J.R.

Having one has been a revelation to me, especially when using every mm to parallel park and hooking up my trailers, a regular occurrence, I use it in addition to my mirrors and only for the last 30 cm. Its amusing to see either bystanders when parking or someone helping me couple a trailer making frantic hand signals as I get extremely close but the problem is to see and enjoy them I have to use my mirrors and stop looking at the camera, instead I hear their shouts of urgency. What would be really nice is if the image could be shown in the rear view mirrors.

I had not read the previous posting where you say the rof lining will be removed, that is the ideal time to transfer the holes from the inside with a pilot drill at tap drill size then opening up from the outside with a countersink bit. But dont expect them to be either competent to or interested in doing it.

A fairly safe bet to say that if his lips were moving the words coming out were not true, occasionally by coincidence the BS generator does come out with something truthful. The rivnuts will be present in the structure underneath the roof skin, factory shells with the roof rail option specified are built using a pre-pierced roof panel for the rails to be fitted further down the line, those without have the plain roof but the fixings remain underneath it. The dealers can retrofit roof rails and there is a drilling template made for the job, however their only interest is selling finance and to a lesser degree warranties, the vehicles are just a vehicle (pun intended) to do that and having to (be seen to) offer (begrudging) after sales service is the cost of doing business.

Your game is endlessly asking questions of people who cannot possibly answer them: "why was the car written off by the insurance company, if the new owner can just go and get new insurance with not even a visual inspection to see if the 5mm scrape and dent had been fixed? If insurance company A deemed it to be a write-off because in their opinion the risk was too high, then insurance B should be doing the same? "

Yes I was aware that if I crashed into someone that did not have fully comp cover themselves I would be liable for their vehicle repair costs, same deal if I hit a fence or road sign. But as I was of no fixed abode................................... 😃

Uneconomic repair, no different to if you holed your sump & wrecked the engine, or perhaps a closer example, someone holed your fuel tank to steal the fuel and once again an ueconomic repair (a recent occurence) both Cat A markers in the UK, nothing in my country, both will be put back on the road by a Diyer. Insurance companies are not concerned about safety or risk, they just want to get the maximum back as salvage which will always be at least 40%, it costs them 60% less the excess based on an unfair valuation, the remainder of the policy is cancelled and they double the premium for the new vehicle, reaming you whilst smiling and saying you have protected NCB. My own Yeti could have been repaired and MOT'd for the cost of a couple of 1/4 watt resistors but I did the job properly with new airbags & seat belt pyros, if it happens again it will be the resistors! The vehicle with the 5mm scrape in the undertray will have it filled & painted or pulled out with spot welded keys if steel. I wont answer either of your questions as I now understand your game.

I think the batteries are very well protected, far better than the sumps of ICE vehicles, I also think there is a decent gap between what should be a sacrificial undertray and the battery case, also there will be some insulation between the cells and the casing, finally if a cell does get damaged it would show up because each cell or battery of cells (the correct term) is monitored. So I dont think there is any chance that the battery pack beneath the undershield in the photo with the 5mm reference shim and straight edge was damaged nor either of the two Hyundai batteries that they wanted $60k to replace, that is the scandal, that manufacturers are taking the easy, safe and above all remunerative choice and saying they have to be replaced. I bet most of our cars if they had aluminium flat floors would have a 5mm dent or scrape in them, Qwikfit will give you a pair of them whilst they are doing a supposed inspection to tell you that you need new brake discs and calipers, shock absorbers and 4 new tyres 😃. Yes, the vehicle is repairable salvage with no structural damage, no different to flood damage or door lock and steering lock broken from theft or cambelt failure.

How much cheaper with a data recorder?

That vehicle wont even get as far as Copart, they will have it sold before collection and the happy new owner will be driving it as soon as he recieves it. The next thing will be the MOT having to measure dents in the undertray with a straight edge like on the video and no repairs or repainting allowed. A bit like the WOF in New Zealand that I fell foul of through ignorance, any welded repairs to structural members have to be submitted for inspection before any underseal, filler, paint etc is applied, I am speaking of a repair I did following a WOF failure.

A 5mm deep scrape on the battery undertray and the vehicle is written off as seen in the video Not much point having an EV 4x4 is there!

I am with you, a PDR specialist would normally be able to remove those dents without removing the headlining and without damaging the manufacturers paint but it depends where they are, on the edge of the roof where there is double skinning or above the bonnet bracing might not be so easy. I like your suggestion about accepting as is for a discount but bargain hard, negotiate in advance and on the day if they are worse than they claim say you are walking away and they will make a much better offer, the salesman will already have mentally spent his commission! My current car had so many minor dings and PDR repairs that it would have cost too much unless I found someone willing to work on a daily rate, I repaired and resprayed the worst (front wing) and pushed out the others where I could and just accepted it, it has been quite liberating to not beat myself up about subsequent scrapes caused by myself and others, had it been pristine it would have bugged me everytime I looked at the scars.

Who or what is BEAR?

When I was travelling in New Zealand I was given a WOF (Roadworthy test) failure Nissan Prairie that had been converted for camping, incredibly by the ex boyfriend of the girl I was seeing! He even gave me all the spares and let me use his garage and stay at his house while I fixed it up. Anyway when I registered it in my name it came with State 3rd party insurance cover, it was something like £40 a year in NZ dollars, an absolute bargain and a very equitable system, it did not seem to have harmed the insurance market, most people with decent cars took out fully comp policies in case they got run into by a cheapskate like myself 🤣 Elsewhere on this forum there is a newly qualified driver being rushed for £6K to insure his Fabia, in my country an insurer can only load the policy a maximum of 100% or 50% if they have taken a road safety course. As an example if my policy was €500 and I had the maximum ncb then I would pay €250, a young driver having just passed his test would pay €750 but the 50% increase drops to nothing over 3 years ad he also builds up NCB so he would pay €593 in year 2 and €425 in year 3. The NCB builds up slowly over 13 years to get to the maximum 50% so the young driver wont get to pay the same as any older driver with full NCB till he is 30 but critically he does not get penalised in the early years and very little after 3 accident free years, I think it is a very equitable system.

I bought a pair quite cheaply but being the selfless person I am I gave my now ex UK neighbour one of them for his Octavia, we both have to struggle a tiny bit more with only one but its easier than none. I can swop the wheels easily enough without them if I'm wearing overalls and have the car jacked up enough, if not I cannot see through the bolt hole in the wheel to see if the threaded hole is behind and there are other holes and things like the disc retaining screw which look the same to my one functioning eye. At the side of the road at night using the car jack I really need the pilot stud, my method without is to sit on my backside and raise and position the wheel using my shins, no use when sat in a puddle with the car too low and not being able to see the threaded holes.

Very well put. Don"t shoot the messenger springs to mind. Can bus is frequently misquoted and misrepresented always by those who do not understand what it is, what it does and why it is present. All the idiots selling so called can bus compatible LED bulbs dont help either. One great benefit of the individual controllers that communicate via the canbus network is distributed intelligence, the individual systems can all continue working in a degraded mode (whatever that is in English) when the network is not functioning and/or other controllers have failed or lost power.

The program is entertainment, anything that is said or done that is truthful or factual is simply coincidence. Why do you believe a pole to pole overland route has to to go offroad up mountains at altitudes requiring air/fuel mixture correction?

You will need to replace the slave cylinder unless you find by sight or feel that you can get to the joint in the plastic feed pipe through the starter motor aperture, air will be being draw in through the O ring. It was only after I removed my transmission to replace mine that I forensically found the cause and pondered on whether it would have been possible to replace the O ring through the starter motor aperture.

Bleed through gravity and not with a vacuum or pressure bleeder and always bleed only from the thumbturn valve for the purpose, this is because directly underneath it is a void to catch any air that is pushed down through the system or draw in through the O ring joint between the 2 parts of the concentric slave cylinder, the air chamber void is also present on the external slave cylinder, it forms part of the bleed block. Bleeding of air collected their takes a few seconds, just open the valve and watch the air bubbles come out (into a vertical clear bleed tube) and close it when they cease, you dont even lose any measurable amount of fluid so no need to top up the reservoir.

Not surprised to finally hear the admission that the Ferrari incident is the cause of the premium increase despite the earlier claims that it had been settled in his favour. I thought the video was an own goal and would at best have resulted in a 50/50 knock for knock as I probably said at the time, I would never have considered the overtake but assuming I had misjudged the conditions and done so (not to just embarrass a Ferrari driver) I would have kept the video to myself. It was myself that revealed that the Ferrari was on SORN not that it has any relevance regarding who was responsable for the accident. What goes around comes around.

I have been doing that for a long time, just skimming through to (sometimes) find anything of relevance. Another point regarding this sub forum is that most of the contributors and those seeking help are doing so in a second language, having to translate and wade through all the irrelevant verbosity is an ordeal they should not be submitted to. And I make my apologies to you all for having to read and understand this.

Surely you dont buy into all that rubbish especially the "challenge" and "time constraints"? No way would the BBC put any risk on their cosseted presenters despite what the editing would have you believe especially sending them to altitude anything other then very very slowly. As for needing oxygen even those who reached the altitude record in the Panda did not need or use it, were the top gear team trekking they may have seen some benefit from it but not sat in a motorised vehicle and it certainly was not a medical necessity. I climbed to within 150m of the summit of Cotapaxi (5897m), I was not in as good a physical condition then as I am now 20 years later, our group was forced to turn back due to the weather not through needing oxygen, none was carried by any climbers, the medical tent at base camp had it to reduce the effects of altitude sickness for those foolish enough to come up to that height too quickly, I had been at altitude for weeks.

I bet the oil that you drained out was as clean as the new stuff you replaced it with. If that happens when you (think you) drain the Haldex it is a massive flag telling you that you have drained the diff by mistake. Dont ask me how I know

It might be is that your problem is a partially failed shear plate. The pulley bearing turns all the time, mine is noisy as I used one from a previous high mileage compressor when my shear plate failed during my learning curve of regassing the system, it makes a bit of a RonRonRon drone and gets quieter when I switch on the AC or maybe its when I switch it off. Whether it is a shear plate or the pulley I would replace them and not countenance the time and expense of replacing the pump which would also involve a vacuum down and recharge. Having stripped them down the pumps are pretty bulletproof but will throw small and delicate components all over the garage floor when you try to re-assemble them unless you find an apprentice trained octopus!

I thought you were always trumpeting that you had an open mind and were able to see beyond what was being presented to you as fact. The indegenes have genetic differences enabling them to massively outperform acclimatised outsiders, chewing coca leaves is the best preventative.

Let it go.