Ardbeg

I drive the A82 a lot and know all its sticking points too well. In addition to the fun to be had around Loch Lomond, it can take you an hour to get from Torlundy to the Nevis roundabout in Ft. William if you're there at a busy time in summer. Maybe ten years ago, there was a proposal to build a bypass around the town, but the powers-that-be, in their infinite wisdom, shelved it because it didn't seem needed at that time. I've taken to driving it at night when I can during Silly Season, because tourists are diurnal, for the most part. One of these days I'm going to compile my dashcam footage in a 'best of Highland driving,' the combination of tourists doing 40mph and impatient locals doing dodgy overtakes. To go back to on-topic, if you're on the NC500 or on your way to it, and you see a big queue of vehicles behind you, pull over and take some nice photos. If you're on a singletrack road and you see a vehicle on your tail, pull into a passing place and let it pass. And if you are taking all the bends at 30 on single carriageway, please don't fire up to 60 on the straights if you see that someone wants to pass.

No, it's not. The road infrastructure in some parts (not all) of the far Northwest can't cope with the amount of vehicles using it now, and the sheer number of people who have no clue how to use single track roads will drive you mad. It's alright around Torridon and Achiltibuie, the main road from Ullapool to Kylesku has never given me too much hassle, and not many people use the road from Lairg to Foinaven. But my God, it's total chaos around Durness. Comedy gold, unless you would like to get somewhere in your lifetime. Still, it's not as much of a zoo as Skye, and I really hope it never gets that way. I do wish the Highland Council would put more emphasis on sustainable tourism, but hey ho, they've never been known for being terribly forward thinking. I'm in that area next week, same as every year (not on NC500). I'm in a black Yeti with lots of stickers on it.

I think OEM fleet Skodas have G registration plates, or least that's what you see on the rental ones driving around the Highlands, and the rental companies get them in batches, registered to wherever the fleet's from.

Not quite on topic -- sorry -- but I'm intrigued by WelshYeti's roofrack. What is it and where did you get it?

I sometimes use Kingston Car Spa as I drive past it nearly every day. They're fine as far as I can tell. I have decals on my car and they haven't damaged them after quite a few washes, so that's good. The car looks clean, and they spray underneath it, and clean the inside of the big Yeti wheel arches. They'll do a decent job valeting the inside for £15.

I've done this with my Yeti. We use a futon that's roughly 4ft by 6ft. If you use a mattress, it needs to be a foam one as you can't drive the car with it fully stretched out since you need the front seats shoved as far forward as they go. The futon squishes up easily when you have the seats in driving position. That said, when I've used it solo, I didn't bother moving the seats as I'm short enough to lie diagonal in the back of the car. OH used to own a MK II Fabia and could get a 5ft x 2.6ft long child's mattress in the back. Probably not suitable for two people but works if you're going solo.

It sounds like my friend may have dodged a bullet. According to the garage, the flying glow plug has only damaged some replaceable engine electrics, though the jury is out until they put the car back together and see whether or not it works. At least they're saying they didn't see damage on cylinder or pistons. Their theory is that someone put the glow plug in wrong.

Was the motorbike a write-off afterwards or was it fixable?

Who's blaming Kia? I was merely wanting to know if anyone had ever come across this problem in any type of car and what the outcome was. If anyone is to blame, it could be previous owners for not properly servicing it but maybe not. Maybe it is one of those random things. No idea. As I said, the internet only had two similar incidents in totally different cars. The garage says the entire glow plug was ejected from the engine, not just a part of it.

We're taking care of my friend's poorly car, as it broke down right before she was due to leave town for two weeks. It's a 2008 Kia C'eed with a 1.6l Tdi. The car had started smoking from the engine bay, rattling like a washing machine, and losing power. The garage says a glow plug popped out of the cylinder head, causing some damage to the engine (the nature and degree of it I don't know yet, as they are still dismantling the engine and figuring it out). I Googled it, investigating whether or not it was a thing with Kias or anything else, and found only two cars on the entire internet with similar problems: a 2003 VW Jetta in Missouri and a 2010 Vauxhall Zafira. I'm just curious -- has anyone here ever heard of glow plugs flying out of the engine? Is there an underlying cause, or is it random bad luck?

I've got the Thule square bars and the 775 footpack, which is the only Thule option that fits around the Yeti's fat roofbars. My bike rack is the Thule 598 with the square bar fitting. I use the square bars simply because my last car had them and I couldn't be bothered changing the fittings on the bike racks.

I cheated. I was in the outdoor gear shop that's across the street from the Skoda dealer and decided to have a walk around the forecourt to see if I could find one, as I haven't seen any on the road. They had two. Had a good look around the cars, it being Sunday and the dealer closed. I liked them more than I thought I would. They're cute and quirky in a different way than the Yeti. Whenever I run the Yeti into the ground, it's a car to consider.

I'm wanting to replace the 17" alloys with 16" inch ones. Is anyone selling any or know of any deals on some?

The past week turned into an inadvertant experiment testing a 2.0 ltr DSG car with all-season tyres and 18" wheels against a 2.0ltr DSG car with winter tyres and 16" wheels. The former is a Passat Alltrack and the latter is a Yeti, which should be 4x4 but we discovered that the Haldex isn't working. Hence inadvertant. Before the snow got deep, the Yeti did brilliantly and I didn't realize it had a problem. It was more stable and less slidey than the Passat. Then as the snow drifted in some places and became icier and more compacted in others, the four wheel drive, or lack thereof, started to matter. The Yeti got stuck and the Passat didn't. I slithered around on an icy, uphill road, but to the Yeti's credit, it made it. The Passat made it more convincingly. Nor could the Passat find a drift it didn't like, whereas we had to be a little careful about which ones we drove the Yeti into. It still had the clearance and tyres to cope with more than most cars in the neighbourhood so we kept diving it into them avoiding stuck and strugglng vehicles. It would have been better with the Haldex working.

How much are you selling the tow bar for and how easy are they to fit?