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

[StevenRB45]

I should say she has no interest in working on the road since our son was born and is therefore in control not out on the ambulances. Given some of the stories this is understandable..

Not that this has any bearing on her driving style...

 

[portland_bill]

The image of him sitting there thinking he's having a dice with white knuckles and sweat on his brow while she's sitting there listening a podcast just going about her commute still makes me laugh now.

That makes me smile too.
There are a lot of people who feel competitive, but with little ability, so just keeping up feels like a race.
When I had a liveried driving school car, there were times when oiks would try to race. There's a clue on the car that there may be some expertise inside. There have been several times I've had to slow down from my 'normal progress', to reduce the risk of the clown behind crashing.

... So I can quite believe there are those ambulance people who think everything is a race.

Training company car and van drivers, I've met a few ex-blue light drivers. Most will instinctively drive like they're in a hurry everywhere. With a tall supermarket van, that can be exciting.

 

[vexorg]

you're not driving it properly if the pistons are not threatening to leave the engine and the valves aren't bouncing ?

I'll need to get a video of the citroen when hit the red line the dash changes from a serene place to 'end of the world'. A bit like some of the audio warnings, open the door without the handbrake on and you'd think the car is about to explode.

 

[StevenRB45]

My favourite will always be the rising panic of the fuel gauge..."Dear sir, can I have some fuel please? And goes to "Feed me now you Bastard or I'll cut you!"

This may or may not be slight exaggeration but it definitely gets hangry.

 

[vexorg]

Mine is quite polite about the fuel level, when the low light comes on all I get is a message in the middle popping up saying "Fuel level too low", and on every start of the car - which is a nice reminder

 

[PuntoHowTo]

My favourite will always be the rising panic of the fuel gauge..."Dear sir, can I have some fuel please? And goes to "Feed me now you Bastard or I'll cut you!"

This may or may not be slight exaggeration but it definitely gets hangry.

The Golf does 'blind panic' you have 40 miles left..... I told you 5 miles ago you only have 40 left, its probably more like 30miles now. another 5 miles and you've still not put fuel in me, you only have 15 miles left now. Another 2 miles down and it is screaming you only have 5 miles left, why....WHY WON'T YOU PUT FUEL IN ME !!!

100 yards..... THAT'S IT, NO MILES LEFT, IS THAT WHAT YOU WANTED ??? US TO BE STRANDED MILES FROM HOME IN THE COLD WIND AND RAIN WITH NO FUEL AND NO HOPE OF RESCUE,, WHHHHHY ? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME..... Oh is that a fuel station?

The Mini has some extended range fuel tank and does the opposite. "you only have 1/16th of a tank of fuel left, please fill up in the next 200 miles, please... I have put the light on so you remember to get fuel at some point in the next month or so.

 

[StevenRB45]

Mine is quite polite about the fuel level, when the low light comes on all I get is a message in the middle popping up saying "Fuel level too low", and on every start of the car - which is a nice reminder

I think what it may be is you've only experienced level 1 of rising panic.

Level 4 is beeping, the fuel light changing colour from orange to red and starting to flash and the polite message changes at each level to something slightly less polite and more insistent.

Certain people in my life had the belief that a car gets refueled on payday... regardless of what the fuel gauge says.

 

[vexorg]

Certain people in my life had the belief that a car gets refueled on payday... regardless of what the fuel gauge says.

You're not supposed to do that with the citroen (and peugeot) diesels, they inject eolys fluid into the tank every time the cap is opened, and they assume you are filling up. Do it too often and it uses the fluid more than it should.

I've had mine down to no bars left on the display and less than 10 miles range, it doesn't get any worse with the warnings.

 

[StevenRB45]

It is indeed bad practice...

However when you say things like "Citroën quality is worse these days" you probably should bear in mind that our car spends a lot of time doing things that if they were to appear in the owners manual would be accompanied by a red circle with a line through it.

 

[bugsymike]

You're not supposed to do that with the citroen (and peugeot) diesels, they inject eolys fluid into the tank every time the cap is opened, and they assume you are filling up. Do it too often and it uses the fluid more than it should.

I've had mine down to no bars left on the display and less than 10 miles range, it doesn't get any worse with the warnings.

My ex wife used to have engine cut out as she raced around the bend on the hill to our house after ignoring the light, as long as it got over the brow of hill and started running again she would do nothing about it, even though I paid for everything on car so filling to the brim would have been "free" anyway.

 

[The Panda Nut]

Mine is quite polite about the fuel level, when the low light comes on all I get is a message in the middle popping up saying "Fuel level too low", and on every start of the car - which is a nice reminder

Like Noop (Panda TA) He will certailnly do 70 miles with care after the light is on and the 1.2 will do at least 90 miles but at the end of that you are powering it on the fumes of fear . I suppose running out of fuel is more common than we think. With a few more years under your belt you have less desire to have to either walk a long way or push the car. I think I have only ever run out once. That resulted in pushing the car half a mile. Being 17 or 18 at the time it was possible but not to be repeated. For years I always kept a can in the back . Now I just try and keep it full all the time. Doing this with E10 doesnt fill me with confidence though.

 

[bugsymike]

Like Noop (Panda TA) He will certailnly do 70 miles with care after the light is on and the 1.2 will do at least 90 miles but at the end of that you are powering it on the fumes of fear . I suppose running out of fuel is more common than we think. With a few more years under your belt you have less desire to have to either walk a long way or push the car. I think I have only ever run out once. That resulted in pushing the car half a mile. Being 17 or 18 at the time it was possible but not to be repeated. For years I always kept a can in the back . Now I just try and keep it full all the time. Doing this with E10 doesnt fill me with confidence though.

Presumably the same people who run low in ICE vehicles will be those who repeat the exercise with EVs.

 

[The Panda Nut]

Presumably the same people who run low in ICE vehicles will be those who repeat the exercise with EVs.

Having seem the chaos caused by immobile EV's thats a scary thought

 

[portland_bill]

I have the same rising panic system in the Fabia as the VW. Don't see it often as I plan my refuelling, but it can be annoying/entertaining.
There's a fuel station at the bottom of the road. Always 9-13p/lit more expensive than in Swindon, 11 miles away. If I travel East, to Wantage, it can be even cheaper than Swindon, but sadly I rarely go that way. So I'm always watching the guage, and thinking ahead to journeys, and will often fill up when still over half full, if that's the last time I'd be near the cheaper fuel.
The Doblo however can bite. The fuel tank is reduced width, for the lowered floor/wheelchair ramp. The fuel gauge is unchanged, so the range to empty is always too much. The specialist company that sold it to me has stuck a label on the dash, warning not to allow it to go below 1/4 full. It drops as expected from full to 3/4, a little faster to 1/2, but after half, I need to be planning a fuel stop, as it drops very quickly from there. It has gone below 1/4 on a couple of occasions, and from 1/4 it plummets. Scary. As these vehicles usually do local runs, this isn't an issue for most owners. A run to my brother's, 100 miles each way, requires a refill for the return. Real range, probably about 150-175 miles.

 

[Cheest]

I rarely let the fuel level get low enough to trigger the warning light. Mrs.Cheest, on the other hand, jeez! I get in her car and the low fuel ight and dinger come on followed by "Oh, yeah, I need gas". No sense asking why she didn't fill up because the answer will be, "I didn't notice until the dinger went off." There is also a dearth of stations out here in the sticks. The two local stations price gouge and I won't use them. Their prices are usually a half dollar a gallon higher for gasoline and a dollar more a gallon for diesel than the surrounding area. So I fill up anywhere outside of town.

When the gauge on the DeSoto drops to a quarter tank, that means fill up now. The gauge quits reading a quarter. I found out the hard way. I know that a float adjustment is needed but gassing up earlier is easier than dropping the tank.

 

[StevenRB45]

I may be currently stringing a tank out until Thursday as know I'm travelling to work that day and up to Northumberland on Christmas eve but petrol has dropped a good 10p since last week and seems to get dropping daily. Although fuel light is still over 100 miles away given it's well over quarter of a tank.

Was 1.41 when I saw it Saturday was 1.37 when I passed the same petrol station on Monday. I also note diesel isn't dropping as fast so the gap is opening up again to nearly 10p a litre at some stations.

Not sure how I feel about my son downgrading his Christmas ask it was a Lego Star wars AT-AT (6800 pieces 734 quid no hope in hell) to a pet crocodile. Think either way Santa isn't going to be delivering..

 

[bugsymike]

I may be currently stringing a tank out until Thursday as know I'm travelling to work that day and up to Northumberland on Christmas eve but petrol has dropped a good 10p since last week and seems to get dropping daily. Although fuel light is still over 100 miles away given it's well over quarter of a tank.

Was 1.41 when I saw it Saturday was 1.37 when I passed the same petrol station on Monday. I also note diesel isn't dropping as fast so the gap is opening up again to nearly 10p a litre at some stations.

Not sure how I feel about my son downgrading his Christmas ask it was a Lego Star wars AT-AT (6800 pieces 734 quid no hope in hell) to a pet crocodile. Think either way Santa isn't going to be delivering..

You may need to fill up sooner, fuel looks set to rise again with the oil companies using the troubles in the Red Sea as the excuse even though apparently most of the large oil tankers go the other way, around the Cape any way.
What a "meany", not getting your son a pet crocodile, imagine the looks on other childrens faces when he takes it for walks.

 

[portland_bill]

Not sure how I feel about my son downgrading his Christmas ask it was a Lego Star wars AT-AT (6800 pieces 734 quid no hope in hell) to a pet crocodile. Think either way Santa isn't going to be delivering..

Although local to me, it is a fair old trek from you, but you could adopt a crocodile for him. (I don't think they let you take them home)

Animals - Crocodiles Of The World

Here at Crocodiles of the World we boast one of the widest collections of crocodiles, alligators and caiman in Europe. We are home to 19 of the world’s 26 species, […]

www.crocodilesoftheworld.co.uk

The home page gave a schedule of activities, including feeding the meerkats. I checked, they do also have some meerkats, they are not being fed to the crocodiles.
About 15 minutes away from there, is the Cotswold Wildlife Park, so lots more animals to want to take home. They used to have some Red Pandas, very cute. From there, you're just 5 minutes from Blue Cross, so you can adopt a cat or dog.

 

[bugsymike]

Although local to me, it is a fair old trek from you, but you could adopt a crocodile for him. (I don't think they let you take them home)
They used to have some Red Pandas, very cute. From there, you're just 5 minutes from Blue Cross, so you can adopt a cat or dog.

@StevenRB45 . He (and you) would probably get more use out of the Lego in that case.
When my two youngest daughters moved out they took their dog and cat with them thank goodness, however they then got another dog and cat which put the original cat's nose out of joint, so for two years he was getting fed by an old lady in the next road and lived wild, they only knew about it when she got ill and contacted the RSPCA and discovered that the cat was chipped and was returned. As they still had the same dogs it was then suggested that I had him, something I thought I had escaped. I tried keeping him in at night etc. but after filling my garden with the remains of Magpies,pigeons, blackbirds, mice, frogs etc. he now has adopted nearly every house owner down the road for around 1/4 mile who all feed him even though they now know he is not a stray! So he is less dependent on the local wildlife and now he is getting older alternates his sleeping arrangements between a neighbours basement washing machine/tumble drier site and a Christmas tree at the bottom of my garden, I can tell which by the amount of pine needles when he comes in for some biscuits.
Re local Zoos, we used to hear the randy lions some evenings, though less so nowadays. As children we used to have school visits there and a friends Dad did building work there also, so Saturdays we never had to pay to get in, where as now with a big family it is not the cheapest form of outing and I hasten to add not as good as it used to be. Not just because they took the Jungle ride train away, which used to be working steam when I was a lad.

 

[StevenRB45]

He'll be getting neither...

The Lego on the basis it's a collectors thing and he uses Lego as Lego which is great but there's no way I'm spending more on a Lego set than my 1st and 2nd cars cost combined for him to make take apart and make it into a Fort or summat. Totally happy for him to do it with cheaper sets but when you're getting into that money nah mate.

Pet wise...again no regardless of it's a crocodile, cat or dog...or bunny as I did this when my Wife had a house rabbit which ended up being my house rabbit whenever it needed cleaning out. In the same way I'm sure it'll be my dog whenever it needs walking...

Humbug etc.