Monkhai

Please can I ask members to keep their posts polite and to avoid using offensive language. I appreciate that what might be offensive to one person, may not appear to be to another, however you do need to consider the wider audience when posting. That doesn't mean having to sugar coat everything, but you do need to pick appropriate language. I do also understand that there can be a degree of lost in translation where English may not be the first language of the poster, but in those cases I would suggest the mindset of if in doubt, perhaps don't say it.

I had the oil every 2 years and inspection every 1. Someone suggested it was to remind for the MOT...Except that’s not when the inspection reminder came up. I usually paella out the oil and replace at half distance anyway, so the extra inspection can wait until MOT time.

As long as they still contain the magic smoke everything will work fine. 😂

No, that’s quite a lot. First test would be to clean it up with kitchen paper or similar, take a short drive with some speed bumps or similar then check again. There was an advisory for faulty shocks that leaked oil prematurely but I don’t know the bulletin number.

Having had to replace a number of PSU capacitors in previous roles... yes they certainly can go bang. Especially when your colleague prods it with a screwdriver to ask if it’s been discharged. 😂

It makes sense... the amp is a 2.2 channel output amp, which can decode many of the Dolby and dts standards, so shouldn’t get it driving speakers that are not there 👍 https://www.avforums.com/reviews/arcam-sr250-stereo-receiver-review.12408 It also weighs a metric eff load... due to said psu😂 The 8000s has a big psu too, and required two hands to lift as the psu on one side was very heavy. No idea if the new ones use the same.

Unless I am missing something, the SR250 being able to decode and if require downmix (which I can tweak) was one of the reasons to get it. FWIW the 8000s, wasn’t super powerful per se, but the power is very usable and controlled. Still sounds far better than modern amps costing 3-4 times the money vs what it cost in the 90s.

Mine was a UK made rather than engineered in Uk made in elsewhere version so I can’t comment on those. The S version you could completely separate the pre/post circuits mind. As to downmixing, the sr250 can decode dts hd, Dolby digital etc then I believe makes it’s own down mix. Luckily though it also perfectly takes a pcm stereo feed too 😂😂

It was the petrol engine (I think 1.8T) that had the plastic impeller that came unstuck. The diesels got a design with a shutter for faster warm up, which appears to be less reliable than originally hoped for.

That HUAWEI dongle is a mobile to WiFi bridge, so it is WiFi. It has an admin address either listed in the manual or on it. On windows if you type ipconfig /all the WiFi connection will show you a default gateway IP address. That will almost certainly be the mifi dongle IP address, which will present a management page if you type it into a browser. As for 802.11ac, I doubt the 3G version of the dongle does that, more likely N. If the laptop is ac then yes it’s backward compatible.

The GHz will only be an problem if windows kept hopping between multiple networks, with the same name but different frequencies. If it dropped it would connect to the new one ASAP. Try disabling the 5GHz in the router and see if your problems go away. If it doesn’t it isn’t the issue. I’ve seen similar in windows with certain laptops with certain WiFi chips. Others have been fine, so it’s all a bit of a mess tbh. I’m tempted to wait for the AX cards to become available at a reasonable price and then see what happens there with a swap.

The 5 years seems to be a vW Uk thing speaking to colleagues in other EU countries with vw group cars. Who knows why, maybe in the other countries a service includes a proper inspection. If you do do it make sure you do the water pump and the tensioner/pulleys at the same time. On mine the belt was fine but a pulley was causing noises, so I did the lot.

Having had a collection of 90s hifi, I spent some time fixing some bits. Audiolab 8000s B&W P5 Sony MD recorder, which was on DAC duty. The P5 needed all new caps on the crossover and the fluid in the tweeters removing, cleaning and replacing. The amp just a clean. Sounded stunning, although I had got sick of having to go through a complicated set up for any film not on a disc. So I had a hunt and found an Arcam SR250 for a very good price. After making sure I was happy with the sound the 8000s went back to my father who originally had it, for his spare room system. Music is really good, it runs cool (Class G) and films sound great through the p5. High end treble, speech, all the way down to the background running/pulsing bass or fast moving well controlled bass. I don’t notice the lack of sub, although I have an option to add 2 if I want. I really don’t understand why more manufacturers don’t make amps that can switch AV via hdmi, still have direct phono and digital inputs and down mix films properly to stereo. I don’t have space for all the extra speakers, nor do I want them and the wires. I also don’t miss them one bit and the money saved in extra speakers can be used on far better amp than a 16 channel at the same price point. Funny how the world seems to have gone back to stereo in a small way.

If I moved to induction I would have to add a gas ring on order of the misses for certain types of breads and foods she cooks.

The hob is seperate and gas, which is a good thing on many levels

Is that a London brick, an engineering brick, a low mass thermal brick If it's anything like some of the ratings, some manufacturer will have focussed all the heat on the area where the brick is, ignoring the rest of the oven. Great for the tests, useless for actually cooking anything. Anyway, thanks for the replies, it confirms what I thought, so I'll just keep the oven we have, check the thermostat is accurate with a manual one and carry on as I was

Ta 👍

I hear what you're saying, but sadly we do actually use the space in the oven most of the time. When we don't we have the half sized top oven or a cast iron dutch oven, which has been used on the hob first, so plenty hot. This oven is well insulated between the walls (I was cleaning it the other week and took the seals out), so I can see that would make a difference, but as this one has it, not enough to justify the cost of a new oven over an old one. Short of using a smaller volume oven I think it's just something to accept and also that the Energy Labels for appliance efficiency can be a bit like the emissions figures for certain cars (eg flexible).

We've been looking at our electric consumption and realised that the electric oven is a large chunk of this. When you look around they all claim newer ovens are more efficient than anything over 5 years old and have energy label ratings showing this. Thing is being a fan assisted electric oven, I can't see how you can really make it more efficient than another fan assisted oven. I mean they are all essentially a fan motor and one or more electrical heating elements, which have a pretty fixed efficiency, so what gives? Insulation wise, I might buy, but between the double outer walls the oven has insulation and good seals. So what am I missing, or is it in fact just some clever marketing to appear better on the tests.

No answer as such, but had similar issues with windows 10 having a meltdown on WiFi every so often. Sadly I had took the wired option as my temporary solution and lockdown meant I have not investigated further.

Nice, of course if it's a lease, then it doesn't affect you, but I'm careful for exactly the tax reason you mention. Of course if somebody has a nice £50k car they can't sell and want's to give me 20% off, then I'm all ears

I made it very clear when looking, that I'd rather pay £1000 for the nicer wheels from parts than £550 with the car, because it's going to cost a couple of grand to tax it. Most dealers are quite accomodating I find, with one suggesting I could take delivery of the car, drive it around the block and back and then pop back for them to fit that parts at a pre-agreed price. EDIT: IMHO car buyers have been ripped off for years by what is somewhat cartel like pricing policies. Every year all the cars go up and every year you're told it's due to something new. 40k is still a lot of money to most people, but many so called family cars are at this price level or above. Did we see a huge drop in prices when manufacturers stopped making parts in Europe and instead made them in low wage countries? Of course not.

FYI it’s 6 years.. 5 years from the first renewal. Car manufacturers need to get realistic as to what is and isn’t a 40k car.

How - Because I am a site moderator and got a notification of reported posts. Why, because an argument isn’t necessary, especially on this thread, so all argumentative posts are gone. Both sets of relevant and civil posts are still here. So please don’t carry on down that road, as otherwise it won’t just be polite words of advice.

I’ve cleaned up the posts that were starting to degenerate. Please keep things on topic and civil. Also a polite reminder that posts need to be in English 👍