You’ll need to add 100 quid a month to that figure at least to get anything decent and you can forget leasing at that price and doing 15k a year. By the way it took me an hour to change the turbo pipe on my mondeo tdci , the pipe was about 60 quid from my local ford dealer. 500 quid seems very steep to me. Sounds like they have used you as a bit of a cash cow over the last two yrs.

As much as I am fond of our last remaining cat,a female who is about 14yrs old now. She is a wildlife killing machine. Pigeons to rabbits even bloody brings frogs in. Brings in mice then lets the buggers go in the house! Wants a chin rub then decides to take your arm off when she’s had enough. What finally persuaded us to let her out was the chasing and playing with her turds from the cat litter tray on the living room carpet!!!! We will not be getting another one.

That does look very nice. You can’t take it with you and we only get one shot. Go for it and hammer the price down or walk away and look for another one. Plenty about.

Sometimes you can get a slight nip on the supply pipe to the injector but it’s probably the return pipe to the filter, they can enbrittle with age and leak a bit. Molegrips who is making the injectors for VW now. Did they switch over to Bosch. I love the way diesels drive and would love to think that there is a higher mileage diesel out there that is reliable for a used car, circa 3 to 4 yrs old. What type of DPF are VW using these days. According to Honest John Nissan/Renault have the DPF problem licked on the new 1.6dci’s. Moving it really close to the cylinder head to enable the DPF to run at much higher temperatures thus extending it’s efficiency and lifespan considerably.

Treat it to some new bushes etc and maybe a set of boots or even a new set of decent shocks will transform it. What bhp is that year of S3 ?

Its better to let the cat do what’s natural for them ie roam etc. They tend to stick to a territory around the house. In my opinion its selfish to keep cats in for your own piece of mind. They would rather roam etc and take their chances. It was apparent from a few weeks old that both our cats would have to be let out cos they drove us mad.

You could get a golf 2.0 Gti 5dr for that sort of money now. That’s a 12yr old car for 4.5k. Service history more important than mileage at that age. Due for a cam belt if it hasn’t had one already at that age.

See if there is a good garage scheme run by your local council and check the feedback. The only job I still won’t trust to any garage is an oil change because I can’t see what stuff they are putting in. Takes me about an hr to change the oil and filter on the Skoda. That’s jacking it up taking the undertray off etc. Independants tend to use generic oil in 50 gallon drums. Doubt they buy 50 gallons of fully synthetic 5w 30 just for the high performance cars they occasionally do. VAG cars tend to be very specific about the spec of oil they use. It’s imperative to use the right stuff.

Still having prob’s with injectors so I hear. Maybe its just the Siemens ones and they haven’t got round to changing them all yet. Time will tell. Lad at work had a 1.9 GTTDI. One injector for that was 700 quid. I think it was one of the cam driven ones.

If you don’t need the bosses and upstance then that means you could make it out of stock plate. Stainless plate is gash and would need machining down to get a decent finish, but its cheap. You could use a couple of stainless nuts instead of the threads. If your not bothered about the scalloped shape any little machine shop would turn those out for you if you take BEER.

For only two off the set up costs for water jet cutting or wire erosion would be prohibitive. Profile milling on a cnc mill bolting through the two holes and through the tapped holes on a tooling plate would be the way to go. Take a few points on a CMM then send a cad file to the Cnc mill. 1hr to set and program and about 15 mins to mill. Add in cost of stainless plate and admin and your probably looking at £50 each at least. Laser cutting won’t leave the upstance around the slot or the material for the threaded holes, that will have to be milled away unless you change the design. You need a mate who works in a toolroom!

Get a new filter delphi or bosch. Cut the old one open on the return side and check for brass debris. If it’s clear then hopefully it’s not the pump. Get a leak off test done and make sure your present when they do it. You’ll understand why. It’s so easy for a garage to fudge a test and get you replacing all four. I paid 50 quid to get one done just to make sure and only no 2 injector was clear. Very common for this age of car with this injection system. How many early common rail tdci’s do you see on the road, not many. The earlier TDDI was apparently the one to go for. I feel your pain cos when they are running they are a joy. No dpf to worry about, cam chain engine and a million times better to drive than a Passat. VW injectors are 700 quid but they rarely go wrong unless they are the new piezio ones. Still having problems with those ones. It’s not the glow plugs you’ll only waste more money.

Walk down any street in Paris and I bet you can’t find a single car that isn’t bashed or thumped. I just think they are not as precious as we are about cars and they are simply tools to get from a to b. If the car breaks down its just an excuse not to go to work.

I was told by a mate who worked for Jaguar as a mechanic that the refurbed ones were a bit hit or miss so they only ever fitted new Delphi ones. Same engine in jag as mondy. Every garage I went to advised to get shot before it failed altogether but I held on too long till the point where turning a corner would load the engine with the power steering and it would go into limp mode.

I have just sold a mondeo for spares or repair. 2004 with 110k on it. Injectors one three and four gone. Was told that i may as well replace the four. About 800 for parts and labour. Thats a lot of money to spend on an old car. Why have the injectors failed? Could the pump be braking down blocking injectors. If so that’s another grand. Could the common rail be full of crap from the pump ready to block my lovely new injectors. To risky for me to take a chance. By the way I have to say that when it was running it was the best car I’ve ever had. Unless I get a company car that’s me and diesel finished. Got an 04 Octavia vrs 38mpg on a run and so far reliable.

Get the filter cut open and check for any debris on the return side of the filter. Hope you get it running again. Miss mine every day for biking purposes. What can you get that compares these days.

Vauxhalls of this era had tensioners that were made from cheese so the cambelt needs changing every 40k with a complete cambelt kit. We were told by Vauxhall to ignore the 60k interval for the cambelt and bring it in at 40k to get the company zafira done. I would definately put this in your costs. Even with the low mileage 6.5k is a hell of a lot of money for a 9yr old vauxhall. Look and see what 6k can get on autotrader then haggle like mad if the dealer won’t budge I’d walk away.

Check honest john for the poor yrs. Tends to be when the european union forced car manufacturers to switch from two pack paints to water based paints for environmental reasons. Merc got it very wrong for many yrs around 2000 to 2004/5. Why not try a petrol mondeo mk3 circa 2004 ish. Big reliable bus. That 2.0 is a great petrol engine.

Your heating the carbon with the exhaust gases not air. There is no combustion taking place in the dpf just a heating process to convert the hydrocarbons to ash. The oxygen has been used in the cylinder when the charge combusts. What ever oxygen is left it must be CO2 and CO surely.

Car speed has nothing to do with when a car regens its dpf, its mostly to do with exhaust temperatures due to engine revs. When the engine is cold the unburnt carbon from the combustion process is trapped by the dpf. When the engine is warm and the exhaust temps high enough the management system will trigger a regeneration process by altering the timing and ignition to burn the carbon and turn it into ash to be stored in the filter. When the filter is full its full and needs replacing. Lots of short journeys at low revs means more carbon in the filter full stop. Most modern diesels are so high geared that the revs never get high enough even on a motorway to regen fully. Manufacturers are moving the dpfs closer to the exhaust manifold to increase the efficiency of them but that leads to all sorts of design problems in the engine bay. Most regens are triggered at engine revs over 2000rpm and need at least 20 to 30 mins. If I was to buy a modern diesel it would be a year old and I would get shot at 4yrs old circa 60k.

DMF’s are supposed to protect the gearbox from engine vibration as well as taking some of the vibration out of the cabin as well. Just go for a normal DMF it will almost certainly last longer than the pump and injectors anyway.

If you want to go faster spend your money on better brakes uprated suspension and good tyres. This will allow you to carry more speed, brake later etc and shouldn’t increase your insurance.

A mate of mine trials a landrover v8. His everyday 4×4 is a shogun.

I’ve put some 120 marzocchi’s on. These have a slightly longer crown to axle length than normal. These are great old forks and suit the kili spot on. With some easton havoc’s and a short stem it just seems right.

Nice car, be careful with those alloys though.

Bakers is like giving your dog McD’s. Utter Sh!te.

The safety rating of the Dacia is mainly due to the fact that they don’t have stability control in the lower spec models. This affects the overall safety rating of the model. Pedestrian safety lowers the ncap rating as well. The overall crash protection for the occupants is as good as any other as long as the model has stability control. I looked into buying a 1.5 dci laureate 4×4. Based on the Qashqai. Looked into the safety rating and tried to decide if they are good value for money if you take into account the resale and depreciation. Figured I would have to keep it till I had to scrap it! Which I figured wouldn’t be that long based on Renault mechanicals.

I kind of thought it would be something like that. My good lady wants me to remove a 5ft rose hedge that is lethal if you touch it ( keeps the local yoofs off ) provides some much needed privacy with a bloody lavender hedge that will look good for about a month once a year standing about a ft high.

Are we allowed to ask why your good lady wants the wall height lowering?

We had roast beef today with yorky puds but unfortunately my wife insists it’s almost petrified so much so that from now on I have insisted that we cook our beef separately. That beef on the bone looks very good. Nothing worse than overcooked beef.

I thought the Express only had one headline ” Britain heading for a Full On Ice Age this Winter!” I only get the Torygraph for the motoring section on a Saturday and even that is giving way to adds for bloody cruises.

If it had milk in it you will need an enzyme cleaner to remove the protein in the milk. It will stink otherwise.

The only thing I would add to a good single malt is a touch of water. It really does allow the taste of the Whisky to come out. If I was after a whisky to mix it would be any on offer blended. Nothing wrong with a good blended by the way. BNJ was / is excellent and so is monkies shoulder. I once had a bottle of blended single malts called the living cask from Loch Fyne Whiskies. Best I’ve ever had by a long way but bloody expensive.

http://www.lfw.co.uk/acatalog/Living-Cask.html

If I had 10k to spend on a car, I would spend 8k and get a diesel and keep 2k for repairs hoping not to spend any of the contingency. If I spent 10k sods law states that I would get a bloody big bill straight away. You should be able to get a good VAG diesel for that.

Are we talking silver soldering or soldering as in PCB’s. If electrical Antex are great. Use good fluxed solder.

Our Polish lads at work are more courteous and polite than most of the indigenous staff. It’s traditional for Poles to eat Carp for Christmas I think so maybe the Turkey was surplus to requirements. Still a nice gesture.

Still like the first Rambo film before it got all silly. Leon is also a cracking film with a stellar cast.

What about an alhambra with the seats out. Bigger and better than a multipla.

If you’re spending 10k on a car its going to be a fairly recent one unless its a fully specced BMW or Merc. Modern diesels because of the very tight emission regs in my opinion are prone to expensive replacement parts circa 100k. DPF’s , Dual mass flywheel/ clutches and possibly injectors. Any one of these can easily negate any fuel savings made by having a diesel. Having said that I do like the way they drive on a long run. Agree with the comments about dull drive, what do you want! If you are looking for small fun diesel estate there is only the 330D touring really.

If my dog bit anybody it would be put down immediately. Report it and ensure that it is followed up. Get in touch with solicitors and sue the owners. Hit them in the pockets.

6ft 4″ here and have amongst others a 20″ frame which was fine. They do need a long seat post but that softens the incredibly harsh in my opinion rear end. I had to have an angled stem to lift the bars up a bit as well because the head tube is tiny, not a problem though just looks a bit odd!