Toon Chris

A new diff mount will tighten up the power transmission and on high mileage / older cars makes a world of improvement to the driving experience.

Regardless of the gear problem you have it's worth doing anyway.

I'd argue a Macan could be all the car you'd ever need. Decent engine, plenty of space for the young 'uns, it's got the badge, good view out for the women folk who like to sit a little higher, 4WD, and it genuinely feels like a hot hatch when driving it.

 

And the Macan is cheaper than the Giulia QV. Ouch, that is one pricey Alfa saloon.

2nd-hand is a no-brainer!

Lots of stuff cats don't like that you could put on your cover. Hang some lemon air fresheners off it like an Aussie hat (although the tarp is probably easier)

Nip up the plenum bolts just to be sure. It's quick and you will soon see if one was a bit loose-ish.

Took 2 years for a leak to show round my spacer and I chased the codes for ages until I found the annoyingly simple culprit.

Maybe completely unconnected, but given the gear selection difficulty just maybe the 'gate' under the gearlever is not quite correctly located - I had this issue once on the 370.

This is definitely worth a look. I heard (on the forum) that this can affect 5th/6th gear selection at least. If the box has been out then it seem a likely place to at least have a fiddle.

Doesn't sound like it will help with 2nd though

Unfortunately, it doesnt matter how far away we park our cars or what efforts we go to to ensure people dont park next to us. You will always get some tw@t that decides to park right next to you!

 

I got to this car park dead early on a Sunday morning. Saw the empty car park and parked right in the end space to ensure that no car would possibly park next to me because of the ample spaces available. I was gone for 20 minutes before I return to the car and find this:

 

The stairs to the shopping centre are at the top left of this picture!

Maybe he thinks, "Hmm. If I park next to that stunning car he is less likely to bash me with his door".

Or maybe he is a lemming. Who knows.

PS: I assume 'He' because I can't imagine a woman being proud of such a hid car and that would blow out my argument.

squeal from a loose/worn belt? pop the bonnet and listen for any weird noises when you start the engine from cold.

 

Had all belt / clutch / DMF / rad fans / thermostat / coolant hoses changed in July with full coolant flush and change.

 

I'd still check your aux belts for tension, they will have slackened off a bit now and may need a wee tweak, especially if your only hearing it when the car is cold. If the whistle goes away after the cars been driven / warmed up, then it's most likely the belts.

Or you have tightened them a bit too much and a bearing is starting to complain when cold?

Either way, tightest is not bestest, correct adjustment is what you want.

Love the ban on letting agent fees to renters though, like the landlords are just going to suck it up and not increase rents to cover it

 

Having been ripped off by agents a few times, I'm totally for doing something, but why don't they just do something sensible like set a fixed price?!? Every single "fee" I've been charged by a letting thief has covered a phone call to an employer to do a job check and a credit search, total costs of about £3.50 per applicant, they could have capped the fee at £50 and still let greedy agents wet their beaks.

Having become a landlord for the first time this year when we couldn't sell our flat, it's easy to see that agents are having a laugh at everyone's expense. My daughter rents (not from me) and I can see it very clearly from both sides now.

The tenant pays a stupid fee for a credit check. Costs the agent tuppence but there is all the 'admin' the agent has that somehow justifies this. As a landlord I can't get insurance unless tenants have been checked so I can't ask them not to run a check, but now this could be an opportunity for credit check agencies to compete on offering services direct to the Landlord. Ok so i have to pay instead of the tenant but a few quid won't kill me.

Inventories. I get charged and the tenant gets charged. How is that fair? As a landlord it's up to me to get a decent inventory, and to pay for it if I want someone to do it for me. I cannot see in any way why a tenant should pay.

Back in the day, your rental term ran out and you were automatically on a month-by-month renewal basis. Now a tenant has to officially renew and the charges are ridiculous. Again the tenant pays and the landlord pays - both for the same thing which is a 're-arrangement' fee to re-sign the same damn document.

Agents are skinning both sides but if they get stopped from spreading this love around it's the landlord they will turn to, to keep their coffers full. The issue is the Agents closed shop where you have little choice as a landlord but to use them for everything. I like the idea of a ban because now everything is up front and charged to the landlord there is more chance for other companies to squeeze in and deal direct with the Landlord to supply services in a competitive market - which is everyone's only hope for fairer prices all round.

I had the same and it was the diff bush - although that's not helpful as it could be engine or gearbox mounts for you.

You might have to give the drivetrain an aggressive wobbling?

I can say that replacing the diff bush with a decent after-market one made the car like new again - its amazing how a slack diff bush can ruin the power delivery.

Its just alloy oxidization due to water and air fella, don't know who has told you that its a sign of oil in the plenum but its incorrect, there will always be oil in the plenum itself due to the way the PCV system works.

Quite. If oil could seep through metal we would all be screwed

I know, how odd, it looks like 2 then 11 then 10 (=0) then 3. No idea what 11 flashes means .

Not really that different. At the last election the Conservative formed a majority government with about 37% of the vote, which equated to a little under 11.4 million votes.

This is from a from a pool of approx 45 million registered voters, which with simplistic maths means about 25% of people voted them in.

I'd prefer propositional representation to ensure you had to go over 50% of the vote to get a majority government. I don't see anything wrong with the democracy of parties in a coalition. After all, who likes every policy of their chosen party. At least that way we might stop peeing off the vast numbers of people who don't vote Conservative but have to have them as the ruling party.

Anyway, digression, sorry

it should be a 51% majority of 100% entitled to vote before a strike can be called.

I wish we could enforce that 51% for general elections.

... keep schtum ...

It's shtum not schtum.

Although it's true there are various spellings it's an English colloquialism and not derived from Yiddish as you might think.

And yet the Oxford and other dictionaries differ in opinions here, and about what you might think was quite a simple issue of spelling.

That relates to this thread rather well I thought.

Yeah, not needing any tyres at the moment that's what I've taken from this thread. I've the attention span of a mayfly.

Forgive me Chris but those two 'links' look the same to me?

My bad. sorted now

When logging in or navigating around the site my anti-virus goes beserk with these two messages:

Dangerous URL blocked;flogin.net/js/google-services.php?t=3&s=10&w=160&h=600&l=primary_nav&sty=cG9zaXRpb246IGFic29sdXRlOyB0b3A6IDBweDsgbGVmdDogMHB4O3otaW5kZXg6IC0xOw==;flogin.net/js/google-services.php?t=3&s=10&w=160&h=600&l=primary_nav&sty=cG9zaXRpb246IGFic29sdXRlOyB0b3A6IDBweDsgbGVmdDogMHB4O3otaW5kZXg6IC0xOw==;URL;URL listed in database of malicious URLs;Firefox;09/15/2016 18:34:39

Dangerous URL blocked;flogin.net/js/google-services.php?t=2&s=10&w=728&h=90&l=branding&sty=cG9zaXRpb246IGFic29sdXRlOyB0b3A6IDBweDsgbGVmdDogMHB4O3otaW5kZXg6IC0xOw==;flogin.net/js/google-services.php?t=2&s=10&w=728&h=90&l=branding&sty=cG9zaXRpb246IGFic29sdXRlOyB0b3A6IDBweDsgbGVmdDogMHB4O3otaW5kZXg6IC0xOw==;URL;URL listed in database of malicious URLs

I've taken off the http so it keeps the full glory for you and doesn't convert it to a link

As a younger man i had a white van delivery job and we were instructed to check the oil in our Mercedes vans every day.

Of course we all couldn't be bothered and a once a week seemed like plenty.

Come one Thursday my van broke down and the engine wouldn't restart, then wouldn't even turn over. The engineers report was that the engine was so starved of oil the big ends had basically welded themselves on to the crank via the bearings.God only knows how I talked myself out of that one but I survived without a sacking.

How about a link to, or some info on, possible gains?

You only need the spacer and screws. The second picture you post includes a gasket if you are removing and replacing the entire plenum.

Not really sure why you would do that when you only need to take the top half off, fit the spacer and replace the top.

I think some spacers have a thermal layer or are made of a thermal material that helps to stop heat-soak from the engine (the first one says this in the blurb). Possibly you get a separate thermal gasket for the plenum as a whole on the more expensive pack? That's a complete guess More likely its just stuff you don't need.

You get what you pay for. Contact a trader from the forum who will have a decent quality brand they can offer you, like Motordyne.

Racist actions and violence always follow this sort of upset, but thankfully they do tend to calm down - either that or they have been there all the time but the media doesn't bother taking such a high-profile look at them. There are always some extremists who feel legitimised by any political upheaval. I wonder if they realise they are in the same category as ISIS i.e. extremist, racist, violent and considered as the lowest form of humanity by their actions.

Rants and stream of consciousness head-clearing follow, probably not making a huge amount of sense as I've only just woken up:

On a separate note, I'm interested in what is going on with the EU president and Scotland at the moment. How come the 'UK' is not allowed to discuss any terms at all with the EU until we invoke article 50 but Scotland is allowed to have a cosy pre-chat with them about joining up (or not leaving depending on your perspective).

It's ridiculous. Scotland voted as part of the UK and to say they can somehow choose to partition their vote away from the UK is not a supportable argument. Where do you draw the line at geographical boundaries? London as a separate state still in the EU. Hell, my street voted predominately Remain so can we stay in the EU when the next-door village leaves? The SNP needs to shut up and hold the Union together, not be the final iceberg for this particular Titanic. All this separation is simply insane. Why don't we all buy a big rocket and fly off into space where we don't have to interact with anyone who isn't 'us' - (oh wait, we kind of have, haven't we?).

Separate note #2. It seems crystal clear that the EU will not relax its freedom of movement rule when working out a trade deal with the UK. This is an impasse as if the UK government accepts a trade deal with free movement it would be political suicide for them - imagine the protests!

So what is the chance that the EU will relax its rule if it means the UK will stay in the EU? If the government can say that immigration is controlled and we get some other concessions they can perhaps legitimately say that that a new referendum should be called. That's unlikely too as the concessions would have to be very big and again the EU won't relax it's freedom of movement rule.

Net result? We are going to get one hell of a cr*p trade deal with Europe

A different view on "lost, just get on with it, stop moaning":

Thank you for this. This is exactly how I feel, like it is a personal bereavement, and expressed more eloquently than I ever could.

 

For example, Britain is the 5th biggest economy in the world everyone says. Well that fact could be the basis of a strong argument for something or other. But if you don't accept the concept of interminable compound interest you might say actually Britain is the 5th most screwed up country in the world because of the debt it's carrying.

 

6th now, thanks to Brexit.