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CaB Drivers

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

Previous topic - Next topic

Cuntbeaks

Best decision i made was to go automatic. It's like driving a spaceship.

Fuck clutches.

Pink Gregory

If I'd never learned to drive I'd probably still be unemployed and would still live with my parents.  I'm not even from the deep country but buses were so bad and trains non-existent, so I didn't have much of a choice.  Learned at 19 and passed just before my 20th birthday.  Micra, Polo, Golf, Passat Estate, Golf Estate.

The first four lasted between 1-2 years (Head gasket, bits falling off and rust, completely fucked, leaking turbo), hoping against hope that this one is better, already had it for two years and flew through both MOTs.  Very fortunate to have been able to afford the £1900 I paid for it, and it being sold because the previous owner was getting a company car and not just trying to ditch something on its way out.

It's a great motorway drive; cruise control is frickin' wonderful, since it's a big meaty diesel (for my sins) it's the most efficient motor I've ever had.  Fortunately I no longer have to drive to the other side of Bristol for work, and I just get right over the bridge to Wales in 20 minutes.

I couldn't go back.  Not only have I never had a job that I could use public transport to get to, but it's the only way we can see family, have holidays, take our cats to the vets etc.  Also I never knew anyone else who drove, so lifts weren't much of an option.

shiftwork2

Quote from: Cuntbeaks on January 13, 2021, 09:40:44 PM
Best decision i made was to go automatic. It's like driving a spaceship.

Fuck clutches.

Nice car, gaylord.

Shoulders?-Stomach!


shiftwork2

Joking of course.  Gears and clutches seem a bit odd when everything else on a car is made to be as easy as possible to use nowadays.

Poobum

Driving automatic is like painting by numbers, for talentless LOSERS.

Cuntbeaks

Quote from: shiftwork2 on January 13, 2021, 09:43:15 PM
Nice car, gaylord.

It's a Vauxhall Chutney, yeah, so what. Doesn't excuse your rampant transportphobia.

Cuntbeaks

Quote from: Poobum on January 13, 2021, 09:55:15 PM
Driving automatic is like painting by numbers, for talentless LOSERS.

Only WINNERS know the luxury of the "one foot drive". My other foot luxuriates in a Gucci Loafer, unfettered by AIDS level clutch pressing.

Sebastian Cobb

I borrowed an automatic in Iceland, it was horrible on the hills. Kept having to ride the brakes. SHIT.

buzby

Quote from: Blumf on January 13, 2021, 04:42:16 PM
Do you log that anywhere?
Not really. I occasionally post about things I've found that might be useful to others on the Ginetta Owner's Club forum. My garage is barely big enough to fit the tiny G15 and me in it, never mind taking photos. Here'sa a pic of the engine bay for the ad when I bought it:

It's basically a full race 998cc Imp engine that was fitted in it's previous life as a a track car. It's got a big valve cylinder head (modified by Andy Chesman, one of the gurus of Imp tuning), a race-spec cam, twin Weber 40mm DCOE carbs, a large-bore 4-into-1 exhaust, Lumenition electronic ignition and a close-ratio gearbox.

Unfortunately like most old race cars it's been bodged a lot in the past. As well as a full mechanical refresh iIm rewiring it to modern standards (the factory wiring loom has 3 fuses and the only relay is for the indicators) I'm also assembling the parts to convert it to EFI using Suzuki GSXR throttle bodies and probably a speeduino ECU, which shoudl hopefully make the lumpy race engine a bit easier to drive on the road.

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.

Quote from: Wonderful Butternut on January 13, 2021, 07:46:45 PM
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.

Ah the Kettle Series as they are known. A nice design (similar to my Imp engine in fact - wet liners in an alloy block, but the K series used long bolts to sandwich the block between the head and the sump, rather than bolting the head to the block), but let down by cost cutting in the production design and manufacturing processes. All versions suffer from 'OMGHGF' (as it's known on a certain forum dedicated to budget motoring and unloved cars) to a degree no matter how well they are serviced and maintained, but the 1.4 in particular was notorious for it. Once it had gone once it would inevitably go again too due to the overheating warping the alloy castings no matter how well they were skimmed flat.

The early KV6s suffered from similar HGF issues (fixed when it was redesigned to fit in the Rover 75), but the biggest problem is the massively complicated timing belt system for it's 2 banks of twin overhead cams. In the Rover 800 at least changing the belts was basically an engine out job, which nowadays would cost more than the car is worth.

The Dog

Always trouble with cars.

First car was a 1.3l Corolla. It was fine for a while, but then it became really sluggish and underpowered.  Took it to the garage, turned out my neighbour had been using it to store gravel.

Apparently this was a common fault with that particular model.


The Dog

Had a 1.6l Ford Focus that would intermittently cut-out. Took it to the garage, turned out it was haunted. You don't expect that on a 4-year old car.

studpuppet

When I was growing up, cars were where it's at daddio, but nowadays I have five bicycles and two of them cost me more than all but the last two cars on my list. As a roofer once said, no car's worth more than £500 and it's not worth anything if you can't get a bottle of gas and a ladder on it.
I've never owned a car newer than ten years old, and I started driving in 1989 - see if you can guess at which point I had kids?

1972 Mini 1000 - free, inherited off brother who bought it for £100 off our cousin.


1982 Citroen Visa Super E - coke cans for indicators, mad dashboard, cost £300 off my uncle.
1983 Citroen 2CV - inherited off my mum when she bought a newer one.


1972 Volkswagen Beetle 1302 S - piece of shit, bought off a friend's brother for £100.


1986 Citroen Visa 17D - piece of shit Peugeot diesel (all the rest on this list are petrol), worst car I ever owned, £300.
1975 Citroen Ami 8 Estate - mad, rolled like a bastard, biggest regret getting rid of it. £100 and had to tow it from Crystal Palace to Hertfordshire.
1970 Triumph 2000TC - smoothest engine of all of them, but was brown with disintegrating upholstery - £250.
1975 Rover P6 3500S - V8 manual - put your foot on the accelerator and the petrol gauge would visibly move - £100 as a non-runner, my dad and I spend a grand getting it going but the running costs made us sell it.


1989 Citroen 2CV - £100 as a non-runner, towed it home using a rope that was only 6ft long.
1992 Saab 9000i - best buy: £73.02 on eBay because it had a dent in one of the doors had 12 months MoT on it, ran it for three years.
1993 Volvo 940 Turbo Estate - £100 on eBay.
1995 Volvo 960 Estate - £500 off my mum when my dad died.
2005 Volvo XC90 Executive - stupid car, £4.5K totally impractical and felt like a cunt driving it. Still, was quite glad when a Range Rover shunted it from behind and wrote it off.
2009 Volvo V70 2.0 Estate - current car, £3K bought with the money from the write off.

bgmnts

Hoping a more eco friendly car becomes pretty much standard in the next few years as every single admin job seems to be on/near an industrial site or business park in the arse end of nowhere, so driving is necessary.

Bought my current car partly because it still had a CD player (as well as the USB dongle thing). Got to get some use out of the thousands of hours of music I have on a semi-obsolete format, and I can't be arsed ripping all the music off them just because it's the year twenty-twenty-fucking-one.

Car salesman patter is wasted on me - just give me something with a bit of antiquated audio equipment.


Thomas

My favourite thing about cars is when they oversteer and screech round corners in films. If it does that - sold.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: bgmnts on January 14, 2021, 12:17:13 AM
Hoping a more eco friendly car becomes pretty much standard in the next few years as every single admin job seems to be on/near an industrial site or business park in the arse end of nowhere, so driving is necessary.

A lot of the co2 in the lifecycle of a vehicle is making it. In ev's with current fuel makeups that can be around 46% before it has moved. So buying a new economical car, or switching prematurely can actually be worse.

It's something I find quite bad about how lease/pcp is promoted to make buying used pointless in a financial sense. All a numbers game to keep keep car manufacturers constantly forcing the things out of their factories and fucking over demand for used vehicles that should have plenty of life in them.

Dex Sawash

More or less in order, didn't bother trying to list hulks I only kept a few weeks, the kid's cars or wife's cars.


1978 Jeep CJ5 (304ci) silver
1955 Chevrolet short bed pickup (327ci) blue
1972 Ford F100 (360ci v8) blue
1972 Chevrolet Vega (2.3l i4) silver
1973 Chevrolet Vega (350ci v8) orange
1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass (350ci) bronze
1976 Honda Civic (1200cc) blue
1976 Volvo 242 (2.1l) beige
1980 Volvo 242 (2.1l) blue
1981 Volvo 242 TURBO (2.1l) RED
1983 JEEP Grand Wagoneer white with wood
1980 Volvo 244 GL (2.4l diesel) blue
1968 Volvo 123 wagon (2l) blue
19xx VW tube frame sand rail (1836cc)
1973 Ford F100 (390ci) orange
1967 Dodge D100 (260ci) red
1985 Volvo 740 turbodiesel silver
1985 Peugeot 505 GL (2.2l) white
1987 Peugeot 505 Liberté (2.2l) red
1991 Peugeot 505 SW8 Turbo RED!
1983 Saab 900t red
1987 Saab 900s green
1987 Saab 9000s red
1990 Jeep Cherokee XJ blue
1989 Saab 9000T red
1996 Plymouth Grand Voyager silver
1999 Saab 9-5 white
1999 Saab 9-5 red
1999 Ford Expedition blue
2006 Volvo XC90 red
















1978 Jeep CJ5 (304ci) silver
1955 Chevrolet short bed pickup (327ci) blue
1972 Ford F100 (360ci v8) blue
1972 Chevrolet Vega (2.3l i4) silver
1973 Chevrolet Vega (350ci v8) orange
1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass (350ci) bronze
1976 Honda Civic (1200cc) blue
1976 Volvo 242 (2.1l) beige
1980 Volvo 242 (2.1l) blue
1981 Volvo 242 TURBO (2.1l) RED
1983 JEEP Grand Wagoneer white with wood
1980 Volvo 244 GL (2.4l diesel) blue
1968 Volvo 123 wagon (2l) blue
19xx VW tube frame sand rail (1836cc)
1973 Ford F100 (390ci) orange
1967 Dodge D100 (260ci) red
1985 Volvo 740 turbodiesel silver
1985 Peugeot 505 GL (2.2l) white
1987 Peugeot 505 Liberté (2.2l) red
1991 Peugeot 505 SW8 Turbo RED!
1983 Saab 900t red
1987 Saab 900s green
1987 Saab 9000s red
1990 Jeep Cherokee XJ blue
1989 Saab 9000T red
1996 Plymouth Grand Voyager silver
1999 Saab 9-5 white
1999 Saab 9-5 red
1999 Ford Expedition blue
2006 Volvo XC90 red

























The screeching round corners always looks quite glamorous in American movies - less so in 70s UK cop shows (always good for a really low-energy car chase):

https://youtu.be/PCMeCLYSbGE?t=71

bgmnts

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 14, 2021, 12:38:14 AM
A lot of the co2 in the lifecycle of a vehicle is making it. In ev's with current fuel makeups that can be around 46% before it has moved. So buying a new economical car, or switching prematurely can actually be worse.

It's something I find quite bad about how lease/pcp is promoted to make buying used pointless in a financial sense. All a numbers game to keep keep car manufacturers constantly forcing the things out of their factories and fucking over demand for used vehicles that should have plenty of life in them.

Well yeah obviously, I've never even taken a test and would hope an electric car would last me at least two decades. Wouldn't buy a vehicle without longevity.

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 14, 2021, 12:38:14 AM
A lot of the co2 in the lifecycle of a vehicle is making it. In ev's with current fuel makeups that can be around 46% before it has moved. So buying a new economical car, or switching prematurely can actually be worse.

It's something I find quite bad about how lease/pcp is promoted to make buying used pointless in a financial sense. All a numbers game to keep keep car manufacturers constantly forcing the things out of their factories and fucking over demand for used vehicles that should have plenty of life in them.

I've always wondered what happens to the really flash PCP/lease cars, in particular. The ones that are aimed at the sort of wankers who always want a brand new latest Audi, Bentley or some gigantic, flash SUV, and get a new one all the time. Their market is so much about image and shiny newness so is there any market for, say, a 5 or 6 year old car that was eye-wateringly expensive when new? Do they get shipped overseas?

It's all so wasteful. When they did the scrappage scheme thing maybe a decade ago to encourage new car sales, there were photos several years later of thousands of 'scrappage' cars still sitting on an old airfield somewhere, most of them looking OK.

There must be more old-ish cars on the roads than ever, mind you, as they last so much better now. When I was a kid, in the eighties, there would be 7 or 8-year-old cars that were rusted to bits. At some point, some genius sorted out the rust issue. Even cars going for scrap now generally still look quite shiny and presentable - probably being scrapped because some bit of computer kit under the bonnet has gone haywire.

Twonty Gostelow

Learned to drive in my teens and was inexplicably confident driving my parents' car for a while. Moved to a big city and just walked for miles or took the bus and never got back into it.
My wife drives as part of her job and so I more or less gave it up, and now when I do drive I'm not happy at all. I'll look at pedestrians and think, I should be on that pavement with you, that's real life there.
The second time I drove after a break of 10 years I hit and killed a grey squirrel that came out of nowhere and I couldn't stop agonising about it for days afterwards. What if that was a child? - your life would be over, even if it wasn't your fault.

I always thought this would be the archetypal Cab driver https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp3NWzLzaek but this thread has proved me wrong.

buzby

Quote from: Clatty McCutcheon on January 14, 2021, 12:53:44 AM
It's all so wasteful. When they did the scrappage scheme thing maybe a decade ago to encourage new car sales, there were photos several years later of thousands of 'scrappage' cars still sitting on an old airfield somewhere, most of them looking OK.
They looked OK, but part of the process for shipping them off was to permanently render them unusable, primarily by cutting out the VIN plate and chassis number so it could never be re-registered. Parts coudl be sold off by the scrap dealers they eventually went to, but the shell itself had to be crushed.
Quote
There must be more old-ish cars on the roads than ever, mind you, as they last so much better now. When I was a kid, in the eighties, there would be 7 or 8-year-old cars that were rusted to bits. At some point, some genius sorted out the rust issue. Even cars going for scrap now generally still look quite shiny and presentable - probably being scrapped because some bit of computer kit under the bonnet has gone haywire.
Modern cars still suffer from rust, just not as badly/quickly as they used to. You are correct though that it will be electronics failures and the lack of replacement modules that will kill off modern cars (manufacturers are only required to support cars for 10 years from the date of manufacture). The recent shift towards low capacity, high output turbo engines to satisfy emissions regulations will probably also lead to cars being scrapped due to engine failure earlier than they would have in the past.

Sebastian Cobb

I'm guessing in EV's the weak points are going to be the high current stuff responsible for charge and power distribution to the motor (inverter?). A bit like how in LED bulbs it's usually the PSU that dies (usually 'cos it's built to a cost) rather than the LED's themselves.

MojoJojo

Quote from: buzby on January 14, 2021, 01:27:03 AMThe recent shift towards low capacity, high output turbo engines to satisfy emissions regulations will probably also lead to cars being scrapped due to engine failure earlier than they would have in the past.

I suppose this is less true of cars being sold now, but I think a lot of diesels on the road are going to be scrapped due to DPF problems.

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 14, 2021, 10:00:49 AM
I'm guessing in EV's the weak points are going to be the high current stuff responsible for charge and power distribution to the motor (inverter?). A bit like how in LED bulbs it's usually the PSU that dies (usually 'cos it's built to a cost) rather than the LED's themselves.

Uhhh, the battery, surely? I know some have a lease on the battery, but that destroys the second hand value, and no one buying a second hand car wants to spend £100 a month.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: MojoJojo on January 14, 2021, 10:31:48 AM
I suppose this is less true of cars being sold now, but I think a lot of diesels on the road are going to be scrapped due to DPF problems.

Uhhh, the battery, surely? I know some have a lease on the battery, but that destroys the second hand value, and no one buying a second hand car wants to spend £100 a month.

The batteries wear out, that's to be expected. I'm talking more about parts abruptly failing and then being unable to source replacements.

buzby

#86
Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 14, 2021, 10:00:49 AM
I'm guessing in EV's the weak points are going to be the high current stuff responsible for charge and power distribution to the motor (inverter?). A bit like how in LED bulbs it's usually the PSU that dies (usually 'cos it's built to a cost) rather than the LED's themselves.
Heat is the enemy of electronics. LED bulbs fail through a combination of the LED chips themselves being overdriven and burning out or the PSU getting cooked by the heat (see Bigclive's recent video on Philips' Dubai-spec bulbs compared to what they supply for the rest of the world). Having seen some videos of EV inverters and motor/generators being disassembled they seem to have decent cooling (mostly they are liquid cooled), but any failure would mean replacing the entire module which is going to be expensive. On a mechanical front it's going to be bearings in the motors, which have to deal with a lot of torque and high RPMs.

Ultimately car companies want to sell cars, so they 'value engineer' them so they won't last forever, Moving to electric propulsion won't change that.

Quote from: MojoJojo on January 14, 2021, 10:31:48 AM
I suppose this is less true of cars being sold now, but I think a lot of diesels on the road are going to be scrapped due to DPF problems.
DPFs are basically no different to a catalytic converter on a petrol engine. The main issue with them is when diesel engines are used outside their most efficient emissions regime (short trips in stop-start, low speed urban traffic vs. constant engine speed, long distance inter-urban trips), which generates more particulate matter in the exhaust which eventually blocks the DPF. Short trips also do not give the engine ECU enough time to perform a full DPF Regen to burn out the soot either, which leads to premature failure and dilution of the engine oil by repeated aborted regen attempts (due to the excess fuel being injected into the cylinders during the exhaust stroke, which is intended to combust in the DPF).

The same type of usage profile does similar damage to a catalytic converter on a petrol engine (with turbo engines you also have the risk of leaking turbo oil seals polluting the cat as well). It also causes issues with the EGR systems on both types of engine, though it has more effect on a diesel due to the particulate in the exhaust gumming the valve and cooler matrix up.

The Dog

Had a 2002 Vauxhall Zafira that suffered very badly from depression.

I changed the traps, the drum, the crank, even the main unit, but it didn't help.

Shaky

Didn't start driving until I was 34. I've now got a decent second hand SUV and love a bit of an auld road trip to clear the head, although it's a bastard on fuel.

Hilariously, I wrote the two previous cars off during the last 12 months. I wish I was joking. A couple of insurance company wouldn't even look at me.

Jockice

Quote from: Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse on January 13, 2021, 07:32:44 PM
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.

A friend of mine's dad was a driving instructor. He's the guy I've mentioned before who looks and sounds like a public schoolboy but isn't. People assume his dad was a Lord or something. Both he and his sister passed first time. But their brother fell out with their dad in his early 20s so he's now approaching his fifties and has never learned.

I got one 'lesson' from my dad in his Morris Minor on some waste ground when I was 17. It wasn't brilliant, especially when I just turned the ignition off because I couldn't remember where the brake was. He never offered me another one.

Most people I know nowadays can drive, even if in some cases they rarely do so. The only other exception I can think of offhand is a neighbour of mine who has failed four times. She's only the age I was when I passed mine so she's got time. My mum never learned though. I honestly can't even imagine her being able to drive. It would have seemed unnatural.