Graham Butcher

I think I still have the footage somewhere, when I find it, I don't mind hosting it somewhere, I've nothing to hide.

The quality of journalism these days is appalling, there are many inaccuracies in her article and the one about the ship fire on board the Fremantle Highway, the photos they used is for the Felicity Ace which sank last year!

I had the same issue with mine, and today I took it to my service agent who had a look and said that it needed a software upgrade, which he did, and now the seat memory is supposed to be working, so I'll need to set it again and save the settings. I did notice since doing the software update, the passenger mirror now dips down, they also did one or two other bits and only charged my a very reasonable £60. Knowing that it was a replacement car for my old one, which they looked after from new, they did give my new to me one a good check over and the verdict was that although it has done high mileage, it does not look like it, and they say that I selected a fantastic and well sorted and cared for car, which is good to know as I was a little worried about its mileage.

This is a problem everywhere these days. Years ago we used to have dozens here in Chelmsford, and we were only a town back then, now we're a city, we have just 2. I don't remember when they re engineered people so that they never need a toilet while they're out, every park used to have at least 1 toilet block, now they are a thing of the past.

I had a ride today in a full EV, a SsangYong Korando e-Motion. My local Skoda service agent had my Superb in today to inspect my oil pressure regulating valve and the seat memory, and they are dealers for SsangYong range and when mine was ready, they came and picked me up the SsangYong, despite having massive proportions on the outside, it was rather cramped on the inside./ Nice enough interior though, just the front seats were a tad narrow for my frame. The salesman told me that he uses the demonstrator as his daily, lives in Gravesend but has no way of charging at home so charges it at work for free. He said that when he was told that was his company car as well, he was a bit dubious about it being an EV but admits now that he has come to like it. It only has a range 211 miles and can charge at 50kWh. O-62mph in 7.6 seconds, a whole 1 second quicker than mine but runs out of puff at 97mph. It was comfortable, but not as quiet as I expected it to be.

Yes Sir, so you can dish out whatever you seem fit but are unable to accept any criticism back, it kind of figures.

Well, maybe some good might come out of the Luton fire after all, it seems that maybe the government have woken up to the fact that there needs to be much wider parking spaces for cars these days, and also finally they seem to pulled their heads out of the place where the sun doesn't shine accepted that EV cars do pose a serious threat in the event of a fire, regardless of where or what caused it and is proposing big baths to be built for the purpose of dunking EV cays in if on fire. Now lets see if we can obtain a copy of this report and see if any of points are put into practise. https://www.regit.cars/car-news/a-government-commissioned-report-recommends-wider-parking-spaces-to-help-prevent-fires-from-spreading-and-giant-baths-for-burning-vehicles-73692

Hmm, that is not a good comment to make is it, just because there was flooding in Scotland, does not mean that all of Scotland had floods neither does it automatically mean that the car was driven in floods. In my opinion, that statement was even worse than mine re the Luton fire, at least I was commenting on an actual video of the car that was on fire, not widely speculating.🙄

Wow, that was brave, I would not dream of trying that in my diesel as I'm sure water would get into the engine at that depth, but I do take your point, that an electric car should be capable of going through floodwater up to at least the bottom of the doors, anything higher, no.

Also don't forget that burning liquid fuel on the ground will flow downwards and if the fire brigade are using water that the burning fuel will also float on that water and will also then spread that fire even further and make a bad situation even worse. If fuel is thought to leaking etc, foam is the correct tool.

But you are making assumptions based on what? Owner does not say he drove through floods that were deep, but even if they were deep, he was able to drive onto his destination OK, so is it not reasonable to think that everything was OK and that something happened while he was enjoying his meal. ICE vehicles frequently fail while they are not being driven, and as I said, assuming the car's normal warranty had expired (not actually knowing the age of the car) that the owner would therefore automatically expect some form of a bill, depending on which part has failed. Tesla warranties are also very complicated and differant aspects of the car attract different warranty periods. This is especially true if the car was second-hand when purchased, when most parts like drive train and battery are 4 years or 50,000 miles and the touch screen controls and media, covered for 2 years or 25,000 miles. Vehicle Warranty | Tesla Support Again, the battery certainly should be, if not then we are sleepwalking into some pretty murky waters indeed and will cause major problems then if when it rains that people will be unable to drive their electric vehicles for fear of getting water in the batteries and then facing major expensive repair bills, and as mentioned earlier, how about the emergency services also not being able to respond for fear of getting stranded and or massive repairs costs. Insurance premiums will skyrocket as a result.

Interesting, how did you arrive at your conclusion that the owner knew that he was responsible for the damage? He says that he can't remember any deep puddles on the way there, but even if there was a few deep puddles, the car should be more than capable of handling such water depth anyway when being driven. If the car was left standing in water and the battery was submerged for an extended period then I could accept it, but then, the car itself should be wet inside as well? Maybe he was thinking, when he said that was expecting a bill was because the car's warranty had expired and something had become broken? I don't know for sure, as indeed, none of us do, that the battery had been submerged, but even then, I would think that it's not unreasonable to expect that the battery should be properly sealed to prevent water ingress anyway? Seeing as the batteries are mounted low down, that surely is a negative for electric propulsion if the weather starts to rain like we get from time to time, really heavy, that you will have to seek out high ground and sit it out or even stay overnight etc, in case there are deep puddles on your route? How are the emergency services also going to cope responding to 999 calls in the future if puddles that are currently OK with ICE vehicles to drive through in perfect safety, without hydro-locking their engines? It sounds more like Tesla, are doing what many companies do, and that is trying to see how much they can get away with, which seems to be a common theme today.

Why should it? I never said it was or wasn't, just that it did not look like a diesel fire, it was everyone else who somehow managed to convince themselves that I did.

OK, update time, and I'm eating a big slice of humble pie, just as I said would if I was wrong and it now seems that I am. The Range Rover was a 2014 sport model, 3Litre diesel reg DK14MPV, had a reg change in 2016 to 111BT and back again in 2020. Then had another change to E10EFL in Dec 2022. I sure would not want to be in the owners shows right now, having purchased the car in 2020, getting a personalised registration plate on it late last year and today has nothing, it must have been their pride and joy.

Simple, because my car got wrote off for me by someone driving into me doing a U turn and claimed he couldn't see me as the sun was in his eyes, the first was based on the old policy continuing, I forgot that with the new replacement car, the premium also altered for the rest of the year and I hadn't factored that rise into the first figures, so nothing strange, and certainly no conspiracy to mislead you. Also, the original figures were based on as it says, 6,000 miles, I forgot to allow for the 2,000+ miles I did, in the loan car which was not part of the mileage allowance deal, it came with its own insurance, so when I factored in the extra miles, it came to the new figure, which I rejected I now have another insurer for around half the cost if I had stayed with the old one, simple as that. Oh and in case you haven't worked it out, the old policy also expired in those 10 weeks and so there has been a lot of activity and price movements, but it is still way more than your renewal price, so living in France does have its benefits thats for sure.

Yap, I did expect a jump in the premium because costs have gone up, I just wish that my pension was even able to just able to lag a bit behind, but sadly, the insurance now is almost a whole month's pension in itself.

Very true and as that report I posted pointed out, most don't have a sprinkler system and are built to a very low standard, bays too narrow, no fire breaks and all the support structure is not protected in the event of a fire, the heat is directly absorbed by the metal structure and with the amount of energy stored in cars in the form of fuel and even more with electric cars, especially if the batteries are pretty full, is it any wonder that fires spread quickly and are difficult to put out as access is restricted in the case of multi story ones.

Insurance is a rip off, you have to have it to drive on the roads, and then they try and screw you every time. That trend is going to worse as the new electric cars have such lightening acceleration, bigger HP that they are an accident in the waiting, and when you consider we can only 70mph in the UK and speed limits are coming down all the time, why do we need the ability to do 100mph+ and sub 10 seconds 0-60mph, when just the only time you can do 70mph is late at night because of other traffic.

But that is unfair when the footage shows the first one being a left-hand drive lorry had sideswiped me on the M25 because he failed to see a broken down van in his lane and swerved to avoid crashing into it and instead crashed into me. The second one showed that I had been stationary at a round about for a few seconds because of heavy traffic on it and then a car rear ended me because he was on his phone. The third, a car in front of me in a 20mph zone we were both doing 19mph, decided to indicate he was turning left into a side street, but instead of entering it in the normal fashion, he was using it to try and do a 180 degree U turn because he saw the traffic lights in front were red at some roadworks, and he was not prepared to wait. He drove into my nearside front as I was passing the side street and claimed he could not see me because the sun was in his eyes. So because they were not paying attention, I have to pay more?

Oh trust me I tried, but it's difficult when somebody is hell-bent on pushing the buttons all the time while have dual standards.

Oh good grief. I'm done with this now.

Yes indeed you should, as I said before, you people in France seem to have it all going great for you, while here, everything seems to be sinking fast.

Oh dear, not again, did I not make it clear that BBM is a broker effectively, tied to a which ever underwriter gives them a reasonable deal and that it was their underwriter who happened to be Zurich Insurance who were pulling out of the market, good grief, it seems as if misreading/misunderstanding is becoming a pandemic 😃 As to me saying I've had three accidents since 2016, that's true and each time I have had dashcam footage from my dashcam that very clearly proved that not a single accident was in shape or form down to me showed that I did not contribute to any of them, it was entirely the other drivers faults.

The BYD Seagull is going in the right direction, too small for me, but has all the over the top bits stripped out to keep the price more affordable and while I don't like the interior, it's very heart warning to the return of some of the buttons and knobs with less touch screen controls take your eyes off the road.

Your evidence is flawed, you read to much into it that was not what I meant nor was what I said 😠 I said what I did as a result of the definitive statement from official source and video evidence that it was a diesel vehicle, because it was A too early for a definitive statement, they have not had the time to conduct a investigation yet, the structure is not safe to do so. The video showed a car from the Land Rover group of cars, the number plate was not clearly visible beyond all doubt and the fire as I keep explaining and you ignore what I say, did not like a diesel fire. The only conspiracy theory here as far as I'm concerned is coming from you with the amount of energy you're putting into this to make me see it as a diesel fire it appears that you're desperate to get this to be accepted with question to be as stated because it takes any pressure your biased electric basis. If you think I've got this whole fire thing wrong, then why don't just leave me out on a limb with my thoughts that something is not quite as it seems and wait for the completed report in due course to see if anything changes. I'm pretty sure that others are pretty bored with this now. As to blocking you, I've already said that I haven't blocked anyone yet, and I'm active in many forums and also on the admin team of some and still never blocked or banned anyone from those either. We can all learn from each other, but we have to respect each other as well.