Is this overpriced for a trade car?

Eh? That's what all compressors do. But the s**te little Aldi / Wolf / Clarke ones can't keep up with most tools so just run constantly.

Ha ha I saw an old XJS near Northolt aerodrome last year that someone had removed the badge and replaced it with a badly made "Shaguar" one.

Mike P

Seriously, it was working fine on the way over and completely dead on the way back.

Yesterday morning it was working as per normal and that nice man at the dealers seems to think a temperature sensor supplied and fitted by them will sort it out when it goes in for its six month service next week.

LOL... we shall see. I still think you're better off binning all the Jap tat you never use and keep that and the MX5 until it's time to head off the sunnier climes.

Smelt really funny to me from what you said... as you say, better that way.

-- JackH

Yeah, something like that. And at the time, I was made redundant, got a job locally, then got made redundant again, so it didn't get taken on runs much.

As it was the base spec 2.0 8valve it was boring to drive, grunty enough to spin the wheels, but thrashy and gutless at higher speeds, and felt vaguer/wallowier at speeds than the aero does now, and it had done 70k less miles.

It was reliable, and sort of comfy, but at the time my driving was very stop start congested and it was giving my knee a lot of gyp so I wanted an auto. I have a different route now, while it is still busy, a heavy clutch would give me grief, so an auto might be in order, or something with a nice light pedal.

The Octavia probably gave only a little better on fuel and that was when fuel was nearly 30p a litre cheaper, so I really have to admit defeat and get something diesel.

But you knew these when you bought it, though - as I remember, it was that boring, vague sensation that was kinda a selling point.

Understood. I'm lucky not to have that issue, instead, my back is occasionally sore. Some days I'd rather have an automatic, but most of the time, "either / or" is my transmission preference.

Maybe... for fuel, yes. For overall running costs, it's even more clouded than it was a couple of years ago.

The main reason why I went for a petrol engine this time wasn't because of the trend in diesel prices (this trend isn't going to reverse any time soon; we can blame fleet managers for this, heh). It was more to do with the service and repair costs of 50K to 150K cars that I was looking at. The service costs between petrols and diesels shows that petrol engines tend to be marginally cheaper, but we're talking a few quid here. For some models, it looked like it was down to the diesel version having beefier brakes and fleet managers reckoning on replacing the brakes in this mileage window. But the expected service and repair costs showed a bigger difference, a chunky difference. That was because one in a given number of common rail diesels will have a fuel system problem. Injectors at £300 a pop, fuel pumps at £400, or whatever; starts to get expensive.

Then throw in the chances of a company car driver putting non-diesel into the tank (petrol, parrafin, vegetable oil or whatever) and harming something...

Then throw in the depreciation model showing petrol cars to be thirsty and diesel cars to be thrifty, or, reduce petrol car prices and increase diesel car prices. Repeat for VED.

Also...

If you want big engine performance with small engine economy, then turbocharging is one way to go. Think: Saab, VW, Audi, Volvo as mainstreams. Or Citroën Xantia Active, 406 2.0t, Octavia 1.8t, Leon 1.8T, that sort of thing.

Or of course, similar to what you already have, but an automatic...

And a bit newer and maybe slightly more reliable.

Nipped out at dinner, and the blower fan control packed up. Now it runs full on all the time.

You can control the temp and the direction but not the speed.

Switch off the ACC and the fan keeps blowing. Only goes off with the ignition.

Y'know, I suspect that might get really annoying really fast. It's the kinda thing you have to fix to sell it too, because it's so very obvious and annoying.

She says it feels loader faster, do not discount that possibly that the old one was just knackered (it was a bit of a smokey, rattly little thing).

Aye she seems happy with it, not sure about the changer but it has the screen thing I beleive.

Thinking this way. I'm not scraping the barrel, but I would be if I threw away =A3140=20 everytime something I just paid for didn't work as expected.

That is almost but not quite 4 weeks petrol, or just a bit less than I=20 spend on nights out for most of the year (probably spend no more than=20 =A3200 a year on average in the pub in a year, don't go out very often),=20 or a weeks mortgage. Could you throw away a weeks mortgage?

I've bought cars that passed the next MOT without an advisory for less.

--=20 Carl Robson Audio stream:

"DanB" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

It seems a damn sight more stupid to piss all the neighbours off with a car alarm that goes off every ten minutes.

Either don't bother with an alarm, or have one that works. One that cries wolf constantly is just pointless. If you're in an area where you need an alarm, then it's probably also the kind of area somebody will express their dissatisfaction with a brick.

I could :-)

Elder gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

You're not just throwing it away, though, are you?

How much time, effort, energy and petrol have you wasted on taking it back and forth to the useless muppets who can't fix it? How much more will you waste on it?

Just say "Move somewhere less pikey". Come on MiniSteve, you know you want to ;-)

They all do that, sir :)

That'll be modern electronics for you.

Well, there are plans afoot to get rid of the "Jap tat" but I'd probably end up with a slightly improved "VW Beetle"...

I wasn't too offended that the guy had sold it. Actually I wasn't too surprised that he clammed up after I had sent him a copy of the HPI report...

Oh, and one of the fans is a tad noisy as you said but I don't think it's too bad. Now that I've managed to liberate a second SATA cable from PC Woe I've started the installation...

I seem to recall that this is a fairly common fault and easy to fix.

Ultimately, that's what counts, innit. And the LuxuryKa has that lovely leather interior too...

It does get annoying, and loud when the aircon switches to recirc=20 automatically.

I'm probably going to chop it in for something for about =A33k with a=20 minimum trade in price, or see if the garage I get to fix things wants=20 to make me a non silly offer for it. He was going to buy it back from=20 the last owner. The missus got =A32k off her Yaris for a very battered=20 Fabia with a door that didn't open. And when she bought the Fabia for=20 =A34k they gave her =A32k off for her Corsa. Not expecting anything like=20 that much, but better than a right off.

--=20 Carl Robson Audio stream:

Sounds like the heater resistor pack to me, usually mounted somewhere in the heater's airflow. Usually £20-ish and a bit of soldering for Fords, I've never done a Saab :)