Be Excellent To Each Other

I wasn't. Piston blew itself out through the side of the engine block in the fast lane of the M25.

Mine wasn't as dramatic.

I've taken the belt off and had a look a the alternator. There's definitely something missing from the pulley so it won't go back on as is. I've driven it to my local garage, dropped the key through the letterbox and will have to call them first thing Monday.

Guess I'm getting the train to Derby.

Hopefully fixable.

We went to Skoda to talk about how long a kodiaq would take to arrive; it turns out because of the switchover to the next model year and the new emissions testing that has to be done they can't currently take orders or give delivery estimates. All the 2l petrol auto AWD kodiaqs in the national database are allocated.

But oh, hang on, the one the manager drives is a 2l sportline with basically all the options including the bits we want. So we've put a holding deposit on it while Helen sorts out unwinding the deal with Listers, which they had better not fuck around on (they will, they are lying about everything to try and push Helen to let them respray bits).

There's the suggestion it has a Steinbauer tuning box on it, which I don't believe is the case because they don't claim to make one for the 2 litre petrol, and that it could be left on.

Skoda even send their trailer guy round to collect the mx5 (which Listers still have) so no fucking about re-registering, taxing and insuring that! Which means Listers lose the "you won't have a(n automatic) car" bargaining chip.

Being used it also puts money back in Helen's pocket, despite all the options and the lack of new car contributions.

Also I get a £50 referral. Chortle.

Busy car day, Leon and RAV4 have new oil and filters now. Got round to fitting all the new clips to my undertray, held on by 10 now rather than 4

Gave them both a good clean too.

It’s been 32 hours! Have you bought a new car yet?

Can't afford it. I'm keeping this one until it literally falls apart (more).

APlan wanted an EXTRA 140 quid for the remaining 9 months of the year on a 400-ish premium to switch from the 535 to the Superb.

The 180 quid refund (30 gouge on the way out, natch) goes a long way to covering the 272 quid LV wanted for a whole year.

?

Numberwang

In-sewer-ants.

Ah. That is pretty good. The Rover is £331pa fully comp

Is that your forever-car?

3 weeks and it goes!

Why don't you just redecorate it?

An electric VW just broke the Pikes Peak record. And another record for being the only current VW car with honest emissions reporting

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/moto ... s-outright

Christ, it didn't break it, it tore it to shreds!

16.5 seconds faster!

yeah but it sounded like an angry wasp and was without any juice to get anywhere else at the end lololololol

Is there a video? I want to see a video.

If it had juice at the end then they put too many batteries in.

Lots of really short clips of it but none of the full run

Heh, Dum-as

He wrote 3 musketeers

It has notionally the same power as the 535d but that was worth under a tenth, as well as being 12 years old.

I've no idea why my premium drops by approaching half.

Helen rang jaguar land rover to find out their side.

Completely unhappy with what Helen told them, less than 2 hours later "after liasing with jlr" Listers are going to start unwinding the deal.

So a bollocking was had, then.

Which means we get a second Skoda sportline this week, hooray! And they get stories for years about that time jlr fucked up and they came to the rescue.

When I first toyed with the idea of getting a 5GT, insurance quotes were coming out at around £400 per year, which was roughly what I'd been paying for the LEAF.

Finally pulled the trigger and bought the car, went to insure it and suddenly everyone's quoting north of £900. Haven't been able to get it any cheaper than that at renewal time either.

Premiums seem to have gone up over the board lately. I'm paying £490 a year for a 1.9 TDI Octavia for Christ's sake!

I had to get insurance for the kids car, I think it's the first time I've ever had insurance in just my name, having always had company cars or only being a named driver on other policies. I was still well happy with £234 fully comp on it!

Happily cruising down the A361 when I suddenly lose power. Luckily manage to coast into the car park of a basket weaving centre, and the nice AA man turns up and shows me a cambelt with half the teeth missing. Balls. Only 80k on the clock too, and the recommended replacement is 100k.

So, unless my local garage can somehow fix it for 50 quid, I guess I'm on the look out for a new motor!

Octavia is fixed. New alternator pulley and belt. £110 all-in.

At this point I thought that the people at the basket weaving centre were going to weave you a new cambelt. Disappointing.

That sounds like asking the manufacturer for a new engine/rebuild with courtesy car, if it's not a non-interference one. How much metal apocalypse was involved?

Result

Don't think you'll ever get a manufacturer to shell out for that on a car with 80k on the clock unless he's always owned the car and has maintained a full service history

"Doo ma... It's Doo ma"

Yeah, bit of a pipe dream!

If it's an oem-marked belt with a 100k cycle I don't really see how they can argue. But you'd probably need to be persistent and have a spare car I guess.

Who put the belt on? Was it new when it was put on? Is 80k close enough to 100k to count as sufficient? Has it always been serviced at a main dealer? Did a back alley garage see that the belt was damaged, but didn't say anything? Did they tell you it was damaged but you ignored them? Is the car still under warranty? Is the belt a wear and tear item? Etc...

If it's the original belt then the manufacturer would have fitted it.

That's the point, if you haven't had the car serviced by a main dealer for all 80000 miles, then how do they know it is the original belt?

There are so many arguments they could put forward against liability on this, no chance they will do anything.

I'll be a character witness for Squirt.

I bow to the knowledge of people who buy way more cars than me.

Listers want the disco back Monday/Tuesday "to check for damage" before unwinding, but surely they don't have the nerve.

I've asked the nice lady at Skoda to fix it all for us.

The Superb is bloody lovely, though it could do with an exhaust . Since the fill up I've got 32.5mpg, including some "learning activities" so that I'm ready when "other people inevitably create a pickle with me in it".

It is not a slow car, and does seem to be returning the same economy as the beemer on (what is currently only marginally) cheaper fuel.

Nordschleife lap record smashed:

By a hybrid, no less. The car is bonkers. The 2l V4 petrol engine puts out 720 bhp. The electric motor is another 440 bhp.

Also it’s worth pointing out: the record Timo Bernhard and Porsche broke yesterday was 25 years old. No-one’s tried a flying lap in a fully tooled up F1 or Le Mans or similar track racer since, because it’s such a horrifically dangerous track. So it’s not like smashing the record happened because this car is 15% faster than anything else that has existed in the intervening period. It’s partly because it’s the only car in its class that’s shown up.

Still though. What got me about that video was Bernhard bouncing around the cabin as he did ~230 mph down the back straight. He must have been under enormous g-forces.

That's all true but that car is still exceptionally fast. It also broke the F1 lap record at Spa.

For sure - it’s been turned into a hot lap monster.

You're correct, but it's worth pointing out that an F1 car wouldn't be able to get close to this time, or even the previous record. They are HP limited and built for grip, not outright speed.

The 919 beat the F1 lap record at Spa by three quarters of a second. That’s a lot, at that level, but it’s not quite as eye watering as taking a full minute off the ‘Ring’s record.

I actually asked the AA guy that, and he did a few calls back to his office and the general consensus was I was exceptionally unlikely to get anything from Peugeot. Out of warranty, no main dealer service history. Oh well. The actual car is in that annoying slot where it might be worth fixing, depending on the exact extent of the damage. My wife, however, has decided that as we live in the country we should get a Mitsubishi Shogun or Land Rover or something.

A Shogun would be pretty much bomb proof.

Don't get an Outlander PHEV, "blandrover" next door calls his, and having driven the work pool one I concur.

L200 for the win.