The battery was flat in the remote control key to car. A friend took the battery out and told me to get it replaced. Now on enquiring from Halfords, apparently unless the battery is replaced with new one within 10 minuites, all the programme data is wiped off and key will need reprogramming. On looking at costs, it seems this could be £100 + via main dealer. Is there a cheaper solution please?

Read more

Got a VW polo 2002-2005 model, 1.2 petrol engine, chain driven oil pump and the car has covered 70k miles. Was driving along and the oil pressure warning light came on, along with quite a large loss of power having to rev it more than usual.

So far, I've done the obvious things; changed the oil and filter and changed the oil pressure switch which made no difference and didn't put out the light. In fact I had left the car for a day after I carried out the changes and the car stalled twice which was quite unusual. Trying to find the problem I removed the sump, the oil in there had no sign of any bearing wear (I was told little bits of metal would be present in the sump if this happened) and removed the oil pump. Inspected and took apart the pump, cleaned all the parts including the pick up, strainer and pressure relief valve and all looked ok so fitted the pump back on. Managed to borrow a friends oil pressure gauge and tried that out and now it hasn't got any pressure at all.... Read more

Dad's 2005 Peugot 206 1.4 has developed an annoying and potentially dangerous fault where although the switch is off, the headlights turn themselves on and off at random. This first occurred 2 or 3 years ago and he took it to a local independent garage. They thought it might be the automatic lights and said they had disabled them. Well, as far as I can see the car does not have automatic lights, and never has, and the fault remained! It cleared itself some weeks later.

The fault has now recurred. Fiddling with the stalk and the wiring and thumping the general area has no effect, which made me think originally that it was not a simple switch fault. When the driver's door is opened, even with the lights off, there is a two-tone warning sound which I think is the lights-on warning, and the battery runs down over a period of days, suggesting something is ON, though nothing seems to be. When the ignition key is turned after the car has been idle, the dash display shows "ECO-MOD" which is the annoying mode it goes into to save battery power if you try to use the radio for more than 20 minutes without running the engine!

Now, in addition, the indicator flashers are not functioning, whick makes me think that possibly the fault IS in the switch after all. Does this seem a reasonable deduction?

I don't have a manual, but is replacement a straightforward job (or a steering-wheel/airbag-off nightmare)? Read more

Just bought a 2005 Focus Ghia 1.6 (100) with 59k on clock. All previous service history was perfect before last owner, but last owner had the car just over 2 years (14k miles driven), but never changed the oil or serviced it, just drove it. It was fully serviced just before he bought it. The car was very clean throughout, but I noticed the oil was low, so I got it changed as soon as I bought it. I really don't think the car has been abused, just the previous owner was clueless regarding regular servicing. The car drives lovely, no power loss etc, but I am a little concerned about the sound of the engine from cold. When revved, especially noticeable when the engine loses revs, it sounds like there is a lot of what sounds like tappet/cam noise. This goes completely when warm, but it just bugs me that the lack of oil change may have caused some starvation at the top end and caused premature wear. The video is from a cold start, taken from my smartphone, so not ideal. Can anyone tell from this what this could be? Thanks.... Read more

I have had a 320D Auto from new, now done 65K miles.

It had a new Turbo at 48K and last year I had the EGR replaced which transformed the performance.... Read more