Graham Butcher

Now we are getting into dangerous territory and have strayed far away from the theme of the thread here and may invoke some sort of reaction from the moderators 👀👀

Front or rear one? I just had a front replaced at a cost of £442 fitted. MOT history of the car before I acquired it in 2023, shows that in 2020 both front shocks had an advisories of having a light misting of oil. At the next MOT in 2022 there was no mention of any oil misting on the N/S/F but the O/S/F had a serious oil leak and failed the test, but passed a month later with all other faults listed (all 4 tyres below 1.6mm tread and brake pads @ less than 1.5mm) all fixed, with no advisories. In 2023 it again passed with no advisories and again in 2024 with light oil misting on N/S/F shock, (just replaced) and both front lower bushes showing slight wear, now also replaced so hopefully next test, should pass OK. So it looks as if my car has had both front DCC shocks replaced before I brought the car in June 23 and another replaced this Jan.

Equally though, with the rising population, and the need to reduce shipping foodstuff around the globe, not to mention the pending trade wars that Trump is stoking the fires of, we also need that land to grow as much of our own food as we can, do we not? That is incompatible with solar generation in the fields. That can be done on the rooftops and does not rob us of the valuable growing capacity. There are loads of solar farms around my area, and there is no way of growing crops at the same time as generating power, the panels are just too close to each other that to happen.

So does that mean that the £600million new production line will not be going in, as it was to turn the whole site into the Mini EV manufacturing site, after securing a massive cash boost from the UK government, to secure that happening. What happens now to the jobs that would have secured and is the public cash boost being returned to the government?

Add in the ripple effect of what Trump has and is doing in the USA and the effects of that could well be felt in other places as well, who knows what the real situation is going to be, it is very much a wait and see game right now. Bravo! Trump SHUTS DOWN all government EV chargers! | MGUY Australia Add in that investors are putting pressure on BP to drop their green ideas and revert to being a full-blown oil and gas company, so it seems that is exactly what they doing.

Oh, so someone has, well maybe not in quite the same kind of location as the refinery is more of a rural area with possibly the workers houses nearby, compared to the area of Manchester where Wythenshawe is located, but still bad enough. But in the defence of Fawley Refinery, it was sited there many years ago and is still to this day pretty rural.

Personally I think that the best overall option is to unplug the lead that feeds it, from the cars socket each time you exit the car. I have seen a phone charging lead that my son left plugged in become comprised due to either faulty wiring or the cable becoming mechanically damaged and start to smoulder with thick smoke pouring off it. Luckily, I was in the car at the time, and was able to isolate the lead. The length of lead was glowing red-hot and if it had been in contact with say the carpet, it could have started a fire before the fuse would blow, which might have burnt the car out. This type of thing is one of the biggest causes of car fires, so it is best to never leave any extra wiring live, and if it has to be left live, then run the cable, with plenty of mechanical protection within the cars structure where cables are meant to be and always protected by the smallest fuse possible.

Yes agreed, but we need to start moving such plants well away from built up areas. Would you locate a massive oil storage depot in such locations?

Indeed, the drone footage shows that fire is not currently within the main buildings, but in the video I posted and indeed in other videos by StacheD Training, he does say that the transportation and packing of these batteries is of particular concern. We do need to learn lessons and learn them quickly.

@OotohereWhile it is true that it does not mean that any EV batteries are/were involved in this fire or indeed any other battery recycling plants, it does indeed highlight the real hazards involved in the these types of batteries. We have had battery powered tools for years now, but it also seems, does it not, that we are now suddenly getting some real major battery related fires and if no other reason, it also highlights the real hazards locating such facilities near to town / cities and areas of housing estates. If we are destined to have these batteries, then we need to greatly beef up the safe handling of these batteries, the location of such plants, the means of transportation and the means of quickly and efficiently quelling of any fires and reducing their frequency and also the size of any fire.

Another battery recycling centre fire in the UK.

That is true for all cars fitted with an alternator, which unless I'm mistaken is all cars today even some of the old classics have had their charging systems upgraded to include an alternator, a far better option than the dynamo of earlier cars.

Well, I don't know about Honda's, but I suspect that it could very well be an early form of the ice warning system that we all seem to have in today's cars?

There may be more to the University of Southampton study after all it seems as Top Gear magazine have also now reported on it. I have not yet read what they say as I have to go out now but here is the link anyway. Researchers say brake dust is more toxic than diesel car emissions | Top Gear

I'd like to see this, as you say on the outside of the car, asking a fireman to enter the car to locate is fraught with problems, it might be fine if the fireman is already on the scene when the battery fire starts, but like the case of Luton Airport fire, the fire brigade often take several minutes to arrive and can be even longer at times, by which time the car would fully ablaze. Also there is also the chance that the port could also act as vent for high pressure jets of gas and fire exiting the battery thus rendering it useless anyway as the fireman would not able to access the port then.

I was aware of that VW has a reputation of suffering from rusty brake discs and also callipers, something that my car is supposed to be suffering from is callipers corroding, especially in the area where the bleed nipples are. I say that because my car needs to have its brake fluid changed, as it is due for it according to the service history. In fact, it was booked in to be done, but the mechanic said he was unable to undo the nipples due to them rusting in the calliper, and the allocated time caused him to decease any further attempts at undoing them. I suggested that they could perhaps spray them with penetrating fluid and leave it for a few days to soak in, and book the car in again to try again? I was told that would not work in their experience and the only thing that could do was to order up 4 new callipers just in case the nipples broke. This is still pending along with a slight oil leak which is not bad but will get worse if not attended to, so I intend to get the indie garage where I get my broken front spring replaced to attempt to do these jobs in the near future as I feel that the dealer will not even bother with attempting to get the old nipples out and fit new ones, but will just replace the complete callipers at a greater cost than the indie would. But my discs are showing any signs of rust anywhere the pads go, they do show signs however at the edge of the disc and the hub, which is normal as the pads do not come into contact there. But my car does get used almost daily, and Monday to Friday it is used at least twice a day taking one of my sons to his brother's as they work together and go in the same car 3 days a week, the other 2 days I have to take him all the way as his older goes to the gym early in the morning on those days. So that keeps my discs nice and shiny, so rust doesn't get a chance to build up.

Actually, is it not true that unless a car, regardless of its drive train, should not have rusty discs unless it has spent a reasonable amount of time not being used? The pads are supposed to be in light contact with the disc, unlike drum brakes, disc brakes do not have any pull off springs to pull the shoes/pads clear off the drum/disc?

That was also what I understood, as I said maybe in the fullness of time we will know more with facts and figures to prove or disprove the report that GBN claimed was true.

Well @Ootohere and @lol-lol thats why I included the line "This was announced by that wonderful (sic) TV channel GBN." I couldn't find a more creditable source right now, maybe one will appear before too long, but I mean GBN, I mean come on, how much creditability do you think they have? Either way, I just thought that if it does indeed turn out to be true, then we have mentioned it, and if not then at least we have looked at it and had a laugh, so don't shoot the messenger hey?

News just come in from Southampton University who have done a scientific study and discovered that the brake dust from EV's is far more polluting and damaging to peoples health than the tailpipe emissions from a diesel car. This was announced by that wonderful (sic) TV channel GBN. It seems that EV's need to have special material for their brake pads.

What was the type of roads used and the terrain like?

Yes, Mk3 Superbs also suffer from high RPM when cold for the same reason, and it can be disconcerting when idling, and you take your foot off the brake, especially when in reverse as the car will rapidly take off and if you're not prepared for it can be fairly alarming, that is something that the Mk1 and Mk2 never had.

Exactly, we have been lifting off the gas peddle for decades as we approach bends etc and only touching the brakes when we need to. My car has adaptive cruise control and friends that are following me tell me that at times when I use the ACC that my brake lights come on far more frequently than when I don't use it and that is because it removes the throttle input to the ECU and replaces it with brakes if the vehicle in front is going slower than my set speed. The actual braking can be felt as well, whereas when not using it, I can sense that the vehicle in front is going slower can if, I'm not in safe position to overtake it, lift my foot off the throttle and allow the car to take advantage of the overrun on the engine to slow down slowly, ACC cannot do that, it senses anything coming into the radar cone and will brake until the set distance is achieved to keep us apart from each other.

Engineer by profession and mechanic by choice to keep costs down. Its all well and good @wyx087 going on about keeping costs and weight down, but sorry, that does not cut the mustard as far as I'm concerned, just like the BS about ECU and cold engine V BMS and battery temp and all of this software can solve it etc is just crap. None of it is making the EV simpler then an ICE, It's adding far more complexity into everything single thing and these things are mission-critical at times, like brakes. It would be far easier and more sensible for instance to strip out all of this regen nonsense so that the driver can simply transition from ICE to EV without having to get used to different ways of driving etc, need to slow down or stop, simple, use the bleeding brake pedal, it's been good enough for decades, so why change it? It's the same thing with the battery, and I just do not see why people struggle with the concept that the battery is simply a fuel tank, and nothing else. When has there ever been a requirement to monitor the temps on fuel tanks on ICE, the need to pre-condition it before topping the tank up, or the need to not exceed the 80% of its capacity or else the tanks' longevity will suffer. Like wise, with an ICE car, you don't need to source the right type of fuel pump or filling station to suit the type of car you're driving, any fuel pump will do other than sticking diesel into a petrol tank or the other way round. The more the designers can make EV's become more like their ICE equivalents, the easier it will be for people to replace their ICE with an EV. Make the charging more affordable and accessible, have batteries that do not have to be so critical of temperature, move controls away from touch screens to actual proper switches and knobs etc, bring prices down to those of ICE cars and get ranges upto similar as those for ICE then a lot of the issues that people cite as reasons not to consider EV for their next car have been done away with as it really just then becomes much the same as having either petrol or diesel, i.e., no special requirements or conditions as far as using and driving are concerned. We need less reliance altogether on software, we have all seen enough problems caused by software failings in our normal day-to-day life with things like computers, TVs, phones, sat nav etc all suffering from bugs / glitches etc that cause them to crash, reboot or lock up etc, we certainly do not need to have software in mission-critical parts of our cars.

No plenty of bricks in the wall though.