Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2025 i Car Mechanics

▶ During September I travelled many miles. First, a trade seminar at Mark Shipman’s garage (AES York Ltd). Mark has thankfully helped us at CM over the past few years, offering his garage as a place to repair vehicles while we make notes and take pictures for magazine content. Mark read CM as an apprentice, and he sees that helping us will support young technicians learn their trade skills. Mark organises an annual two-day (weekend) get-together, where garage owners and technicians gather to listen to leading industry bodies and trade people speak about the automotive sector. Most of us arrive on the Friday afternoon for beers in York before evening food. Sitting with 40-50 guys at an Indian restaurant is something to witness, I can tell you! Next morning, from…

Simply Brands reflects on a year of success for its wiper blade range ▶ Leading supplier of auto accessories and private labelling manufacturer, Simply Brands, is looking back on the successes its wiper blade range has had since launching in 2024, as well as its private label business. The Simply Brands range of wiper blades has gone from strength-to-strength in the last 12 months. From creating a wiper blade range of their own to developing wiper blade ranges for other businesses under its own label arm, Simply Brands has the product knowledge and experience for building a comprehensive wiper blade range for any business. Developed and tested in the UK over a nine-month period, the competitively priced front wiper blade range consists of both multi-fit flat blades and conventional blades.…

▶ Here’s an interesting one for you. Customer buys a four-year-old Mazda3 from a dealer. 20 days later, he gets in touch to say that he has noticed “rust on the roof of the car” and that a local car body shop has told him that the “chips are developing rust underneath” and elimination of these will mean respraying the entire roof. He went on: “Considering this was a pre-existing issue I was not made aware of during purchase I would appreciate your help as I believe this would fall under the warranty.” He then went on to say, “I am aware that I can reject the car under the Consumer’s Rights Act 2015 due to this issue as the car technically is not as described and free from fault,…

FORD ECOSPORT Intermittent splutter Q My wife owns a December 2015 Ford EcoSport Zetec TDCi 1499cc diesel, with 57,000 miles covered. The problem I have is that the engine has an intermittent splutter, maybe once or twice during a short journey. Our mechanic diagnosed a faulty injector and replaced it, to no avail. I then got him to remove all the injectors and had them refurbished, still no better. Now we have the added problem with the traction control or stability control light, it comes on while driving – the car then loses power, and this can be rectified by quickly switching off the ignition and turning it on again. Until the next time, maybe ten minutes later or a couple of days. My main concern is that my wife performs…

£140 ▶ Launched in Europe and the UK in 2025, Topdon’s V2200Air is a compact jump-starter with the added bonus of having an air compressor for inflating tyres. So, can it do both jobs well or should separate equipment be used? To find out, I put one in the car boot to help maintain its tyre pressures and, despite the vehicle battery didn’t need a boost, I soon found one that did. Powered by four on-board 3.7V 12Ah lithium-ion batteries, Topdon says it’s capable of starting a 12V lead-acid battery for a petrol engine up to a capacity of 8-litre, and a diesel of up to 6-litre – and in under two seconds! Sounds impressive, although all the jump-starters I have tested boast similar figures for engine sizes (not time),…

Some twenty-two years ago, when riding along in my 1995 Rover Mini Cooper in gleaming British Racing Green (and obligatory Union Jack vinyl roof) I knew fully well that this machine bent the rules and ruled the bends, so when I glimpsed a new contender in my rear-view mirror I didn’t flinch. The upcoming roundabout prompted a cog change into second, and the 1275cc SPi engine roared into life, before I chucked it around effortlessly, leaving this other car behind. So I thought. I stopped short of having a good giggle, staring into the rear-view, this silver bullet dominated the roundabout with surprising gusto, oversteering slightly but well controlled, before exploding out of the exit and overtaking me in one streaky blur. It was gone, like I was standing still.…

▶ These days, I write for several different magazines; at the last count I had four regular outlets plus a few others that take my words of alleged wisdom as and when they think I’ve something worthwhile to say. The main ‘job’ these days, as I’ve mentioned before, is editing Classic & Vintage Commercials magazine. But as well as this I also do stuff for Classics World, MG Enthusiast and, of course, Car Mechanics. All these titles are different and produced for different audiences, so I wouldn’t use the same material in more than one. There are, though, some topics which are appropriate for more than one title, though the angle will, of course, be different. Anyway, I do occasionally now find myself struggling to remember if a particular thing…

FORD FOCUS Hot brake ▶ After parking on a slight incline and releasing the parking brake, the owner of this 2011 Ford Focus was surprised to find that it would not roll forward. It did drive OK, but when they next parked on a slightly steeper incline, they again tried to release the handbrake to see if the motor would roll under its own steam. The result was that it stayed put, and they now knew that one of the brakes may be binding. When they arrived at the workshop the diagnosis was easily confirmed by the very hot brake on the offside rear, indicating the area of the trouble. Removing the rear wheel, I could see that the handbrake lever was operating correctly, and the fault was not in the…

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We’re always interested in servicing high-mileage vehicles at Car Mechanics, so when we discovered the apprentice at independent classic Jaguar specialist Ken Jenkins (near Worksop) had recently bought a Mk7 Golf with over 200k on the clock, we volunteered to help with its next service. There are a couple of niggling complications with this era of the Golf. One of them concerns replacing the fuel filter (see Rob says). The other concerns the electronic park brake, which means the rear brakes cannot be worked on unless diagnostic equipment is connected to the vehicle to switch them to Service or Engineering mode. Other than these two points, most servicing jobs on this Golf are straightforward to conduct. The cabin filter is a little finger crunching, especially when it comes to releasing…

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When you think about preparing your car for a road trip, you probably don’t imagine laying underneath said vehicle ten days before you’re meant to leave, with the gearbox half apart. Neither did I, but that is precisely where I found myself. The ZF-6HP19 gearbox in my 2004 BMW 530i had, for some time, displayed the classic symptoms of worn valve body seals: sluggish shifts, a hesitance to downshift, and occasional flaring between the higher gears. It had been on my mind to address this at some point, but since I had to be underneath the car anyway to change the oil, I figured now was the time to get into the gearbox as well. As you do. Gearbox seals and service A new febi sump pan and all the…

AVON Lockleaze Service Station, Lockleaze Road, Bristol BS7 9RU. BERKSHIRE Mike Farina Auto Services, 21 Sedgewell Road, Sonning Common, nr Reading, Berks RG4 9TA. Tel: 0118 972 4036. Servicing, repairs. BUCKINGHAMSHIRE Stokenchurch Service Centre, Wycombe Rd, Stokenchurch, Bucks HP14 3RR. Tel: 01494 483355. Servicing, repairs, tuning, MOTs, welding, exhausts, batteries. M D Autocare, 54/55 Rabans Close, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire HP19 8RS. www.md-autocare.co.uk CAMBRIDGESHIRE D.L.M. Autos, 63a Orchard Road, Great Shelford, Cambs CB22 5AA. MOTs, servicing/repairs on modern & older cars. G Nice and Sons Ltd, 3 Chapel Street, Waterbeach, Cambs CB25 9HR. Tel: 01223 860241. Isuzu specialist, MOT testing, aircon specialists. Kings of Witcham, The Slade, Witcham, nr Ely, Cambs CB6 2LA. Tel: 01353 778403, email: info@kingsofwitcham.co.uk. Independent Volvo specialist since 1996. Saabmaster Garage Services, Unit 7, Robert Davies Court, Nuffield Road, Cambridge CB4 1TP. Tel:…

Timewasters – you have been warned! ▶ Perhaps I am just old-fashioned or maybe just one of life’s dinosaurs – you be the judge, but I’ve always been under the impression that trying to buy or indeed sell a used car meant actual dialogue with a human being. Once upon a time in the west it usually meant a small ad in the local paper, a carefully worded postcard in the window of your local corner shop or an A4-sized advert blue-tacked to the inside of the rear window of the motor in question. The telephone would ring, you spoke to a person and they either came round to view… or not. Once the viewer was on your driveway, you then had the best odds in the business, namely a…

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GENERAL Gearbox lifting Q I’ve just been reading the April 2025 edition of CM and the story about using a transmission jack to lift the gearbox back into a vehicle. It’s ideal for use with a ramp, but most of us are too old to use a ramp at work, like we used to. I know you can get a jig that cradles gearboxes that bolts to the saddle on a jack. This eliminates the use of the jack if you need the job doing. My idea is to have a “basket” on top of an airbag (lorry suspension units look suitable), and a compressor to drive it. Most people use drive on ramps or axle stands, so I think you could have a shortarse version of the real one used…

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