Clio Diesel starting problem

Starter Motor is borked. The clicking you can hear is the solenoid trying to switch the starter "on" for it to turn the engine and it won't. Give the starter a thump with a large lump of wood and see if it turns then.

it sounds like a flat battery (all the lights going on and off) charge it or get a jump start.

Mrcheerful

Is it winter already?

The usual flood of dead batteries that herald the coming of the winter solstice?

PDH

The message from "Paul Hubbard" contains these words:

Carb-icing seems to be a thing of the past though.

Especially in Diesels :-)

I believe it's been eradicated in pretty much anything that doesn't have a carburettor.

The message from Ian Dalziel contains these words:

Quite so - it's been interesting watching the tailing off of older carburetted cars.

Guy King wrote in news:313030303432373945265C3592 @zetnet.co.uk:

My diesel injectors are icing up, what do I do? ;-) Actually - the onset of cooler weather has reminded me I *still* haven't replaced the duff glowplug, getting the bag of nails effect on the occasional morning again.

The message from Tunku contains these words:

My Audi's got some very odd ideas about glowplugs. The glowlight on the dash never goes out no matter how long you wait, yet the moment it starts it goes out. Apparently it's supposed to indicate a fault with the glow system. All the plugs seem to work and there's a feed to each of them, so who knows. It's reluctant to start sometimes when cold but got through the winter OK.

I've got an old Lucas plug timer in the garage pulled from a Maestro before I scrapped it. Perhaps I'll just shove that under the bonnet and put a button on the dash. On a 13 year old car it'll be cheaper than going to the garage to get it diagnosed.

Vorsprung durch crapnick mate..!

I had the oppotunity last year to get driven around in a couple of diesel Golf 5s, on hire to Networ Rail from a wel known company. They were brand new and a right bag of s**te, trim dropping off, the rubber door seals falling off when you tried to close the door. Smokey, rattley, the put me right off VW kit.

Then I know somebody who has an original A reg Audi with pro con 10 fitted, ultra reliable and goes well.

It does make me wonder what the rest of the offerings from the VAG group are really like once you cut through the hype.

PDH

On Sat, 07 Oct 2006 10:53:03 GMT, I waved a wand and this message magically appears in front of Paul Hubbard:

I drive an 1996 Audi cabriolet 2.6, it's just clocked up 209,000 miles and is still reliable as ever. Best buy I ever made in my whole life.

The message from "Paul Hubbard" contains these words:

Mine's got that. Actually, for 250,000 miles it's doing fine.

Much the same. My wife's got a 1.2 Polo. Not a bad car on the whole, but bits of trim fall off, she's had 2 of the 3 ignition packs go, both internal temperature sensors failed, so it jammed the "climatic" hot air blower on "Cook".

Apart from the inability to magically stop me driving into stationary object, my Mondeo's been more reliable over twice the distance, with the same economy. (touching wood here!)

Pete.

Had a MkV Golf as a courtesy car the other day. It was fine. Yes, it was a bit smokey and rattley, but it was a 1.9TDI, so that's to be expected.

Recently I've had a Mondeo MkIII and C-Max hire cars. They were terrible

- dodgy trim quality, no feel in the controls.

I've had one issue with my new shape Passat - the coin trays in the dash don't slide out anymore. Being fixed under warranty. Not the end of the world, and the rest of the quality / driving experience makes up for it.

Better than you get from Ford or Vauxhall, and these days, normally cheaper, too.

VW are not the cars they once were - all the satisfaction and reliability surveys confirm it. The in-laws have got a 2001 petrol Golf (not sure what Mk) that's covered about 40,000 miles, started making a terrible noise from the engine, they took it into the dealers, the idler on the cambelt had failed, they were lucky it hadn't trashed the engine. An idler that can't last 40k and 5 years? Load of crap.

I think you'll find that's the case for most cars.

SteveH ( snipped-for-privacy@italiancar.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Indeed it is.

So shouldn't the absolute *minimum* worst-case failure expected service life be _longer_ than five years...?

Having been down the Rover diesel road I have now moved over to the Nissan side of the fence. The diesels are quite good although I have heard of some unlucky stories with the 2.2 Dci models. The Rover, I still have, is bomb proof in the respect that it just keeps going on and on with, which is what you want from a car these days. No trim problems either on both of them.

As to Ford, I'll never touch another one for a very very long time, my personal experience of them is that of absolute s**te buckets. I'm 50/50 concerning Vauxhalls, having seen the other halfs J reg Mk2 Astra 1.4 plod on to an astounding 184,000 miles before she decided to trade it in for a newer model.

PDH

Nope. The Fords that you seem to despise have a cambelt change interval of

Experience from fleets has shown that they will reliably achieve that.

My stepson works for VW Assist. He tells me of his customers experiences with poor quality, reliability, and appalling dealers.

OTOH, just before the new Focus was released, the workshop foreman of my local Ford dealership told me in all seriousness that if the new car proved as reliable as the old one, they would end up going out of business.

Chris