OP
OP
What's made you not grumpy but not smile either today?
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What's made you not grumpy but not smile either today?
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Unless it's got air ducts (unlikely) just take off the splash guard on the back of the disc.
My brother had Unos in Italy. The original 900 did 200,000kms and still going strong. The 1100 was so clean on the exhaust emission the tester bloke had to put the probe into his own car to even get a reading. He could not record below testable limit. That perfectly good car got scrapped under the Italian scrappage system where all cars older than a certain age became illegal to use. Quite how they avoided scrapping old DInos and Miuras I don't know.
My brother had Unos in Italy. The original 900 did 200,000kms and still going strong. The 1100 was so clean on the exhaust emission the tester bloke had to put the probe into his own car to even get a reading. He could not record below testable limit. That perfectly good car got scrapped under the Italian scrappage system where all cars older than a certain age became illegal to use. Quite how they avoided scrapping old DInos and Miuras I don't know.
As Professor Ferraroti once said.. "you can have all sorts laws in Italy provided they are not enforced". Although 124k miles is not exactly long way for a car in perfect Mediterranean conditions...my Wifes old micra is still on the road at 120k miles and that's lived in the UK for 17 years.
My thing today, my car is coming out of the dealer network, it's 9 this year so it's bloody amazing it's still in it but they were usually reasonable for servicing with parts prices that were sky high. It's not needed parts, so parts prices didn't matter. It's at the point where stuff starts to deteriorate with just age and miles so off to the local independent it goes. They've looked after the odd breakage I've had in the last few years and they do a good job.
Not actually any cheaper on the service but if it needs any work they are much more reasonable. Also truth be told probably a bit more thorough than a main agent used to dealing with new cars in warranty.
I want it to have a proper look over before my wife takes over as she has 0 mechanical sympathy and also is highly unlikely to notice/investigate rattles bangs or funny noises.
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My point was that a small engined Fiat Uno was a reliable little car. The one with 120,000 miles was sold on but quite probably went on to cover double that.
The Uno DNA is still clear in today's Panda 169.
The Uno DNA is still clear in today's Panda 169.
Just got a silly phone call.
Indian accent, takes a few moments from answer to him speaking, they do need to pay attention, a the delay is rude, so not a good start.
He introduced himself as speaking on behalf of the call blocking service, wishing to review blocked numbers.
I suggested he should add his own.
Indian accent, takes a few moments from answer to him speaking, they do need to pay attention, a the delay is rude, so not a good start.
He introduced himself as speaking on behalf of the call blocking service, wishing to review blocked numbers.
I suggested he should add his own.
They'll be on a dialler, they use answering machine detection before an agent has the call routed. If it thinks you're an answering machine it disconnects the call and dials the next number.
The gap is the call being routed after you spoke...literally don't speak it'll cut off. It interprets a gap before you speak as an answer machine so no advisor is connected to you and the call ends. Feel free to game this by not saying hello for 5 seconds or so..
In other news...I'm very glad I only ever had a managerial/supervisory role in outbound dialing for my sins. One of many side roles in my previous job which was made up of all the jobs people got made redundant from that were then found to be necessary..
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'evening PB. Do you use a call blocking service? If so whose and how well does it work?
Last time we renegotiated our broadband contract our provided suggested we use their call blocker after I mentioned that we got a lot of "silly" calls. I was sceptical as we'd been with the BT one before and it really hadn't worked. Have to say though, full marks to SKY, we are rarely now bothered with any of these.
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I do the silent pick up. A real caller says, "Hel-lo?" Spam drops the line.
OP
OP
Bought a new pair of sunglasses today, was looking for something to cut the cable tied label off so i could wear them when it suddenly dawned on me that i should probably wait a few days before i put them anywhere near my eyes to let any virus die.
using 80% spray is what killed my last pair all the glue melted.
using 80% spray is what killed my last pair all the glue melted.
I decided to post here as there are both "grumpy" and "smiley" aspects to the tale!
We unexpectedly found ourselves out at my younger boy's house yesterday. So, with the Jazz being now at least a month over it's yearly service interval, (Not too worried though as it only does about 6,000 miles a year) I brought it home with me yesterday (Mrs J drove our car) and was up early this morning to collect oil, filters, etc from the factors.
Everything in stock, that's great thank you. Oh, and a 5 litre of concentrated screen wash please. "You know the law has changed don't you? I can't sell you the -20 degree stuff any more". I seems too many people have been drinking it? Anyone else been told this? It's a new one on me!
So, now back home all the under bonnet "stuff" went well and the "High Stress" moment of tightening the sump plug in the alloy sump went without a hitch. Now for the brakes. Damn, I can't get the locking wheel nut removing tool to go onto the wheel nuts. I've been looking after this car for over 4 years now and haven't had this before, so what's going on? Well, turns out the outside of the nut has corroded so badly the tool won't go over it.
All four are the same! I scraped the outside of the nuts with a small screwdriver and, after some time, managed to get the tool on and the nuts removed. I buffed them up with some emery to remove the rust and gave them a light coating of grease - I'll have to keep an eye on them though.
Then the next shock. Because this car doesn't cover a lot of miles each year it's brakes wear pretty slowly - I believe it's still on it's original discs and 2nd set of pads. I had in mind that the brakes were going to be Ok for some time yet so got a bit of a surprise to find the front pads down to barely 2 mm. Last year the N/S front caliper seized and I fitted a rebuilt unit, noting on my record book that the pads were "Ok". This car is an '08 (one of the last of the Mk1 models) with 54,000 miles on the clock so I decided to treat her to both discs and pads. In fact the old discs might have stood another set of pads but were definitely past their best.
The discs are retained by two wee crossheaded set screws - as are many others - which can be difficult to remove. So I was delighted when these ones surrendered to a light tap of my hand held impact screwdriver. My delight was short lived though as they then tightened up within about three quarters of a turn. I did get them all out - and all 4 were as bad as the next - with lots of plus gas and tooing and froing with my electric drill/driver. Once out the cause of the problem is easy to see:
The screws project through the hub by about half their length. This means the back of the screw thread is exposed and so rusts! How Silly! I'm disappointed with Honda over this as I've come to regard the engineering in this car with high esteem. I think it's generally much better screwed together than many others I've worked on.
Have to say I like the design of caliper used. Nice slide pin design with easy to work with retaining set screws holding the caliper to the caliper slides. I slipped the pins out of their rubber boots and gave them a wee coating of silicon grease. The main carrier bolts came out without a fight and, once these wee screws were removed the discs themselves just fell off. I always pay a lot of attention to cleaning up the face of the hub flange so the disc runs "true" when installed. On this one there was a little corrosion on the hub which I cleaned up with a file.
The carriers cleaned up nicely too:
Can anyone explain what this projecting "tab" does?
when fitted to the carrier it looks like this - and I checked, this is fitted correctly
I've seen pads with wear "squeelers" on them which touch the disc when the pad is nearly worn out, but they are on the other side of the pad of course so they can touch the disc. It's all a mystery to me!
Nice when you see it all back together again though isn't it?
The N/S one still has it's stickers on from when it was replaced last year!
We unexpectedly found ourselves out at my younger boy's house yesterday. So, with the Jazz being now at least a month over it's yearly service interval, (Not too worried though as it only does about 6,000 miles a year) I brought it home with me yesterday (Mrs J drove our car) and was up early this morning to collect oil, filters, etc from the factors.
Everything in stock, that's great thank you. Oh, and a 5 litre of concentrated screen wash please. "You know the law has changed don't you? I can't sell you the -20 degree stuff any more". I seems too many people have been drinking it? Anyone else been told this? It's a new one on me!
So, now back home all the under bonnet "stuff" went well and the "High Stress" moment of tightening the sump plug in the alloy sump went without a hitch. Now for the brakes. Damn, I can't get the locking wheel nut removing tool to go onto the wheel nuts. I've been looking after this car for over 4 years now and haven't had this before, so what's going on? Well, turns out the outside of the nut has corroded so badly the tool won't go over it.
All four are the same! I scraped the outside of the nuts with a small screwdriver and, after some time, managed to get the tool on and the nuts removed. I buffed them up with some emery to remove the rust and gave them a light coating of grease - I'll have to keep an eye on them though.
Then the next shock. Because this car doesn't cover a lot of miles each year it's brakes wear pretty slowly - I believe it's still on it's original discs and 2nd set of pads. I had in mind that the brakes were going to be Ok for some time yet so got a bit of a surprise to find the front pads down to barely 2 mm. Last year the N/S front caliper seized and I fitted a rebuilt unit, noting on my record book that the pads were "Ok". This car is an '08 (one of the last of the Mk1 models) with 54,000 miles on the clock so I decided to treat her to both discs and pads. In fact the old discs might have stood another set of pads but were definitely past their best.
The discs are retained by two wee crossheaded set screws - as are many others - which can be difficult to remove. So I was delighted when these ones surrendered to a light tap of my hand held impact screwdriver. My delight was short lived though as they then tightened up within about three quarters of a turn. I did get them all out - and all 4 were as bad as the next - with lots of plus gas and tooing and froing with my electric drill/driver. Once out the cause of the problem is easy to see:
The screws project through the hub by about half their length. This means the back of the screw thread is exposed and so rusts! How Silly! I'm disappointed with Honda over this as I've come to regard the engineering in this car with high esteem. I think it's generally much better screwed together than many others I've worked on.
Have to say I like the design of caliper used. Nice slide pin design with easy to work with retaining set screws holding the caliper to the caliper slides. I slipped the pins out of their rubber boots and gave them a wee coating of silicon grease. The main carrier bolts came out without a fight and, once these wee screws were removed the discs themselves just fell off. I always pay a lot of attention to cleaning up the face of the hub flange so the disc runs "true" when installed. On this one there was a little corrosion on the hub which I cleaned up with a file.
The carriers cleaned up nicely too:
Can anyone explain what this projecting "tab" does?
when fitted to the carrier it looks like this - and I checked, this is fitted correctly
I've seen pads with wear "squeelers" on them which touch the disc when the pad is nearly worn out, but they are on the other side of the pad of course so they can touch the disc. It's all a mystery to me!
Nice when you see it all back together again though isn't it?
The N/S one still has it's stickers on from when it was replaced last year!
Golf is due a service and this will be the first service away from the VW dealership, however it’s only ever seen be parts so I phoned the dealership to see what new oil, filter, air filter will cost me. Generally a small or large service with vw will range from £250-£350.
So it was a bit insulting to find that all the service parts needed including a new sump plug came to a grand total of about £60 including the super quantum special magic vw oil.
Moral of the story, dealerships are a massive rip off, which I knew but having had the car from new I wanted at least the first few years to have a very service which to be fare was managed under a service plan. Now the plan is ended it’s off to the friendly family run garage who look after MY MOTs
So it was a bit insulting to find that all the service parts needed including a new sump plug came to a grand total of about £60 including the super quantum special magic vw oil.
Moral of the story, dealerships are a massive rip off, which I knew but having had the car from new I wanted at least the first few years to have a very service which to be fare was managed under a service plan. Now the plan is ended it’s off to the friendly family run garage who look after MY MOTs
There is the 'telephone preference service', where you register your number and that should prevent all unsolicited calls. Even calls from outside the UK should adhere to the rules, or they can find their access to this country cut off. I think the service would have to collate a lot of complaints before that happened.
BT also offer a service, but with limited quantity of numbers, so preventing all calls isn't possible.
Mostly I ignore obvious ones, but occasionally the numbers appear potentially important. Sometimes I play, keep asking dumb questions until they cut off.
My partner and I are not married, and sometimes assumptions are made by cold callers, and will call me by her surname, or her by mine. Good to play with them as Mr P is her ex-husband, and lives in Poole, so we can give his number, and Mrs C was my mother, who died in 1989, so getting her to the phone is a challenge. I wonder if they ever follow up and call Weymouth Crematorium.
Audible wear indicator.
The tab is normally like a trombone, doubling back on itself, so the unattached end passes the pad and should protrude further than the backing plate, but only a little further. When the pad wears to this, the spring clip will vibrate and squeal horribly. The doubled length allows it to flex and vibrate without significant disc damage. Cheap and cheerful, until it squeals.
I've seen a lot where the rivet corrodes, the spring falls off, then the worn pad destroys the disc, so not reliable unless wear rates are high.
As I've posted earlier in the thread, doing the same this year. Certainly wasn't paying that much at Mazda but felt like it was time to leave.
Not really saving any money in my case as local garage is not mega cheap and main dealer was reasonable but things like this year is oil and filters. Main dealer doesn't take the wheels off, only every other year for the brake fluid change whereas the local garage takes the brakes apart to clean grease moving parts e.t.c. As it gets older it'll need more looking after and the main dealer is more interested in new cars in warranty (i.e. quick check over fresh oil out the door).
Main thing for me is parts and labour prices if they find issues (successfully avoided this since 2014, can't avoid it forever) as oem parts are made of purest 22 carat gold...350 quid for front discs and pads before vat and fitting
That and having used most the garages in the area in my Punto days the I'm off to doesn't find imaginary work, the cheaper ones tend to make their money back. Also they don't do menu pricing, you tell them what you're bringing in, they look up the service schedule/correct oils and then phone their supplier to quote you for what is correct for the car rather than a one size fits all deal.
Last straw was last service, the tech who worked on the car informed me I had surface corrosion starting to form on the hard brake pipes at the rear. Any back street garage I've ever used that sentence would have been followed by "so I tidied it up and put a bit of corrosion inhibitor on". In this case...nope that was it, oh well I guess it mustn't have been a good time to do it while it was in the air and he was being paid to sort it..
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Ok folks, just me being stupid and unobservant! These are indeed "squealer strips" I just took a wheel off and had a good look at the pad in situ and I realize now what fooled me is that the end which will contact the disc when the pad is almost worn out has been oversprayed with the same black paint as the pad backing, but only the small section which lies against the side of the pad. The rest, as you can see from my 'photo, is bright plated:
So the bit which extends down the side of the pad - unfortunately hidden from view in my photo - tends to blend visually into the pad. I just didn't look at it closely when fitting.
By the way, many pads can be fitted either way round as their metal back plates are symmetrical. Because of this you can get confused as to whether the pad should be installed with the "squealer strip" on the leading or trailing edge. I've looked at a number of installation instructions and they all show the strip on the trailing edge (when the vehicle is moving forward). As you can see I've done here:
This makes a lot of sense as it will tend to pull the end of the strip away from the edge of the pad and let it "squeal" to maximum effect. If it's on the leading edge the disc will be pushing it towards the pad so the "squeel" will be damped as the strip is pushed into the pad matterial. I decided to just mention this as many aftermarket pad sets don't include this info and if you've taken the pads off both hubs you can't check - anyway, who's to say the last person put them on the right way round?. Most will work Ok the "wrong" way round, just the "Squealer" won't work so well and may gouge a bit of a groove in the disc - which would be annoying if you were intending to only change the pads!
Got sent a nice photo of a headed notepaper letter..
via our Panda Driver
Our son had done well, just got his grades after 3 years of Uni.
A week later he received this letter..and the o.h. forwarded it to me
Student of the year !!
I had to reply:
Very nice.. but who's is it?
Instead of Adam Williams.. it said William Adams
Lucky there are no Graduation ceremonies this month..
via our Panda Driver
Our son had done well, just got his grades after 3 years of Uni.
A week later he received this letter..and the o.h. forwarded it to me
Student of the year !!
I had to reply:
Very nice.. but who's is it?
Instead of Adam Williams.. it said William Adams
Lucky there are no Graduation ceremonies this month..
Got sent a nice photo of a headed notepaper letter..
via our Panda Driver
Our son had done well, just got his grades after 3 years of Uni.
A week later he received this letter..and the o.h. forwarded it to me
Student of the year !!
I had to reply:
Very nice.. but who's is it?
Instead of Adam Williams.. it said William Adams
Lucky there are no Graduation ceremonies this month..
Hopefully there isn't a William Adams awaiting his grades, and thinks he's failed miserably.
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Got sent a nice photo of a headed notepaper letter..
via our Panda Driver
Our son had done well, just got his grades after 3 years of Uni.
A week later he received this letter..and the o.h. forwarded it to me
Student of the year !!
I had to reply:
Very nice.. but who's is it?
Instead of Adam Williams.. it said William Adams
Lucky there are no Graduation ceremonies this month..
Make absolutely sure the university corrects the error, because he could otherwise find his degree belongs to a non existent person.
Degree is fine..
Its the 'best of award' thats wrong..
Probably been 'farmed out'
Its the 'best of award' thats wrong..
Probably been 'farmed out'
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1917. Film. Probably the wrong place but hey ho. Watched it with my wife with nibbles and refreshment this afternoon. Well what an emotional roller coaster it was. The older I get the more of a Jessie I’ve became, this film really had my emotions pulled all over the place. I’ve always been interested in this type of history, not in a macabre way but out of an interesting way. With the surround sound on and the curtains closed, the atmosphere became more and more intense. It’s been a while since a film has grabbed me this way. Not ashamed to admit that I had the odd moist eye
Loosely based on truth, but war is ugly and horrible and this film captured reality along the way. Whew, it certainly pushed my emotions.
Loosely based on truth, but war is ugly and horrible and this film captured reality along the way. Whew, it certainly pushed my emotions.
