Early Risers.

[Gwiwer]

Good morning all. 

 

Welcome to Friday 

[BoD]

Good morning one and all.

 

Full eight oktas here.

Have a good day whatever your sky is like.

[JohnDMJ]

Happy POTS day!

[Robert]

Morning All,

 

It is another pleasant morning in this part of the world.  We have light cloud, and sunshine.

 

These days, both Mercedes and I drive Fords and we are actually pretty pleased with then.  I have a Focus estate, and Mercedes has a B-Max.

 

Neil described the engine in his as like wet lettuce, but I can't say that is my experience, despite both the cars having the same engine (the one litre Ecoboost with 100bhp) they are both pretty swift.  Certainly better than my previous car (a Toyota Auris with the 1.33 litre and 100bhp - that was really sluggish).  The main advantage of that engine was the timing chain - which meant it was maintenance free.

 

Ford have certainly been pushing the boundaries of technology recently - and that has led to problems.  Not only with the power shift gearbox, but also with the Ecoboost.  It is a relatively old school engine (in the sense that it has a cast iron block) but the water jacket is very small, to ensure that it warms up quickly and reaches maximum performance (fuel and emissions) as soon as possible.  Of course, if it looses it coolant, it goes Kaboom! very quickly.  The problems that Ford had were related to a coolant hose cracking (the new engines have a different type of hose).  Although it has a timing belt, it is a wet belt which means the service intervals are much longer than they are with a traditional belt.

 

As far as the power shift is concerned - I've never driven one, so I can't really comment.  However, as far as the Ecoboost is concerned, they seem to have sorted out the problems (at least on the smaller engines).

 

Have a good day everyone...

[chrisf]

Good morning one and all.   Gosh, matters arising! 

 

81C, I appreciate your kind thought but having had one Fiesta I would never have another. I just could not get on with it and its fundament design fault, which was that I could not see the speedo through the steering wheel, was a bit of a drawback to say the least.   When the time came to replace it I touted it round the dealerships in Bedford.  The Ford dealership was very despondent.  When I told the guy there what the VW dealership had offered me he said “Bite his hand off!”  My current Polo is my fourth and is the only one to give me any trouble.  I like the idea of escalating the matter and will work on that when I am feeling better.

 

I am a member of the AA BUT my membership is suspended because I have breakdown cover as part of my VW service contract.  The problem is that the brakes jam on when the car has been stationary for a long period.  The first time was three and a half weeks when I was out of the country, and the most recent was when it had been on a campsite for nine days.  AndyID, my Polo is pure manual.  It is the handbrake that is seizing on – it did it again yesterday morning.  Your workaround is worth trying – thank you.

 

Barry O, I hope that Dr Eldest Herbert enjoys Manchester Pride.  I should think that the music will be better than at Pride Cymru, for if last year is any guide it couldn’t be much worse.  Cardiff relies on tribute acts, or did last year when the same woman impersonated both Cher and Amy Winehouse!  I’ll give Manchester some thought for next year but I don’t know Manchester as well as I do Cardiff and travel there appears to be more difficult.

 

Yesterday the third BT engineer turned up to fix my broadband.  The current theory is crosstalk, which involve replacing some wires and climbing a pole to do it.  Unfortunately Craig the engineer is not allowed to climb the pole without a hoist so one must be procured.  This is beginning to sound like experts disagreeing with other experts but why should I mind as long as the bl**dy thing is fixed??

 

Best wishes to all

 

Chris

[TheQ]

Hand brakes sticking on, are a common problem when left that long in a damp atmosphere.. it's called rust.. I don't think there will be a solution.. We've had it occasionally on different cars. It used to happen to everyone in Saudi when we lived on the coast, and went home for our fortnights holiday every 15 weeks. The Answer is to find a way of parking with the brakes off..

 

Mooring Awl Inner Temple Hare,

A poor nights sleep of three pieces but with long awakes ...

 

Dull over cast, with no wind  but a hint of blue in some places.. 

 

New Windows ten update last night ,   it took an hour.... that's on a quad core machine with a 256Mb SSD. I'm dreading updating SWMBOs lap top.. I've had to order a new psu as she can't find it and so the laptop hasn't been updated for some time...

 

Time to go see if the second Major system has passed it's cross check... The Boss has not come back to me about the first one yet.. when I left he was looking puzzled...

 

 

[Barry O]

Ey up! Last day of the festival. Looks like it will chuckitdarn shortly. Pah!

 

May mean an early dart for home.

 

Chris the seizing brakes can sound awful but the fine surface rust should disappear within a coupls of wheel turns. A mate of mine decided a squirt of WD40 would suffice.....wrong!!!!

 

Having been here for 4 weeks I now know what is going wrong in English cricket...

1  some of the coaches are carp

2  the ECB has lost the plot

 

Not much I can ro about either but the teams this week have listened to the umpires and no longer run down the wicket, bowlers no longee run onto the wicket while bowling and..the quickee you bowl the ovees the more mistakes the batters make.

 

On a different note her indoors said we had a hedgepig in the garden last night.  Hopefully it has found somewhere to stay.

Have a great day.

Baz

[jamie92208]

Morni g all from a sunny but still cool Charente.  The meal/drinkathon went well yesterday  many mussells were sacrificed to a good cause. Beth even managed to navigate home without assistance.  Some eyelid inspection did take place.  Lots happenning today. Eric the grass is due to cut the bulk of the weeds. I will be cutting the remainder with the little Honda. I also need to finish fitting the permanent flyscreen in the upstairs bedroom. 

 

Regards to all.

 

Jamie

[AndrewC]

Greetings all from the boring borough. TFIF. No poet for me as our weekly "team" meeting has been pushed back to the end of the day. Waste of time really, as the whole thing could be done as an email. I guess it is a box tick for manglement. 

 

I used to be a Ford man. My first was a mkiii Cortina. (one of the 2l German built ones sold in Canada) Several Fords later including an 81 Mustang, and I ended up with a more family friendly Mercury Topaz. (Ford Tempo) The worst PoS I've ever owned. I'm convinced it was designed by an Italian. Walk past it with an ice cream and it wouldn't start. I think it started to rust before I finished the test drive. Hood latch and safety failed at 90km/h on a main road. Traded it in a week after that "event" and haven't had a Ford since. Best vehicle I've ever owned was my 52 reg Land Rover Freelander. Finally retired back in Feb after having it for 14 years. That reminds me I need to get my local garage to stop sending me texts to book the MoT.

The jury is still out on the new Disco but so far so good. The emergency braking proved itself the other week when some twatwaffle in a silver merc decided he didn't like the particular shade of red the light was and barrelled through the intersection. The Disco reacted faster than I did. The downside is the parking warning which gets annoying since it beeps like crazy when you are still 300mm from anything. 

 

A belated happy birthday to Andyram. Good to see you posting again. 

 

That is about it. Enjoy your weekend. 

[Kingzance]

Mawning from a cloudy and noisy NEHerts where it is dry at the moment. BP taken, muggertea downed, ablutions done and about to load up on calories before heading up the M1 to perform a measure of the g-word and get the boiler serviced / repaired. Back later, hopefully still free-wheeling and rust-free (but I am not too optimistic on that front).

[Stubby47]

Wet, as in very wet, down here in the far south west .

[Kingzance]

21 minutes ago, Stubby47 said:

Wet, as in very wet, down here in the far south west .

I can see the old milk trains being replaced with water trains bringing your excesses to The Capital soon - perhaps even steam-hauled given the lack of electricity on Fridays now! 

[45156]

2 hours ago, chrisf said:

 Unfortunately Craig the engineer is not allowed to climb the pole without a hoist so one must be procured. 

Chris, that probably means that it is what is known as a "D" pole (D for decayed) which means that it is unsafe to climb - if you check the pole, it may have a plate in it in red with a D in white - it may also have a label on it with with 1024 on it indicating that it is due for replacement.  Or it may be that the pole cannot be climbed for other reasons.

 

Morning All

 

Just a quick visit to offer generic greetings - now I need to get on as matters domestic are calling.

 

Regards to All

Stewart

[Coombe Barton]

Dry, but surely going to be wet, very, with sound and light effects later, according to the forecast.

On leave, clearing up, time to attack the kitchen. Hope it doesn't fight back too much.

Edited August 16, 2019 by Coombe Barton

[Dave Hunt]

Wet and breezy in Hipposhire too. Nothing really worth reporting today - merely replays of what's been going on before. Boring and tiresome. Have a good one yourselves.

 

Dave

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, wet and windy here, not a good day at all.

 

Andyid  There are VW's in the UK that use the very same 'box as the Fiasco Fiesta.  VW are better at burying the issues!  IIRC John Cadogan who is an Australian guy that does amusing car stuff on yotoob has said they are in Aus too.  A shame as neither are bad cars, just the auto box  is crepe.

 

Andyram, that is an issue we are familiar with, but our software won't allow the sale to be made as it is out of stock.  The green Bachmann 37 with SYP is the usual one, it is a Google issue, it won't 'forget' that one page from over two (three?) years ago.  It doesn't even exist in our software as a 'not viewable on tinterweb' page, indeed it is from an earlier version of the whole thing entirely! 

 

Off to the bike club...in the car..soon, and then off to collect new specs and lose a kidney and three legs to pay for them.

[BSW01]

Good morning everyone 

 

It’s chuckinitdarn here in northwest England and by the size of the puddles in the back garden, it has been for some time. As it’s Friday that means I’ll shortly be setting off for the Trafford Centre, but I’ll call in at Asda first to pick up a few items that Sainsbury’s no longer stock. My return trip will be via the butchers where I’ll pick up the weekly meat rations and hopefully a pastie each for dinner. After that I’m not sure what’s planned, James and Amelia aren’t coming round tonight, the whole family are meeting up at a local Indian restaurant for my pre-birthday celebration. I’ve booked a table for 13 as James will be bringing his new girlfriend, I hope she can cope with all the madness. My birthday is on Sunday and it will be my 3rd - 21st birthday. 

 

Back later 

Edited August 16, 2019 by BSW01

[New Haven Neil]

Oh, Robert the B-Max was the 1.4L 16v twin-cam one, not an Ecoboost.  It was dire.  I avoided the Ecoboost for the overheating issues you mention, which were in the news at the time.  A friend has a Fiesta with the 100hp ecoboost, I find the 3 cyl engine quick but a little rough, or even a lot rough.  My i30 is a 1.6 diesel auto and despite the torque converter box (6 sp) is more economical than either and goes quite well.  My Focus was a 1.8 TDCi and better than either engine wise, but the car itself was not a match for comfort, and bits often fell off.

[Coombe Barton]

24 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

Dry, but surely going to be wet, very, with sound and light effects later, according to the forecast.

On leave, clearing up, time to attack the kitchen. Hope it doesn't fight back too much.

Now started to get wet

[petethemole]

1 minute ago, Coombe Barton said:

Now started to get wet

 

Is that rain, or the kitchen fighting back?

[Coombe Barton]

Just now, petethemole said:

 

Is that rain, or the kitchen fighting back?

The rain.

Thie kitchen has had a severe talking to and had reluctantly agreed to cooperate.

[petethemole]

Mornin' all, dull here now but yellow rain is on the way, apparently.  That might affect my plans for today, if I had any.  A trip to the storage unit to collect some books to sell may happen, but as it involves walking to the bus stop it will depend on the intensity of the precipitation.  See, my life is so dull ATM that I exercise my internal thesaurus for entertainment.

 

Time to list some more vintage Marvel comics; Fantastic Four today.

 

Have a good day,

 

Pete

 

 

 

 

 

[tigerburnie]

Morning, chuckinitdarn here too, not too windy and is forecast for the whole weekend, going to the St Andrews model exhibition tomorrow, could do without the wet really as SWMBO will be on walkabout whilst I'm in the town hall, if she spends more time in shops dodging the rain it could be an expensive day out lol.

Cars are a funny old subject, ones mans meat is another's poison and all that, I was a maintenance engineer in a car factory for 12 years, didn't half hear some tales from employees of other manufacturers who we head hunted most of their staff.

I used to have a penchant for classic cars, " exotics" that were famous for unreliability, the rule was if it started at home(which really was a lottery), then you did not turn the engine off until you got back home again, I remember an owners club meeting in a pub where half the cars engines were left running on the car park. My favourite cars were my old Aston Martin V8, 5.3 litre and around 10 mpg, so perhaps not my most practical car, another was a my Mitsubishi Shogun sport, not that lively and not that much more economical either despite being a diesel tractor, still only did around 20 mpg. Most reliable cars owned were a Lada Riva estate(my first brand new car I purchased after the Mkiv Cortina died), and any of the Japanese cars I have owned, I've had 7(all brand new ones, so perhaps you'd expect them to reliable as they were all changed at 2 years old). I currently have a Mitsubishi ASX 1.5 petrol with a manual gear box and 2 wheel drive, if I leave this parked on a slope for more than a couple of days facing forwards down the hill the hand brake sticks on, if I park it facing up the slope the hand brakes fine...….??

[Happy Hippo]

50 minutes ago, Dave Hunt said:

Wet and breezy in Hipposhire too. Nothing really worth reporting today - merely replays of what's been going on before. Boring and tiresome. Have a good one yourselves.

 

Dave

I left it behind, just for you.

 

However, I bought the rest with me so as not to disappoint my mother.

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. Still dry but clouding over here in Estuary-Land but predicted to have gone by tomorrow morning. ChrisF, as Q said the sticking handbrake is caused by rust. Modern brake linings and pads are made from compressed iron oxide, rust to you and me. As stated in damp conditions and if the car has stood for some time with the handbrake on the pads will stick to the discs. This happens on my car, I only need to let the clutch in slowly in first gear to free them (usually with a clunk) and then as I'm pulling away gently apply the footbrake to 'clean' the discs.