April 2005
Spam removed.
DD. Read more
Hello,
I've been trying to find a classic car to buy. One of the "dealers" I contacted has sourced me one.
I have no issues with the dealer, his reputation is such that I'm not concerned about his veracity.
The car concerned is in Italy.
has anybody used this kind of a service before?
I think I should Fix the price (of course!)
Find out exactly what he is offering to do..
IE import and register the car, MOT it and PDI etc.
Because of the nature of the transaction is there anything else I should do/pay attention to?
TIA
:) JaB Read more
Driving to work, the main A6 passes through a large village about 1/2 mile from the motorway junction. As you might imagine, the volume of traffic is massive (there is an ongoing campaign for a bypass and the residents really deserve one).
A few days ago, the local water board blocked off a short section of one lane of the A6 to enable a new mains to be installed to a new housing development. Temporary traffic lights in place, causing a small delay to through traffic. So far so good.
This morning is bin day. The main road has houses on both sides and the dustcart collects bins from this stretch of the village during the rush hour. This always struck me as slightly foolish as guaranteed to cause the most disruption but acting as a VERY slow moving rolling roadblock on each side of the road in turn.
In my naivety, I assumed that today, they would plan an alternative route to avoid roadworks, dustcart and rush hour colliding. Simple and logical, isn't it?
Naah.
Dustcart takes its normal route at its normal time. So for the ten minutes it takes to crawl through the single lane section, the main road is completely blocked in both directions. And on both the approach and departure sections to the roadworks, the approaching queues prevent following traffic from passing the dustcart, traffic gets stuck in the single carriageway against the lights, still nothing able to move, queues get even longer (back onto the motorway junction, etc)....get the picture?
And all for the lack of a little fragment of common sense.
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The other day I went from Southampton to Avonmouth with 300 empty pallets,
and I returned with 300 empty pallets, all they did was
offload and reload another 300 of exactly the same type!!!!!!!! No
one could tell me what it was all about, they all
just shrugged their shoulders.
Reminds me of the story of a BRS driver in the late 60s early 70s. Left Cardiff docks with a load of tomatoes for Southampton, got to the market, was redirected to Birmingham because value of load was better there. Arrives in Brum and gets redirected yet again. Yes you guessed it, to Cardiff.
Happy Days
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Alyn Beattie
I\'m sane, it\'s the rest of the world that\'s mad.
Question: are these really necessary?
They're obviously there for a reason, but is it a good one? I lost two last month when I forgot to put them back when changing the fluid.
I went into Ford asking for some and they said they don't do them. Seemed odd as I have microfiche and there's definately a part number listed for them! Halford's were just thick and proceeded upon hearing the word "dust" and "cap" somewhere in "have you got any dust caps for brake nipples please?" to hand me a packet of tyre valve caps!
Thanks in advance.
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Mike Farrow Read more
Scrap yards are wonderful places for small but expensive bits of trim and things like that. I got a bagfull of odd trim clips, carpet clips, door rubbers, nuts&bolts, pedal rubbers "give us a quid" was the cost (on top of the wiper motor I went in for).
Martin
Might buy Mrs Bob an old model (brand new) Focus as I've heard there's lots around that Ford needs to shift going cheap, cheap, cheap. Anyone point me in the right direction and what's the best engine for a bit of punch and fuel consumption ? Thanks in advance. Bob. Read more
The place where my parents got their Focus Flight from in late 2002 has a couple of old shape Foci in stock still.
www.pwmillar.co.uk
£11k for a 1.6 Ghia hatch, £10k for a 1.6 LX (both metallic) or £9k for a 1.8 LX saloon in solid red.
www.directford.co.uk is doing some nice deals on diesels, at least according to their website.
The 1.6 took about 8k miles to be run in and until then it felt utterly gutless. It still needs to be revved but isn't too slow when you put your foot down, and gives just under 40 mpg (dropping to 36 if driven hard). If you're not a performance driver, I'd say it's adequate, although I dread to think what it would be like with 25 bhp less.
Can anyone advise if alloy wheels can be painted with an aerosol spray..or is this a job for the professionals? Read more
Here's the little I understand about the situation
While the alloy wheel might make a difference to the thermal behaviour of the brake, I can't believe that it is a strong effect. The reason being, that in thermal conduction calculations, the problem can be transformed into the equivalent of a resistive circuit - each part *and* interface in the path has an associated thermal resistance. The often manky interface between the disc and the inside of the alloy wheel (the bit that often sticks solid if the wheels haven't been off before) cannot be an effective conductor. If the wheels were fitted for thermal purposes, there would also be some thermal conducting paste specified.
On most 'ordinary' cars, the alloys aren't lighter - purely cosmetic.
For those instances where the alloy wheel is lighter, then the reduction in unsprung mass does help maintain handling on poor surfaces.
Tyres can produce a given level of grip as a function of vertical load. To give progressive, predictable handling, the *change* in vertical tyre load over a bump must be made as small as possible.
Contrary to what you might think from bar room type discussions, this means that it is desirable to have soft springing to keep control over bumps*. The need to provide sufficient roll and pitch stiffness for the car body also drives suspension stiffness upwards.
If you take the opposite extreme, a car with completely stiff suspension will usually only be sitting with three wheels touching the ground! Not good for handling!
If you make the suspension too soft, the unsprung mass will overshoot after going over a bump. While the unsprung mass is off the ground, or substantially unloaded, it contributes little to handling forces. The tendancy to overshoot increases with unsprung mass - hence why it desirable to reduce unsprung mass.
*There are, of course, other reasons why racing type suspensions end up being very stiff. In F1, for example, it is to keep the aerodynamics of the car working by maintaing a near constant ground clearance.
number_cruncher
Hi everybody my 1st written topic! :)
Anyway, i was parking up near my sisters one day next to a white tatty looking Pug 205 D-reg, not that there was anything strange about it as such. It was only when i came back to my Ka afterwards that i noticed something odd about it, on the bottom of the front no. plate i noticed 'Holland Park' with the BMW logo next to it! Am i right in thinking that assuming it was the previous owner, he or she part exchanged this scruffy 205 for a BMW in at a rather upmarket BMW dealer in west London?
Mind you things happen for a reason i suppose, a pay rise?
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-) Read more
Could be possibly a theory b_h, but the condition of the vehicle & being in rural Bucks, i wouldn't of thought the Pug would take the distance going back & forth on the M40 & overheat in the jams of Western Avenue, but then again........
--
Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-)
hi all,
my nisan micra's (95) heater blower only works on the maximum switch setting. The switch is ok (bullet proof), i figure the fault must lie in the resistor plate (about the size of a credit card).
My question is what should this plate actually look like? Mine is blackish background with 'fragments' of white circuit attached.
Any ideas?
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Sounds about right. Check the resistors with a multimeter. If they measure very high resistance or OC, then its had it.
A neighbour of mine has difficulty getting his van started most mornings and says that it is addicted to ‘Coldstart’ which I presume is a WD40 type product.
He has had the glow plugs checked and was told that they are ok.
I suspect that most of the time it is doing *very* short trips…(his trade is window cleaning). It has done only 80,000 miles in twelve years which averages no more than twenty miles per day. I doubt whether it has ever been given the regular welly which HJ recommends.
Bearing the above in mind, do you think that it is a bit late in the engine’s life to expect any benefit from giving it regular short bursts at high revs?
Might suggesting an ‘Italian Burn-up’ do more harm (not least to other components) than good? Could there be something else causing the problem?
Suggestions (other than replacing the van!) would be welcomed.
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I can see why someone would say their engines accicted to cold start/ezistart etc. If their engine is in such poor shape, a shot of what is basically ether WILL be the only way to get that initial combustion.
I used ezistart years ago in the winter to get farm-tractors started, it is quite violent stuff, and when the engine does catch, it knocks like mad for quite a few seconds until the ether dissipates. This is obviously not good for the engine, but hey if you have to use this stuff in the first place the end is usually nigh anyway !
Hi All,
Thanks for your varied and helpful responses earlier about a flash little motor for me - after much consideration, I'm off tomorrow to look at a 2000 W reg Golf GTI 1.8 turbo - it's got 23000 miles on and is £9k - how does this look to you guys - it's at a main VW dealership BTW. Should I get the milage verified & what's the best way?
Thanks, Ben Read more
Was he referring to you and your HD, Growler?. 8-)
Browse
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A good friend of mine went to work in Italy for two years, locally buying a new Mondeo for himself and Focus for his wife. When the time came to return to the UK, he wished he'd never purchased the cars. Selling them on the local market turned out to be a complete nightmare, so he tried to export them to a friend of his that lived in another European country, and so wanted LHD; his was an even greater nightmare. He did sell locally in the end, but the red tape and beaurocracy was like nothing else on earth.
I read an article in a classic car magazine a few years back about an Englishman who tried to export an Alfa. Required the patience of a saint, and the need to sail close to the wind.
Good luck!