Pugglt Auld Jock said:

Some of these new LED's are BRIGHT, don't you think? Also helps keep the hand brake cables free.

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Yes, way too bright I think. Actually less safe. When blinded by any light, it is difficult to see past it, so can't react to anything ahead.

Pugglt Auld Jock said:

Talking about saving clutches. I've probably had a rant about this elsewhere but I really hate the hill hold on my new(ish) Ibiza. It holds on too long.

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Most of the Audis I've driven, the hill hold lets go immediately the clutch is off the floor, often causing a roll back if the clutch is not brought up quickly. Missed the point there I think. Surprising the Seat is set differently.

Pugglt Auld Jock said:

Wonder if the salesmen are educating customers about these dry clutch, automated manual boxes. When I worked at the Daf garage - Dafs had a dry centrifugal clutch (quite pricey to renew) the boss insisted that every customer was given a lesson about how not to abuse it, which mostly consisted of :- when you stop apply the handbrake and take your foot off the accelerator pedal, then observing them and politely reminding them on an extended test drive. (The boss always liked a customer to have a nice long drive in the car before buying and sometimes I had to give up my demonstrator and go home in a trade in or on the bus so a potential customer could have the car overnight)

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Salesmen mostly have no clue how the car works. When I test drove a Punto CVT auto August 2003, I had to explain to the sales manager how the system worked. Loved that car, like a modern DAF.
I started out in DAF garage, and my first two cars were DAFs, a 44, which sadly ran mostly on only 1½ cylinders, so was a bit slow, then 6 months later changed it for a 66. Did a lot of miles in that car.

Pugglt Auld Jock said:

What we need is a large orange light which illuminates when a warning is logged.

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The original XJ-S had this, but in an age of early electronics, was more trouble than it was useful. It would often warn of problems that did not exist, or fail to warn of real problems. But in this age of modern electronics and CANBus, such a system should be easy. We get a bit of this with warning messages to supplement the lights.
I suppose this is why some manufacturers are replacing dipsticks with sensors, to tell owners to do something before failure.

portland_bill said:

some manufacturers are replacing dipsticks with sensors, to tell owners to do something before failure.

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We were spoilt on the Multipla, with both a dipstick and an oil level message displayed on start-up.
Now we have a Panda with just an oil-coloured dipstick, designed to make it as difficult as possible to read, and a BMW with a sensor but no dipstick.

I have yet to find out how the BMW's oil level can be measured without running the engine and (potentially) causing damage. It appears that if the oil is drained for an oil change, or leaks due to a fault, then the level after refilling can only be checked by running the engine :shakehead:
There should be a cunning way to check without running the engine, because the B38 engine is fitted to many MINIs and BMWs and surely it would have been flagged as an issue.
I need to find out before I take over the oil changes when the service package expires.

portland_bill said:

On another thread a point was raised about using the handbrake on hill starts.

Many people hold the car on a hill with the footbrake, then when moving away find the clutch bite, to hold the car, then move to the accelerator to apply the power needed to heave the vehicle up the hill. A lazy technique, and not good for the clutch.

With the engine on tickover, the computer is only giving as much fuel as necessary to maintain the tickover speed. Finding the clutch bite loads the engine, the computer responds by adding fuel. Then as the accelerator is pressed, its first movement is actually requesting less fuel than already being applied. This can cause a significant drop in power momentarily, which with some small petrols will cause a stall, or very sluggish movement, which can take some time to recover. Can be dangerous.
This technique can also cause clutch damage. The clutch is designed to drive the car, not catch it if it is rolling backwards. Even a slight roll is asking the clutch to stop the car, then drive it forward. This can tear the centreplate apart.
This is becoming a problem on some automatics that use a manual gearbox with automated control. Dualogic and similar. If held on the brake, the clutch is disengaged. As the brake is released the vehicle starts to roll, then the accelerator is pressed, the automated controls release the clutch, but without the feel a driver can use, and this can destroy the clutch. The handbrake should be used to hold the vehicle, and released as drive is taken up, just like in a manual.
Many auto boxes now use mechanical clutches, so could suffer similarly. This includes twin clutch transmissions. Conventional torque converter gearboxes will tolerate this due to the fluid drive.

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This is why many cars with dry clutch auto boxes have hill hold as standard. Makes it act more like a "conventional" automatic.


Robert G8RPI.

We are dealing with the fallout from generations of fecklessness.

Some simply fail to realise that as soon as you have children in a vehicle you are a driving instructor. The bad habits you have will be passed on. When I see a "Baby on Board" notice being proudly displayed on a vehicle that is being operated to such a low standard I would not use the word "driven" I can not help but think in fifteen years time there's going to be a Corsa wrapped round a tree somewhere and it'll be Mummy and Daddies fault for not setting a better example.

My niece was two last month and whenever she's in the car we play games and sing songs like...

"Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock tuuuuurrrrnnnnn".

...for example so when she's older she will know when to indicate. Obvious observation games I played with my nephews when they were growing like...

"Spot the bike"

"How close to the speed limit can you drive"

...and at night...

"First one to dip their headlights wins"

...to help raise observation and road etiquette.

When it came to giving my nephew a few driving lessons I didn't need to show him much because he has been watching me his whole life.

Living in a village I know the parents who are crap drivers and their kids are just as bad if not worse. One hit a bus head on overtaking his mate on a blind bend less than a month after passing his test and the parents threatened to sue the bus company.

He got six points for Careless Driving and while he is serving his ban daddy is driving him everywhere in his Audi Q5 just as dangerously as ever. :bang:

I'd like to be a fly on the wall when he gets insurance quotes.

portland_bill said:

Yes, way too bright I think. Actually less safe. When blinded by any light, it is difficult to see past it, so can't react to anything ahead.

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Also when sat at lights, junctions etc holding the brake lights on dazzles everyone behind...

Driving Without Due Care and Attention/Consideration

...they're either inconsiderate knuckle dragging twunts or too thick to know how to use a handbrake.

Liquid Knight II said:

We are dealing with the fallout from generations of fecklessness.

Some simply fail to realise that as soon as you have children in a vehicle you are a driving instructor. The bad habits you have will be passed on.

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Once a learner gets the hang of car control, the ingrained traits start to show, all the poor techniques absorbed over 17 years.

I have on several occasions given parents a summary of their driving, without ever having seen them drive. That frightens them. Often on a drive will be two dissimilar cars, one sporty, one mild. Once I establish which parent drives which, I know which traits come from which.

Since they have been old enough to have mobile phones my nieces and nephews have been told point blank not to use them when they are a passenger in my car. Out of respect and potential distraction for the driver. They do this now in all vehicles (including the bus) and the two who are driving put their phones in the glove box.

One occasion I was taking my nephew home and there was a drunk driver all over the road in front of us. I asked him...

"What is the only time you are allowed to use your phone while driving a car?"

...he didn't know the answer I had never used my phone while he was in it.

I told him it was only allowed if you are calling 999, asked him to pass it to me and gave the Police operator a running commentary all the way until the Range Rover Evoke parked on a driveway and gave a full description of all three people who got out making sure to identify the driver.

The Police arrived about twenty seconds later, knocked on the door, pulled the driver out and despite him changing his top I gave the operator a formal identification from the roadside.

He was four times the legal limit (I found out later as I know one of the officers who attended personally) and was banned.

Now if any of my nephews friends have been drinking/smoking at all he will call me for a lift instead of risking it.

Out of curiosity is there any other methods of moving off in normal conditions without using the clutch bite point?

With engine off - engage gear, handbrake off, start the car (please don't actually do this!).

Eklipze3k said:

With engine off - engage gear, handbrake off, start the car (please don't actually do this!).

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Thanks for your reply. So using the clutch bite point is really the only sensible way to move off. I just wondered if there were other methods used by more advanced drivers.

Yeah, clutch is the only way forward (obviously doesn't apply to autos).

FWIW, my mum used be a driving instructor (before I started learning) but I remember her saying that the clutch will save your life, the other 2 will kill you.

Eklipze3k said:

With engine off - engage gear, handbrake off, start the car (please don't actually do this!).

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Done this a few times. First time was day after driving test. Nowadays garages will recover broken cars with a trailer or recovery truck. Back in the seventies, most were just driven back, some without brakes, some without a working clutch release. A failed clutch slave on a Morris Marina, parked in a cul-de-sac, facing in. Engage first gear, release handbrake, turn key, off we go, U-turn at end of cul-de-sac, change gear by matching revs and speed. To stop, knock out of gear, use brakes gently.
As Eklipze3k says, don't try this at home, unless you have some mechanical knowledge, a lot of skill, excellent observation and anticipation skills, and a very good feel for the controls and the vehicle. Don't think I'd contemplate it now, lots more traffic. Simpler times.

MattHarris19872016 said:

Thanks for your reply. So using the clutch bite point is really the only sensible way to move off. I just wondered if there were other methods used by more advanced drivers.

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Advanced drivers use the clutch bite, but with better control and feeling. Just needs practice and mechanical sympathy.

Eklipze3k said:

FWIW, my mum used be a driving instructor (before I started learning) but I remember her saying that the clutch will save your life, the other 2 will kill you.

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You can't move anywhere without the clutch. With it firmly on the floor, you are a sitting duck. Speak to 'close protection' people, one point they make is to always keep moving.
In a similar vein, I suggest the accelerator is positive, the brake negative. When things deteriorate around you, the accelerator enables you to be somewhere else, the brake holds you in the danger zone. The purpose of a vehicle is to travel from A to B. If you haven't yet arrived at 'B', the brake is only creating a delay.
There are of course times when a brake is necessary, as we have to share the roads with all the slower ones.

portland_bill said:

Most of the Audis I've driven, the hill hold lets go immediately the clutch is off the floor, often causing a roll back if the clutch is not brought up quickly. Missed the point there I think. Surprising the Seat is set differently.

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Pugglt Auld Jock said:

Talking about saving clutches. I've probably had a rant about this elsewhere but I really hate the hill hold on my new(ish) Ibiza. It holds on too long. I've achieved my clutch biting point and am ready to move off long before it's ready to let go! By using the handbrake and taking my foot off the pedal the hill hold doesn't activate! Oh happy day!

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Know these are a few weeks old now but just got round to reading. Amazing how many of these "driver assistance" systems seem to be unaware of the function they are meant to perform.

The hill holder in the Citroen is great fun, 1st it only works off the foot brake like the Seat. 2nd just to make it really convenient it's on a 2 second timer..so regardless of what you are doing with the clutch it releases after 2 seconds..handy so you have to keep your foot on the foot brake if you want to use it until it's time to pull away. 3rd it only works if you have firmly (getting on for emergency stop firmly) pressed the brake pedal..which is totally unnatural given normally you gently release the pedal as the car comes to halt to stop it from lurching to a halt. Otherwise it rolls backwards on hills.

All of this makes slightly less use than non-stick toilet paper.

Driving techniques? Hmmm. This came home to me a few years ago when my older boy said to me that it was a pity the Punto was so sluggish because he otherwise quite liked it! He learned to drive in an elderly Allegro which was wrecked by an elderly gentleman reversing his, very expensive, BMW into the side of it! He replaced it with a PD engined MK1 Fabia. This 1.9 litre turbo diesel pulled like a train from very low revs. Several years later and now married with our young grandson just having put in an appearance, he traded it against a MK2 Fabia Scout estate 1.6 CR. Again, although not as brutal as the PD, this common rail diesel has plenty of grunt. So he's got used to driving cars that pull strongly from low revs. His wife uses the car to get to her work each day and when he took on a new job a couple of years ago he needed a "runabout" to get to his so we bought the Punto (2012 1.4 8 valve) He was trying to drive it like a diesel. Expecting it to pull from low very low revs and changing up far too early. He is not a technical person with very little interest in what goes on under the bonnet and it's only been since I demonstrated to him that the power(if power is the right word?) Is developed at rather higher revs and you may well need to change down on steep hills instead of just burying the throttle in the floor boards that he's begun to grasp the different technique required.

Exactly the situation that dashboard recommended gear selection, or gear Vs MPH (as discussed earlier) fails to address!

Whilst on this subject. We have open plan front gardens - no walls etc. Lawn ends at the pavement, very "American". Opposite our front window is a layby type parking area intended for the flat's opposite (which I can comfortably view from my seat). It is on a slight radius, being actually on the outside of a slight bend in the road. It's quite staggering the number of people who just can't park in it (space for 4 cars, 1 a disabled bay) the slight radius throws them off. We end up with cars at all angles, one wheel on the pavement being common. Sometimes it gets very busy as there is a crematorium just up the road and we get the overflow if it's a big funeral. People get quite frantic when they realise they are running late! This is not limited to "visitors" only. One elderly neighbor from across the road avoids the problem by running his car up onto the pavement as he approaches the layby and "drops" it off the kerb into the layby! Has to be seen to be believed! But Oh the tyres, the tyres!

You're doing it to me again PB. Bringing back those memories! Driving a "clutch less" car. Definitely not for the faint hearted! Get it wrong and you may need a big pile of sawdust and a large brush and shovel to deal with the result. I was taught by one of the old hands in the garage and it took quite a few tries before I really"got" it! However it came in useful a few years ago when my old Cordoba's clutch pedal went to the floor and stayed there as I was trying to select gear at the lights. Yellow lines everywhere, on the other side of the city and a reluctance to part with money (I am a proud Scot!) Together with a good idea that I could cheaply mend this if I could get back to my workshop convinced me to try it. So, engine off, first gear selected, let the car in front get a few lengths away and twist the key. Chug, chug, chug and away we went. Need to go faster, feather the throttle so the engine is neither pulling nor decelerating and snatch the gear lever into neutral. Then as the revs drop, judging the "right" moment as the revs and road speed synchronise, firmly snap it into second. That lets me get up to 30mph so I'll not go for 3rd - but I could if needed. Slowing down is as normal till the revs get down to about 1,000 when you can snatch it back into neutral and let it roll to a stop. Turn the engine off and select 1st gear again ready for the off! Always worth remembering that if it all goes totally pear shaped you can just stand hard on the brakes and stall the engine!

If you get daring and progress up into the higher gears - maybe, unlike me, you are out in the country - it is possible to downchange too. Say you're in 4th and need to go to 3rd. As mentioned above, feather the throttle so the engine is neither pulling nor braking, now you can snatch the lever back into neutral. Now give the engine a really good burst of revs, maybe up to 5,000rpm or so. (As you get better at doing it you can better judge how many revs to give it) the idea though is that you get the input side of the box spinning faster than the output. Immediately release the throttle so the revs can fall (you don't want to hold those high revs, you are trying to synchronise input and output gear cluster speeds) Now, as the revs fall off, push the gear lever quite firmly towards the 3rd gear position. The synchro hubs/cones will not allow the gear to be selected until the in and out gear speeds are equal but when they are you'll find the lever (which you are pushing firmly towards the position) will just slip in, hey presto, you're in 3rd! This is quite rough on the synchros but as you get better at it you'll find you can judge when the right revs are there and just "snick" the lever through.

In "The Old Days" gear boxes had no synchromesh and changing gear actually involved sliding one gear into mesh with another (called "sliding mesh", or "crash" gearboxes) considerable skill was needed to judge engine and road speed when changing gear if a "crash" of gears was to be avoided.

I got home safely with "Tony" the Cordoba. The problem was what I'd guessed, a broken weld. Half a day grovelling in the foot well dismantling the pedal, welding up the faulty original weld and reinstalling the pedal and it was fixed. Didn't even need bled out!

P.S. Hmmmm. Wonder how this would work with my new Ibiza which has stop start and a clutch pedal that needs held down on the floor for the starter to work? Probably would still work as long as the clutch switches weren't damaged?

Pugglt Auld Jock said:

Driving techniques? . up far too early. He is not a technical person with very little interest in what goes on under the bonnet and it's only been since I demonstrated to him that the power(if power is the right word?) Is developed at rather higher revs and you may well need to change down on steep hills instead of just burying the throttle in the floor boards that he's begun to grasp the different technique required.

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quote trimmed for...oh dear god this will be a huge post reasons..

It's not just inexperience that leads to this.

My dad (god love him one day...that damn focus will leave us), has a car history that's very much well crap..basically old Ford's, VXs Renaults, BL products that kind of stuff. Most of it with wheezy old 8v 4 cylinders that redline about 5k and generate nothing but noise and expense over 4k. Now he hasn't really arrived in the modern car world yet given he bought a Focus ti-vct new in 2005...and has apparently been looking to replace it since then..but still has it (at this point I could probably write a dissertation on the weapons grade level of procrastination).

But anyway he arrived at the 16v Variable valve timing Focus from this back ground and announced it was slow. At this point I was still driving a mk1 punto 55s, I hopped into the Focus lit it up and came back and in my opinion it was quite nippy especially compared to the Italian stallion.

So we're discussing this and I get to the phrase "once you get above 3.5k and the vvt opens up it really pulls" to which he immediately replies "You went above 3.5k rpm???!!" So he's been driving a vvt 16v entirely at low rpm.. yeah that's why it's slow then. It's not on old BL engine knocked together with tolerances you can fit a dog in it's a yahama designed/derived engine and it's built to rev.

He still complained it's slow though for years..right up until I took him for an 8/10ths run in the Suzuki..which did rather demonstrate to him that even a "slow" modern car is capable going far faster and holding far more corner speed than he is comfortable with.

Of course he's still looking at modern cars and going it's only got 100bhp I've got 115bhp..I don't want to go slower entirely missing the point that he only ever uses about 50bhp at any point and the more modern turbo stuff has torque at the rpm he drives at..sigh.

He should probably get a diesel if he likes low RPMs, I hardly ever go above 2.5k in the MiTo lol

Eklipze3k said:

He should probably get a diesel if he likes low RPMs, I hardly ever go above 2.5k in the MiTo lol

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His annual mileage and lack of motorway use would have a modern diesel on its knees sharpish.

Small turbo petrol would suffice..if anything he's a perfect candidate for electric except he spends bugger all on fuel anyway so despite never going more than about 50 miles from home and having off street parking electric makes no sense. Simply because the depreciation on a 30k electric car is far more than his fuel costs would ever be on an equivalent fossil fuel car.

StevenRB45 said:

His annual mileage and lack of motorway use would have a modern diesel on its knees sharpish.

Small turbo petrol would suffice..if anything he's a perfect candidate for electric except he spends bugger all on fuel anyway so despite never going more than about 50 miles from home and having off street parking electric makes no sense. Simply because the depreciation on a 30k electric car is far more than his fuel costs would ever be on an equivalent fossil fuel car.

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You can get a few year old Nissan leaf for a few £ now
Allthrough those ones don't have a lot of range obviously so probably not much good for hin