EnterName

VED is going through the roof, with max VED being £5490 in the first year of ownership, and an inflated VED of £600 for five years if your car is over £40,000 when purchased. That seems a bit harsh, as inflation means £40K gets you a lot less than it used to a few years ago, but I suppose that's the point of inflation. It's the rising tide that catches everyone. (Everyone without a clever accountant at least. ) https://www.parkers.co.uk/car-tax/advice/new-car-tax-rates/

How close to Dudly do you want? Angel Tuning offer this service, AFIRC. They do good work IMO, but they're not the cheapest. http://www.angeltuning.co.uk/

The water pump and thermostat might need replacing, but they won't put water in your passenger footwell. I think you're right about the heater matrix. I think you're also right to be very sceptical about that dealer. If you can find a good independent, that might be a much better route to explore. Alternatively, this thread might be worth a read.

Perfect! Great result. 👍

Don't be surprised if Yuri doesn't answer, Kevin.

How did that plan work out for you? 🥶😄

Hello and welcome! 👋

He's a bit of a marmite personality, but he makes a valid point. Hybrid cars seem to be a perfect storm of repeated cold start-ups and running below normal operating temperature for IC engines.

No idea what happened to get that repeating. 🤷‍♂️ I refreshed the window, but that lot didn't appear when I was posting. Still, the point is worth repeating. 😋

"The science is settled!" 2025 remix. The "economical transition to electric" has been anything but. Instead, it was decided by people in positions that allowed them to make it happen, that there was a lot of money to be made by creating a whole new industry based around "climate change". And so it was made to happen, and billions have been made by the people who were in positions of power to force their agenda onto the rest of us. People cheering it on are either making money out of it themselves, or are IMO just NPCs in support of whatever current thing the media is telling them to support/oppose. I'll remind you the war in Ukraine is still killing thousands of people, but as it's no longer the fashionable thing to virtue-signal about, all the people who added a Ukraine flag to the avatar image, or signed off virtue-signalling posts with a "Slava Ukraini!" have moved on to today's "current thing", though most are still obediently refer to Kiev as Kyiv, because solidarity(!)

You might like to give this a watch.

Chinese build quality is not beyond question. "China Insider" has thoughts to share on the issue.

Something like this is what I have in mind.

There is a fix for the problem, and I'm tempted to get the fix implemented on my mechatronic, though it means losing the use of the car for a bit. I'll talk to my gearbox guy and see if he can facilitate the fix/upgrade and DSG service at the same time.

I think good servicing and mechanical sympathy can mitigate some of the risks associated with DSG failure. There are discussions on here about the pros & cons of putting the DSG into neutral when your car comes to a halt. I do this instinctively, but others assure me there's "no need". AFAIK (perhaps someone could correct me if I'm wrong), but as the clutch and other part of wet clutch DCT gearboxes wear, the worn particles of clutch friction material and other worn component debris enter the transmission fluid, which is circulated throughout the gearbox and the mechatronic unit. Bits of clutch crud can't improve things, and while there is a filter, I think by the time the DQ381 gets to servicing 80K miles, things must be pretty grotty in there. I plan to get mine serviced this year, very early at around 25K miles and 6 years. It's about the cost of an annual service, so despite being way earlier than advised, I don't see a downside to getting it serviced early apart from the cost, assuming the service is done correctly. That said, there is a design flaw in earlier mechatronic units, so some of the risk of failure is just the luck of the draw. This video is worth a watch if you're having DSG trouble or just want more information.

When EV "Fuel Duty" is applied, and make no mistake it will be at some point in the future, perhaps the penny will drop.

LOL No. Just to remind you which side of the argument we're on, I have no problem with CO2. You're on the side of the argument that wants to get the UK to "net zero" CO2. My point is, if CO2 really was the dangerous gas it is made out to be, and bear in mind the UK is spending billions on getting to your "net zero" CO2 goal, then banning CO2 generators would seem to be an easy step forward in the "net zero" direction. No, it's classic @EnterName pointing out the bleeding obvious to an oblivious ideologue. 🤷‍♂️ The trouble with trying to gaslight me on here, is that by me quoting both the question and answer, I make it very tricky for slippery people to be disingenuous. You literally complain it's "difficult to make people change", and then try and pretend you're not interested in making people change their behaviours. You simply can't complain about how hard it is to try and make people change, then shortly after deny you have any desire to make people change. 😄 Well you can, but I'm going to point it out. 😎 My analogy highlights my point that for you, the cat is out of the bag on your urge to get people to change their behaviour to suit your agenda.

Yes, I pointed this out in 2022. I'm usually a couple of years ahead of the curve. 😋

"That scientists believe" is no kind of weight to put behind any argument. You might as well say "But we all suffer the effects of climate change that women feel is largely down to pollution from burning hydrocarbons." "We're all in this together!" as David Cameron said, eh? "Cleaner" is one of those words that used to mean something, but has now been politicised to the point where it means whatever the person wants it to mean. You'd think that the politicians pushing for ICE cars to be phased out due to the imminent threat of catastrophic climate change would all be minimising their use of ICE vehicles and leading by example. They be using video conferencing for meetings and all official vehicles would be EVs. They'd minimise their "carbon footprint". However they do not. They fly around the world to meet each other and zip about in big gas-guzzlers. They don't believe in the climate change narrative any more than I do, but they know that they can con a lot of people into compliance if they can scare them enough. Here's Kier Starmer getting out of a vehicle that is so environmentally unfriendly it has a huge VED tax applied to it to discourage its use. However Comrade Starmer gets his VED paid for by the proletariat (or perhaps Lord Ali), so he doesn't give a toss about punitive taxes because he doesn't feel the effect of them. Using China as an example of a country fighting climate change is ridiculous. 😄

CO2 generators are used to make plants grow better. If you raise CO2 levels, you literally get a greener planet. Enough with the "I'm not telling people what to do. 😇" performances. Yes you are, right there! 🎯 Try posting "It's difficult to get Rohypnol and even more difficult to get women to consume a drinks spiked with Rohypnol." and then seeing who'll trust you to buy a round of drinks. No use protesting "Where have I told anyone I'd spike their drink?" after posting something like that. Same with EVs, and now meat it seems.

I've pointed this out before @wyx087, you really need to curb your urge to tell people to live their lives according to ways you've recently decided are how things ought to be done. People don't like being told what they may or may not drive or eat, and they will push back increasingly assertively in resisting having their lives run by unelected, self-appointed, well-intentioned do-gooders determined to "save the planet" no matter what the cost to Europeans, but invariably without inconveniencing "developing" countries. No! Bad Wyx!

No, and here's why. CO2 is not a bad gas, it's a good gas that is essential for life on this planet. That is why there is a market for CO2 generators. The whole "CO2 is bad!" campaign is dishonest and as you revealed earlier, more about "redistributing" wealth.

Happy New Year @wyx087! 🍻 So it's a numbers game, eh? "The more of something, the bigger it is a target for reduction." Hmmm. That's a somewhat inconsistent position to adopt, given that I've already pointed out the negligible contribution the UK makes to to global CO2 in comparison to countries like China & India. You've previously taken the "Every little helps!" approach. At least the CO2 output of cars is incidental, not the whole purpose of the machine. If CO2 really IS a problem, it would be trivially easy to ban the sale of CO2 generators. However CO2 generation is a growing market. It seems people just can't get enough CO2 to meet their needs. https://www.cognitivemarketresearch.com/co2-generator-market-report?srsltid=AfmBOor4xqL5qQDWpdVl3_2hkMaCMGX4UXDWeR-kelpCyICY2c99fBfh Can I get even a twitch of cognitive dissonance from you on this issue? 😉

I use a pin with the end snipped off and some nano-tape on the head of the pin to form a "handle" of sorts to allow me to clean and position the rear washer jets. It works reasonably well.

You know @Graham Butcher, given that CO2 is supposedly a problem, it seems odd to me that you can legally buy devices sold with the sole purpose of generating CO2. Or is that just me misunderstanding things, and this is "good" CO2, not like the "bad" CO2 emitted by vehicles? https://www.onestopgrowshop.co.uk/collections/co2-supplementation