StevenRB45 said:

She's on 3 x 12 hour night shifts and 2 5.5s this week so fully expect it to resemble a skip again next time I drive it, but at least all the rubbish will be less than a week old so it won't smell like a bin wagon.

Amazing how many people it takes to shop in some peoples opinion.

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My older boy's wife is a journalist. She's recently had a big promotion so gets out on the road much less than she used to but a few years ago she was on permanent call to cover "big" stories and sometimes would literally live in the car for a day at a time. When ever it came to me for servicing or repairs it was so bad inside I didn't even like sitting in it wearing my "mechanicing" clothes! Drinks cans, McDonalds debris, part sucked sweeties, spilt drinks, etc. I never knew women could be so slovenly! Their house however is lovely, how can that be?

Regarding supermarkets. We mostly do Lidl, Aldi and Morrisons with the occasional visit to Sainsburys/Tesco when "stuff" isn't on the others shelves. One person/one trolley is being pretty strictly observed up here so often Mrs J goes on her own but sometimes I'll go too, but sit in the car 'till she comes out, if there's heavy lifting to be done. - She doesn't trust me to shop as I forget stuff and buy things I shouldn't or get the "wrong" brand. We tend to go on a Tuesday or Wednesday, occasionally a Thursday and crowding just isn't a problem. Mrs J has a theory that people are short of money due to being sacked/layed off so aren't in the shops.

My wife is pretty terrible with keeping her car clean, she has a significant Diet Coke/Pepsi addition which means when she gets out of the car about 2-dozen cans spill out with her. The Mini Countryman has a huge storage bin between the seats which is firstly usually full of empty cans and secondly aptly names “bin”

That however pales in comparison to a friend I knew many years back who was a nurse (you know those people we associate with being ultra clean and infection aware) she driver an older style early 2000s Ford Ka and she had never...... NEVER cleaned it, never washed it, never hoovered it, never so much as wiped the dash board down. I had never seen anything like it. Apparently cars reach a point of equilibrium with dirt where they can take no more dirt on board and therefore can’t get any more dirty. The down side to that is that the inside of such a car bears an uncanny resemblance to an Egyptian tomb that’s not been opened for 4 thousand years, a thick crust of impenetrable dust, like a shell of dust if there where such a thing.

I’m sure any of us who have work in the motor trade in the past have seen our fare share of disgusting cars and it seems the worst are often owned by the fairer sex.

AndyRKett said:

I’m sure any of us who have work in the motor trade in the past have seen our fare share of disgusting cars and it seems the worst are often owned by the fairer sex.

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Or dog owners? Getting rid of "dog" in a trade in can be an almost impossible task. We just used to trade them.

Pugglt Auld Jock said:

Or dog owners? Getting rid of "dog" in a trade in can be an almost impossible task. We just used to trade them.

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Same here. We'd give them a good clean, then leave them for a day or so. If we could still smell dog, they'd be traded.

Same for 'child' cars. The smell of baby vomit will never go away, even if the seats and carpets are removed for steam cleaning. Can only ever resell them to another young parent, as their noses accept the pong without noticing.

Farmers' cars arrived very 'muddy', inside and out, but would clean very well. Low trade in price, good profit earner.

portland_bill said:

Farmers' cars arrived very 'muddy', inside and out, but would clean very well. Low trade in price, good profit earner.

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Where I live, we're surrounded by a bunch of farm families... They will often look down on the non farmers, totally unaware of how they appear to the rest of us...

They insist on walking into the petrol station shops with the wellie boots, covered up to their knees in fresh, brown manure which stinks long after they leave and nobody seems to complain. Yuck!!!

Thankfully, they're all tight as hell and their cars will end up rusting copper shells buried in earth and debris in the back of their yards, well past their sell-by dates and never have to be suffered by any poor buyer!!!

Hopefully they're not like that everywhere lol

portland_bill said:

Same here. We'd give them a good clean, then leave them for a day or so. If we could still smell dog, they'd be traded.

Same for 'child' cars. The smell of baby vomit will never go away, even if the seats and carpets are removed for steam cleaning. Can only ever resell them to another young parent, as their noses accept the pong without noticing.

Farmers' cars arrived very 'muddy', inside and out, but would clean very well. Low trade in price, good profit earner.

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Thankfully we at least avoided baby vomit..only poo :yuck:

Of course she did spill a pint of milk in the boot..but a carpet cleaner sorted that 3rd attempt.

Also speaking of farmers cars..



This was last time I gave up and washed it.

It's actually a clean car, she can drive so the wheels are un-marked and there's no damage on the corners or mirrors etc.

I'm always surprised when I clean it up and I'm faced with a 3 year old low miles car rather than something you'd find on the bottom of the sea.

I must admit, the C3 is 1 of very few modern cars that is actually acceptable to look at.

puntofan01 said:

I must admit,

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I think you mean “I my opinion”

puntofan01 said:

I must admit, the C3 is 1 of very few modern cars that is actually acceptable to look at.

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I have a similar relationship to it to my old Fiat..in that I like it a lot but wouldn't necessarily recommend one to a friend I wanted to keep.

They have a very specific set of strengths..so if you need a comfortable chair to sit in after a 12 hour shift and listen to pod casts. You have no interest in "sporty" driving or driving in pretty much any sense. You need soft long travel suspension with ground clearance
and sensibly sized tyres to deal with country roads day in day out all hours and all weathers it's perfect.

Otherwise it's pretty terrible at everything other than motorway cruising

StevenRB45 said:

if you need a comfortable chair to sit in after a 12 hour shift and listen to pod casts. You have no interest in "sporty" driving or driving in pretty much any sense. You need soft long travel suspension

Otherwise it's pretty terrible at everything other than motorway cruising

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Sums up my experience well.

The original C3 had the most comfortable chairs of any I can remember. Not easy to drive from, but to sit in, just lovely.

Citroen are running an ad on TV showing lots of their iconic older models. I guess the message is to try to tell us they still have that flair. I always manage to see the other side of any such message, so for me it just shows, "look how good we used to be, now we're trying to fob you off with this bland stuff." (Other adjectives are available)

My partner has a carer come in around 9am, get her out of bed, washed, dressed and breakfasted.
Last week, she was later than usual, having been brought by her husband.
Her Aygo had a puncture, so hubby was ferrying her around her jobs that morning. Begrudgingly. After he'd dropped her, he disappeared, to return to collect her later. Had he gone to change the wheel and drop it off at the tyre shop? No.
She's not allowed to drive his car, as it is his pride and joy. We're looking at a Ford S-max, in dull grey, with the bonnet, roof and tailgate wrapped matt black, making it look much older. Meaningless personal number plate. To me, it is just functional family transport, so can't really understand the 'special' status.

This week, we hear the rest of the story. After her morning shift, with him chauffering her around, she gets home, tired, gets the family lunch, then takes the car to the tyre shop herself. At least he operated the electric pump facilitate her short journey.

Different lives.

portland_bill said:

Different lives.

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What a gentleman he sounds...

StevenRB45 said:

What a gentleman he sounds...

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Wow some people just luck out to use a USA ism!

StevenRB45 said:

I have a similar relationship to it to my old Fiat..in that I like it a lot but wouldn't necessarily recommend one to a friend I wanted to keep.

They have a very specific set of strengths..so if you need a comfortable chair to sit in after a 12 hour shift and listen to pod casts. You have no interest in "sporty" driving or driving in pretty much any sense. You need soft long travel suspension with ground clearance
and sensibly sized tyres to deal with country roads day in day out all hours and all weathers it's perfect.

Otherwise it's pretty terrible at everything other than motorway cruising

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I must admit, it's not a car I'd consider buying. I do like the way it looks, and the fact that it's very definitely not sporty does appeal, but it's that touchscreen for controlling pretty much the whole car that majorly puts me off, along with the existence of the Fiat Tipo, which although it's bigger than ideal, it's by far the car I like the looks of the most, and they're a good price to boot.

Fingers crossed, if allowed/told to by Peugeot, Fiat will be able to make a decent supermini out of the components available to them.

During the 1st lockdown we realised we were getting virtually nothing in the way of FREEVIEW tv channels

This week I was asked to organise a new freeview tv aeriel..

Then consider a recorder box

While doing a little web research.. I discovered that you can do a 'postcode search'

Convinced I was reading it incorrectly - I tried my previous address

Oxfordshire.. Oxford transmitter(20 miles away..) Channels 88

Gwent.. villages own transmitter ( 200 metres away) Channels 18

They dont tell you this in the Ad.'s do they ..

puntofan01 said:

I must admit, the C3 is 1 of very few modern cars that is actually acceptable to look at.

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I still think the Italians and the French make the most interesting / original designs that are hard to compare to brands of other nationalities.

Between the two, I still prefer Italian design though. But the French have 'the flair'.

Still miss my Panda at times!!! I just blend in with the other million DS3s around now lol

portland_bill said:

Sums up my experience well.

The original C3 had the most comfortable chairs of any I can remember. Not easy to drive from, but to sit in, just lovely.

Citroen are running an ad on TV showing lots of their iconic older models. I guess the message is to try to tell us they still have that flair. I always manage to see the other side of any such message, so for me it just shows, "look how good we used to be, now we're trying to fob you off with this bland stuff." (Other adjectives are available)

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There's a good channel on YouTube called 'BigCar', the guy who does the videos is English but seems to have worked in the US at Microsoft. Smart guy. But he always seems to do long looks at older 'iconic' Citroen models, learnt a lot about the company from his videos.

Apparently they had a tendency to invest heavily in specific aspects of the car (mostly to no real commercial success) but went out of their way to do things that looked and worked radically differently.... and just like our favourite car maker, Fiat, tended to get a little too close to bankruptcy from time to time.

Until Peugeot stepped in... I think since then they've became much less unique (but PROFITABLE!) than when they were independent.

It's sad to think that the new merger with Fiat might result in the same kind of watering down / standardising of parts and models. They've already gutted 'GM Vauxhall'. I was in the queue for B&Q today and staring at the cars, took me a while to realise one of them was one of the latest Corsa's ... 208 in a frock.

But the method seems to have worked for VAG, and if anybody else wants to compete I guess they need to adopt a similar strategy... they could maybe invest more in the platforms, engines... and maybe that'll result in the freedom to commit Fiat and Citroen back to their more creative days?! (Boring people can always buy the Vauxhalls / Peugeots )

...For me? Maybe I'll come back to Fiat next, but the DS9 with 360hp and 4x4 looks like something I'd be happy to try if it's still out in around 6 years time

SB1500 said:

There's a good channel on YouTube called 'BigCar'

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I found his channel a while ago. Then I unsubscribed because he gets so much of the detail wrong. Having lived through the times he talks about, and especially with the Rover group stuff (formerly AustinRover, British Leyland, BMC), so much of the detail is wrong it makes me cross. I've been close to the vehicles, at the time they were current, worked on them, driven them, not just the Rover stuff, but all makes.
The basic story is ok, but don't rely on his detail.

portland_bill said:

I found his channel a while ago. Then I unsubscribed because he gets so much of the detail wrong. Having lived through the times he talks about, and especially with the Rover group stuff (formerly AustinRover, British Leyland, BMC), so much of the detail is wrong it makes me cross. I've been close to the vehicles, at the time they were current, worked on them, driven them, not just the Rover stuff, but all makes.
The basic story is ok, but don't rely on his detail.

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Ah that’s interesting. As it was well before my time I never really had anything to compare it to but I’m sure I got through all of those ones.

That, and the old Top Gear ‘British Leyland’ challenge sums up my entire knowledge of the British car brands of that era lol

varesecrazy said:

During the 1st lockdown we realised we were getting virtually nothing in the way of FREEVIEW tv channels

This week I was asked to organise a new freeview tv aeriel..

Then consider a recorder box

While doing a little web research.. I discovered that you can do a 'postcode search'

Convinced I was reading it incorrectly - I tried my previous address

Oxfordshire.. Oxford transmitter(20 miles away..) Channels 88

Gwent.. villages own transmitter ( 200 metres away) Channels 18

They dont tell you this in the Ad.'s do they ..

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Our house in Stafford was in a Freeview not spot. Every house in the street had satellite dishes. We bought a Humax Freesat box and got almost all the Freeview channels at good quality. To be fair our house already had a dish but they are not hard to fit and align with a compass and angle spirit level.