Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2023 i Car Mechanics

Email martyn.knowles@kelsey.co.uk Follow us on Facebook @ Car Mechanics With the deadline looming for the start of the new Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) – covering all the Greater London boroughs (which is a massive area), I have become aware from online groups that a frenzy of activity is taking place right now with the erection of ULEZ cameras in all these boroughs. And not just during the daylight hours, some are being installed during darkness. I don’t know exactly how many cameras will be installed from now to the end of August when the ULEZ system goes ‘live’, but I can tell you it must be in the thousands. Consider this – each camera costs between £10,000-£15,000 to supply and install. Most of the ULEZ cameras are attached to…

The worst time that a breakdown can occur, would probably be on a Sunday night when its raining. It was late one Sunday evening when I received a call from my granddaughter informing me that my Skoda had broken down. The sting in the tail here is that her insurance does include breakdown cover, but on this Sunday night their system was down, and they couldn’t offer any assistance. So out I went. The engine management light had flickered on the night before and I had told her to pop along and let me check it out, though the next morning the light was out again, and with the rain teaming down I decided to put her off until it was a little drier. Arriving at the Fabia, I attempted…

If you are a car enthusiast, then perhaps it is always one more than you have. If you are an environmentalist on the other hand, the answer may be none at all. For my wife and I, the answer turns out to be two (not including the three classics that are outside of the range ofCM). After a number of years, we have ended up with two cars that not only allow us to go to different places at the same time but also serve very different purposes. At the moment, those two cars are a 2011 Fiat Panda and a 2007 Volvo S60 2.4D, both of which have previously been featured in these pages (the Panda in September 2020 and the Volvo in June 2021). One car is used…

GENERAL Diagnostic scanners Q Can you advise what the relevance of the page listing a collection of vehicle manufacturers is in a scanner; is it necessary to select the manufacturer before the scanner will become functional for a given car? Thanks. Robert Gordon A The very basic scanners are normally set to just read EOBD codes from the diagnostic socket, and for these there is normally no vehicle selection needed. Once the scanners start to get a little more sophisticated, then they will acknowledge the slight differences used by the manufacturers and so by selecting the vehicle manufacturer on the start screen, it will ensure a correct translation of the hexadecimal codes that are retrieved from the engine control unit. These units do normally also have an EOBD option on…

Special Contributor Old-timer freshen up It’s been a while since I did anything with my 1994 BMW 318Ti Compact, but this time it’s finally had the round of bodywork it needed. Aerosol can blow-ins are all very well but you can’t beat a proper job. It all started in August 2021 – having just had a pair of very good used E36 wings painted by Matt at Body Motor Works and fitted them to replace the OKish – though ageing – originals. A coming together with another car pushing into a traffic queue saw some exchange of paint but nothing tragic. I wasn’t that bothered and would have left it until such time as I was going to get the car painted anyway. Things rumbled on between insurance companies (I’m…

In the past month, I’ve visited Hull three times. From home, this is a run of nearly 100 miles across pretty-much the whole length of Lincolnshire; my base is a few miles north of the Cambridgeshire border. The county changes significantly over that distance. The start is flat Fenland prairie farmland, then there’s the extremely pleasant undulating Wolds; contrary to popular belief by no means all of Lincolnshire is flat. Finally, there’s the magnificent Humber Bridge which since 1981 has linked the North Lincolnshire coast with Hull and East Yorkshire. What a huge and magnificent structure! With a central span over three-quarters of a mile long, the Humber Bridge was, when built, the longest single-span suspension bridge in the world. The piers are 510ft high, and though built vertically, the…

BMW 2-SERIES Parking brake switch ► I am not really a fan of electric parking brakes. I know it frees up space on the centre console, and there is no need for cables running the length of the vehicle, but electric can be just as troublesome and certainly isn’t without its problems. The parking brake on this 2015 BMW 2-series Active Tourer had been playing up for a while, and the saving grace for the owner was that the parking brake automatically released as the vehicle was driven off. But with no emergency release on the parking brake system, the owner was concerned if the problem wasn’t resolved, they could end up stuck. The parking brakes on these BMW’s are known to have software problems but in this case the…

2012 JAGUAR XKR 5.0 It boasts over 500bhp at the flywheel, more than 600Nm of torque and a 0-60mph time of less than five seconds, qualifying it to rub shoulders with the supercars of the world, most of which cost a lot more to buy and run. So, is owning a Jaguar XKR a dream come true or a potential nightmare of problems and costs? It’s certainly not going to be as cheap as running a Ford Fiesta, but when it comes to servicing, most of the jobs are not that complicated, although some are time-consuming, such as the air filters. We asked independent Jaguar specialist Tasker & Lacy of Leeds to run through some of the general servicing jobs on the XKR, and also highlight some of the common…

Special Contributor Lupo GTI trouble The Volkswagen Lupo first came to the UK market back in 1999 and had a relatively short sevenyear production run. This tiny city car was made a little bit more special for the GTI version which included a 123bhp 1.6 twin-cam engine mated to a six-speed gearbox, sporty interior, unique alloy wheels and all-aluminium bonnet, doors and wings to reduce weight to around 950kg. Seven years ago, I picked up one of these early models for £2000 as a fun run-about, but on a trip to Aberdeen one winter’s evening I crossed a flooded road that turned out to be deeper than anticipated. Role change I didn’t realise just how much water the little Lupo took in through the doors and crevasses until I got…

► Heard a rather disturbing story the other day. A guy was selling a car – an enquirer called and after a fairly short conversation, asked for, and was given, an address for a viewing. However, they never turned up. Two days later someone else called and again asked a few questions. He then said that he wanted to view, but as he was going to be travelling some distance, wanted first to do an HPI check. Could he therefore please have the V5C serial number. Because the seller wasn’t a trader, he didn’t know that this information is NOT required for an HPI check, and provided this. A couple of days later, the car was stolen off his driveway. Later, the seller got the standard “thank you for telling…

GENERAL Airbag article Q On reading the article airbags, EVAP, misfires and wiper switch (CM Help!, January 2022, p78, VW EOS) I refer to the connection and re-connection of battery earth. The OP refers to ignition being on for both disconnect and reconnect of earth. You refer to Autodata and VAG as to ‘OFF’ when disconnecting the battery earth, ‘ON’ when reconnecting the battery earth. This may prevent power surges. Can you expand a little please on this statement and indeed is it correct? Brendan O Callaghan A As mentioned in the article, it is the advice given by both VAG and Autodata that when reconnecting the battery, the ignition should be on, as this may prevent power surges. As this is advice from VAG (VW) and is correct then…

EV OWNER TELLS ALL ► CM published two interesting letters in your August 2022 issue regarding living with an EV and the hidden costs of owning an EV. I agree with Nigel Gutteridge that some of the hidden costs to owning an EV are never apparently discussed, but the battery is only one of many hidden costs. I bought my Nissan LEAF new 9.5 years ago. It has covered 85,000 miles and still has the original main (HV) battery. Battery life was one of the concerns I had in mind when I bought the LEAF. I wanted to factor in battery replacement as a future cost to balance against the savings possible with the reduced running costs, and right from the start it was impossible to find any figure for…

In my Humble Opinion Mike Humble shares a smile-inducing story from when he was a mere slip of a lad. Readers of a superb memory may recall I touched upon motor apprentices of today, and how in many cases, they don’t know they’re born. Compared to the modern world of ‘elf n safety reigning supreme (often for the right reasons I may add and a bloody hindrance in others) in my day of trainee spannering in the mid-to-late ‘80s at a massive Ford dealership – it was sometimes brutal, often hard work – but always interesting and a damn good laugh if you were thick skinned. Back in those days you had to be of a certain character. In other words, you had to be able to stick up for…