Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

LydiaJ

So far today we have had gales with normal rain, wind with downpour, normal rain, still & dry but cloudy, brilliant sunshine, and now hail and more wind. What's next, I wonder?

John_Pierpoint

My previous car was a Toyota 1.6 petrol.
It was 11 years old when I sold it for £400 plus some payment in kind goodies. Original price to me £4.5K
It had done 185k miles and had required replacement of two shock absorbers, an exhaust down pipe and a exhaust analyser in the 8 years I owned it having bought it at 65K miles. Breakdown/ let down 1 (damp penetration into the electrics)

My current car is a basic Ford Mondeo diesel.
It is 10 years old with 165k on the clock.
I bought it at 2.5 years old with 59k on the clock for £7.3k.
For the first nine years of its life nothing went wrong.:T
Unfortunately this year the fuel pump from the tank developed an intermittent fault, the symptoms were that the engine would turn off without notice.
It is a blocked fuel filter - I don't think so that was replaced 12 months ago - Yes it is, the computer says so Ford main agent idiots took 9 days to fix the real problem.

Three months later the engine started cutting out randomly.
It is the [some sort of knock] sensor - No it wasn't I got my mobile mechanic to demonstrate what the engine management system thought was the problem - Got a list of half a dozen random faults.

That is an electrical fault in the loom(s) and/or in its computer, a replacement comes out 4 figures plus fitting - Even second hand? - A second hand one has to be reprogrammed - it all links in with the other electronic functions including the key code. No point in spending well into 4 figures on a motor with a Glasses Guide value of three figures ?! I'll see what my mate xxxxxx [the guy who keeps the local taxis/hire cars on the road.] ................... Well we have got you back on the road by rewiring the loom but she now "hunts" on start up I think this translates to "we have replaced the big thick set of wiring with two smaller bundles (to avoid taking the engine out) BUT on start up the engine is now rough so we have "frigged" the computer to think everything is OK" Which it is after the engine has had five minutes to warm up, however at cold start on a frosty morning it makes my place smell like a small holding with a historic tractor.

So unless I'm allowed to warm it up for the MOT I think it will be failing the emission tests and be off to the knackers yard.

Sad really:
in the 80's we scrapped cars because the rust was not worth repairing.
in the 90's we scrapped cars because the engines were wearing out.
now in the 2000's we are scrapping cars because there are too many of them and we are being "killed" by the fumes.

Driving wise there is not a lot of difference between burning petrol and oil. The later is a heavier more reliable, cheaper to run motor - until things start going wrong.

lemonjelly

lemonjelly wrote: »

edit - was answering viva's quiz & realised that page 228 wasn't the last page when I thought it was...

Wierd. I don't quite have time to catch up on the 15 or so pages since I last logged in. Without appearing rude, can any nice peeps give an overview of what has gone on since boxing day?:)

How did chewie's dilemma resolve itself for example?

purch

Apparently it's been very windy :eek:

Wheezy_2

lemonjelly wrote: »

Wierd. I don't quite have time to catch up on the 15 or so pages since I last logged in. Without appearing rude, can any nice peeps give an overview of what has gone on since boxing day?:)

How did chewie's dilemma resolve itself for example?

Well...
Dave's friend's parrot died.
PasturesNew got an invite for a new years eve party somewhere up a hill and got phished. Her power steering also makes a grinding noise.
There was some discussion about hunting.
Lostinrates rear windscreen got broken and she visited Lydia and her husband played xbox with Lydia's kids.
That were the highlights for me, I have no idea what chewie's dilemma is.

SingleSue

I've still got my M reg Vauxhall Astra 1.7 diesel estate...purchased for £461 over 4 years ago.

This morning, the clock display decided to stop working, quick tap from James and it was working again. My rear wiper has also recently decided to start working again after 2 years of doing one swish and then falling down the back of the car...goodness knows what made it stop doing that!

My headlight stick was a bit of a pain in the harris, would go onto full beam when it decided to so they decided to fix it for the MOT....worked ok to get it through the MOT but then decided it was not going to be on normal lights rather than full beam without holding the stick while driving, took it back to garage, worked fine for them, got it home, didn't like me very much and wouldn't perform for me like it did the garage. A couple of weeks ago, James asked me to pick up some chips from Mac D's for him and the blooming thing wouldn't come off full beam even with holding the stick...I got annoyed, spoke to it rather harshly, possibly hit it a few times and now it is working exactly as it should be!

Central locking...it decides if it wants to do it or not, it tends to get offended if you slam a door and will refuse to central lock for the next week. But if it is locking centrally, you cannot unlock from the front passenger door, only the drivers door.

But all told, it is not doing too bad, now on 152k miles...I've added about 35k of that, not bad for £461 and not too excessive annual repair costs.

Mind you, we 're convinced the car is alive.....it doesn't like being told off or treated harshly.

sss555s

lemonjelly wrote: »

.....
How did chewie's dilemma resolve itself for example?

That's so last years news :cool:

Davesnave

Our old diesel Transit van suffered with computer heebie-jeebies. Suddenly, its memory would become full, so it would start to misfire, backfire and run strangely. We called this a 'nervous breakdown,' because it still functioned, but not in a controlled way.

Our 'Man' didn't have the techie stuff to fix it, so he would take it to another man who did. I think the Hi-Tech man just downloaded everything into his machine, printed it out, and that was it. We'd get the van back working normally, long incomprehensible bits of printing and a bill for £50.

I think Mr Hi Tech was onto a good thing!

vivatifosi

purch wrote: »

err.......there is always next year:eek:

You'll be fine... Once you get a new Chucky, a new Brooks, a new Allstott, a new Cadillac... On second thoughts :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:.

GDB2222

LydiaJ wrote: »

So far today we have had gales with normal rain, wind with downpour, normal rain, still & dry but cloudy, brilliant sunshine, and now hail and more wind. What's next, I wonder?

We just got back from North Norfolk. Very impressive wind and rain by the coast. We delayed our drive back until after 2PM, to let the band of rain pass through. Even so, we ran into hail and driving rain that slowed us down to 10MPH on a major A road.