Car (or bike) Chat!

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Originally Posted by struth

seems a bit high david unless they are doing discs too and all 4... pads should give you 45k mileage...

here is a checker page (once i find it in my saved stuff i will add it in) lol

edit... https://www.checkatrade.com/blog/cos...lacement-cost/

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Thanks for that. I suppose there might also be a "justifiable" increase over last year's prices.
Not perhaps really so justifiable, but some prices have gone up by 20-40% since last year.

Interesting article that. The suggestion not to do any work on brakes yourself makes sense, though I have done work on brakes in the past - when I was younger and even more stupid than now!

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Originally Posted by dave2010

Thanks for that. I suppose there might also be a "justifiable" increase over last year's prices.
Not perhaps really so justifiable, but some prices have gone up by 20-40% since last year.

Interesting article that. The suggestion not to do any work on brakes yourself makes sense, though I have done work on brakes in the past - when I was younger and even more stupid than now!

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I used to do my own too when younger. As long as you know what your doing and are careful it was safe.
Modern cars may be different tho.
Mind you I stripped a Landover gearbox and put it back so I was fairly good at mechanics

I would prefer to change the brakes myself rather than have some monkey at Halfords do it.
At least you know it will be done properly.

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Originally Posted by dave2010

Many of the newer cars don't come with any sort of spare wheel. If you're lucky they'll give a you a can of something to squirt into the tyre which it's claimed will fix most tyres until they're taken to a tyre repair shop. Won't help against more serious problems, or vandals slashing tyres though.

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They have started to realise that when the wheels are poorly fitted after a service or tyre change the average motorist cannot undo the wheel nuts, so why bother with a spare?

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Originally Posted by CageyH

They have started to realise that when the wheels are poorly fitted after a service or tyre change the average motorist cannot undo the wheel nuts, so why bother with a spare?

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i dont think i got even a tin of spray with mine. so a puncture and car is u.s. its a heavy motor so maybe the spray doesn't work well.....or there is a tin and i don't know about it

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Originally Posted by CageyH

They have started to realise that when the wheels are poorly fitted after a service or tyre change the average motorist cannot undo the wheel nuts, so why bother with a spare?

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First thing I do after buying a car or having work done that involves having the wheels off, is to slacken the wheelnuts with my big breaker bar and re-tighten using the car's wheelbrace. That way I won't be stuck if I get a puncture. (my car carries a spare, not had a puncture for many years though :))

The funniest things you see is the wheel nuts being tightened with an air impact wrench, and checked with a torque wrench afterwards.
What a complete waste of time….

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Originally Posted by CageyH

The funniest things you see is the wheel nuts being tightened with an air impact wrench, and checked with a torque wrench afterwards.
What a complete waste of time….

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get the thread off and your in deep doodoos with those things.. use a big bar to take out seal then they come off fine if you keep the two clean. alway tighten with a smaller bar. always recheck after a few miles

Had a couple of issues re home charging in the last month or so. Once was when it looks as though the M3 managed to extract electrical power from the grid during the daytime - ouch. There is a substantial difference between paying 7p per kWh and over 40p for the same units.
Have been more careful since.

The other issue relates to Zoe. Renault have a pretty duff charging setup. It's possible to set the start time, and the end time, but sometimes this doesn't work, so that the (a) the car overcharges, and (b) some charging is carried out at peak rates, rather than cheap rates.

Aha I thought - "can I maybe program the home charger so that it's not active outside of off peak periods?". I suspect the answer is "maybe", but I looked at the details for the BP chargers, and it's hard to find anything about programming them. I also noted the 75% approval rating for the chargers, but a significant number of users suggest that BP's customer service is utterly the pits, and that many of the apps to control the on/off times and charging just don't work. The units are probably too costly, so really not good news. If home chargers were somewhat cheaper I'd consider replacing it, or having a new one, but right now that would cost more than the occasional mishap re getting the charging times wrong or the software in the car not doing the job properly.

Anyone thinking of getting a new EV should really check out the home chargers carefully. Renault made a big thing of the fact that they were providing a "free" home charger with the new car - probably not the only car distributor to do this - but it's not so good if one ends up with chargers which et the scheduling all wrong and as a consequence run up user's electricity bills to levels they didn't expect, or want.

I don't know that I can face trying to deal with BP customer service to find out if our unit can be set to work reliably with its own time schedule. The related website seems only concerned with telling us all how marvellous and easy to use these things are, but nothing at all about how to actually use them or get them set up or maintained in real life.

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Originally Posted by dave2010

Had a couple of issues re home charging in the last month or so. Once was when it looks as though the M3 managed to extract electrical power from the grid during the daytime - ouch. There is a substantial difference between paying 7p per kWh and over 40p for the same units.
Have been more careful since.

The other issue relates to Zoe. Renault have a pretty duff charging setup. It's possible to set the start time, and the end time, but sometimes this doesn't work, so that the (a) the car overcharges, and (b) some charging is carried out at peak rates, rather than cheap rates.

Aha I thought - "can I maybe program the home charger so that it's not active outside of off peak periods?". I suspect the answer is "maybe", but I looked at the details for the BP chargers, and it's hard to find anything about programming them. I also noted the 75% approval rating for the chargers, but a significant number of users suggest that BP's customer service is utterly the pits, and that many of the apps to control the on/off times and charging just don't work. The units are probably too costly, so really not good news. If home chargers were somewhat cheaper I'd consider replacing it, or having a new one, but right now that would cost more than the occasional mishap re getting the charging times wrong or the software in the car not doing the job properly.

Anyone thinking of getting a new EV should really check out the home chargers carefully. Renault made a big thing of the fact that they were providing a "free" home charger with the new car - probably not the only car distributor to do this - but it's not so good if one ends up with chargers which et the scheduling all wrong and as a consequence run up user's electricity bills to levels they didn't expect, or want.

I don't know that I can face trying to deal with BP customer service to find out if our unit can be set to work reliably with its own time schedule. The related website seems only concerned with telling us all how marvellous and easy to use these things are, but nothing at all about how to actually use them or get them set up or maintained in real life.

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mine is an Ohme charger. it can be set to times etc and to follow the cheapest rate etc. i dont have a cheap rate tho so i just plug it in and let it charge. it was plugged in yesterday and took about 3 hrs for what was only 20% charge. its still plugged in but it wont charge anymore as car is full. i can set it to whatever % i want in both the ohme charger and the car's ap, which is the one i mostly use..hyundai ap is quite good.