Mr FIAT - Your #1 source for vintage car parts

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

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

portland_bill said:
Got a marketing email from Halfords.
"Interested in Motoring?" is the title. Might be, if we were allowed out.
Then in the main body,
"Prepare for the journey"
I guess the marketing department of Halfords is staffed by people in their mid twenties, who think the lockdown is only for old folks.
Click to expand...

Nah... if they were early 20s they'd be saying 'Interested in reducing inequality?' and 'prepare for going vegan' :yuck: and other nonsensical problems they think they need to ram down our throats... Haha


I noticed the prepare for the journey too. I can only trust they mean to bring a coat for the queue outside the store as they scramble around the store / back room to find your click and collect order which was sitting by the till the whole time.. Good old' Halfords
 
They must be doing a roaring trade in batteries and/or trickle chargers at the minute.

Mine was new 2 years ago, is oversized for the application and it's been struggling a bit with the lack of use so God knows how all the 5+ year old batteries are doing with the winter temperatures + lockdown.

We're having to alternate cars to keep them both in running order otherwise mine would be standing weeks at a time.
 
Last edited:
StevenRB45 said:
They must be doing a roaring trade in batteries and/or trickle chargers at the minute.

Mine was new 2 years ago, is oversized for the application and it's been struggling a bit with the lack of use so God knows how all the 5+ year old batteries are doing with the winter temperatures + lockdown.

We're having to alternate cars to keep them both in running order otherwise mine would be standing weeks at a time.
Click to expand...

Thought about a solar maintainer to keep the battery topped up? I’ve been using them for years :)
 
Last year on lockdown, my daily was seldom used, it still had the original battery, eight years old, struggling to start the car. I charged the battery using a charger obviously, then I used the solar trickle charger that sits behind the windscreen, this kept the battery over twelve volts, but was enough power to start the car every time.
 
Becky, our Panda, has not been run for some time. Mrs J has an appointment to see the doc today and, as there's quite a covering of snow with us here this morning I'll drive her - she's not keen on driving in the snow. As I was wondering if her 10+ year old battery would be up to it I have just been out and cleared the snow off her and started her engine. normally after a couple of days without being started you will hear maybe one or two cam followers "rattle" for just a few seconds as the oil pumps up to them. This morning I think they all rattled for 4 or 5 seconds and then went quiet as the oil reached them. I'm not worried, just wasn't expecting such a loud display of "castanets"!
 
Ways of working survey from work has come back and literally everyone has said "I want to work from home or do mixture of home working and office."

So may be unlikely I'll be back in the office full time for the foreseeable. Now this opens some possibilities, my wife works weekend nights I work weekday days so originally we had 2 cars so she could go out during the day while I was at work. If I'm not going back to the office 5 days a week we don't need 2 cars.

So we could have one nice one instead...but that would mean sharing a car with someone who said this very morning "There's an odd smell in my car somewhere...and it can't be the cup of off milk cos you took that out last week didn't you?" :yuck:
 
Watching neighbours set off for work. We've had a significant frost.
First, next door, does a good job of completely clearing all front windows of his Sprinter, and the lights, before setting off. Good job.
Next, a young guy with one of those strange MINIs, the coupe that looks like its been sat on. A diesel, so makes an irritating noise while it runs, waiting for a defrost. Rear window clears quickly, bonnet defrosts faster than the front windows. As soon as he has a patch about 100mm across x 50mm high, he's off.
Then the last. A Dispatch van, diesel of course. Turns the key without waiting for the glow plugs, churns for ages before firing and shoving out tons of smoke. Used to do this with the Transit before, often complained about poor cold starting. Used a credit card sized scraper to make a 'window' about 100mm square in the windscreen, a similar area at each side mirror, then gone.

Keep safe out there!
 
Do not miss commuting for this reason.

Other week went out and there was a guy driving an Astra head out the window, windscreen opaque.

Now that was bad enough, but the fact he nearly had a head on with me as he veered into my lane took the biscuit.

Meant to fish out the dashcam footage and send it on..I'm not normally the sort but it was all 3 in my car, I could see the outline of a passenger in his and it was middle of the sodding day so no excuse at all, could have killed 5 people.
 
Last edited:
There's an older woman visits regularly. Granny to some small children down the road, hopefully they're a bubble.
Yesterday she managed to park midway in a two-car space, and was there all day.
This morning, after MINI and van had gone, she arrived, and again parked in the middle of the space. Today the space should accommodate three vehicles, but placing her car where she did made use of the others difficult. Quite an achievement.
She has just left. Facing downhill, lots of space ahead, much revving of engine to get going. So much effort, so little result.
 
Similar sort of thing happens here PB on a regular basis. Our estate is quite high density housing and each house has a paved run off in front of it. Dropped curb and roughly two cars wide - space for one car with a footpath to the front door beside it. The pavement on either side to the next house is just long enough to comfortably park tow largish cars, a few you might just squeeze in three very small cars. Since the lockdown people who live in the streets outside our estate, where the housing is older and parking is on a busier road with cars quite frequently suffering clipped mirrors etc, have started parking on our streets. This is annoying because it's making access for refuse collection lorries and fire engines difficult. Before this the street was mostly clear with neighbours parking on their slabbed runoffs and people in the flats opposite parking in their dedicated layby outside. The estate is a dead end with no through roads and the streets are not really wide enough for extensive full time kerbside parking.

Neighbours and their guests have always parked sensibly but two of these "interlopers", who seem to come and go at irregular times of the day and evening, have taken to parking, at the kerbside, precisely half way between the houses which means only one car can park there. One driver is a rather "dotty" looking female who drives a convertible new type Beetle and the other are a very aggressive looking large couple with a "trendy" - read flashy - mid sized Audi. Although I wouldn't wish misfortune on any of my wonderful neighbours I would like to see a fire engine come storming down the street and, perhaps, take the mirrors off these two thoughtless people's cars! I might pluck up enough courage to speak to the "dotty" woman but the Audi couple? I think I value my front teeth too much!
 
Pugglt Auld Jock said:
Similar sort of thing happens here PB on a regular basis. Our estate is quite high density housing and each house has a paved run off in front of it.

Neighbours and their guests have always parked sensibly but two of these "interlopers", who seem to come and go at irregular times of the day and evening, have taken to parking, at the kerbside, precisely half way between the houses which means only one car can park there. One driver is a rather "dotty" looking female who drives a convertible new type Beetle
Click to expand...

I worked with a bloke who had a good sized trolley jack.. and would move poorly 'parked' cars.. so they looked truly abandoned..

Nowadays .. parking (leaving) an old banger either side . for a couple of days.. could yield a similar level of smug satisfaction :)
 
Last edited:
dave said:
I dont understand all this scrapping windows, ive used tepid water for years no problems at all and it stops the inside misting too.
Click to expand...

It took me a while to work out what you were on about, I thought you were somehow using water to repair windows instead of scrapping them when they were broken, of course you meant scraping the ice off
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

porta
Mainly Fiat, not Fiat
Replies
0
Views
152
porta
porta
AnthonyH
What are you listening to right now?
2
Replies
36
Views
859
ZaphodB
Z
AsdaPricey
Good Tube of You channel
Replies
4
Views
234
The Panda Nut
The Panda Nut
s130
20 Car Innovations That DID NOT Stand the Test of Time
2 3
Replies
58
Views
3K
PuntoHowTo
PuntoHowTo
porta
But it kinda is…
Replies
0
Views
149
porta
porta
Back
Top