ArisaigDavid

You're right - I hadn't looked at it that way. He was still in the car on the river bed, with granny still in the house oblivious to all of this. Either way the car was trying to kill him - the engine tried to gas him, but was foiled by the gearbox trying to drown him instead! Shows what a fine invention the catalytic converter is, though.

This is just a story, prompted by the above but of no real relevence to anything much - apart from me there is probably nobody left alive who knows it, so this is my opportunity to pass it on. Take it or leave it. Many, many years ago my grandad had a small car, a Wolseley or perhaps a Riley 1.5, and my dad decided to buy him a brand new Daf variomatic to replace it. I can only assume that he thought an automatic would be easier in what were his later years, but that any other automatics were expensive executive stuff at that time. They settled on a bright yellow one, for some inexplicable reason. One cold morning grandad decided to take the car out, went into his garage (timber, with a pair of side-hinged doors) pulled the doors to behind him, got into the car, started the engine and busied himself with demisting the windscreen with a chammie while the engine warmed up. It seems the carbon monoxide got to him and he collapsed, knocking the CVT into reverse as he slumped. The car pushed the garage doors open, trundled across the lane and drove over the edge of the pier into the River Tay. Fortunately the tide was out, so a passerby was able to notice the car lying (the right way up, almost unbelievably) on the temporarily dry river bed about ten feet down, and call 999 - the choice of bright yellow turned out to have been an inspired move after all. Grandad was rescued, and made a full recovery, but that turned out to be the end of his driving career! Just goes to show that an auto isn't always best.

It's nothing to do with whether or not you are in the seat, it's whether the ignition is on.

The newer car must be a bit different - I can turn the handbrake off, without troubling the autohold, with the door open. Still, I'm glad your parking is a bit easier now!

No, the handbrake button.

Your 2020 car may be different, but while this does happen on my 2016 I can then press the brake button to release the brakes again and carry on with the door open. The manic beeping does continue unabated, though.

What a long and interesting story about what sounds suspiciously like irresponsible behaviour (I wonder if you should just fit a set of slicks and have done with it), but what does any of it have to do with barnsleyboy's original question?

Thank you for your prompt, affirmative answer to my question.

Really? Is there something wrong with you?

My Dad once told me the story of how he was driving home from his job in Mill Hill in a pea-souper in the early 1960's and being surprised, when he pulled onto his driveway, to see the line of cars behind him whose drivers, unable to see properly in the fog, had followed him home on the assumption that he was going where they wanted to go! In the past my regular cars, with halogen lights, always seemed fine at the time, but when I moved to the Scottish Highlands (35 miles home from town, no streetlights, not much in the way of effective road markings, but plenty of deer) lighting suddenly became a far more important issue. I had a Nissan 200SX at that time and felt that the lights could be better, so I uprated them to a Phillips version with allegedy far brighter output, but didn't see much improvement. My next car was a Mazda6 MPS, with xenon headlights!! It turned out that the dipped beam bulbs were, indeed, xenon, but the high beam ones were just halogen - crazy! (Incidentally, I've never found front foglights to be of any use whatsoever, although you can be done if they don't function). Then came the Superb,with bi-xenons! Better, but still not as good as I'd like unless it's a very clear, very dark night. When it comes to over-bright headlights, I have a problem with it too (although bear in mind that in almost all cases people don't choose their new car on the basis of how overbright the lights are), but apparently older eyes aren't as good with bright things in the dark. But "they" are always telling us that we are a "rapidly-ageing population" - go figure, as they say. My big problem is with ultra-reflective road signs. I once almost hit a huge stag in the road because I was looking away to avoid being completely dazzled by a reflective sign warning about deer! It would be interesting to know if these fancy new pixellated LED matrix headlights woud prevent that problem by not lighting up those signs, but then you wouldn't see the signs you needed to see. It would be too much to expect them to make signs less blindingly reflective in the first place - there is no doubt an EU regulation covering that. I know - too long, and with no useful information. I'll bet you're all glad I don't post very often.

I generally use my car for outings. Sorry, I just couldn't help it.

It's worth pointing out, again, that the decibels on a tyre label are measured as drive-by noise from outside the car, and don't necessarily relate to tyre noise inside the car. I do wonder, in my simple way, if "arrow" tread pattern tyres are quieter inside the car by virtue of the air compressed by the rolling tyre is expelled sideways rather than into the wheel arches ? If this constitutes a remarkably stupid suggestion, please don't give me a hard time. It's just that many winter/all season tyres which people claim to be quieter have these directional tread patterns.

I had a new nsf spring fitted at a trusted independent a year ago, when I noticed that the gap between the tyre top and the wheel arch was much less than on the other side. It turned out to be broken, but they assured me that there was no need to replace the one on the other side. A couple of weeks ago the car failed its MOT because the osf and nsr springs were both "cracked" - they replaced both of them, assuring me that the fourth original spring (osr) didn't need replacing. Funnily enough the nasty rattle from the rear right of the car ever time I went over a bump in the road, and which I had asked them to investigate, magically disappeared without them ever having heard it! I don't know, and didn't ask, whether the springs were genuine Skoda or not, but if it helps the part numbers were KIL25117 for the front and KIL65125 for the rear. Prices were £78.89 and £59.87 respectively, plus labour and VAT. It is a worry that in 42 years of motorbikes and cars before the Skoda I have never needed a new spring on anything, yet this car has needed three in the space of a year (and how long will the fourth last?) on the same roads on which I have driven each of my two previous cars for more years and more miles. I don't know if this helps anyone - I hope so.

Dear toot, I am sorry to have upset you so comprehensively with my simple observations. The original poster lives in Madrid, so I am not sure what relevance Perth or timber lorries have to anything. Perhaps you should post a few more service schedules to calm yourself down?

As far as I can tell, pulling back on the gear lever only puts the gearbox into sport mode. The ideal arrangement would be if that put the suspension into sport mode as well, so that when you are tooling up the motorway in comfort mode and some loon up ahead creates an incident you can instantly put the whole car into general avoidance mode - trying to make a fast lane-change in the softest suspension setting means you'll be wallowing all over the place regardless of how sporty your gearbox setting is. That's what has stopped me from ever using comfort mode at all.