August 2006
I have been asked to sell a company Vauxhall Vectra. This is a duelfuel petrol / LPG car, manufactured as such by Vauxhall.
Is there a premium for such vehicles in London where the driver can be exempt of the Congestion Charge fee?
There is a saving of approx £2,000 pa to the right commuter ... a sum not to be sneezed at!
Otherwise I will just take it to the nearest auction house and flog it.!!
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Hi all,
I turned the key the other day, and there was a puff of smoke and the smell of burning from under the bonnet. Starter motor knackered, no big problem, got a replacement off the scrappy. It was in very good condition, or looked it. Plugged it in, it worked fine.
Today, however, the car won't start again. Only this time there was no smoke. The connections look fine, and it WAS working and I haven't changed anything. Battery's fine.
Is this just bad luck, that the replacement starter motor has given up? I could get a third motor, even splash out on a new one, but I'd like to know if there might be an underlying cause for these failures, before another one is gone!
Any help you can give would be great! Read more
That cable is fine on the replacement motor, although it did go on the first one! I've ordered a brand new motor, will fit it this weekend. Let's just hope that doesn't go up in smoke as well....
Thanks for all your help everyone.
What's the overnight crossing like? Looks like there'd only a handful of cabins on a ship that can carry over 1800 pasengers. Read more
I used LD Lines to France in April and returned with them in July.
I had a cabin on the outward journey and had a good night's sleep. Friends of mine weren't so fortunate, but had Club Class and said they slept well on the sofas there. Indeed, they suggested that they slept better than in a cabin on Brittany Ferries.
Book Club Class and bag a sofa, and I reckon you'll sleep OK.
Whoops! I don't recommend storm chasing unless you're sure that your car is waterproof.
You could grow cress in my front passenger footwell...and there's a sloshing noise coming from somewhere! All good fun though :^D Read more
watch out for the wet leaves on the road as well, me and my Honda took a short trip to the ground on the way back from work this afternoon, prefer driving on snow!
Has anyone any idea why my friend's 1999 VW Passat Tdi has started to put oil into its water? Thanks -as always.
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Or holed heat exchanger thats sandwiched between the oil filter and the engine block.
Any suggestions how best to run-in a brand new diesel engine, with tiptronic gearbox, when you've got to do a 900-mile motorway journey across France the day after collecting the car..?!
I can't afford to take 3 days over the journey and pooter around.
Thks! Read more
I think this may be so people don't rev the engine too higher rather than the engine braking being bad for the engine.
www.thedieselstop.com/contents/getitems.php3?Break...e
3. DO drive the engine at varying RPMs and speeds until about 1000 miles. The idea is to alternately heat and cool the rings under varying RPMs. Manual transmission-equipped trucks are the best for this as they typically employ engine compression to slow the vehicle during normal operation, this constantly allows for varied RPMs. This can also be done with automatic transmissions, but it requires that you manually downshift the transmission into the lower gears while driving. Typically, most people with automatic transmissions operate their vehicles in Drive or Overdrive gear positions without making these manual shifts. When their vehicle is decelerating and the speed falls below 38 mph the transmission has little influence on engine RPM. This is because the torque converter unlocks and the auto transmission does not downshift to lower gears in the same fashion that manually shifting does. My suggestion to those with auto transmissions is to find an empty parking lot in the evening, and drive back and forth across it in the lower gears. (This can be done with standard transmission trucks as well.) Each time revving her up close to redline and letting engine compression slow it back down. This gets the rings a bit hot, but the compression braking allows the pistons to cool with high oil spray flow and no fuel load. Keep doing this for a number of runs, or until boredom sets in.
Ok, it's Yank, but a diesel is a diesel...
Hi,
I am currently costing out moving to the country and need to look at the running costs of a car to get me into work.
I will be 33 away from work so its a total of about 330 a week. About 18 are dual carriageway, but my problem is the 12 miles each way that are on twisty country roads, up near to the moors in Northumberland. During the winter these are bad roads.This area gets snowed in about 10 days every year.
What would people recommend. I need the following in order
Needs to be good in snow and ice
Good running costs
Easy availablity to spares
Can I drive it comfortably - I am 6 foot 2
I havenot got a budget but I am looking at at under 12 months old.
Thanks In advance
Baz
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Mildly left field, but what about a Series 2 Land Rover? You'd need to spend about £4k, and leave it on a trickle charger in winter, and keep it under cover. No RFL to pay, classic insurance of about £100 pa, and great for trips to the tip etc. It would hold its price, and do the job when needed. That way you could have something fun for the days that the sun shines.
just a quick question on the rain sensative wipers....
when on 'auto' they seem to work fine and speed up/slow down where necessary. but every now and again dont seem to sit properly when they reach the bottom. Theres a kind of judder and a click from the relay. Is there a way of reparing this or does it need the relay?
thanks Read more
Sorry to hear of your woes. In the case of SWMBO's daughter's car (see previous post) my reliable indie made the guess it was the motor at fault and apparently had some arrangement with wherever he got the new motor from that he would try it and if it didn't solve the problem he would return the part. As far as I know there is no setting that you could achieve for "normal intermittent wipers" on these cars without a lot of rewiring. The system as designed either works fully or not. If you got a motor from the breakers you have the possibilty of either getting a motor that's OK but doesn't solve the problem, or a motor that's duff. It does seem to be a bit of an issue with 306s. If it was me I might take the chance and get a new motor. Best of luck, anyway. Let us know what happens.
For a new shape vectra, 2.0DTI, about 60k miles, 03 plate onwards.
Cheers.......... Read more
Cheers for that mate.
ive just bought a new 306 2.0 hdi and am going to service it this week. I wondered what engine oil is recommened. On my previous 1.9td i used castrol gtd magnatec
should i use fully synthetic oil with it being a more modern engine (2001) also is the oil filter any different? im planning on servicing every 6k
thanks Read more
Checking in my C5 handbook, for the 2.0 HDI engine, if the car has no particle filter, you could also use Quartz Diesel 7000 10W-40.
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There was an article in Autocar 26 July page 41, regarding this topic, and they concluded proper factory conversions were selling at a premium of about 600 GBP.