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📢 CURMUDGEONS' CORNER XVI 📢

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Posts

  • KT53KT53 Posts: 9,016
    Obelixx said:
    I thought Duncan was on Celebrity Masterchef!   If he's on Strictly too he's getting about a bit.  

    Sorry -  my mistake.  It was Celebrity Master Chef.  Duh!
  • KT53KT53 Posts: 9,016
    Why do people post into 3 year old topics and then with some kind of cryptic comment?
  • KT53KT53 Posts: 9,016
    KT53 said:
    Obelixx said:
    I thought Duncan was on Celebrity Masterchef!   If he's on Strictly too he's getting about a bit.  

    Sorry -  my mistake.  It was Celebrity Master Chef.  Duh!  Still scary though.


  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Another one … how sad 😢 
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/58268041

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,889
    I remember  a mechanic friend telling me that Lotus cars had Ford Fiesta indicator stalks
    Devon.
  • wild edgeswild edges Posts: 10,497
    and Morris Marina door handles. :*
    If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
  • steephillsteephill Posts: 2,841
    If you search for spare parts for white goods you should find a list of various models it will fit. If they are OEM parts that tells you that all the machines it fits are functionally identical. There are basically just a few large corporations which own most of the brands and they are all made in a few large factories. In some cases they don't make them at all but subcontract it to another manufacturer entirely.
    Many years ago I visited the Bass brewery and we got to the cask filling line. There were several brands of beer being filled into real ale casks all fed from the same huge tank. Each of these brands had their rabid fans that wouldn't touch those other brands. The only difference between them was the addition of dry hop pellets to each cask to give instant aroma when served, like the smell of instant coffee when you first break the seal.
  • Allotment BoyAllotment Boy Posts: 6,774
    Someone I worked with years ago had a student job in a motor factors spare shop. Someone came in for a battery for a Jag, the guy at the shop told him that the one for a Bedford van was exactly the same at half the price,  he paused, but then decided he'd better have the one that said Jaguar on it. A fool and his money & all that. Nissan use the Renault clio engine in a lot of their small cars,  happens all the time. 
    AB Still learning

  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    We have had Vauxhall then Opel cars for decades.  We like the hard suspension (OH gets sea sick) and the spacious boots.  However, when the Zafira was fatally re-arranged by a truck whose driver was fiddling with his mobile phone, we bought a SEAT because, lo and behold, Vauxhall/Opel are now owned by the same mob as Peugeot in whom we have no faith at all.

    So far, so good and the Arona is fine but we're hoping the older Zafira will last years.  And years.   Hate buying cars.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • SEAT are known for making life hard for mechanics which comes to the owner in the form of more person hours billed at the garage. Enjoy!

    PS we've not had our AC fixed because the £2 switch behind the dashboard would cost more than the car is worth in labour. Also there's a 50:50 chance it's not the switch but another issue that takes a little longer and more onerous for the mechanics doing it. Either way I'm lucky and they fix it for more the it's worth or I'm not and it costs twice what it's worth. We haven't had AC for years as you'd expect. 

    Then there's a very common issue with a sticking butterfly valve that causes the car to basically lose power until you have too stop to prevent damage. The helpful RAC guy gave us a big,  heavy screwdriver for that issue so we could get home from holiday! 

    If you don't like Peugeot then it's understandable you avoid Vauxhall but don't expect any other brand to be much better. One of the directors bought a brand new, top spec Jag. He sold it after a year of it spending more time in the garage than he actually had it to drive! He later got a Mercedes and had issues with that such that they replaced it. Now his Audi has at least lasted a few years without much in the way of garage time.

    BTW my car related gripe is how car brands do not see the benefits of designing cars to be easy to fix.  They're increasingly being built with cramped engine space such that labour times have tended to go up over the years.  Some brands like SEAT are known for being real PITA to do some even basic jobs. They're not alone. One brand used to be known to have made it so hard to put the replacement bulb in that most garages found it easier to simply take the bumper off and take the light unit out to change the main beam. Can't remember which it is now though.

    I work in automotive manufacturing and know there's so much more that can be done in design of many key car parts. It's possible to improve so much but it's not done because it increases Takt time by seconds each improvement (simply put that's the time for each process)
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