What's made you not grumpy but not smile either today?

[The Panda Nut]

Aye some pollen filters are a real pain. The 169 isn't the easiest but I think my boy's Punto is even worse? I can only get them in by partially folding it and then hoping it's unfolded once inside - which it does seem to do.

The Ibiza is pretty good with a cover under the dash on the passenger side which allows the filter to drop out vertically. Best I've done so far was the Mk1 Jazz owned by my daughter in law - the one who bought the Mazda2 - you can change it sitting in the passenger's seat by simply removing the glovebox. Why more can't be like this is a mystery to me.

Hire car companies are famous for this. For the half dozen years I was working for Firestone I hired cars every week from about March through to September all over Europe. We had a company contract with two of the biggest names in the business so all I had to do was flash my card and a car would magically appear. All the engineers were hiring cars like this and we would regularly get called up to the finance office to face the music for "silly" excess charges for alleged damage to hire vehicles. I had some considerable success by always getting the company staff - branch manager preferably - to sign across my invoice "Vehicle returned in undamaged condition". Of course this was before the days of mobile phones and built in cameras but my copy of the invoice was usually a carbon copy so identical to the original. Mostly I found that "spiked" their guns. It really annoyed me being called up to accounts to argue my corner though and on the couple of occasions when I was adjudged to be at fault, when I knew I wasn't, it did make me feel quite upset for a couple of days. I think the European agencies are far worse than those in the States. We hired a car twice and sometimes three times a year when my Daughter & family lived over there a few years ago and then again maybe once every two or three years to visit my sister. I was very worried the first couple of times we did this after my experiences back in the late 60s and 70s because the American operations are usually just "drop and run for your flight" with it being quite rare to have anyone actually check the car over with you. However I've had not one problem with any of the deals - I'd guess maybe 20, possibly 25 hires. I mentioned it to my sister's husband, who works in international journalism so hires a lot of cars, and he said my experience is not dissimilar to what he's found.

Edit. Charging for fuel when you've filled the tank maybe 2 miles down the road before handing it back, was a very common one and difficult to argue.

Google it. Which did a study and the results are interesting.

 

[The Panda Nut]

With hire cars now, I take photos all round after dropping it off as proof of how it was returned.

From what I have now learned you need to include shots of the underneath including the exhaust and floor and also close ups of all the glass. One I have now heard of involved a mark on the very underside of the front bumper that could not be seen unless lying on the ground.

 

[The Panda Nut]

What a bunch of thieving bast**ds!!!
I used to think it was bad enough when we hired a 7.5 tonne lorry, filled the tank just around the corner from the hire company and they would try to bill for half a tank of fuel!

Its a very very good thing indeed they were 700 miles away when I read their email or bloodshed would have occurred! If you saw the state of this car with carpets worn right through and dents and scratches on EVERY panel not to mentkion the gact that the transmission was scrap you wouldnt believe it. If the car looks like a dog my recommendationnow is to say to them find another one, Im not taking that. Realistically 581 euros was about what the cars market vaulue would b in its current condition,. If you looked at it second hand you would 100% just walk away. Next time I pay for a car I wont accept a pile of scrap.

 

[The Panda Nut]

DO NOT EVER USE EUROPCAR THERY ARE A COMPANY STAFFED BY CRIMINALS

OK I may now accept that this is too strong and withdraw this. But I have suggested that they adopt a fair policy backed by the BVRLA definitions of fair wear and tear and damage or something similar. I hope this takes root. The fact that the CEO who is new acted does him credit and hopefully will make a point. My other half did say she wondered if the depot managers were responsible for these sorts of problems due to being set unrealistitc profit targets, and my experience says she may well be right.

I didnt like the way the rep went straight to chips on the screen which only a microscopic inmspection would pick up. With car being dirty and dusty it would have been more or less impossible to spot these marks. Lesson 2 is make sure they clean the car so it can be adequately inspected!

The charges have been cancelled and they apologised for the inconvenience caused, so my personal views have moderated.
I shall never use them again and will research if they hire companies have improved their record, as outlined by Which following a study of all car hire companies and complaints made about unfair imposition of unrealistic charges, and select one with a better history. Look at this and see which company they found to be the most prolific source of complaints and judge for yourselves.
For the sake of fairness to balance my initial fury, I have attached a copy of the letter from the hire company so readers can judge the response for themselves.

 

[The Panda Nut]

You can still get it, but it’s just called bourville rum n raisin, and is about half the thickness

I did buy a Caramac not long ago, but it had shrunk and the taste seemd much weaker. Just as well or it might have become my latest obsessive eating issue!

 

[The Panda Nut]

Final post on car hire stery. They emailed and asked for feed back! I have to say thats ballsy. So I gave it.
Yes they did a speedy job on resolving the compalint and put it right properly. Thankyouropcar

.I then gave them the benefit of over 40 years experience managing things various in one capacity or another, and a few pointers on how to run a run a car hire company that might get overcome of their more obvious shortcomings and improve their business. I wonder if they will take any of them on board. I have suggested that customers prefer a smooth and painless experience and that there is a place in the market place for a company that could provide this. I am really glad I had insurance to cover issues like this and that I did not in the end have to use it. I suspect that having insurance but not being prepared to accept liability for damagethat I didnt inflict may have been the clincher on getting satisfaction. There is some hope for humaity after all.

 

[Cheest]

Yesterday, I finally got Mrs.Cheest to agree to take out either the kayak or the tandem bicycle today. Woke up this morning to a steady rain. As she might melt, it's not happening now.

 

[StevenRB45]

Interesting one for car makers who seem determined to paywall everything...and sell the same product for different prices.

Unpatchable AMD Chip Flaw Unlocks Paid Tesla Feature Upgrades

Sorry Elon, but this appears to be unpatchable.

www.tomshardware.com

Obviously in this case it's a flaw with a specific chipset but well if the cars weren't all identical except for a paywall it wouldn't be possible.

Also possibility of putting cars locked out of the supercharger network back on.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Interesting one for car makers who seem determined to paywall everything...and sell the same product for different prices.

Unpatchable AMD Chip Flaw Unlocks Paid Tesla Feature Upgrades

Sorry Elon, but this appears to be unpatchable.

www.tomshardware.com

Obviously in this case it's a flaw with a specific chipset but well if the cars weren't all identical except for a paywall it wouldn't be possible.

Also possibility of putting cars locked out of the supercharger network back on.

Voltage fault injection does require direct access to the components, you push higher voltages thought the chips and circuits at different points In the boot process or during normal running to force the hardware to glitch, then you can do things like force the hardware to give up the source code of the OS or as they say in the article read the NVMe chips for stored data

While they’ve shown it’s possible it certainly wouldn’t be an easy thing to do without access to a lot of specialist kit and quite advanced know how.

To put a car back on the supercharger network you’d basically have to clone the ID of an undamaged car onto the damaged one, then you’d have two cars using the same credentials, which risks the possibility of an undamaged car and every car using that ID being banned from the network

 

[StevenRB45]

Yes but like digital mileage alteration, remapping of "locked" ECUs, hacking of keyless systems or using OBD to defeat the built in immobiliser.

If there's money in it...people will do it.

Unlike most the above, though I'd imagine if there was someone advertising it with a base model Tesla and you could pay 200 quid to get 20k worth of options enabled..

Well I wonder what they would do...

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Yes but like digital mileage alteration, remapping of "locked" ECUs, hacking of keyless systems or using OBD to defeat the built in immobiliser.

If there's money in it...people will do it.

Unlike most the above, though I'd imagine if there was someone advertising it with a base model Tesla and you could pay 200 quid to get 20k worth of options enabled..

Well I wonder what they would do...

In the article they say there is nothing that Tesla could do to stop it, but I suspect they may be able to detect changes to the Software such as locked features being unlocked and then you face having your car banned from updates and the supercharger network.

On older teslas like the model S that could be a massive issue as many of them have a lifetime free subscription to the supercharger network but if it’s a newer tesla and you charge from home you might not care all that much ?

There is also a high risk with this type of hack of bricking the MCU so it would be risky to hand your car to someone who is already knowingly being dodgy with hacking cars for them to cause many thousands of pounds of damage to the car, the. Tesla refuse to sell you a new part

 

[StevenRB45]

Kinda depends what changes you can make once you're in, eg. Can you tell the car not to tell Tesla it's been altered at which point it's literally undetectable unless someone from Tesla sits in the car with the build sheet.

Also people make decisions like this all the time, how many fiestas are running round with the boost turned up to 11 and a crackle map but no supporting mods? It's a poor choice...it'll probably blow the engine at some point but it was cheap and it makes bangs!!!

 

[bugsymike]

Sorry Steven and Andy you guys lost me just after "Also possibility of putting cars locked out of the supercharger network back on."
I was still having to work on cars with side valves when I started as an apprentice, kudos.

 

[StevenRB45]

Sorry Steven and Andy you guys lost me just after "Also possibility of putting cars locked out of the supercharger network back on."
I was still having to work on cars with side valves when I started as an apprentice, kudos.

Imagine you could turn a Mini 850 into a Cooper S with extras from a Vanden plas with nothing more than some electrical equipment and some knowledge.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I couldn't make my mind up whether this made me smile or feel grumpy - So I'm posting here.

So what's he rambling on about now? I hear you saying. Well, I've just been posting in the "Tech Talk" section about my somewhat wet experiences with the cars this morning. One of the things I got done was to change the oil and filter in the Panda and I like the oil to be good and hot before doing this so I always take the vehicle I'm working on for a wee drive around before pulling the plug. So. off I went round the wee back road which comes out by the Tesco and Lidl supermarkets. There's a car waiting to come out of the Tesco car park and I'm going to have to stop at the lights anyway as they are on red. So I slow and gesture to her to come out in front of me. She does so and gives me a cheery wave through the back window - which was nice, so few folk do these days. Oh, look at that, It's a brand new Renault Captur! I'm interested in them so I'm watching it as it pulls away in front of me and turns left - same way I'm going. It's a 20mph limited road (as are many in Edinburgh these days) so I've got plenty of time to admire the back of the car as I drive along quietly behind it. Then I notice the N/S/R tyre looks a little underinflated. Within half a mile it's now completely flat and making that typical Flappy/smacking noise a flat tyre makes. I flash my lights at her and she gives me a wave with her left hand but continues driving. Maybe she thinks I'm trying to be "friendly"? so I desist as I don't want to frighten her. As we approach the next lights they are turning red so I flash her again and give her a quick beep on the horn as I open my door to shout to her about the tyre. The lights go to green just as I'm pulling on my door handle so I have to abandon that. It's quite a way now to the next lights, past the wee retail park, day centre, school, trading estate where Kenny's garage is and finally the lights on Leith's Great Junction street. Oh good, they're going red. getting ready again to nip out but again, just as we roll to a stop the lights go green and she turns right. I'm going left so I bale out and carry on my way - after all I've got an oil change and other stuff to do with my day! On that run down to Great Junction Street the tyre was definitely completely flat and making a lot of noise, how could she not have realized something was wrong? Maybe having to buy a new tyre will wake her up - for sure the tyre will be unrepairable by the time she realizes what's happened.

 

[StevenRB45]

Perhaps it was a hire car...

I had to laugh when I was at the station with my boy a few months ago. There was Vauxhall Astra estate parked perfectly in the car club bay where you leave the enterprise rental cars.

Nothing odd about it apart from one tyre just being 2 sidewalls, carcass was entirely gone. But it being a car club car it was just left because they are unattended drop off for an hourly rate and whoever hired it next would have an interesting surprise.

You could say it doesn't say much for Renault TPS systems which the car will have...but given I've had conversations with my nearest and dearest along the lines of "there's been a light on the dashboard for 2 days can you have a look?"...it's probably been flashing away.

 

[bugsymike]

Pre crossflow Fords were my favourite, you could fit a 109E crank and rods in a 105E to change 997cc to 1340cc and unless stripped down no obvious external difference.
The 1500cc engine looked very similar at a quick glance to the 997cc, but you also gained a very strong 5 main bearing crankshaft and the only changes needed were to swap the flywheel spigot bearing over and bend the throttle arm up to match the 5/8ths (I think) difference in engine height, all mounts and hoses interchangeable. Plus you could also use the 997cc flywheel with the 1500 clutch so you had the benefit of a lighter flywheel without skimming etc.
Also I seem to recall if you got hold of an engine block with a casting number of T12 ( I think) it was the last from that mould and the block was thicker which meant it could be bored to a larger over size.
There were many other "shoe string " mods for penny less apprentices to do.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

You could say it doesn't say much for Renault TPS systems which the car will have...but given I've had conversations with my nearest and dearest along the lines of "there's been a light on the dashboard for 2 days can you have a look?"...it's probably been flashing away.

Too many of these warning lights these days and I'd suggest that most people who are not interested in their cars have little idea what they all mean. At least when there was just the red ignition light and oil warning light you could say that if they lit up it was best to stop very quickly before you wrecked the engine (red ignition light on with engine running often indicated a broken fan belt so the engine was just about to "brew up" and oil warning light on meant no oil pressure which, of course meant, wrecked engine if you don't switch off right now. It's just all too confusing now a days.

 

[bugsymike]

Heh Jock, the woman in the Renault probably thought you were a sex fiend, I have tried to attract a drivers attention about a brake light or something and, they just stare straight ahead, I have noticed they can see you but do not react

 

[StevenRB45]

Pre crossflow Fords were my favourite, you could fit a 109E crank and rods in a 105E to change 997cc to 1340cc and unless stripped down no obvious external difference.
The 1500cc engine looked very similar at a quick glance to the 997cc, but you also gained a very strong 5 main bearing crankshaft and the only changes needed were to swap the flywheel spigot bearing over and bend the throttle arm up to match the 5/8ths (I think) difference in engine height, all mounts and hoses interchangeable. Plus you could also use the 997cc flywheel with the 1500 clutch so you had the benefit of a lighter flywheel without skimming etc.
Also I seem to recall if you got hold of an engine block with a casting number of T12 ( I think) it was the last from that mould and the block was thicker which meant it could be bored to a larger over size.
There were many other "shoe string " mods for penny less apprentices to do.

Well yeah...

But for example take the green goblin..it's a C3. But the exact engine is used in a Peugeot 2008 and 5008 and the Astra and many others. In those cars it generates 130-145bhp it is mechanically identical.

With a laptop you can add 40% more power and about 20% more torque. If you actually start going to Hybrid turbo and a proper front mount intercooler then well your looking at about another 90% more power and because it's got steel rods and pistons and cast iron liners it'll take it.

You could add 80bhp in an afternoon with bolt on parts and laptop.

It's just all too confusing now a days.

I'm a big fan of the PSA/Stellantis "STOP!" Light...mainly for my wife but it's entirely not ambiguous in the event of low oil pressure or a major engine fault. It literally flashes up in the middle of the dash.