Martin Keene

It will have to stop at some point in the near future. I read an article recently that said if house prices continue to rise at the current rate then by something like 2020 your average 3 bed semi will cost

Mine seems to be a nightmare. In 6 months I've had it stuck down a farm track, ground the front bumper in a local car park, ground the front bumper on the humps going into our current site and I pulled out of the local car parts corner shop the other week, it's in an old part of town with heavily cambered roads, whenthe wheels dropped in the gully at the side of the road there was 1/2" to the bottom of the front bumper! That's at standard height, I'm not joking if it had been lowered it would not have come out... Compared to my Westfield, which only has 4 1/2" of clearance to the chassis, and fractionally less to the sump and exhaust, and I've only ever ground that out once in eight years. And that was coming off a bridge on a Belgium Autoroute... :eek: Granted we were 2 up with a lot of kit with us.

Mine's also had a puncture, 6 days after I got it! I have always had the same concern about the JD Power survey, if I bought a Mercedes or something I would not expect to have to see the dealer at all, apart from servicing, as a result *any* failure would be looked upon negatively, no matter how small... Where as your avervage Vauxhall owner will expect a few niggles! Yeah, that kind of sums it up for me too. When the coil pack went I thought I was imagining it to start with because I'd kinda of forgotten cars break. Then I realised it was actually knackered it was quite a shock. As an aside I have owned a Westfield for 9 years now, the engine currently produces 2/3rds more power than Ford ever intended it to and it has *never* and I do mean never failed to get me home. I carry a toolkit in the boot of it, and it has been used more times on other cars than the Westfield. I have had the Skoda for 6 months and it has already failed to get me home once...

So was the Civic and that was invincible... It

Had my vRS for 6 months and so far it's had an ignition coil in it, had another just before I bought it, both gas struts for the boot replaced and the water tempreture gauge is now doing it's 'thing' and in need of a new sensor. Been to the dealership this afternoon to try and get it confirmed as a dickie sensor, and when the put the test machine on the only code it pull up was 17705. Turbo Pressure Loss... :rotz: I had a Civic 1.8VTi before this. I had it for just over 2 years and put 32k on it, taking it from 16k to 48k, and ragged the **** out of it, not hard when it reved to 8400! When I traded it in it was still on it's orginal brakes, had only just got the end of it's 3rd set of front tyres and it's orginal rears were just coming to the end of their servicable life., and apart from servicing I had a back box on it which Honda did under warrenty. I think I know were I'll be going back to after the Skoda...

Cylinder 1 is always the furthest from the flywheel on straight engines.

Wings in Peterborough have just taken delivery of two. One for test drives and another for the showroom. Now I like blue cars, and I'm not that struck on cleaning them, although I'm getting better. So last week it would have been blue for me without a seconds thought. But, having seen a blue one and a black one side by side, it just has to be black. Just somehow looks more menacing...

On my 01 Y plate Octavia VRS I had the coil on no1 cylinder go the week before christmas, fixed at the road side by the AA, I went to the dealership armed with the information from this site about checking and replacing all coils and was met with confusion... A quick call to Skoda UK had all the coils checked and 2 replaced FOC as a 'Good Will' gesture... Yeah right!

Whoops, miss one little 'k' and it all goes to ****...

All major car manufacturers design engines and transmissions around a 10 year / 150k mile 'life'. I would expect modifying a car to cause you any abnormal trouble during the time you are planning to keep it for. Espescially if you follow the advice above of using better oil, allowing the turbo to cool down, allowing the turbo to slow down after a run, stick rigidly to service intervals.

A mate of mine turned up out of the blue at a Lotus dealership in his Westfield asking for a test drive of an Elise and they were more than happy to oblige. He would have been in his early 30's at the time, senible looking etc. Go for it I say, they can only say no...

Interesting... What were the syptoms of the throttle body failure? My is not rough at idle, but when I first got it in July it was so smooth it was hard to tell it was running either by noise or vibration, now there is just a slight hint of hunting at idle.

Mum - 1.7 SE Puma. Great car, bit like a kart with doors... Dad - 2.5 Sport X Type. Not bad, immense grip, brakes a bit mushy. It replaced the Accord Type R he had that was written off big stylee when some old **** drove in to the side of it... Superb piece of kit, always begging to be canned that little bit harder. Downsides?

Mine's Rally Red, I'm based in Deeping. Thanks for the link, I've added it favourites. Might see you there at some point...

The one that failed had a G on the end of the part number, it was replaced by an L. Interstingly enough, I found out when I went to the dealers to talk to them about it this morning. It had cylinder 3 done about 10k ago...

That'll be the first coil failure then! Thought they were all supposed to have been replaced by now? Mine's a '01 Y reg with 41k on it. Fortunatley the AA came to the rescue, he had a spare in the van and had it running again within 5 mins, so I was only an 1 hour late for the Westfield Club crimble do... Trip to Wings in the week to have them checked and replaced accordingly. :(

Like it...

A letter from Skoda UK confirming the decals come as standard should soon sort them out...

Yeah, I'd go with that too! Might have to fit the RS6 with side exit pipes to make it sound even more like a Nascar though...

Zonda for me. Ferrari is too foorballer, and in danger of becoming very slightly **** if they insist of sticky a Ferrari badge to everything. In fact it's getting nearly as bad as Burberry (spelling?) GT is very nice, but for reasons I won't put into a public forum, I would have concerns about paying my own money for one. But, if money was no option and the choice free, it just has to be the Buggati... :orb_love_ :orb_for_y :orb_heart :orb_not_w Edited to add: Bugger me, it censors c h a v...

Mine and a mates were both down last night in Peterborough. Came back around 8.30

Not really, if it's as crap as their recent efforts... Funniest mistake recently was changing an alternator on a MK3 Astra. Manual said (breif version) a) disconnect electrics slacken drive belt tension and remove c) undo pivot bolt and remove d) remove alternator from car. Problem? The gap between the head of the pivot bolt and the chassis leg is 2". Length of the bolt? 6"... A more detailed inspection of he pictures revealed they had taken the engine out the car and then done all the bits about changing bits fitted to it... Another was a fog light fitted to a Civic, it told me to remove the whole ####ing fog light (an hours work) and when I got it out I realised it could have been changed in the car... Most recent? Other halfs Saxo, tells you to put a trolley jack under the main jacking points on the sill. Then tells you to put the axle stand under/adjcent to the main jacking point. Well if the jacks there how am I supposed to get an axle stand there? Levietate the car? Haynes = :pants:

Nice work! I particularly like the the first and third ones. First one kinda of leads you into the shot with the path and fencing, and I just like the third one...