Nobody in their right mind is paying those prices, though. If you look again in a few months time those same cars will still be listed.

Why do you want to do a compression test? It’s probably the least of the things likely to kill the car off. Regular oil changes should prevent any serious wear on the cylinders and diesel is a lubricant so it’s more of an issue on petrol cars, but things like the gearbox oil never get changed by 99% of people and a new trans will write the car off. You stand more chance of causing issues by trying to take ancient glow plugs out which can snap in the head and surely you’d be forced to buy the car off your neighbour at the point anyway?

This car is only worth it to you as a punt for an amount of money you can afford to lose without losing sleep on.

Shit. Rear in peace fella. Will wing a donation to the local rescue teams it’s the least I can do. Still find it shocking that air ambulances aren’t publicly funded as well.

For some reason I feel like you’re quietly alluding to the fact it’s had an EGR/DPF delete, is that the case?

If so, unless he’s been taking it to somewhere dodgy, it’s increasingly unlikely it’ll pass an MOT as it’s an instant fail to remove components from the emissions system.

At that mileage I’d pay no more than I’d be willing to lose the next day without batting an eyelid. Just because it’s cheaper than any others on eBay doesn’t automatically make it a good deal.

It’s a good engine which can last a very long time and if it’s been properly serviced and you have evidence of that it could be fine, but everything will be wearing out in it and one bill will effectively write the car off at that mileage I would say. The EGR cooler or DPF or clutch or injectors could shit the bed tomorrow and it would be uneconomical to bother fixing.

How many miles and what price?

Smoke from the oil cap isn’t necessarily a major issue depending how much there is, some oil will always be burned while running.

Honestly, anything more than superficial weight loss takes years. It requires acceptance of spending long portions of most days feeling a low level hunger and not quite feeling satisfied by what you’ve eaten so far that day. You should be going to bed not hungry, but not really ‘satisfied’ either.

The sad reality is that 90% of weigh loss fails either to lose it in the first place or to keep it off for more than a year or two.

I speak from experience. If you’d asked me mid last year when id shifted about 12kg I’d have said actually weight loss is pretty easy once you have it figured out, but actually it’s keeping the mentality for a long time that is the hard part.

A month or two or progress or no progress is virtually meaningless either way.

Extremely likely to be fake – don’t buy chains on eBay or Amazon.

Crankshaft or camshaft sensor potentially. Probably into guessing games and parts cannon time at this point unless you get a really good auto electrician who can actually diagnose things logically with a scope and voltmeter.

The cracked cement sheet holding the pointing up is called under cloaking, you can buy this from builders merchants. That then supports the mortar pointing, make sure you don’t use a very wet mix or it’ll shrink when it dries and fall out!

Re: dry ridges they are lower maintenance but still have habit of blowing off in high winds and they don’t look as nice in my opinion.

I’ve had a sawyer mini for years but never used it. For some reason part of me still thinks it’s incredibly risky to use unless I was dying in the field and had no choice. Water borne illnesses are really no fun and can cause lifelong complications if you get unlucky and the disgusting state of our watercourses in recent years fills me with dread.

Am I being over cautious?

Thanks. None of those at all yet on 124k although the previous owner maybe had it replaced, who knows.

How do you know when the EGR goes?

I have the same engine in a 2015 Passat on 124,000 miles and it still runs nicely and the DPF is only 61% full. Mix of short urban and occasional long motorway runs keeps it clear.

Ice said that now though so it’ll probably explode on the way home.

As mentioned water pumps aren’t the best so allow for that and get the timing belt changed at the same time as it’s right there.

Just came back from a week in Krakow, Poland. They are understandably much more concerned than we are over here about the imminent threat posed by Russia to wider Europe. I wouldn’t say they are convinced war is coming but they are taking absolutely no chances in preparing for it over the next ten years.

They’ve built fortifications along the border with Belarus, created a drone defence system along their border, and have upped their defence spending to 4% of GDP.

We were stuck on the tarmac yesterday for a while before taking off because they temporarily closed Polish airspace for some military movement and the night before they had been conducting huge F16 and AWACS patrols along the whole eastern airspace corridor to prevent russian missiles crossing over the Polish border on the way to Ukraine like they did earlier this year.

A lot of funny business has been going on like a large arson attack on a shopping centre in Warsaw which they said they can’t rule out russian state sponsored terrorism, and removing the border buoys from the river in Narva, Estonia but that sort of thing doesn’t seem to be getting reported much at home.

“Found that unwatchable”

Same, too fever-dreamy for me

I went back to manual from 4 years in a DSG auto and it came straight back to me but every time I drive it I can’t help but think about how pointless manual gearboxes are on most cars.

Nope, neither hardtail nor full suspension.

They don’t look like that to the naked eye, but they still look impressive.

Mine did something similar and a damper service sorted it.

Try changing the gearbox oil first

“cannot plan anything vaguely fun”

Where are these fun roads you speak of?

I’m not sure why you would want to do that but your best bet is probably to set Google maps to avoid motorways then add a few waypoints along the way until you have more or less the route you want.

Christ. Stop hanging about and just call the number on the meter, that’s what they’re there for. Even a small leak could accumulate in a pocket of the house somewhere.

How clean does clean have to be? We are inherently dirty as a species just by our existence.

One day we’ll probably create the technology to clean up radiation or something.

Because this is the UK, people who abuse their position of power are protected.

“We had to transfer the family car to my Mrs because I can’t afford to insure it.”

This would really screw us over because I drive for work. The industry needs a big shake up, the silly part is that some insurers are seemingly making a loss so nobody is really winning out of all this.

Over a year on and this still isn’t settled – i’ve had letters from my insurer stating they believe i am not at fault and confirmed if i wanted to move to another insurer they will provide proof of my NCB being unaffected.

I’ve had my full payout some time ago now but my insurer still haven’t had any money off the other party so are out of pocket and have instructed solicitors to take them to court (them being the driver, not their insurer as i understand it…).

Doesn’t that just cost everyone involved far more money??

No wonder premiums are going up and up.

Isn’t the point of a sealed cartridge bearing to throw it away and replace it once it gets like that? If it’s already got manky inside the seal has already failed.

Nobody buys a 35k car do they? Surely almost all of those will be owned by company lease schemes.

I mean, the video could be CGI rather than an actual robot being filmed?

Sounds daft but CGI is incredibly convincing now

Download a car

Usually the lease company pays all road tax, but yes good point none the less.

Yeah, if I’m honest, this weather is killing me slowly. Body and mind just don’t work properly when faced with prolonged winter conditions.

It’s a build to order company, build dates are an estimate and with the huge number of options available and a recent sale it’s bound to take longer than you might want.

Should they be answering emails all day or getting on building your bike? Or hiring more staff solely to answer emails and significantly raising their prices to pay for them.

Haven’t you more or less just said the same thing I have?

Can the iron dome not just destroy these Shithead drones or whatever they’re called the second they arrive anyway? This seems like a massive non-story.

Not something I’ve ever thought about, mine are 7 years old and have been through crashes, DH hammering, lack of regular cleaning, sweat and bashing off the garage walls regularly.

It should be replaced at their cost. If they’re even slightly hesitant at that it would be the last time id use that place as I can’t even work out how they’d strip the threads when chasing them.

What’s the consensus on EV Vauxhall stuff? This seems a tempting price

https://leasing.com/independent-brokers/leasing-options-limited/vauxhall/astra/L0102610000012948977/