mondeo(i think). About three seconds later I feel as though someones launched an exocet rocket into me, as I'm launched through the air, me and bike hit the Mondeo, and somehow I end up on the floor with a heavy'ish BMW bike on top of my legs. Someone called the police and ambulance, and i'm soon having all my bike gear cut of me and being strapped to a spinal board. Off to hospital, xrays on wrist,hip and lower back and thankfully nothing broken, but lots of soft tissue damage, a good case of whiplash, and being told that if I hadn't got all the right protective gear on I might not got away with it Nice policeman comes in to see me, announces he was the first on scene and says I've already seen you once today when your car was wrote off!. Turns out the young female driver who was following me in her car was fiddling with her mirror, or so shes says and didn't see the queue of traffic, made no attempt to brake and hit me at 30mph while I was stationary. Needless to say shes been told she's getting prosecuted for careless driving. So after being dumped in a wheelchair I was discharged after 4 1/2 hours unable to walk, in extreme pain. Had to get the brother in law over from the opposite side of town to collect me as we no longer have a car as it was smashed up earlier. Took me 30 minutes to get from the car outside to bed, and here I'm staying

So for my 41st birthday, i had the car wrote off, my bike wrote off, be in agony, £500 worth of bike gear cut off me, and my new £250 helmet crash tested. Hopefully my next birthday will be a bit quieter

[trigger]

Happy Birthday!, That has to be one of the unluckiest stories I've read on here! At least your OK though which is the main thing.

 

A few years ago we had a similar thing happen outside my house, 11pm me and the misses hear a massive bang outside so we go running out to see and Mk 3 Fiesta in the next door neighbour but one's brick wall, In our case it was a joy rider, he had gone down the street behind us hitting every car, then down our service road, crashing into my neighbours Carlton, bouncing of that into a 6 month old Renault Clio belonging to someone across the street with such force that the rear axle breaks off it then ended up in the wall.

 

Mind you as there was blood all over the windscreen from where he didn't have his belt on they managed the catch him and he got locked up.

[Mr H Sceptre]

Bloody hell Dean, thats terrible.

 

I guess the main thing is that you're still in one piece (albeit battered and bruised).

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Yikes I thought I'd had a bad birthday that year I had a cold.

 

Happy birthday!

[garethj]

Make sure your insurance claim includes the bike clothing. Other than that, could have been worse - it could have been raining

[Rusty Pelican]

Not the best way to get older , glad your OK ( ish ) , claim for everything from everyone as everyone else does

[Pillock]

Well yeah, you're still able to browse autoshite so could be worse!

 

If the insurance won't/can't pay out for the leathers etc, put a private claim in against the stupid mare......

[nigel bickle]

Hell. Happy birthday...

 

At least you're still here -and will mend.

[Pete-M]

Bloody hell Dean. Happy Birthday.

 

Now get outside and take some pics

[wuvvum]

Bloody wars. I thought I'd had some crap birthdays, but that really does take the biscuit. Hope you're all mended soon.

[Mike D]

This arrived today:

 

So i will be cracking on and fitting it tomorrow

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Hey is that an ADVANCED TRIAGONAL FRAME? I've got one of those!

[Mike D]

Indeed it is Mr. B! EXTREME! Let me know if you fancy getting rid, the frame on mine is a bit small

 

Non auto update for this morning, but i levelled my hall floor with my angle grinder this morning Car fun this afternoon

[Mr Lobster]

I realised last night that I really do need to get some new tyres for the front of the SEAT. Had a 'moment' in all the rain that was a little too close for comfort...

 

(and I was only doing 40 in a NSL road FFS)

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

It's time to get winter tyres.

[Guest]

I'm getting some winter tyres for the Stanza shortly, it will be my introduction to them. Thought I'd give them a "test".

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

I hope they're some Kingpin remoulds.