What's made you grumpy today?

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Program on TV about electric car,

Was it the one that was on earlier tonight? Featured a couple who had twice traveled to London from middle England in electric cars. Don't remember what the first car was but their latest effort was in an electric Mini. The program pretty much confirmed a lot of the things I presume about electric cars - They are going to have to get a lot cheaper to buy with longer range (forget about mid journey charging too, far to inconvenient) and some sort of guarantee that when I come to sell, maybe 4 or 5 years after purchase, that he salesman is not going to say something like "well, your car actually isn't worth very much because very soon it's going to need a new battery". Also the charging stations need to be accessible to ordinary people who don't understand "apps" and don't have "smart" phones - so charging becomes similar to visiting the petrol station. The people in the film were led a merry old dance trying to find a charging station they could actually use! Thankfully I'm unlikely to be still driving when the government forces this on us - maybe I won't be here at all! in the mean time I'll just be going merrily on my "smokey" way.

 

[dave]

Was it the one that was on earlier tonight? Featured a couple who had twice traveled to London from middle England in electric cars. Don't remember what the first car was but their latest effort was in an electric Mini. The program pretty much confirmed a lot of the things I presume about electric cars - They are going to have to get a lot cheaper to buy with longer range (forget about mid journey charging too, far to inconvenient) and some sort of guarantee that when I come to sell, maybe 4 or 5 years after purchase, that he salesman is not going to say something like "well, your car actually isn't worth very much because very soon it's going to need a new battery". Also the charging stations need to be accessible to ordinary people who don't understand "apps" and don't have "smart" phones - so charging becomes similar to visiting the petrol station. The people in the film were led a merry old dance trying to find a charging station they could actually use! Thankfully I'm unlikely to be still driving when the government forces this on us - maybe I won't be here at all! in the mean time I'll just be going merrily on my "smokey" way.

that's the one.

Trouble is the governments don't realise just how many people are using vehicles all day to make a living from pizza delivery to community care workers, all their thinking is around people commuting and maybe a trip out to 1 place at weekend.
They don't really want people to start using electric cars they want to make it so expensive that people use public transport instead. you cant provide community care by bus,

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

They don't really want people to start using electric cars they want to make it so expensive that people use public transport instead. you cant provide community care by bus,

Now that's an interesting perspective on it Dave. Hadn't thought along those lines.

However I would argue that public transport is not a viable option for multiple visits to clients. Possibly more realistic in a big city where services are very frequent but in more rural areas it would be absolutely unrealistic.

As some of you may have picked up on from my older posts, I packed in the motor trade some 15 years before I retired and went to work for a big charity looking after their grounds maintenance squad. Another part of our business - not part of my duties - was giving residential care to disabled people who met our remit - learning disabled. Some of the carers had their own cars which they could use and claim expenses but some did not and they would use public transport. I live in a big city with really excellent and affordable public transport but not having a car made these workers much less able to get round so many clients in a day or respond quickly in an emergency - especially when 2, or sometimes more, changes of bus were needed to reach the client.

PS. Services travelling radially - by which I mean from the edges of the city into the centre, and vice versa, in Edinburgh are really very good and fast (the green bus lanes have definitely been a good thing for this) but you just try travelling circumferentially. Traveling round the outside or across the city other than using services which travel in and out of the centre is much more time consuming and often involving multiple changes of bus. I'm not "slagging off" the bus service providers in Edinburgh, I think they do an excellent job on the whole and I used them all the time before Covid - Too scared to get on a bus now though - I suppose there just isn't the demand for the circumferential services to make them economic.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Kids in Scotland have gone back to school

To go back here to the OP. My granddaughter was one of those. within a couple of days she had a streaming cold, which she passed on to her 10 month old baby brother (presumably the baby, having hardly met any other children - or adults come to that - because of isolation, so had weak immunity) then 2 days ago came out with ringworm, spectacularly, all over her wee body!

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these children's ailments now run riot because the kids have not been in contact with each other for so long.

 

[portland_bill]

Services travelling radially - by which I mean from the edges of the city into the centre, and vice versa, in Edinburgh are really very good and fast ... but you just try travelling circumferentially.

I suppose that most people using public transport wish to travel from home towards the town centre, so only use it for that.
Whilst teaching young people to drive, most of them know their way from home to school, college, their mates houses, and to the town centre. Anywhere else, they are completely lost, often with no sense of direction or perspective.
Several times at the end of a lesson we have approached their home from away from town. Even within a few hundred yards of their house they still have no idea where they are.
One lad, 17 years old, lived in one house all his life. From his gate it was about 50 yards to the end of the road away from town. He'd never been to that end of the road, only ever towards town. We stopped just around that corner, about 75 yards from his home, and he had no idea where he was.

Have you noticed how public transport out of town is very much county based. Anywhere around one county, there are buses, but few cross county borders. Of course, hundreds of years ago, county boundaries were often feudal boundaries, with rivalries across borders, as each county was allocated to a knight according to favouritism from the monarch. More in favour, got a bigger or more lucrative county. This shaped our location and travel for many years, and is only recently softening.
Working in Oxford, but living 20 miles out towards Swindon was considered beyond the ends of the earth. Colleagues in Oxford would consider travelling to London or Spain for their holidays, but Swindon, a mere 30 miles away was soomewhere they'd never been, or iintended to go. Similarly, now working mostly around Swindon, I've met lots of people who will travel to London or Bristol, but consider Oxford to be as out of reach as Edinburgh.
Growing up in South Dorset, the road to Yeovil (Somerset) was quiet in comparison to roads to Bournemouth. No buses, and the train was poorly served.

Public transport only really works if the journey can be made in one go.

(Sorry, can't stop this drivel)
Early 1996 bought a Panda from Bristol, 55 miles away. No trade-in.
Saturday morning, walked to bottom of road, got a bus to Swindon.
Walk from bus station to railway station,train to Bristol.
30 minutes for tea and a sandwich, then taxi to the garage.
Had left home just before 10am, arrived 3pm.
Drove home in the 1.0 Panda, 65 minutes.

On the other hand, I was looking forward to my free bus pass, to enjoy the countryside from the top of a bus. Sadly, before I was eligible, the goalposts moved from 60 to 'normal retirement', so still 5 more years to go. Changing circumstances rule out that idea anyway, as can't see me getting my partner in the wheelchair on and off a bus. Certainly not to the top deck to see the views.

 

[dave]

One lad, 17 years old, lived in one house all his life. From his gate it was about 50 yards to the end of the road away from town. He'd never been to that end of the road, only ever towards town. We stopped just around that corner, about 75 yards from his home, and he had no idea where he was.

That's nuts, they spend too much time with their face looking at a screen to notice anything

have you noticed how public transport out of town is very much county based.

when i was bout 15 you could get a wander bus ticket, you could go anywhere in the country for a few pence but had to use normal busses, group of us went from colchester to great yarmouth, through all the villages stopping at every bus stop, changing buses at Ipswich and Norwich took about 8 hours or more

 

[SB1500]

Program on TV about electric car, noting mentioned as usual about who is going to pay the independent technician/mechanic to re train, so we will all be at the mercy of main dealers and thousands will be out of work.

Tbh I don’t feel bad for mechanics. They’re utterly useless in my part of the world.

Let’s just hope electric cars and their technology can last longer than comparable ICE cars ... and well let the mechanics fit our tyres and brakes that we need from time to time [emoji108]

 

[dave]

Tbh I don’t feel bad for mechanics. They’re utterly useless in my part of the world.

because for years manufacturers have gotten away with adding tech designed to put independents out of business, even replacing headlights on some cars now need to be programmed in on dealer kit, will soon be the same for tyres and brakes.

Now the same con has been added to washing machines, you have to have new washing machines programmed in.

Every Peron put out of work could be opposition for the next job you apply for, its not just bad for them its bad for all workers.

 

[SB1500]

because for years manufacturers have gotten away with adding tech designed to put independents out of business, even replacing headlights on some cars now need to be programmed in on dealer kit, will soon be the same for tyres and brakes.



Now the same con has been added to washing machines, you have to have new washing machines programmed in.



Every Peron put out of work could be opposition for the next job you apply for, its not just bad for them its bad for all workers.

I get what you’re saying. But that seems to only be high end German cars. The second we see that on a Hyundai i10 it won’t be so popular anymore. There are some things the average buyer simply won’t stand for. Plus there’s a whole ‘right to repair’ argument, it’s happening I think with John Deere who are trying to make their tractors dealer only repairable and there’s a huge backlash.

Plus; in terms of the job thing, this whole move to electric cars is happening so slowly giving time for people to re-skill. A mechanic today will still have easily another 20 years of people whose new petrol and diesel cars today that’ll need fixed until they’re scrap. And people my age who are entering the field, their career advice will follow the direction of where the industry is going.

With electric, it’ll be like fixing cars today still... removing a faulty part and refitting a new one. You can bet some Asian country will make a market out of selling decent quality aftermarket parts too. But instead of heavy metal mechanical parts, it’ll be electronic modules that are ‘plug and play’. And for the programming, we can already get our hands on dealer software for remapping etc. That will just become easier to obtain for everyday car DIY repairers I reckon

 

[portland_bill]

Reliability is a key part of the problem.
When I first joined the motor trade, cars were all unreliable, and most had service intervals of 3000miles/3 months. Despite the short service intervals, most owners would have a garage visit between services for other repairs. Faults were common, and well known, so every garage knew how to fix things.
Then came Japanese cars and motorcycles. Better built, and didn't go wrong. Other manufacturers had to follow.
Over the years all cars have become more reliable, long before anything was computerised. Then when things do go wrong, it is 'new' so the expertise to diagnose it is not there. As things became computerised, this got worse.
With greater reliability, came longer service intervals. Dealers see vehicles less often, so are even less likely to know what has caused a problem. In the late seventies to early eighties I worked in a large Rover dealer, with at one time 20 mechanics in a very busy workshop. A dealer now with similar annual sales will probably have no more than 5. This is where a forum like this is a great benefit, as problems can be shared, and experience in one area of the country can be shared.
Dealers need profits. With sales being competitive, and margins low despite the purchase cost, they started to rely more on service and parts revenues to survive, but those have reduced too. A manufacturer needs dealers to sell vehicles. Those dealers need to present a good image, and that costs. Tying customers to dealers for service work helps keep a dealer profitable. But still labour rates are high to cover the large costs. This makes it very likely that owners of older cars will head to an independent garage. Trying to restrict independents' abilities to service and diagnose is a way of keeping cars within the dealer network, so retaiing a dealer network.
There's another view. Help everyone to maintain and repair your cars, there will be more older ones around as a result, which makes a new purchase seem a better proposition, so more sales. Few manufacturers understand that, but still have to support their dealers. Many customers are loyal to their dealer, not necessarily to the brand. If a dealer changes franchise, the customer buys the new make next time.

Some Volvos need exterior lamps coded to the car, so any replacement has to go to a dealer. This will cause older ones values to plummet and eventually harm new sales.
Tesla play games with people who buy used Teslas outside of their approved dealers. There are stories of certain systems being turned off or restricted, fast charging not working, etc. Such activity will bite them hard sometime soon I think. Whilst people clamour for the newest iPhone, at seemingly any cost, that will not happen with cars costing £80k+

 

[portland_bill]

Spotted this silliness on YouTube:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...e-discovered-sudanese-refugee-hiding-top-car/

Firstly, how can you be such an inept driver that you cannot feel that the car is significantly more top-heavy than usual?

Secondly, how can you reclose the lid of the box, without checking that the contents are intact. If the lid was open on the French motorway, stuff could have been lost across the carriageway, do you just close the lid and hope anything lost will not come back at you if it has caused a collision? Why can you not see there's 'extra' in there?

Thirdly, lorry drivers get prosecuted and fined for each stowaway they bring across the channel. So why was this guy not arrested and fined similarly? Every lorry driver victim should be pointing at this and demanding their money back.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Literally every time I come through Calais they want to look in the back seats and boot of my car, bearing in mind it’s a cabriolet so the boot is generally small and packed with bags, they still make me move some of the stuff so they can be sure I’m not smuggling people into the uk...
so it’s hard to believe that they would not have wanted to check the roof box, this makes me wonder if they did check but not very well and that’s why the driver is not getting into trouble.

 

[dave]

With electric, it’ll be like fixing cars today still... removing a faulty part and refitting a new one.

more like 8 hours of diagnostics to to find out why one senor or mini controller int communicating properly

 

[portland_bill]

Literally every time I come through Calais they want to look in the back seats and boot of my car, bearing in mind it’s a cabriolet so the boot is generally small and packed with bags, they still make me move some of the stuff so they can be sure I’m not smuggling people into the uk...
so it’s hard to believe that they would not have wanted to check the roof box, this makes me wonder if they did check but not very well and that’s why the driver is not getting into trouble.

Visited the Dutch bulb fields, spring 2001. Arriving at the tunnel, they were checking every car for stowaways, with signs showing delays of 90 minutes. We're in the Seicento, surrounded by large family cars. A customs officer waved us out of the line and sent us straight past, and off to the train. There were some angry and puzzled faces in the other cars.

 

[StevenRB45]

This is where a forum like this is a great benefit, as problems can be shared, and experience in one area of the country can be shared.

You need unreliability for forums to work as well...enough people have to have the same fault that collective knowledge is of value.

Mazda 3 forums are of little use for a lot of things as other than the diesels which suffer from predictable faults so the same thread can be pretty much re-used otherwise you tend to get quite random age related faults.

You get one tech thread on a petrol every 6 months or so and even if they give every error code it doesn't matter because usually it's pretty unique to their car. It won't be entirely unique but it happens rarely so it's fairly unlikely someone turns up at the forum with the same issue or that has had it and fixed it.

That and even stuff there is collective knowledge on eg. Abs/DSC pump failure.. it's absolutely not a DIY job. Remove the pump send it away to a specialist company for a rebuild as it's a very complex bit of equipment.

In fact you can probably sum up the mechanical knowledge on the petrols available as....if your ABS light comes on and stays on and gives a certain error code it's going to cost at least 500 quid..also if you have a flat spot mid rpm range it's probably the inlet manifold gasket.

Everything else is random age related faults that seem to just come up once.

 

[portland_bill]

You need unreliability for forums to work as well...enough people have to have the same fault that collective knowledge is of value.

We all have stereotypes in our minds for particular vehicles, although of course there will always be exceptions. Generally on this forum we have people who are enthusastic about their cars, moslty with a practical and sensible approach.

Mazda owners may be more likely to take the car to a garage, rather than attempt a repair themselves.

My brother had a 2001 Focus 1.6. There were a lot of those when current, and still quite a few around now. When it developed an interesting fault, finding any information was very difficult. Ford forum members tend to be more about modifying their cars, rather than fixing common faults. Turned out to be a speed sensor fault, and a very common fault, but very little on any forums. Getting the old one out was a real struggle, down behind the engine and strongly 'grown' in. We made our own slide hammer and attached it with a hose clip. Then swore a lot while lying across the engine.

Father-in-law had a couple of different Toyotas. Their forums seem to be about Supras only.

With brother owning an old Land Rover Discovery, a vehicle owned by many enthusiasts, I've spent a lot of time on various applicable forums. Surprisingly they are often of little help.

The Skoda forum seems to be a good mix of interests and abilities, so closest to this that I've found. This forum remains the best.

 

[mowermender70]

portland bill you have jogged my memory to when i joined a large ford agency down on the south coast doing gardenmachinery . first day md took us round all depts.got to car stores ,and the first thing he said this is the best place on the company , why? we make more money here than any were else. HENCE i have never owned a FORD.

 

[varesecrazy]

And Ford 'motorcraft' parts seemed dirt cheap back in the day
Perhaps turnover was vast back in the Escort era

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

And Ford 'motorcraft' parts seemed dirt cheap back in the day
Perhaps turnover was vast back in the Escort era

I remember us having trouble with their own brand spark plugs though which didn't seem to last? Wonder who actually manufactured them? Although in all honesty, being a BL dealer we didn't see all that many Fords in the workshop, most often they would be sales cars.

 

[portland_bill]

I remember us having trouble with their own brand spark plugs though which didn't seem to last? Wonder who actually manufactured them? Although in all honesty, being a BL dealer we didn't see all that many Fords in the workshop, most often they would be sales cars.

Motorcraft plugs worked well in the 1.3 and 1.6 crossflow engines, and the fat ones in the pinto engines, but the 3.0 V6 preferred Champion plugs. The Cologne V6, 2.3 & 2.8 always ran better on Bosch plugs, and ran poorly on Motorcraft.

No idea who manufactured Motorcraft plugs, I don't think it was Champion. They may well have had their own manufacturing plant for them. Ford did used to make a lot of their stuff themselves.