DaveMiller

Yes, I would use the recommended higher pressures if *fully* loaded. The figures aren’t unusually high, nowadays. My E-class Mercedes requires 39 psi all round for just me in it, and my van runs at recommended 75 psi.

I use a “3” card successfully. They usually come with a certain amount of data, AND have an expiry a certain number of months after you start using them (eg 20 GB for maximum 12 months). Are you sure the card is not time-expired?

A sort of faint metallic scraping? If so, mine does it - always has, but it hasn’t got any worse in 4.5 years / 18,000 miles.

Well, a roof tent is usually a device that folds out, and has a ladder, so you can climb up and sleep in the tent, up on the roof. Total weight of tent, plus fold-out solid floor, plus ladder plus added roofbars is probably already quite a few of the allowed 75 kg, so any people sleeping in it would need to be remarkable skinny!

... which would then make the car illegal. Not a great idea.

Mmmm. I feel an experiment coming on, with a large cardboard box …

Much easier is to put your hazards on - the light is intermittent, but bright.

Ah, I see. Thank you!

With phones, I think you’re picking up the time from the nearby antenna of the cell you’re in - a few miles at most. And the people running the antenna know which country it’s in, and whether we’re in summertime. With gps, you’re picking up signals from multiple satellites, each 22,000 miles up, some of them directly above countries quite far from you, and those satellites have no way of “knowing” who or where is receiving their time signal. The conversion of known place to the time that that place should currently have would need to be programmed into the car itself, or rely on internet correspondence, with the car regularly reporting to a convertor its exact location. Possible, but a bit expensive, compared with asking us to click a box, twice a year?

But do those things normally travel? I’m guessing that they don’t want to make too many different versions of the system, and yet sell the cars in many different countries. You’d be asking a lot of a satnav/info system to get it right if, for example you were travelling from Eastern Chile (which does use summertime) over the border into Bolivia, Paraguay or Argentina (which don’t). Similarly if, in Australia, popping from somewhere on the northern edge of New South Wales (which uses summertime), just down the road into Queensland (which doesn’t). It’s quite messy in the middle east, too.

The gps signal will be a reference time, not the time we think we have. The gps signal won’t know whether humans have decided to change to summertime. If you set “gps automatic”, the clock will remain precise, but you’ll need to manually tell it (by ticking and unticking the box) whether we’ve put the clocks forward or back.

Apart from the British Standards code and the supplier of the plate, no other letters or words are legal. The extra wording on the bottom, about “Marching on Together” is what makes it illegal?

Oh, blimey! Well, I lived in Leeds in the mid-eighties. Back then, no-one ever called it “lesixtieds”!

Lesix tidsu? Nope, still not getting it.

OK … Lego Day Surgery Unit? I don’t get it.

I use my towbar sometimes to tow an old trailer (greased ball) and sometimes to carry a clamp-on bike rack (no grease). I find that a smudge of grease keeps the ball from rusting, but it’s easy and quick to remove the grease with a solvent-wetted rag when I need the dry ball. On mine (and the one in Phutter’s post) there is a hole for the breakaway cable, marked here:

Where I worked, a senior member of staff, J F K~~~~~~, had several rather beautiful 20s/30s Rolls-Royces. He also had the registration 1 JFK. On a bog-standard Metro. In beige!

I think that was the joke being made …

Well, it’s short, and easy to remember. Is it cool or sad, though? (Does it have some special meaning?)

When they are “forced” (in other words it takes a while to work out what the owner was trying, but failing, to make the characters say) … they are awful. When they involve the characters being respaced, they are illegal. When they directly say something relevant (I’ve seen BMW 520 and XJ 12) they are splendid. The very best I’ve ever seen, on the back of a Ferrari, was DAV 1D … in two lines on a square plate! Such a potent combination, ignored. Now that’s class!

Well, fairly obviously it’s a warning that the engine is running, so the main question is what else was happening when the warning came up? I haven’t seen such a warning myself, so it may be only on newer cars, but what were you doing when the warning came? Tell us about whether you were driving or stationary, gear and brake positions, door opening, etc.

You asked how to test it “without the risk of bogging it down again”. That’s where the friend (with car on solid ground) comes in. Testing on the slippery ramp and having just the front wheels spin again would show the car is NOT fixed. I agree that if the car does drive up the ramp, you won’t know which wheels have driven it.

With a friend and a tow-rope?

We’re getting a bit confused in the wording, that’s all. Normally, pushing the pedal down is “DISengaging” the clutch. (The clutch being the mechanism near the gearbox, not the pedal. When you’re not pressing the pedal, drive is engaged.) Allowing the pedal back up is “engaging” the clutch, or “releasing” the clutch. “Declutching” means to press the pedal down.

I agree with J.R. Perhaps the problem is not being understood. I suggest you email the video direct to the “dealer principal” of the company where you bought it. Or present the car at the dealer’s and take the service manager for a ride to show the problem?