Be Excellent To Each Other

I cannot see any exaggerations in this post.

She doesn't fill it up. He does.

Title.

Hurrah Mrs Squirt!

Still funny.

PLAY FINISHES AS A SCORE DRAW.

There's definitely something wrong with the Parktronic, but they weren't able to pin it down in the time they had.

They have asked for the car to be booked in for another day to allow for DEEPER DIAGNOSTICS.

I will be arranging this in due course with the dealer to agree a mutually agreeable timeslot.

I'm really glad I'm not paying for any of this.

Did you also ask them to confirm that water is wet?

I think that would have been chargeable.

Had the pair of Toyo Proxy CR2's that were gifted to me fitted this week and moved the Goodyear (somethings) shoved to the back.

BIG difference it's made, really pleased with them. Driven in both wet and dry conditions and they've been better than anything else I've had on including Continentals, Pirellis and Michelins.

Yay for free tyres!

EXCITING ROVER UPDATE!!!!

A record 42 mpg was achieved down the A1 to Bedford. 42!!!

Nice! I'm lucky if I get 32 on a long run.

You should start a 'how big is your average mpg' topic.

MrsZ new(er) car get!



2.0l Turbo Diesel, 4x4 (#OneLifeLiveIt). Leather interior so kinda kid proof.

A splendid car for camping and weekends with the tribe.

Room for BIGGER RC PLANES!!!

Looks really nice that mate, hopefully it'll be as trusty as the Civic was.

Cheers mate. Yeah, that Civic has been great. Touch wood this Toyota will do us proud too.

Decided to see how far I could push out of a single tank of fuel. After my climb onto the mountain this morning the car informed me my range was 13 miles (which was about how far I had to travel), but after descending into Douglas about 11 miles later it had changed its mind and revised this to 90 miles (!). (The range estimates on cars really can't cope with a daily drive that involves driving up and down a mountain, the Merc is no better or worse than any other car in this regard.)

Upon setting off again after work it had revised the 90 miles to 25 miles, but then after the climb and with over 10 miles to go it decided that my range was this



Fortunately it was just the mountain effect again, and as I cruised into the petrol station in Ramsey it was still guessing my range at 10 miles.

Managed to get this much into an 80 litre tank, I think I can get it closer next time.

The thing is though, the 90 mile estimate this morning was clearly completely batshit, I'd have needed to get almost electric car MPG out of the thing to travel 90 miles with the fuel that was left, I wish they'd at least make an effort to guess properly.

It's not the car's fault you drive like Jekyll and Hyde!

Most cars base their range estimates on the average mpg over the last ~30 miles of travel, so you shouldn't really ever see huge variations like that!

Won't just being on a hill mess with the fuel level sensor?

Could it be something to do with the Parktronic system? Maybe you should have that looked at?

Given the problems he's had with one set of sensors, challenging the fuel sensor to be accurate was bold to say the least.

Do your dials light up red like mine (and Gaz's m5 did the same, too) do when you engage Sport Mode?

Every car I've ever had with a range calculation has exhibited the same behaviour, there's something about the nature of the journey they just don't like at all. (2-3 miles of harsh climb up a mountain, several miles largely flat, and then a descent off the mountain which you can freewheel if you wish.)

In the Scooby if I got enough of a blast of speed along the mountain mile coming home, I could drop it into neutral at about 135mph and then get all the way to my front door using nothing except the brake, IIRC it was just over 4 miles.

I'd kind of been wondering about this recently. I'm a car idiot, and was wondering this: do I damage my engine when I'm going down a hill in traffic, and I just leave my car in neutral and let gravity take its course?

Or should I be trying to keep my engine in gear?

Most modern cars will cut the fuel supply completely when rolling downhill, so you'd use more fuel coasting in neutral.

You should always stay in gear and use engine braking when you can. Coasting in neutral is not advised.

Technically not in control of the vehicle

Keroac talked a lot about coasting down hills 'to save fuel' but he was busted off his nut most of the time so his mileage probably did vary

Coming down
here here i always stick it in first and let the engine keep the speed at 30mph. It makes a lot of noise as the revs are waaaaaay up. Apart from the time it snowed when i used the handbrake and brakes and shat bricks.

I do this too - I hope you blip as you change down to match the revs.

No need. Car does 35mph on first and my average speed on the commute is 16mph so I don't change gear

Unless i need to go backwards

You stay in first gear for your entire commute? Is that right?

That's certainly what it appears like, yes.

it is a pedal car...

That's what I did 99.999% of the time back when I had manual gears, I appreciate that dropping a car into neutral at 135mph is not really a very good idea, but I was interested to see how far I could travel without anything on my side other than gravity hence a handful of test runs in the Scooby.

You should have turned the ignition off completely.

When i rode the motorbike, my challenges often were "get to destination without braking", "no feet down today" and "no locking the rear wheel".

And taken the keys out, for steering wheel lock funzies.

This makes sense. I was just leaving it in neutral because I was crawling down the hill at 5mph and it's very stop starty, so I couldn't be arsed with the clutch.

There's part of my homeward journey where I can coast past other drivers downhill.

I'm fucking awesome.

I still can't believe Mali drives in first gear everywhere that has a 30mph limit.

I once drove from Salisbury to Watford using neither brake nor accelerator. I just used the up and down speed paddles on the steering wheel to control the car.

Up until the early 70s, all SAAB cars had a freewheel gearbox. When you let off the throttle, the transmission disengaged and you were rolling with no engine braking. This also allowed you to change gear without using the clutch. It could be disabled, which was advisable when going down big hills. As I found out when I lost brakes a couple of times due to them overheating.

You used cruise control to pull off and stop?!

I think the new Land Rover disco does this in traffic. Put it in cruise and it will follow the car ahead. Tap into the other general cruise settings that I have in my car, in theory you can disregard the pedals.

My sister in law gets up to 30 in first. It's a 1.6 petrol engine and the poor thing is screaming before she'll change up.

It all depends how fast I'm accelerating. I often go to 30 in first but I'm using the entire rev range. I won't sit at 30 in first a la MaliA. And if traffic is slow or I'm taking it easy I change up through to 5th by the time I'm at 30.

I was always taught not to lug engines so I get quite upset if someone's changing up too quickly. I also get really quite agitated if I'm in a car and we're stopped on a slope waiting for the lights to change and the person driving is holding it by slipping the clutch as the car rolls back and forth slightly. It's all I can do to not yank the handbrake on for them. I don't know why this bothers me when it isn't even my car.

Some dashcam footage shot by a prick in a Jag in 1963.



Particularly enjoyed the period road rage incident at about one minute in and him calling his indicators "trafficators" which I shall do from now on.