Main Menu

Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 01:03:41 PM

Login with username, password and session length

CaB Drivers

Started by Fambo Number Mive, January 13, 2021, 02:36:26 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Ferris

I have a Canadian license despite never having driven on the right, never learned any Canadian traffic signals or passed any tests, never driven an automatic, and actually not driven at all since ~2011.

As a result, I walk everywhere or get public transit so I don't destroy myself and the surrounding environs.

Ok cheers.

Jockice

Quote from: Jockice on January 13, 2021, 05:47:05 PM


There is another type of hand control that is more complicated to use but is easier to attach and remove, so it's often used for courtesy cars. I had that on one of my courtesy cars once (fitted by an actor from I'm With Stupid who I've since seen on Coronation Street). I managed with it okay but found it a bit nerve-wracking (I'm left-handed for a start) so if I've had to use another car myself I've insisted on the push-pull ones. It's safer for everyone.


These things. http://lynxcontrols.com/

The bloke on the video clip is wearing a shirt in identical colours to one I own.

Sebastian Cobb

Cars I've owned:

£500 M-reg Astra 1.4 LS faded red (pinky white):
This was a decent reliable old motor that put up with me treating it like shit. I took it to University but found I wasn't using it as buses/walking into town were easier than paying to park. It got sorn until I got a job on the other side of town that was too far to walk to (although I could've been less of a lazy arse and got the shuttle bus they ran from the town centre, about 25 mins walk away).

I ran it for a good few years, it needed work occasionally, a bust alternator there, new brake lines here but nothing major, I eventually let a mate take it off my hands for the scrap value plus outstanding tax. Because I'd bought...

£500 X-reg Saab 9-3 2.2 CDTI:
I loved this car to drive but it was a terrible example of the car and was nothing but trouble. After heavy braking one of the lines burst requiring breakdown assistance to an expensive garage. The EGR valve was probably fucked, it was certainly filthy, the MAF sensor was broken leading to warning lights on a cold start. The power steering lines ran under the front bumper, so they eventually burst. The official Saab part was hellishly expensive so I got a mate in hydraulics to make up a hose which we connected to the sawn-off stubs of the original line. Although by the time I'd bothered to do it, the thing had been sat on the road for 9 months going nowhere, it needed a new MOT sharpish for the tax, the break system needed significant work as they were binding which I stupidly paid for. The car worked for about a month before the steering rack burst a tooth and I scrapped it.

£0 53 Rover 75 estate:
This was given free to my as my parents had owned it for ages and deemed it not worth selling. They got rid of it at the right point; first after some decent rain the plenum chamber filled with water, which is also where Rover decided to put the ECU. I managed to dry that out and it more or less worked, then the alternator went, in many cars this is dead easy and can be done roadside, but not in this and I had nowhere to do it, the mechanic time wouldn't have made it worth it so I was going to scrap it.

However thanks to me being lazy about doing so, and it being parked a few streets up, the council decided they wanted to resurface the road and towed it without me even knowing it had been shifted. I signed it over the towing company for them to scrap.

There's nothing quite as cathartic as getting rid of a shit car.

Nowadays I'm on a main bus line into town/work and it's great, £20 for a week's worth of travel. I'm also in Co-Wheels so can borrow a car or van cheaply to go somewhere remote, or shift bulky items.

gilbertharding

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 13, 2021, 05:11:24 PM
^ do your hand controls replace the pedals? I always assumed they did but the (figure)head chef in the kitchen I worked at had hand controls on their Suzuki Jimny as they had MS and it was effectively a rig attached to the pedals that pushed either the throttle or brake depending on whether you moved the control arm towards or away from you. This did come with the advantage that if anyone else needed to borrow it (e.g. his brother), they could just jump in it without having to learn the controls.

My mum had to have hand controls, as she had spina bifida, and hence no use of her remaining leg. For some reason two of her cars were manual Minis, so the controls were (on the right of the steering wheel) the accelerator and clutch which she operated by gripping with her index and middle finger for throttle, and ring and little fingers for clutch. The foot brake was operated by a sping loaded lever to the right of the gear lever. If tgat sounds fiendishly difficult, it was.
All the pedals etc were present and correct so someone with all their limbs could drive it normally (except that all the levers and linkages made it a bit tricky to be comfortable).
Her third car was an automatic Nissan Micra, which was a much saner proposition, but by that stage she was quite old, and her confidence was diminishing rapidly.

Captain Z

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on January 13, 2021, 05:39:23 PM
Changed to an MG ZT-T diesel for a couple of years, which I liked driving but for some reason it kept warping front brake discs and three different mechanics couldn't diagnose a problem (I was letting new ones bed in properly by going easy on the brake), so I changed it.

My second car was an '03 MG ZR 1.4. Within 2 weeks of owning it the head gasket went. I was gutted but had it repaired at great expense/hassle. It ate tyres, had numerous other issues here and there, and just under two years later the head gasket went again at which point I sold it for parts. All the jokes and cliches about British Leyland/British engineering in general are absolutely true. I would say it was hands-down the worst car I've ever experienced but my partner more recently had a Renault Megane 1.9 which gave her even more problems in a shorter space of time.

For a few years after I would joke either to myself or a passenger in amazement at still seeing an MG from that era on the road. I actually saw a yellow ZR driving just a few months ago for the first time in years. If it was a cartoon I would have rubbed my eyes in disbelief.

gilbertharding

I passed my test just after I left school. I've owned a 16 year old Mini (which only lasted until its next MOT and was a death trap), a 10year old Metro (which was a great improvement), a 7 year old Mark 5 Escort (which I bought from my dad after he had to stop driving because he had a stroke), a quite nice Citroën Xsara VTR (which I bought off my mother in law when they decided to move to Spain - they bought the Escort from me, intending to scrap it once they were ensconsed on the Costa del Sol), a Citroën C4 and my current drive, a mark 3 Mazda MX5.

I quite like driving, but I never lived anywhere where there was any viable alternative, and have often been compelled to work quite long distances from where I live.

gilbertharding

Quote from: Captain Z on January 13, 2021, 06:01:59 PM
My second car was an '03 MG ZR 1.4. Within 2 weeks of owning it the head gasket went. I was gutted but had it repaired at great expense/hassle. It ate tyres, had numerous other issues here and there, and just under two years later the head gasket went again at which point I sold it for parts. All the jokes and cliches about British Leyland/British engineering in general are absolutely true. I would say it was hands-down the worst car I've ever experienced but my partner more recently had a Renault Megane 1.9 which gave her even more problems in a shorter space of time.

For a few years after I would joke either to myself or whoever I was with in amazement at still seeing an MG from that era on the road. I actually saw a yellow ZR driving just a few months ago for the first time in years. If it was a cartoon I would have rubbed my eyes in disbelief.

The K Series engine was a brilliant bit of kit, but needed regular servicing.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: gilbertharding on January 13, 2021, 05:56:21 PM
My mum had to have hand controls, as she had spina bifida, and hence no use of her remaining leg. For some reason two of her cars were manual Minis, so the controls were (on the right of the steering wheel) the accelerator and clutch which she operated by gripping with her index and middle finger for throttle, and ring and little fingers for clutch. The foot brake was operated by a sping loaded lever to the right of the gear lever. If tgat sounds fiendishly difficult, it was.
All the pedals etc were present and correct so someone with all their limbs could drive it normally (except that all the levers and linkages made it a bit tricky to be comfortable).
Her third car was an automatic Nissan Micra, which was a much saner proposition, but by that stage she was quite old, and her confidence was diminishing rapidly.

That reminds me of a story I read from someone who had a mini and at night driving back from somewhere too far away to abandon it, their throttle cable snapped, so looking under the bonnet and spotting the clutch cable, they slmple swapped them round and put up with a hand-driven throttle to get them home. They said changing down or pulling away from roundabouts proved a bit tricky.

Wonderful Butternut

#38
Quote from: Fambo Number Mive on January 13, 2021, 05:50:09 PM
Just regarding your mention of public transport in Ireland, I'm astonished how infrequent trains in Northern Ireland and the Republic are according to Wikipedia, including the DART which I think is every 20 minutes? The Luas looks really awesome though, would love to ride that.

It's kind of a circular logic thing: Train services are poor, so people don't use them, so there aren't passengers and then Iarnróid Eireann make losses and have to "rationalise" routes. And they completely screwed themselves in the 90s by deciding not to run freight on the trainlines anymore. DARTs do make money, I just don't think the rail network can physically handle any more trains. And land in Dublin costs roughly 1 human soul per square foot so expansion is difficult. The most you hear about them doing is modernising stations and extending the DART service further out on the existing Dublin - Wexford or Dublin - Belfast lines.

Trains outside Dublin are a joke, pretty much no branch lines exist anymore[nb]Most were pulled up in the 50s and 60s because Eamonn de Valera was concerned that trains could spread Communism. Also a lot of the stock got trashed in WW2 and needed to be replaced cos we were running it on the lowest quality coal imaginable so they didn't have a lot of money for new trains for a while. Most other non main lines died in the 90s when IE decided to halt their freight services. I think they did an even bigger hatchet job in the North.[/nb] and even the mainline services aren't great. All the investment in the 80s, 90s & early 2000s was in the road network so as a consequence the motorway and national primary route network bypasses most small towns whilst the trains still follow the same route they did in 1900. If you're bored, compare the M11/N11 Wexford to Dublin road with corresponding the train line as an example. Obviously it has to go through the major towns, cos it's a train, but does it need to go into the middle of the Wicklow mountains to pick up Rathdrum with it's population of 3 sheep and a dog? Too late to go re-aligning it at this stage. Even we ran trains at 100mph, they'd probably still be slower than the motorway in most cases.

I've had it a few times where I've needed to go to Dublin for a 10am meeting or conference and my options on the train have been half an hour late or nearly 2 hours early. And then either rush out of the meeting early to get the lunchtime train home or be in Dublin for an afternoon with little / nothing to do. When I'm supposed to be working. Would be nice if I was into window shopping I suppose, but I'm not. I end up driving to a suburban Luas park & ride or the start of the DART network in Greystones usually. And I'm within walking distance of a train station.

I've been on the Luas a few times in Dublin and I really don't know how the City could've possibly functioned without it.

Quote from: Captain Z on January 13, 2021, 06:01:59 PM
My second car was an '03 MG ZR 1.4. Within 2 weeks of owning it the head gasket went. I was gutted but had it repaired at great expense/hassle. It ate tyres, had numerous other issues here and there, and just under two years later the head gasket went again at which point I sold it for parts. All the jokes and cliches about British Leyland/British engineering in general are absolutely true. I would say it was hands-down the worst car I've ever experienced but my partner more recently had a Renault Megane 1.9 which gave her even more problems in a shorter space of time.

For a few years after I would joke either to myself or a passenger in amazement at still seeing an MG from that era on the road. I actually saw a yellow ZR driving just a few months ago for the first time in years. If it was a cartoon I would have rubbed my eyes in disbelief.

I think the 1.8s didn't blow gaskets and a kit with a stronger gasket for the 1.4s was available, but yeah, I heard that about the ZRs.

My ZT-T was diesel, it's actually a BMW engine block with a Mitsubishi turbocharger. That part of them basically never goes wrong, although they do like to eat a clutch or two.

flotemysost

31 and never owned a car or learned to drive, not one single lesson, ever.

There's a few reasons for this - I've pretty much always lived in London and so have benefited from plentiful and round-the-clock public transport options; it's a lot of money and upkeep for something I've got by OK without, and if it's a financial tossup between that and lining some cunt landlord's coffers so I can actually live closer to stuff I want to do anyway (AND I can get pissed while doing it) then the latter's going to win, I'm afraid; my parents never encouraged me (both are good but reluctant drivers); and it feels like the planet probably doesn't need another private vehicle on the roads.

Despite all this I always feel a bit stupid and immature telling people I can't drive, why is that? Guess it's seen as a marker of adulthood and independence and not having to rely on people giving you lifts.

Be nice to be able to drive to festivals and have a boot's worth of stuff to take, or be able to take trips round the UK of my own accord, and obviously it'd be good to have an option other than public transport at the moment, but it's not something that really impacts on my life otherwise.

earl_sleek

I didn't learn until my thirties as I either didn't have the money or couldn't be bothered. Decided I should at least learn and passed in 2016 at my first attempt - I was lucky to find a really good instructor first time and enjoyed learning. Didn't get a car at the time as I didn't need one, but a year later I needed one for a new job, so got a second hand Citroen C1, which I still have. It is in no way an impressive car but I don't care, it's fun to drive, cheap to run (good mileage and only £20 a year to tax) and easy to park.

Poobum

Learnt to drive about 10 years ago. Dreaded the instructor turning up every time, but passed exam first time with two minors, aced the theory and hazard perception. Got a Vauxhall Corsa, drove it for a year, then got rid, stayed inside for next 8 years. Was so anxious about driving that the very sight of the car outside had my stomach churning.

To nowadays, I have a 2007 Micra and I love it like a pet. Started driving again 3 years ago, got refreshers lessons from a really good instructor that's a friend of the family. Years of working on how I manage anxiety have also helped I suppose. I enjoy the act of driving now, though rush hour through Nottingham is unpleasant. Mainly I'm commuting through small towns in the East Midlands, which is almost relaxing. Would align myself softly with the car wankers, because a car does have a certain "personality". I've learnt all of mines foibles, I know the sweet spot of all the gears, and it will do a 100 on an empty morning motorway, which is childishly cool, like I (an idiot) am operating a machine going 100mph. I absolutely love driving it, and will sometimes make up excuses for myself to go somewhere just to have a run. It's been a really good, mostly trouble free car. Did have to pay £90 for a new battery last week, and £140 on a few bits last MOT, but it's been quite cheap to run overall.

Wonderful Butternut

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 13, 2021, 05:55:48 PM
£0 53 Rover 75 estate:
This was given free to my as my parents had owned it for ages and deemed it not worth selling. They got rid of it at the right point; first after some decent rain the plenum chamber filled with water, which is also where Rover decided to put the ECU. I managed to dry that out and it more or less worked, then the alternator went, in many cars this is dead easy and can be done roadside, but not in this and I had nowhere to do it, the mechanic time wouldn't have made it worth it so I was going to scrap it.

Yeah, I remember reading about that, so I stuck some sort of augur yoke down into the drain at the bottom the plenum chamber in my ZT-T to make sure it wasn't clogged to stop that happening.

Jockice

A mate of mine on his first ever lesson crashed into a bus and wrote the car off. Just thought you'd like to know.

El Unicornio, mang

I drove my friend's car in the US (automatic, like 96% of cars there) around quite a bit. Took a couple of lessons in the UK a few years ago in a manual and just couldn't get past the whole clutch thing, and went back to the US anyway so didn't pursue it. When I take a test again I'll do it in an automatic. Got a car driving/test simulator which works with VR/steering wheel which I'm going to use to brush up on some UK driving stuff.

But, since I work from home (and particularly now) there's really very little benefit for me to have a car. For the cost of a car, insurance, parking, etc. it's a lot cheaper for me to just Uber everywhere and get shopping delivered.

Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse

I've been driving since I was 17, back when you could drive unaccompanied on a provisional licence especially out in Culchieland where the cops were dozy. My dad taught me at first, which by the way never get lessons from your parent, you will both hate each other for a while. I got some lessons when I went to college from my landlord, who was a retired Garda and would say stuff like "if you don't check before pulling out and someone hits you it's your fault, however if you survive consider yourself lucky." Failed my first two tests, graduated college, moved home and passed on the third go, after lessons from a good instructor and driving in and out to work five days a week.

First car was a 1993 Nissan Micra. I borrowed the money for it from my parents and paid them back with my travel expenses. Would run forever, but made of tinfoil and wanted to blow away any time there was a crosswind. Only safety feature was a seatbelt. No central locking either which was not ideal as I was doing a lot of lone working.

I got a job in the west of Ireland and got a Renault Megane (I want to say a 2000) with high mileage but my dad knew the extremely careful owner and knew the car had been well-maintained. More importantly it had airbags and I think ABS? Anyway much better for making the three and a half hour trip home every second weekend. It served me well enough for the next five years.

My third vehicle was a 2000 Honda CRV. My dad saw it for sale and told me about it and I took it for a test drive mostly to shut him up. I fell in love with it. The Megane was getting to the point where I had put more money into it (including replacing the water pump because it had started to overheat on me) than I had paid for it, and I had also got a German Shepherd who needed more room. I loved that CRV. Passed its NCT with flying colours every single time, perfect for the job I was doing, perfect for my puppy dog. The only downside was that it drank petrol. And then I wrecked it on a slippy patch of road on my way to Thurles. I wasn't hurt, no other vehicles were involved, no property was damaged but my lovely jeep was a write-off.

I drove my dad's car for a bit while I shopped for a new one. I say I shopped. My dad shopped. Any time I saw a car I liked he looked up the model and steered me away from it because "they're awful bad cars". I eventually settled on a 2006 Ford Mondeo after both driving it and sitting in the boot of it to make sure it was big enough for the hound. Never, ever, ever, buy a Ford Mondeo. Every year it did another trick on me. The turbo pipe went. The turbo went. The brake lines corroded. The camshaft sensor went - the engine would just randomly shut off, although it would start again when the key was turned. The last straw came when the bonnet wouldn't open. I'd had enough and went looking for a new car.

This time I decided I'd look on my own because my daddy won't always be around to help me. I also decided I'd only look at local dealerships and not some chancer up beyond Gorey flogging who knows what. I settled on a 2011 Hyundai i30, again after sitting in the boot and checking that it was big enough for the dog. I financed it for five years with the dealership. The only problems I've had have been ordinary wear and tear (replacement tyres and battery). Very happy with it.

My sister passed her driving test on the seventh attempt and she expressed her joy at being able to drive by texting "it's like being able to fly or breathe underwater". Yes. Yes it is. I did most of my driving in the Megane because I lived far from home and came back to my parents' house every other weekend. When I had[nb]I didn't "have" to come home that frequently, but it was part of my routine, and I wanted to see my family. Just an awful slog to have to drive three and a half hours at night with only religious/talk radio for company.[/nb] to drive it was a chore. Now I live much closer to everybody, going for a long drive is more of a pleasure/adventure. I've been going on holidays with the dog since 2015 and part of the fun is mapping out the route and picking stops.

I would happily drive an electric or hybrid car if the cost wasn't prohibitively expensive and if I could rely on there being enough charging stations around the country. I drive for work, mostly to remote rural places, and I drive a lot, so I can't avail of any of those "lease it for three years and then get a newer model" deals. I try to offset my carbon footprint by walking to the shops instead of driving. Also when you have a big dog you kind of need a car, especially as he gets older and needs the vet more often.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on January 13, 2021, 06:18:25 PM

I think the 1.8s didn't blow gaskets and a kit with a stronger gasket for the 1.4s was available, but yeah, I heard that about the ZRs.


Was it K-Series engine? Apparently you could set your watch by those things blowing. I think they had the gaskets between two different types of metal with quite different expansion rates. Also used some fairly complicated torque settings on the bolts holding things together.

Wonderful Butternut

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 13, 2021, 07:38:41 PM
Was it K-Series engine? Apparently you could set your watch by those things blowing. I think they had the gaskets between two different types of metal with quite different expansion rates. Also used some fairly complicated torque settings on the bolts holding things together.

Yeah, it's a K-series.

I think I'm remembering wrong and thinking of the bottom spec 1.8 K-series in engine in the ZT-T being unreliable and the top spec 2.5 KV6 engine being dependable.


Endicott

I've been driving, often every day, since I was 18. Driving is second nature to me, and when people say to me that they don't like it, or can't park, or are scared of driving in that there London, I nod and smile, and secretly wonder what the fuck is wrong with them.

1st car in 1983, a 1969-ish Mini - cost £300 IIRC. This car was a shit buy but I was too young to know. I took my Dad along as I assumed he had some nouse but it turned out I was wrong. Rusted to fuck, water leaked through the floor, rear subframe collapsed after about 18 months and I sold it as scrap. Sold the tyres to a mate of mine. Neither of us realised that they were remolds, but he found out when they disintegrated on him while he was on the M40.

1968-ish MG Roadster - cost about 1200, maybe. Don't really recall. It was mostly fibre glass by this stage of its life, which I didn't notice at first. Again, I took my Dad and a mate along to help me when buying. Doh. Eventually I realised I had no money to get it through an MOT and sold it to a German guy who was taking it back to Germany to do a full rebuild. I got 700 for it.

1968-ish Triumph 2.5 PI saloon auto - cheap from a mate's mate at £190. Really nice car, beautiful straight 6 engine, ate fuel but then it was still fairly cheap back then. Fast as fuck but didn't handle very well. After a couple of years or so, it slid off a bend and the front got crumpled. I wasn't even going fast, to this day I haven't worked out how it happened. Funniest thing that ever happened was when I drove through a ford and the water broke all the fan blades off, puncturing the radiator and causing over heating a few minutes up the road. Sold for scrap.

Citroen GS estate - don't remember the year, but not new, cost about £500. Nice car, great suspension, except that the rear was completely locked solid. The hydropneumatic suspension balls or whatever they were called needed re-pumping up (there's a term for it I can't remember). I didn't realise this for about 2 years. The ride was 100 times nicer once I got it done. Eventually, a nut worked loose on the engine and all the oil spilled out. I had a 30 min drive to and from work and the engine seized up on the way home. I was lucky enough to coast into a lay by which was also only a couple of miles from where a work mate lived, so I was able to walk there, get on the phone to a mate, and get them to come and tow me home. Sold for scrap.

A 60s Mini Cooper which I'm fairly sure was genuine. I don't recall what I paid for it, but it wasn't a lot because I was still pretty skint. It was ok, not really in that good condition, anyway it got stolen.

Ford Sierra 1.8 hatch bought from the firm I worked for about 1200. It used to be in their car pool so I'd used it before. Decent car, I don't remember much about it or what happened to it. Only car I ever had sex in.

Second Ford Sierra 1.8 also bought from work. About 1500 maybe. Nice car. I used to volunteer to drive up to the Lake District from Essex whenever me and three mates went on a walking holiday. My car was biggest and anyway none of them wanted to put the miles on their cars, whereas I didn't give a shit. One year the head gasket went on the drive back from the Lake District. I remember all my mate's mortification when they realised I wasn't in the AA or RAC. I had to pay for a recovery vehicle after which I managed to get some recompense from my mates, incredibly begrudgingly. I remember thinking what tight fucking cunts they were. I haven't seen any of them in 20 years, frankly I hope they are reading this.

1996 Honda Accord 2200 2 door coupe auto. Lovely car, my fav so far, cost me £4000, only 6 years old at the time, in 2002. Eventually I realised why I'd got a vibe from the seller that they wanted shot of it, it was an insurance right-off after being in an accident and being repaired. Anyway that didn't really ever bother me during my ownership, but I would always check a car's history before buying now, checking for right offs and outstanding finance. I kept this car for about 8 years, by which time it wasn't worth very much and the engine was playing up. Sold for scrap. Spotting a pattern?

1997 Saab 900 convertible automatic 2300 (no turbo). About 1800 quid in 2010. Ok car, I still have it, as it's not worth very much now, and I didn't want to sell it. Last year some fucker dented the door while it was outside my house, so it's worth even less. But blimey I do like driving a convertible.

2003 Honda S2000 convertible, cost £7500, it's probably still worth that now. Best car ever. I've had this since 2014. 33k miles when I got it, I've done about 68k in it. Twice it's been scratched while parked outside my house, and once elsewhere, which has cost a pretty penny to rectify each time. This did not happen when I had cheap cars I didn't care about. Latest debacle, in Nov 2020 two guys stole the catalytic converter. Cut it off with an axle grinder one evening. It was a palaver getting that repaired, I can tell you.

Wonderful Butternut

This business of stealing catalytic converters pisses me off. There can't be that many unscrupulous scrap metal dealers who deal in valuable metals like platinum and rhodium that fuckheads steal the cat for. It's not a fuckin piece of copper or steel. Surely to fuck whoever's fencing this stuff could be tracked down.

markburgle


gilbertharding

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 13, 2021, 06:11:52 PM
That reminds me of a story I read from someone who had a mini and at night driving back from somewhere too far away to abandon it, their throttle cable snapped, so looking under the bonnet and spotting the clutch cable, they slmple swapped them round and put up with a hand-driven throttle to get them home. They said changing down or pulling away from roundabouts proved a bit tricky.

Nice story but it can't have been a mini, as they had a hydraulic clutch.

The glitch with the hand controls on my mum's car was that she could not change gear, steer, and brake at the same time.

Sebastian Cobb

I got that mixed up, I meant the choke, hence the hand throttle!

gilbertharding

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on January 13, 2021, 08:17:39 PM
This business of stealing catalytic converters pisses me off. There can't be that many unscrupulous scrap metal dealers who deal in valuable metals like platinum and rhodium that fuckheads steal the cat for. It's not a fuckin piece of copper or steel. Surely to fuck whoever's fencing this stuff could be tracked down.

Something I read a few years ago was that there was beginning to be deposits of platinum on the roads which would be worth someone's while to recover, due to catalytic converters. Presumably (as I never heard anything about it since) you would have to sweep A LOT of roads, ideally just before the end of a massive drought.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: gilbertharding on January 13, 2021, 08:48:06 PM
Something I read a few years ago was that there was beginning to be deposits of platinum on the roads which would be worth someone's while to recover, due to catalytic converters. Presumably (as I never heard anything about it since) you would have to sweep A LOT of roads, ideally just before the end of a massive drought.

The Register did an article working out that it's worth buying BT as you could make a profit simply by ripping all the copper out the ground and selling it.

Endicott

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on January 13, 2021, 08:17:39 PM
This business of stealing catalytic converters pisses me off. There can't be that many unscrupulous scrap metal dealers who deal in valuable metals like platinum and rhodium that fuckheads steal the cat for. It's not a fuckin piece of copper or steel. Surely to fuck whoever's fencing this stuff could be tracked down.

I put the story on the S2000 UK forums if you want to read how I was stupid enough to think I might get help from my insurance company.

https://www.s2ki.com/forums/uk-ireland-s2000-community-25/theft-catalytic-converter-1205024/

Anyway I found out from that that it'd happened to at least three other owners, one in a railway car park and one from a pub car park.

And a link to this in autocar.
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/features/cat-burglars-victims-catalytic-converter-theft

Endicott

Angle grinder! (not axle)

Endicott

I remembered something else funny happening with the Triumph 2.5 PI. I'm guessing this happened about 1986 or so.

The Triumph had a pressurised fuel injection system and the whole fuel pipe system was pressurised by a pump near the petrol tank. One night I was taking my gf home (we both still lived at home) and a bit of flexi-pipe near the tank burst and all the fuel pumped out. We hadn't gone very far so we walked back to mine, I borrowed Dad's car and drove her home.

This turned out to be easy to repair in the end, but I'd had to leave the car parked up in town, so I got my mate to help me and the next day we arrived with a tow rope. I'd parked on a main road by a side road, so we pushed the car into the side road, attached the tow rope, and got ready to set off. So my mate is in front, waiting to pull out, and the rope is taut, and this old fella comes walking down the road, and doesn't see it.

Now I can see what is about to happen, and I'm mortified, and standing on the brakes in case my mate sees a gap in traffic. So the old fella walks behind my mate's car and trips straight over the rope. My mate is oblivious to all this of course, he's too intent on spotting a gap we can use. Old fella gets up, dusts himself down and starts shouting at me and comes to my window. My mate sees a gap, and off we go.

Icehaven

Can't drive, never learnt because I could never afford a car so I didn't see the point and am generally petrified of road death. I've recently been considering learning for convenience, but I live in an area where the driving is...extraordinary. I currently walk to work and not a day goes by when I don't observe several examples of the most overly confident, selfish and downright bizarre driving, and the attendant barrage of horns and screeching brakes etc. Learning around here might kill me before I've even got out of my own driveway.

Blumf

Quote from: gilbertharding on January 13, 2021, 08:48:06 PM
Something I read a few years ago was that there was beginning to be deposits of platinum on the roads which would be worth someone's while to recover, due to catalytic converters. Presumably (as I never heard anything about it since) you would have to sweep A LOT of roads, ideally just before the end of a massive drought.

Cody's Lab tried it a few years back:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5GPWJPLcHg