What's made you grumpy today?

[StevenRB45]

Messing on with endless ****ery re. The satnav in the Toyota.

Technically it works and we successfully followed it to somewhere yesterday but in reality the original owner never bothered updating the maps from factory so anywhere after 2016 isn't on it, it's not the most user friendly system and half the connected features are no longer available.

Went on the Toyota website got an update to the latest firmware downloaded it to the same USB stick I use for the Citroën. As a precursor to maybe updating the maps as ones are available.

Of course it's a USB 3.0 stick and the car only takes USB 2.0 (3.0 came out 8 years before my car left the factory...).

I could get the required stick I suppose for a fiver and go again but it's still 120 quid for the maps and you need to run the car tethered to your phone for traffic or I could indeed pay 750 quid for a local place to install android auto.

What I'm going to do is buy a phone cradle and bypass the whole thing I think as it's 6 of one and half a dozen of the other.

So to reiterate...factory satnav..just don't. It does at least have decent Bluetooth, DAB and a CD player.

I suppose the bright side is that the fact I'm messing with this means the rest of the car is fine...

 

[PuntoHowTo]

and a CD player.

My golf has a CD player….. literally never used it lol

No idea if it even works I presume it should but never tried it.

Get an android auto screen job done

 

[bugsymike]

My golf has a CD player….. literally never used it lol

No idea if it even works I presume it should but never tried it.

Get an android auto screen job done

My Skoda has a multichanger in the boot with another six CDs, so if daughter is in car I can wind her up with things like Meatloaf or Adge Cutler and the Wurzels, that usually works

 

[StevenRB45]

Yeah I've not used a CD player since I took the changer out of the Mazda...

I looked at the screens but a vent mounted phone holder would have the phone at the dash top above the inbuilt screen.

That and most of the cheaper ones are about 6-7 inches and my phone is 6.7 inches and has a much better quality screen so if I'm not using the infotainment screen it's probably the best option given it would need plugging in anyway.

I'm terrible at bangernomics/running a car on a budget even if it's a Toyota hearse.

 

[The Panda Nut]

I notice the headlines this morning telling us that the water companies have to give back £158 million due to poor performance. I've seen fines/penalties like these imposed on other organisations/utilities for similar reasons and I find myself asking, is that not rather like asking someone to beat, say the 100 yards record, but with one leg tied to the other (you get the idea I'm sure). If you take away some of their financial resource when they are crying out that they are short of money then surely that's illogical and only means we'll have to pay more in the future to make the shortfall up? That's not to say that I condone them paying out large bonuses and dividends which are not entitled.

Half of me agrees with you but they are still paying dividends to shareholders, and still will be, after the fine. They need to be forced to imrove and told they will be nationalised if they dont do so, or the directors need disbarring. I agree the fine is not likely to improve things and will probably make htings worse. Maybe dividend payments could be mandatorily stopped if standards dont im prove. That I think would sharpen their thinking. Generalised fining of corporations unless is punative to the point of bankrupting them is almost useless as a persuader. Personally fine and surcharge directors and change would be immediate. This fine is a bit like peeing into the wind.

 

[The Panda Nut]

Half of me agrees with you but they are still paying dividends to shareholders, and still will be, after the fine. They need to be forced to imrove and told they will be nationalised if they dont do so, or the directors need disbarring. I agree the fine is not likely to improve things and will probably make htings worse. Maybe dividend payments could be mandatorily stopped if standards dont im prove. That I think would sharpen their thinking. Generalised fining of corporations unless is punative to the point of bankrupting them is almost useless as a persuader. Personally fine and surcharge directors and change would be immediate. This fine is a bit like peeing into the wind.

Whats made me grumpy for years is public bodies letting works to contarct without proper pre pre prearation. In H&S they brought in Construction Design and Management Regs. These basically state you must know what you are doing before letting works out to contarct to ensure the contarct is properly written and resouced. The entire aim of the Regs is to force the lazy and ignorant to employ some one who is on the ball and knowldgeable to let the contract and only to employ contarctors who will do a good job with the right materials in a safe manner. These nationalisations were done in a manner that suggests such sensible principles were not applied with the level of diligence that we the former owners (taxpayers) should have reasonably expected them to have been. Result Profit driven companies not performing as anticipated and unsuprisingly cutting every available corner. A lot of works are put out to tender by people who are not competent to do so. Some lack experience of private sector antics, and some clearly dont undertsand what they are trying to achieve. Results? Poor services at a high price. I spend years suggesting that all contacts for public works should have similar standdards applied. It seems merely common sense. In my refuse industry years I saw work put to tender in many places Tenders varied by in excess of 100% for teh 'same' work. Selection of the lowest bidder ny people who couldnt price the service as required just led to utter chaos. I never ever saw an evaluation that compared a pre written priced up model of service with tensders submitted. All they looked at were base price and exceptions. Working with many authorities its sad to say that the suggestion that they needed to know what the service SHOULD cost before accepting a tender was only heard, by one single one. The service there improved rather than declined post tender to the credit of those concerned.

Reviewing the performance of companies is not well done either as criticism is levelled often without reference to what was actually requested. You could easily say its a British disease, as Brexit was conducted on the same poorly thought out basis, leaving us to try and work everything out afterwards. Had we identified the core things it would affect, and had a better awareness adn a plan, whatever we decided it would have been a smoother transition.

There used to be a thing called the Audit Commission, but it didnt seem to actually do anything! Im not even sure they exist anymore. Tories probably made its terms of reference so tight it was strangled at birth.

Im now so browned off I just say good luck to the people who get away with short changing the required works.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Personally fine and surcharge directors and change would be immediate. This fine is a bit like peeing into the wind.

agreed. unless you hit them where it hurts personally you might as well not bother. It's all about senior management taking personal responsibility.

 

[irc]

There used to be a thing called the Audit Commission, but it didnt seem to actually do anything! Im not even sure they exist anymore.

It did exist, and it did actually audit properly. From huge government contracts down to Parish Councils.
Then some bright spark suggested that the Public Sector should get involved (Another of Maggie Thatcher's privatisation c**k-ups)

The large accounts companies that were chosen were... not really interested in the small stuff, so palmed it off to junior trainees with checklists. Result: Parish councils in a big mess, local authorities in a big mess, so they got given back to the Audit Commission while they improved their checklists and trained their trainees a bit more.
So did they do better on the large stuff?
Well, there's been a council or two go bankrupt, some seriously over-budget government projects, and all of the big accounts companies have been in legal hot water over inept auditing.

(My father was in the Audit Commission until he retired, in fact he kept working for an extra 15 years because of problems with the Public Sector auditors, so Privatisation worked well for him, I guess)

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Whats made me grumpy for years is public bodies letting works to contarct without proper pre pre prearation. In H&S they brought in Construction Design and Management Regs. These basically state you must know what you are doing before letting works out to contarct to ensure the contarct is properly written and resouced. The entire aim of the Regs is to force the lazy and ignorant to employ some one who is on the ball and knowldgeable to let the contract and only to employ contarctors who will do a good job with the right materials in a safe manner. These nationalisations were done in a manner that suggests such sensible principles were not applied with the level of diligence that we the former owners (taxpayers) should have reasonably expected them to have been. Result Profit driven companies not performing as anticipated and unsuprisingly cutting every available corner. A lot of works are put out to tender by people who are not competent to do so. Some lack experience of private sector antics, and some clearly dont undertsand what they are trying to achieve. Results? Poor services at a high price. I spend years suggesting that all contacts for public works should have similar standdards applied. It seems merely common sense. In my refuse industry years I saw work put to tender in many places Tenders varied by in excess of 100% for teh 'same' work. Selection of the lowest bidder ny people who couldnt price the service as required just led to utter chaos. I never ever saw an evaluation that compared a pre written priced up model of service with tensders submitted. All they looked at were base price and exceptions. Working with many authorities its sad to say that the suggestion that they needed to know what the service SHOULD cost before accepting a tender was only heard, by one single one. The service there improved rather than declined post tender to the credit of those concerned.

Reviewing the performance of companies is not well done either as criticism is levelled often without reference to what was actually requested. You could easily say its a British disease, as Brexit was conducted on the same poorly thought out basis, leaving us to try and work everything out afterwards. Had we identified the core things it would affect, and had a better awareness adn a plan, whatever we decided it would have been a smoother transition.

There used to be a thing called the Audit Commission, but it didnt seem to actually do anything! Im not even sure they exist anymore. Tories probably made its terms of reference so tight it was strangled at birth.

Im now so browned off I just say good luck to the people who get away with short changing the required works.

I started my working career with a big company but working in a highly specialized department where we bid for finance every year based on our projected need for that year so what we'd needed the previous year didn't really influence what we were applying for in the year to come. Then I moved into the garage trade where budgeting was pretty chaotic and you were rarely able to access the funding you really needed. so, for instance, if you needed to replace a ramp in the workshop it was individually considered and you would only get it if enough loose cash was sloshing about. When I became a trainer it was for a very large organization where I inherited a yearly budget from the outgoing instructor to cover my department running expenses. However I didn't have total control over expenditure and had to seek approval/authorization from above for major purchases. At the end of my first year I was very surprised when my line manager called me in and told me I had to spend umpty tumpty pounds by the end of next month or I'd loose it and that I didn't want that to happen because next year's budget allocation would be pro rata reduced! So, every year, I ended up spending money on stuff I didn't strictly need to keep my department running or loose it and find my next year budget reduced. Utter bloody insanity! In effect I was being persecuted for being frugal with my available funding!

 

[vexorg]

So to reiterate...factory satnav..just don't.

Been the case for many years, i never quite saw how it would be a £1500 extra on a new car, that was rubbish compared to a £100 tom tom that got free map updates.

 

[The Panda Nut]

It did exist, and it did actually audit properly. From huge government contracts down to Parish Councils.
Then some bright spark suggested that the Public Sector should get involved (Another of Maggie Thatcher's privatisation c**k-ups)

The large accounts companies that were chosen were... not really interested in the small stuff, so palmed it off to junior trainees with checklists. Result: Parish councils in a big mess, local authorities in a big mess, so they got given back to the Audit Commission while they improved their checklists and trained their trainees a bit more.
So did they do better on the large stuff?
Well, there's been a council or two go bankrupt, some seriously over-budget government projects, and all of the big accounts companies have been in legal hot water over inept auditing.

(My father was in the Audit Commission until he retired, in fact he kept working for an extra 15 years because of problems with the Public Sector auditors, so Privatisation worked well for him, I guess)

Im sure if they were allocated funding on the basis of results they had achieved their and the hadbeen increased from improvements resulting, this could have allowed gradual extension their of activities until they stopped getting results. Then the budgets would reduce to a natural maintenance level. Like Jock I had some occasions where budget was left and someone would say spend it. In my line of work I could always buy materials ahead of time. Having moved around a fair bit it was irritating to see a trail of hideous waste in many places. In a City in Norfolk over 250 chemicals in stock some already bannedand unusable and around 240 varieties that were just not needed, ever. I had to dispose of these at vast cost to the tax payer. This reinforces your view its a silly system and thats when money IS spent wisely. Its really back to basic common sense, but that is the element thats very often in short supply. In the public sector there have been step changes over the years with restructuing of jurisdiction areas and amagamation of departments etc. locally and nationally. From experience these were not accompanied with properly realigned budgets, merely amalgamatedones. Sometimes leaving the pot rich and sometimes poor. The real joke is that based on these disjointed budgets, contracts were let and taken up by the private sector. The same stupid pattern of over and under resourced operations still persisted. When I jopined the private sector in 1999 I remember commenting on the vast variation of contarct resources allocated. One contract in Devon serviced c. 60,000 properties it had a fleet of 23 vehicles, but with 6 spare trucks. In the office were about 12 people supervising and admin. Another contract in Derbyshire of a similar size had 12 vehicles allocated so was running with spare ones from around the UK that should have been scrapped long ago, with resultant breakdowns and downtime. In the office, if you could call it that. a room just big enough for 1 desk, were the contract staff of 1 and a working supervisor. Why they asked was one servie so good and one so poor. One of the Directors of that company one day said to me... Well what would you do about it? I suggested comparing reources per household serviced, one sheet for each contract and balancing he resources allocated. He said thats a good idea, shrugged and left. Nothing ever changed. That is the real issue, because its hard to make change its often just not done. Its easier to do nothing and play the blame game. This means no one will ever speak out for fear of being blamed. I had a little sympathy as the resorces were being paid for by different local authorities. SOme has the funds for a decent service and some did not. COntracting just made the situation much worse due to the cheapest wins philosophy.

I seem to recall being hauled in and threatend with dire conseqeunces for insisting Councillors stop pedeling horse pooh and get a grip. In my local authority days It did on that occasion result in some necessary major changes being adopted but not without consequences for me long term. I really could write a book on things I uncovered over the years. If it was restricted to annual waste over £250,000 , or matter affecting life and limb it would still be a substantial list. Multiply the money with 10 years of inflation since I retired and its a bit of a shocker. I suppose im not even including things that the audit commission would actually have been able to identify from the paper trail. There were suggestions for reducing the causes but substantive was done. What a silly world we inhabit.

 

[StevenRB45]

Been the case for many years, i never quite saw how it would be a £1500 extra on a new car, that was rubbish compared to a £100 tom tom that got free map updates.

In this case I was expecting it to be utter dog eggs...and it is.

It's not important as such but it would be nice if it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Clearly the previous owner never used it as new it came with 4 years of updates as I can see this because when I logged into Toyotas website to update it it said my updates expired in 2020. However it has the map as per 2016.

We avoided it in the Citroën entirely by just not ticking the box and using a cable for android auto.

But it's gonna mainly be a round the doors and odd holiday car with the Citroën still having the business insurance on it so phone cradle and a sense of direction will suffice.

 

[vexorg]

I quite like the citroen one. The map display is a bit jerky by new standards, but I'd updated it to latest firmware (the does UK post codes - original didn't!) and can get the latest maps for free. What I like is that is uses the speedo centre as a secondary display for next direction, so even if a phone call comes in or you switch away from maps, there's always that direction point in the speedo.

 

[StevenRB45]

I've used the Citroën one..or at least the latest version in a Courtesy car...my immediate reaction to it was to plug my phone in and avoid it.

Similar to the Toyota one I'm sure if updated and all up to date it's perfectly competent.

But I've been using android auto since 2017...and had an android auto unit put in the Mazda and the best manufacturer nav...is worse than that unless it's Volvos which is literally that.

For traffic etc and ease of finding destinations there's very little can beat finding where you're going on your phone, setting the destination in the house, plugging it in to the car and it immediately being all ready to go along with whatever music you want etc.

Main thing I miss is just searching by name for where I'm going...i.e. just type in the name of a business or place. Having to put in a post code or know the street name feels very retrograde indeed. Although mercifully the Toyota does at least allow a full post code.

 

[vexorg]

The problem with the phone is i've had calls come in at the most incovenient time at junctions, and you lose the directions.
Plus my car is too old forcarplay, so would need to be a cradle - which I hate in cars.

 

[FiatMatt94]

I started my suspension work yesterday & I'm not feeling the best at the moment due to flu, it was one of those jobs where nothing wanted to come undone & to top it off the shaft came out, I didn't have a impact wrench as I've recently just moved & I used to use my dad's & then I thought whilst I'm in there I'll do the anti roll bar bushes as they were perished & the studs on the brackets decided they didn't want to be attached anymore so until I get new brackets the anti roll bar has been temporarily removed although she drives better without it I'll refit it soon once it's been cleaned up & painted along with new brackets, I managed to do the top mount, bump stop & damper on one side without an impact gun which was quite time consuming but eventually i did it, got it all back together & went for a quick drive to make sure the shaft was ok after it came out & it felt a lot better to drive, so I got back, got the other side out within a few minutes but the flu made me knackered & out of energy so I called it a day but I've ordered an impact gun which will be here tomorrow so I can get the top mount off the other side & finish the job off, then I've decided since I noticed a few weeks ago that the original n/s inner CV boot is starting to deteriorate & seeping slightly I'm going to sort it before it gets worse as on these it holds the gearbox oil so I've got a genuine Fiat inner CV boot for £29 off good old eBay & whilst everything is out I'm putting a new clutch in as it is quite high & would probably need doing in the next year or so, so I thought I'll do everything there whilst the shaft is out & I have good access, the clutch kit was a genuine Fiat part from Shop4Parts for just over £50 which is a bargain compared to aftermarket equivalents. Not the most ideal doing all this near winter but needs must

 

[StevenRB45]

The problem with the phone is i've had calls come in at the most incovenient time at junctions, and you lose the directions.
Plus my car is too old forcarplay, so would need to be a cradle - which I hate in cars.

Aye....we'll see how annoying I find the phone cradle.

They don't tend to drop route guidance on phones now, it may appear at the top to say it's coming in but usually nav is priority and you can hang up.

I've got various options we'll see how I manage. I may update the thing...I may go mad and stump up for the upgrade to phone integration which is expensive due to requiring rewiring of various bits of the dash/removing replacing various modules.

Generally it won't need nav in it..it's just the odd 1st trip to somewhere or if we go on holiday so cradle will be fine for occasional use. It does have all the various phone and streaming features so it's just a competent nav it's missing.

 

[mowermender70]

well if could not get worse. 11-30ish last night funny noise in the kitchen sheba the dog had had a heart attack and has died what with the wife having lost her memory and now the dog who saved her life in the first place.what next only good thing the panda keeps me going 63mile round trip to see her thats life mowermender70

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

well if could not get worse. 11-30ish last night funny noise in the kitchen sheba the dog had had a heart attack and has died what with the wife having lost her memory and now the dog who saved her life in the first place.what next only good thing the panda keeps me going 63mile round trip to see her thats life mowermender70

I just don't know what to say pal. We are "doggy people" although Mr's j's breathing problems and athsma mean we can't have one. However there's always been dogs in our family, daughter has a golden labradoodle and my older boy has a Scotty dog lookalike. You must be feeling very lonely and I'm doing quite a bit of hanging around with this hip just now so if you feel like PMing me please do.

I know what you mean about the pleasure of driving the Panda. Just cruising along in a non aggressive way in Becky has a great calming effect on me.

 

[portland_bill]

Well, after that, my being grumpy suddenly feels trivial. Sorry for your news @mowermender70.