Graham Butcher

You will always come across ignorant people who will occupy chargers for longer then they should. But then, on the other hand, you also don't know where or what that driver was doing. They may have been prevented from returning to the charger through circumstances out of their control, but if there were more chargers available, then maybe it would not have inconvenienced anyone.

Yep they may be zero rated but DVLA still need to know if the vehicle is on the road or if its SORN as do the police etc for parking/speeding fines etc.

A clear sign then that there are not enough chargers and that is going to get worse in time before it gets better.

To be fair, I don't think YT is awash with anyone saying EV will go into self combust mode. I think it is more a case of, if the traction battery does get involved in the fire, the consequences could be more severe and insurance claims could be far higher. That said when the ratio of BEV's to ICE is the reverse of today, fire claims will rise as a result of wear and tear, and poor maintenance begin to take effect.

I almost brought a Superb Estate in Pacific Blue, but it had a few small dings around it, the tailgate catch needed replacing the sunglass holder was smashed and it was the basic no frills model, and I'm a sucker for my toys, so I placed on my reserve list in case I couldn't find another L&K as they are pretty rare. However, I find one and in the same colour as my old one, Petrol Blue which in some lights is similar to Pacific Blue, but the sun hits it, has a distinct green hue to it.

Wow, that would drive me mental. Could you imagine doing a full shift driving in that, I hate anything that causes visual distortion, makes you doubt your eyes.

In what do you mean, was the glass so thick that it kind of distorted everything through it?

Is that a bombing range then?

Don't give it out, if you can't take it.

@J.R. Oh, so let me see, so you think you can say things, that may be unintentional but, they are still insulting to me, but do I complain about it, no, I just give you the benefit of doubt. But if I inadvertently do the same to you, you want to ball me out on it? I always try to treat others how I would like to be treated, with respect, so its over to you, make your mind up.

True but not if you buy second hand. Most diesels are company cars, or at least they were until EVs appeared on the scene with their BIK rates.

If the diesel is being dropped then it's a sad day. While I accept it is not the cleanest of fuels it is the most economical of the liquid fuels.

Oh so joking is also no no? I could have mistaken you asking if I was a slow learner as some sort of insult no? You have insulted me before. 🤔

No insult at all, just explaining that I did the basic C&G course first of all. I never did any O levels etc, I had no choice, I had to leave school and help support the family so to gain entry to the higher levels of technical education, I had to prove that I was capable of doing it and thus not wasting resources. So sorry if you thought I was trying to be funny, I assure you that I wasn't, I hate conflicts of any kind. Perhaps if there was more talking in the world then there would be less fighting going on and more cooperation. 👍

Would that be 1962/3, I remember it was so cold that diesel could start to gel at 32F (0C) and if it got to around 15F (-9.5C) it froze so lorries and tractors that were kept outside really took some persuasion to start, and I remember seeing photos in the paper of fires being lit under lorry fuel tanks and engineers using blowlamps on fuel lines to thaw them out, that was a year and a bit before I left school and started working on the buses. We still went to school though, these days they would shut the schools.🤨

No numb nuts 🤣, in case you haven't worked it out, it was day release, 1 day a week the rest was on the job training as an actual apprentice, and it consisted of a number of courses, craft practise which was what contractors used to do in the 1960s, then it was onto a OND course after successfully passing the first one, then onto the HND, and also onto a teaching course as the bus company I was working for (The National Bus Company) of which Eastern National was the one for my region of the country, were planning on opening up their own training college in house, and I was going to be part of that. That all fell though when the buses were deregulated and then became the **** sh*w we have today, and all those plans were gone. Here are some details of the buses. SCT'61 - Eastern National (sct61.org.uk)

Honestly, you have no idea just how many university graduates I have worked with, many have all the theory tucked away in the brain boxes but could not actually hack it on the shop floor because they had zero practical training/experience and many of them ended up doing far more mundane jobs such as stacking supermarket shelves as the actual job was far harder than they had imagined. I on the other hand, never got the degrees like they had, but I was able to do the job because I did it the old-fashioned way, on the job training with theory at college and practical on the shop floor. I have also been approached by a number of electrical/building services engineering consultancies about joining them, but decided against it. I was working on a project redeveloping the old Woolwich Arsenal into the huge upmarket residential estate it is now about 12 years ago, and I had one of these consulting engineers with the university degrees you talk about telling me and a contractor to stop complaining and follow the design brief. He only wanted to have 2 phases from a 3 phase supply in the same room of an apartment which is a no-no to have 415v potential within the same room of a domestic building where it is untrained people using the power, but if that wasn't bad enough, he had designed the 2 phases to be terminated at adjacent 13A socket outlets, which was a twin switched socket designed to share a common 230v feed on a ring main. 🙄 By the way, what on earth is a Desmond?

Nope, you are totally wrong, I did used to go into the bus garage early on freezing days to help get the buses started, but we never lit fires under the fuel tanks as you wrongly claimed, to have done that would also have burnt many buses to the ground, apart from being dangerous. Glow plugs were not even an option in those days so we used a rag, soaked in paraffin, tied in a knot on a long welding rod, lit the rag and went round to the buses and held the rag over the air intake filter while cranking the engine. The flame was sucked into the intake manifold and helped to warm the combustion chamber up and the engines would then start up, rather like the tractor shown in this video at the 9:00 mark you can see this in action. As to sweeping the floor, again you are so off on this you might as well be on the moon. It was every Thursday morning the entire garage had to have the floor scrubbed to remove any oil drips etc for health and safety reasons for the drivers and conductors safety. Everybody on the engineering staff had to get involved with this process of moving buses, spraying water and caustic soda crystals on the floor and then driving a scrubber over the floor to scrub the floor clean of any oil and suck it dry, and then drive the buses back into their parking spots again. The garage floor was the about same size as the Wembley Stadium pitch, so once again, some of the so-called brains and know it all on here, clearly do not have a clue about what happens in the real world outside their ivory towers. I have no need to make things up, I have lived the life for real, not just a theory boy.

@lol-lol Correct, I never went to university, I went to technical college for 8 years.

And I was just confirming that I know that and never implied that they did, other than in an emergency. Qualifications, I'm an electrical engineer with OND with distinction and HND, so in response to your later post, I'm not a mechanic.

I used the search facility here on the forum, searched for keywords TDI fire and then again TSI fire.

Thank you oh wise one, you are totally wrong on both points. 👿

Oh good, peace is restored.

@wyx087 So you are the only one with a scientific and engineering background then 😖

Oh good grief so now you are joining in and dismissing the experts who are saying that they do have a problem. Oh and for the record, the traction batteries do NOT vent during charging, that was never claimed, they only vent when they go wrong😒 as the experts explain.