andy-fisher

As this idea seems to be catching on, how about a modified car that seems to be done on a budget of £5... I think my find of an 'A-Team' Reliant still fits in to this criteria. I do find it very amusing though that people will spend three times the value of the car to make it look worse than when it came out the factory!

I would buy that but only if the girl came with it! Then I would sell the car for a starting bid of 99p and keep the girl!

It may have lasted about 5 minutes... but funny as you can get for 5 minutes.

I must confess now that I only found the 'A-Team Reliant' as I was looking for a 'Del Boy' Reliant Ragal Supervan III. I do actually want one of those as sad as that is. They do seem to fetch about 500% more than they are worth though which is a problem.

The competition is hotting up. I don't think I would bid on any of those! The Rover is posibly the winner/loser (depending how you look at it).

I did consider bidding on the Reliant A-Team van and I kinda wish I had but I agree walking is probably more favourable.

I kinda need a vote though. Is it the Reliant or the Citroen thats the biggest heap?

Has anybody made a new gear lever gaiter from scratch? Mine has started to fall appart and I feel I need the challenge of making my own. It's not hard to get hold of leather and I guess I could cut the old one up to make a pattern but just wondered if anybody had done it before... I will probably just go for it and post any helpful hints and tips I find along the way. If I can be bothered and people are interested, I may even do a little photo guide on how to do it.

Don't blame you. If I drove that Saxo it would be wearing a bag over my head! I can't believe he is telling potential bidders, if any, how much he spent to get a car looking that bad!

Please tell me you din't consider buying that.... At least the one I looked at would only have cost me about £420 (looking at bidding history). I thought mine was bad but I think you topped it! I did just look at the A-Team Reliant again and changed my mind and wished I had bid on it now... I will book an appointment with the psychiatrist on Monday! :orb_bonk:

I thought I would see if anybody else scanned e-bay for a new bargain and came accross something out of the ordinary and actually considered buying it just for a laugh. I found this car and was very tempted for no sane reason at all. I can't explain why and now the auction has ended I am glad I did'nt bid but for a moment I thought 'that would be fun'. I think I may be going insane!

Did not get around to either the thermostat or the CCV mod today. I did get the time to have a look at the CCV mod and took the pipe off from the breather to the intake and decided there was no need to go any further before deciding to do it. The ammount of gunk in just that pipe was amazing, although my car has done 137,500 miles of dumping oil vapour into the intake so I don't want to know what the rest of the system looks like. However, as it was a nice day it was a chance to mow the lawn and get the bouncy castle out for the kids. Bouncy castle now broken so will now be taking that back to the shop tomorrow. If only I had won the euro millions last night then I would just buy a new car and bouncy castle. At least going into town will give me the chance to buy some nice shiney bits to do the CCV mod. Going to try and make it look OE rather than a mod.

thermostat not here yet so unless it arrives in the morning it will be 2, or even 3 weeks before it gets fitted... Working quite a bit for the next few months. I shall find the time and see how it goes. I was considering doing the CCV mod this weekend if the thermostat does not arrive. I guess it won't hurt to do it.

Sorry for the delayed response, busy working. My car takes about 20-25 min to reach operating temperature. By the time I get to work which is 10 miles, it's nearly warmed up. I've ordered a new thermostat anyway and will fit this weekend if it arrives in time. I have noticed that the cold starting is much better now the fuel pump timing has been adjused. As trundlenut pointed out, it is done mechanically. It wasn't out of limits according to the graph on the computer but it was only just in which may not have been helping the situation. It is more than likely a combination of things rather than a single fault causing this problem. I may not be able to resolve the staring issue soon as I have noticed a loud clunking noise when I open and close my window so maybe a third mechanism for that door is comming up soon. At least my car eventually starts but I can't have a window held up with wedges again. That will make it six new mechanisms for the car in total!! It is getting quite annoying. I will have the door appart at the weekend for a quick look. Maybe the coolant temp sensor next if its still the same (for the starting, not the window. Unless I use the old one to hold the window up). I will update on progress if any.

Just a little update on my never ending saga. I have had a guy look at it and check it with VAG COM. I was a little suprised to find out that there were no fault codes found. The only thing it showed was that the fuel pump was a little retarded so he adjusted the timing of the pump and hey presto, it seems to tick over smoother and may be marginally easier to start but not the desired result. It has got him a little confused aswell I think. I can't grumble at the service provided though, 2 1/2 hours work and he refused to take any money. I guess there is method in his madness as I feel obliged to return to him when it's next due servicing. He did say (but pointed out he is clutching at straws now) that it could be the thermostat, not causing the problem but not helping it, as it takes an exceptionally long time to warm up.

Im near Ipswich in Suffolk. Its had the 109 relay done and it's had a cam belt change during this endless problem but appart from that, I guess I should start working through the list. As an aside, does everybody have problems with the electric windows? I've replaced the mechanisms in every door once now and the drivers one twice. Is it a common fault? Other than that it's been a very good car. On a little trip to Great Yarmouth I averaged 71mpg according to the computer, a bit optimistic I feel but the fuel gauge hardly moved a millimeter.

136,000 - 1998 Octavia 1.9 TDI 90 GLX

Does anyone have any ideas why my 1.9 diesel octavia (1998) only likes to start easily if the climate and engine condition meet very stringent requirements? If it's too cold then it takes alot of cranking to get going. If the engine is fully warm then it requires even more cranking but if it's a slightly cool morning and the engine is cold it fires up straight away. I was wondering if it was an air mass meter problem or a coolant sensor problem. I recently had a new battery as it was on it's way out but this has made no difference to this particular problem.