Cougar, does it realy matter whether it 1.6, 2.1, 2.2 or 2.3. My sony erricson updated to 2.1 a while ago from 1.6 and can’t say its drastically improved my life. To the average user, im willing to bet that having the latest software is little more than bragging rights….

Spinning that argument around boblo, you knowingly chose to go on an airplane which might have children on board. ‘course you dont have to go on holiday mind……

Any one know where to get the zip replaced on the phantom II? Mines just fell apart after about 18 months and id hate to replce it just because of a broken zip.

Fluid level a bit low? My deores did this a little while ago, needed pumping to get the power and even then it wasnt a great deal. Turned out to be the fluid level had dropped, topped them up and all hunky dory.

We had a hideous couple of weeks, but as other’s said it passes. What we did was give each other a night off 1 or 2 days a week. My misuss would sleep all night through whist i would look after our daughter all night, then we would swap duties on another night. The rest of the time we would take turns during the night shift. That one night a week of good sleep just took the edge of things. Manitaianed this until she started sleeping though, which was quite early.

On a positive note, i found i could function quite happily on 4 hours sleep a night, which is always good to know.

Going back to my uber horsepower nissan, i’d been tinckering with the fuel map to the point where the injectors were dumping huge amount of fuel into the manifold when you lifted off the loud pedal. The result was about 12 foot of flame out the rear. Had a tailgater follow me into a corner in 30 mph zone, all of 4 foot off my bumper. The flames probably reached his faux cosworth spoiler on the back of his car, certainly went over his windscreen. He backed way off then.

And touching the brake pedal is a big no-no. Gernerally if the driver is that close, they are looking in front of the car they are tailgating. A hint of lights and they often panic brake or they get conditioned to seeing the brake lights and cease to pay attention to them. Bit like the fella who cried wolf

It would be worth getting the temparature checked using a proper thermometer too (im assuming that you havent, although as you have been prescibed antibiotics you may have been to the quacks), i have an in ear one and it usually reads a good 2 degrees above a calibrated device.

I rode in -12 on the south downs, 3/4 shorts too. Once you get going its no problem, but that depends on the induvidual realy. My feet need to wrapped up, but i found i could use long fingered summer gloves without suffering. I since moved to assos winter things, rated down to +6 and found them too warm at -7.

Cant say i was that wowed by it. Watched avatar and like the poster above the petal effects and the ash effest stood out. The other scenes confused me a bit, the only part that was 3D was what the director wanted to be 3D, so when i focused on something else and it wasn’t 3D it seemed wrong. There was a bit where the Heroes were in jail, the bars were 3D, but the rest of the scene wasn’t. Just looked like a pop up book.

It will probably improve as time goes by, hopefully the glasses will go by the wayside too.

But its all just willy waving, “I managed to get in through 4 foot of snow and a polar bear was eating my left testical…grrrrr”.

Our work consider driving one of the most hazardous things to do, we had about 5 inches in the forest and they shut the office. Anyone that did turn up fanced a verbal warning. I’ve driven in worse and had no doubt about my abilities to drive in them, but many other drivers seemed to stuggled with the concept of driving in the snow (although in fairness snow is a very rare occurence in these parts).

I had a snow day, brilliant it was too. Toasty toes by the log burner after building snow men and snow ball fights.

To say that Surf_Mat mums car is a lifestyle choice is a bit of an oversimplification of the problem. The increased use of the car has allowed poeple to scatter far and wide, If you were deny the use of a car to poeple such as care nurse who go out on visits, you going see a lot of suffering and i dont mean not having someone to open a jar of picles for them when they need it. The commnuity spirit has long been lost, so you cant say “change your job” as someone would need to step in. Course you could move the poeple closer to the support, but thats feels/sounds a bit draconian.

Good point molgrips, a step in the right direction for sure. Its something that is encouruaged at my wifes work (Enviroment agency), but not mine (Multinational Oil company) despite a majority of my work easlily carried out at home. Again, there might be a generation thing, my bosses are mostly old school and tend to frown on home working, despite having the ability and the specific budget to allow people to do this. Maybe its the companies that are resisting the initiative to move to home working?

I feel like a adult having to have a parent to parent conversation over shouty kids. Play nice or i’ll tell you father when he gets in, then there will be trouble…

You’ve answered your own question there molgrips, its all to do with the ballot box. Thanks to the gutter press, the impression given is that the motorist is targeted as a cash cow and is hard done by, any direct measures that openly targeted motorists would be seen as another attack on the motorist. Since most of the voters are motorists, that would easily sway the ballot box come voting time. For the same reason, i doubt we will see a constructive policy on reducing car use from any goverment, at least not one that is long lived (Goverment or policy).

TJ – Bang on. I think the cost of motoring is starting to rise, slowly but surely. For instance, my first car was a 3.5ltr petrol guzzler. If i got more than 20mpg, i’d be surprised. And yet i could afford to run it then, whilst now, despite now earning many multiples of my salary then i ceratinly couldn’t afford it now. The VED has changed, which i think is a bit of a con linking it to emissions, but ultimately its is more expensive for the average joe. The price rises may not be crippling at present, but the infrastructure is in place to make it so. The polices may not be upfront, but i believe its happening at a very sublte level. For instance, in a very general way that more people are commuting by bike, im seeing more on the roads, particulary in the summer. More people are looking at diesels, rather than petrol cars (which is a bit of a false ecomomy) but at least poeple are thinking about it. 20 years ago, and i’m willing to bet that the MPG of a car wasn’t at the forefront of most peoples minds, but now…..How many people are having ask themselves wether a hour commute by car is really worth it (theres been a few threads on here i believe). Most teenagers now buzz around on mopeds/scooters, i cant think of any of my freinds during school that used scooters.

As you said the change can’t happen overnight, it took gererations to build this dependancy, it will take the same to remove it. Remove the car over night and people such as my dad mentioned above will have a very tough time indeed.

Junkyard – Dammit, given the game away. Oh well, now you know, could you leave the light next time, night vision goggles are dammed uncomfortable, Ta.

Junkyard – you could say that about many things, clothes for example. You don’t need clothes to keep warm, but try and live without them….

Mind you, living near the fens there appear to be a few people that have adopted just that kind of lifestyle.

The plus side is the amout of daily mail readers that would implode through indignant rage.

Junkyard – i gave an example above, admittedly im not a “charmless fop” though

TJ – I lived in rural norfolk for most of my teenage years, my family have lived there for generations (i dont have 6 toes either….). Up untill i was about 12 (about 20 years ago) we did not have a car, we had no need. However, the need became more apparent when it was proving more and more difficult to get the day to day things, thanks to the gradual erosion of local amenities (butchers, bakers, etc) and a transport system to connect them. The current situation is that the local shops are now 9 miles away, with a bus service that runs a bus to the village once at 8 in the morning and once more at 5ish in the evening (might be a bit later). He tried to ride a bike there some years ago, however arthritic joints make holding on to the bars painful/dangerous and he gave up.

Now, your right he could move closer to the local services, but he cant afford too as the prices of housing around the amenities is disproportionate to the rest of the area.

I have no love for cars, generally think the time spent in them is dead time and commute some 30 miles a day by bike, but for many they essential, having lived in Londaon for a while i was amazed at the choice of transport options, but equally puzzeled by many residents opinion that public transport is just as good in the rurla areas (with the exception of the tube obviously). It just isn’t.

I’m keen to see what TJ says about this “non car owners” subsiding the car owners, although a realise that by asking him to substantiate this claim its handing the saop to him.

And im with Surf on the rural commuities, for some places there just isnt a choice about car ownership this day and age.

Luminous,

Got any details of that S1 light? It looks like a self contained unit is that so?

Scrtach that, all info (and pitures) on the website

Dude, if you like the light then fair enough, but if the reasons above are the only justification id say its a bit biased. Fairly certain Exposure ticks all of those boxes too…

Mine did the same albeit at -12, but i hadn’t serviced it in 3 years. I guess its a trade off between the internals being water tolerant and having uber tight seals. My hope hubs haven’t frozen, but if water gets inside them, its game over for the bearings.

I made a load of those fire bricks with shredded files from work, burn okay but make a hell of a lot of ash. I’d say you’d struggle to use them as the sole fuel though.

I can’t work out wether im a failed succes or a succesful failiure.

Thing is, you just know that special77 is going to pop back on this thread and say “Ohh, i knew that comment would get a few backs up…”

He probably stares in the mirror in the morning chanting “Your a winner”

The fact that the information exposed on the wikileaks site has generated so much reaction from the various global goverments makes the information so much more credible. Im sure much of what has been said on wikileaks has been said on many a webpage, but few have had the same effect.

Somethings stinks about this.

You can tell special77 is no engineer with statements such as “Cars aren’t precision made”. Jeez, theres a man with no understanding of anything mechanical, the kind that James May often bangs on about.

As for his statement about not earning over 35k and considering his life a failure? Pure trolling.

Like i say its very easy to check the ECU. The OBD standard was introduced from 2001 for petrol european/american cars and 2004 for diesel (Asian cars have been using it before these dates, but the introduction was a bit hap-hazard). The plug on my car is by the fuse box in the driver footwell (you dont even have to open the fuse box), simply plug gerneric OBD device in, turn ignition on and your connected to the ECU.

As for checking wether its the correct map, a simple checksum query would do this. If the map deviates from the manufactures standard by as much as 1 byte, then you get a different checksum figure. The manufactures could easily provide the checksums for approved ecu maps(includng any manufactures performance maps), if the checksum doesn’t match the car it is in used then it fails.

All in all, the process would be no harder than the current emmissions test, in fact it would be simpler in the case of my car, where you have to take the bonnet off to access the engine bay. To get to the OBD connector, you just have to open the driver door.

I’d have thought that a ECU map that deviates from the manufactures map would be made illegal, its very easy to read and modify the map, ive done it a few times myself. As i say, the adoption of ODB makes it very easy. Hell, you can even get an app for you phone that will read the ECU faults codes.

The combination of engine/chassis is irrelevant, the ECU map is usualy different between models despite sharing the same engine.

Maybe the emmisions will get tighter, so that a faulty/dirty injector will fail an MOT, whilst an modified map maynot not identlfiable, if it fails the MOT then wether the ECU is illegal or not its moot point.

I would imagine that this would apply to new cars, most of which dont have carbs (and by that i dont include single point fuel injection), so carb’d cars may be made exempt.

I’m not convinced that his will come to pass, but i can see how it would be done.

I agree, MOT stations will not have all the equipment to connect the various manufactures, although the adoption of ODBII & CANBUS throughout the car industry might make a universal conecter possible.

I suspect it could be implemented via emissions though, im certain my car doesn’t meet the origianl manufactures spec with regard to emmisions, but it passes the MOT test easliy.

I should add that i have only seen a letter of proposal presented to a MOT station, ive yet to see any actaul evidence of it being implemented. Its also all over the car forums like a rash.

Aye they are illegal, although mine have yet to fail an MOT. However, its worth noting that in jan 2012 that there are some changes due to the MOT, where non-standard HID will fail the MOT as well as non standard ECU maps.

They do improve visability no end and they dont dazzle oncoming drivers any more than Halogens, if adjusted properly.

No idea on the spraying thing though.

I love riding in the snow, but i did bail out on the commute yesterday. I walked up to the “main” road, watched as two cars failed to stop at the roads and slithered across the junction and ended up on the opposite side, followed by another car turning right, which lost grip and then mounted the pavement again on the opposite side of the road. They were all travelling too fast for the conditions and I didn’t feel comfortable with sharing the road with idiots like that, paticulary when you see some of the cars driving around with 7 inces of snow on the car and just a little porthole cleared in the windscreen for them to see out of.

Still, a day off work allowed me to go proper riding in the afternoon. Riding in the snow rocks!

I saw the new at the bike show, travelis up by 10mm (150/160mm). Looks a bit more burlier in places, major difference is the rear end as it can now take bolt through axle or QR depending on your fancy.

Mines built up on the burlier side, Magura Wotans, Flow rims, double ply tyres, but then im of burlier build myself and got fed up with breaking stuff.

Love my 09 tracer, only problem i had is with the grease nipples. No biggy, just replaced the bearings with the sealed version.

TheSwede, tell me more about the the 10mm axle conversion…..

Depends on how “warm” the engine is. If its at operating temparature, then the glowplugs aren’t required, but anything below operating temparature and the plugs will be on to a greater or lesser extent.

The glow plug light coming on whilst teh engine is running usually means a faulty glow plug or connection to them. The symptoms seem to confirm that too.

Audi A2 will take a couple of bikes with ease, although you cant get a A2 younger than 5 years old now and i doubt it would come within your budget, particulary if you wanted the diesel.

null

There you go.

I believe there is a website that specializes in selling used car seats, not sure what it is though.

Its one of the things that bugs me about car seats, we used a second hand one from a freind, but obviously it was a from a trusted source. You’d think the manufactures would use some kinda of indicator to show that the car seat had undergone excessive decellaration. We use “shock watches” at work which turn red to indicate the level of G a unit has experienced, something aong those lines.

For the record, Britax Evolva. We have seat in the garage for infants upto 4 years, we never used it as it didnt secure that well. It has a system that clamps on to the seat belt which had a habit of working lose. By comparison the Evolva doesn’t budge at all.

Its very circular, because of how they mount you couldn’t have a differing beam pattern from side to side compared to top to bottom. The circlar body clips in to the mount and can be rotated within the clip easy enough. This would apply to the joystick, as it uses the same mounting hardware. Something like the Strada has a dipped optics, but the position of the mounting point is fixed relative to the optics.

I’d say the diablo, although the beam is quite narrow comparedto the Maxx-D or the six pack. Its certainly bright enough to use on its own, although thats a bit subjective. The beam spread is broader than the joystick though. I have both btw, albeit the previous versions.