January 2006
I drive a new shape 54 plate Astra 1.6 SXi. About 6 months ago I started to experience clutch judder from cold, this happened the first few times pulling away in 1st but disappeared once the car had warmed up. I reported this to my Vauxhall dealer in October, they tested it experienced the judder and decided to replace the clutch. All was fine until December when exactly the same problem returned, this month the car has been back in again but this time the dealer said they couldn't experience the judder but sure enough when I drove it the next morning juddering again. I reported it to them again and luckily they believe me so are in contact with Vauxhall Technical to gain authorisation to fit another clutch. I have also searched around online and have found several other New Astra drivers all with the identical symptoms, one owner has had three clutches fitted and the clutch is still juddering! It seems that Vauxhall could have a real problem on their hands here. I myself find it rather dangerous as I live on a busy main road and not knowing if it will judder or not when I pull away is rather worrying. Has anyone else experienced or know of this problem?]
Subject line edited in order to index the post in line with the new doctrine - PU Read more
just been out and checked my tyre presures on my vauxaul zafria and they need pumping up but i cant find my manaul that tells me the tyre pressures was wondering if any one could tell me the tyre pressures if possible
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DD
It's 3 months old. Haven't looked at any other new Vauxhalls to see if this is now standard.
JS
Just curious really?? My car chugged into the petrol station last night pretty much empty and took 60.9 litres of unleaded(even thought he car manual says 58 litres) at a cost of £53.
How much petrol/diesel does car take!? also what car has the biggest tank?
Cheers
Lee Read more
Not enough! My Morgan 3 wheeler only holds 3.5 gallons, with the last half gallon not really usuable. Ok so it does 45mph driven carefully but for a car without a proper gauge, you do enter worry mode quite early. (I have a gauge of sorts - a stick with notches in it!).
I would be grateful for any tips/advice on the following.
The vehicle is a 92 (J Plate) 1.4 Merit (SOHC & FI) with 138,000 miles (true) and regularly serviced and well maintained.
The first problem is the instumental panel orange warning light (engine block symbol) is now on continuosly with the engine running. The engine is quite 'chuggy' at idle and seems prone towards running hot (fan cutting in more often even with January temps). The engine starts fine and there is no noticeable loss of power. I have heard horror stories of dealers reading fault codes and then causing the customer to spend successive big cheques progressing through a list of possible causes rather than achieving a technically accurate and cost effective diagnosis. I would like to get tot he bottom of this without funding the foreign holiday of the dealer principal.
The second problem is that quite an oil leak has developed, appearing around the underside of the distributor. Has anyone tackled this before and is it straight forward?
Many Thanks.
:-)
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i see, thanks for clarifying.
mac
Hi,
I have a 1999/'V' Reg. Ford Focus 2.0 Zetec Ghia 16v with 84,500 on the clock. I am going to get the camshaft drive belt changed although the Ford Warranty & Service Guide supplied with it shows the replacement (I am assuming I have a Zetec-SE), recommended change at 100,000 / 10 years whichever is sooner.
(Having had a failed cambelt on a previous car before the recommended replacement mileage, I am not prepared to take any chances)
Also, from what I can make out in the Service Guide, the Auxilliary Drive Belt should be changed (PAS pump/Air Con). Am I correct in thinking there are two seperate belts, (aux and cam belt)?
The car will also need a new rocker cover gasket fitting.
Anyway question is, what do you think a fair price (all inclusive parts & labour) would be at a franchised Ford dealer (Dagenham Motors) around the Byfleet area, and importantly, do I need any ancilliaries fitted with the cam belt, like tensioners etc...?
Thanks in advance
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Also agree with TVM, either Ford Rapidfit or Ford dealer service dept.
I know that Cambelts are a pretty hot subject for most of us, due I guess to the massive costs involved when one breaks.
I have a Citroen C5 2.0 HDI (110 BHP) that has currently done 34,000 miles. Citroen recommend replacing the belt at 100,000 miles and this is personally backed-up by the Chief Mechanic at my local Citroen agents. He has told me that 100,000 miles is a safe figure to use.
Haynes quote the change mileage as 72,000 for the HDI, but suggest that "to be safe" its a good idea to change it at 36,000.
Can anyone give me some advice on this one please as i'm currently at 34,000....do i swap in 2,000 miles time, or wait till 72,000?
Or do I, as Citroen seem to be suggesting, stay calm until 100,000? (cant imagine i would get much sympathy if it broke at 99,000 miles)
What experiences have people had? anyone successfully done the 100,000....anyone had a breakage at a lower mileage?
I would expect big damage?
Cheers, Trev
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Hi
My C5 2.0 HDI did 100K without any drama. I had the Timing belt changed at Euro Car Care Derby. They pointed out that the water pump had already dome 100k and would have done 200K by the time the next belt change was due.
Even though it may not be leaking now, with the new belt installed and all parts torqued up to factory settings, will it last more than 20 or 30K? I had my water pump changed with the cam belt and alternator belts etc as a precaution. We've had various peugeots diesels in our family over the years and two of them had water pumps leaking at about 120K.
I have recently bought a MkIV VW Golf S (51 reg)thats done 50k miles.
About 5 minutes after leaving home today the Exhaust Emission warning light started blinking, then after a couple minutes of blinking it stayed lit up and it hasnt gone away.
Does anyone have any idea of why this would happen? The manual says that it could be something to do with a Lambda probe fault?
Is there any way I can confirm what exactly is wrong with it?
The car generally seemed to be running fine but I am a bit worried that this is going to get expensive. Read more
Hi - My emission light issues were solved in my Golf (mk4 GTi 1.8T) with a cleaning of the MAF sensor (or replacement depending on circumstances) and also the cleaning of the throttle bodies.
The efficiency of the two lead to triggering the emissions light. Not an expensive fix either!
HTH
Michael
Can somebody advise please!!
I have just bought a used w reg focus estate.
Problem is it has some stone chips on the front that i want to touch up but all i know is the colour is silver.
Can anybody tell me where the colour code plate is(if they still have them)please because i cant seem to find it under the bonnet.
If there isn't a colour plate can anybody tell me how I find out the colour code??? Thanks
{Subject header amended to make less vague. DD} Read more
Mine is just under the air intake too.
It says A8 and I was told by the paint sprayer bloke that that was the paint code.
My daughter has a 1.4 Corsa (04 Reg) and I am about to start the suggested 6 month oil change regime suggested on here. Vauxhall can do the annual services and I will do intermediate changes for her.
On looking in the book it lists 10W-30 or 10W-40 and ACEA A3.
What is a reasonably priced oil for this - the car does 3-4k per year - yes I know she was crazy buying a new car but it was her decision. Read more
With the Corsa's 20,000 mile or I believe now, 2 year service interval, if your daughter was doing 12,000 to 20,000 miles per year I could understand you doing an intermediate oil change, but you will be changing the oil every 1,500 to 2,000 miles. Unless she is doing nothing but sub-5 mile journeys I think this is a bit excessive. My wife's Corsa does the same annual mileage & I stick to the annual oil change during the dealer service where the Vauxhall dealer uses 10W-40 semi-synthetic oil. Admittedly her car does a lot of 20 to 30 mile round trips, but infrequently. If the car is doing nothing but very short journeys in town the handbook suggests you use a fully synthetic oil.
Considering changing the pump on an 03 Fiesta TDCI 1.4. It looks easy enough to get to, but having never done a power steering pump before was wondering if it needed any special bleeding or if there was a specific procedure that needed to be followed.
Kinda disappointed that its already playing up on a 3 year old car with 37,000 miles. Ive owned lots of cars, 10 years old with mileage well over 100,000 and never had to change a power steering pump before. Read more
I did say it was a hope 8-).
Until I see leaks, I am going to leave it. If it happens again I will try just topping up while its running as the fluid I drained out looked ok so probably didn't even need to be drained.
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I have a 2001 Astra 1.7 DTI on which the clutch is silkily smooth after 60000 miles of female use, but my Corsa always had a juddery clutch. Had the Corsa engine out for other problems and looked at the clutch, which looked like new. Slave cylinder fine.
I know that other people on the internet say it's because Vauxhall used cheap rubbish materials, but I wonder if they chose a hard material on purpose because they knew the likely abuse such a clutch in a low end car was likely to get....