Hi,

I work as a ski instructor in the winter. I've driven in the mountains a lot but I've never taken a car of my own to the mountains for the whole winter.

I was thinking of buying my brother-in-law's Range Rover. 1998, low mileage, 4.0 petrol. It's been well-maintained, so it seems like a good buy. However, somebody has put me off the idea as the car is an automatic.

He worked as a taxi driver for 20 years, and knows a fair bit about driving (well a lot more than me!!!), and said he wouldn't even consider an automatic in the mountains, as he says they are dangerous. I recall being able to have control of the gears whilst driving up steep sections is superb (would i feel so confident with an automatic?), but why dangerous?

Should I be concerned? Read more

Hi,
Sorry for the length of the tale...

Last week at 88k miles I had the cambelt changed at the main dealer who has serviced the car from new (May 04).

On collection, it drove ok until I needed to pull away quite quickly at a busy junction - it was very slow to pick up (like turbo-lag). I put this down to me not giving it enough right foot but noticed it again the following day. I was going to take it back to the dealer but that evening on a motorway run it suffered a chronic loss of power - any slight incline it could not maintain speed. I got off the motorway and found it was very feeble up to 2000rpm and then above 2000 it suffered sever juddering. I gave up and called the AA who recovered the vehicle to the dealer.

My assumption was that it was a timing issue but the dealer insists that they checked the timing, ECU etc and it was all correct. On further inspection, they found 2 cracked rocker arms which they have replaced. They have now given the car back with a clean bill of health and it seems to sound, feel and drive ok.

My questions are.....

What would cause 2 rockers to fail if it was not timing related?
What else might be damaged? and if there is anything, should I be asking for this to be checked out?
Whilst I'm very pleased that the dealer not even mention charging for the remedial work, am I being ungrateful/cynical in thinking there may be a hidden agenda here??

Having read some other posts in this forum relating to belt failures, I'm a little less anxious as it seems that if the rockers cracked as a result of a timing issue, they will presumably have saved any significant damage to pistons and valves.

Any comments will be welcome.

Thanks.
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I have been considering an MX5 for a few years now, waiting for prices to drop, and now have the opportunity to buy a 2 year old folding hardtop, which is for sale locally from a private seller, as an early wedding present for ourselves.
I shall run it as my sole car, covering less than 10k miles pa, whilst the future SWMBO has a company Passat which we normally use at weekends.
Being of short arms and deep pockets, spending this kind of money brings me out in a cold sweat. I hate to waste the time of garages many miles away asking them for their 'best price' with no p/ex, so please can anyone here provide me with Glass's private sale price.
The spec is '57, 2.0 Sport 14k miles. One careful owner in excellent condition. I may well need to buy 2 or 4 new Bridgestone Potenzas, and shall have to fit a towbar! I appreciate that prices may fall further as we go into the winter months, but probably less so for this model. Read more

I appreciate that, when it was introduced, it was to protect mostly manual workers from injury or death, caused by hazards in the workplace or even the negligence of employers. This is a good thing overall.

However, it seems to me the scope in being expanded, because otherwise those employed to enforce the rules wouldn't have that much to do.

In todays's DT I found the following which I have summarised.

1. An Army veteran, selling poppies in a shopping centre in Portsmouth, was asked to leave as he had not undergone a "Risk Assessment.

2. 2 Metropolitan police officers, despite having a spare wheel and a jack in their vehicle, had to wait 2 hours for the designated contractor to turn out and do the job for them. (This may be more a contractural issue than H&S to be fair)

3. Feeling Green, and wanting save whales or chipmunks or whatever, a couple walked 400 yards to their local waste disposal centre to get rid of some rubbish. They were told that they could only come by car as there was no approved pedestrain access. Husband left his wife and the rubbish at the entrance, went home and picked up his car, drove back to the tip and put the rubbish in, drove into the centre and unloaded it.

Any thoughts? There are plenty of other recent cases which are similar and I thing BR members are aware of them. Is this law being too rigorously interpreted and applied?
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I have been lurking on pprune.com (a forum for all parts of air travel) and have come to realise that here in the Back Room we are a very pleasant and civilised bunch of petrolheads. We rarely swear, don't use much bad language and most importantly are generally polite with each other even when we disagree violently.

Compared with pprune, which is a haven for loudmouthed know-it-alls who may know it all, but then tell you in a very (virtual) loud voice not to insult their intelligence.

So thank you all. After flirting with other fora, I always come back to my friends in the Back Room.

EIII Read more