Thank goodness for Haynes workshop manuals! OH used to service and maintain all our cars until we were fortunate enough to be able to afford new ones ( and of course then trapped into using main dealers to avoid invalidating the warranty) OH oftens moans that he wishes we had kept a couple of our vehicles, namely a TR6 and a VW campervan we owned in the 70s. I think he’s forgotten that they had to be sold to finance the next car. And he is definitely too old and creaky for anything that involves lying on the floor under the car!
I'm with your OH on this one Ergates. Oh how I wish I'd hung on to my Triumph Bonneville I bought in 1997 and then our VW Westphalia campervan a couple of years later. Spent a week in the VW one summer in Wales pi**ed down the whole week. What is it with Wales and rain.
As you did I traded both in for cars.
'The power of accurate observation .... is commonly called cynicism by those that have not got it.
I regret letting my BMW R80 RT go should have kept it. I used repair my own bikes and cars but with the more modern ones, it takes 1/2 your time taking bits off to even get to see things like plugs air filters etc, as for trying to balance 4 carburettors on my Honda F1 when I had one- forget it. 🥴
OH made a pretty good job of keeping our old cars on the road, even replaced the engine in one of them. But when they get old enough - seems to be about 15 years - the electrics start to go and then it becomes really hard to diagnose the faults without the specialist tools. We've had to replace them both in the last 5 years. Now we've got an electric one, I doubt he'll attempt self repair of that one.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
With modern cars you need a degree in engineering to change a light bulb. As for anything more complex - forget it. Even on my wife's 15 year old Micra I could hardly get my hand in to replace a light bulb. I did actually give up and lumbered Halfords with the job. The guy who had to do the job looked seriously unimpressed when he saw what car he had to work on.
Both our cars, 15 yrs and 2 yrs old, have emissions stickers in their windscreen - a legal requirement should we go to some built-up city. Both are rated 3 which means they can to places like Paris between 8am and 8pm - altho from Jan 2024 neither will be able to go Paris as they are both diesel.
Good job we have no plans to go there then, except, maybe, by train.
Still very much agianst electric cars because of the human and environmental costs is building their batteries so roll on the latest solar powered innovations and their refinement to something useful. I don't see why the roof, boot and bonnet panels of all vehicles shouldn't be fitted with printable PV panels and sooner rather than later.
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)."
Can't be beyond the wit of man and woman to come up with a cooling system @raisingirl. There are plans to drive one round the coast of Australia altho it will have a roll out printed PV mat to top up the battery when it's parked.
Can't be beyond the wit of man and woman to come up with a cooling system @raisingirl.
It's a bit circular though - the energy required to keep the PV array cool has to use less energy than the PV generates (a lot less) and you could add insulation but that reduces the effectiveness of the generation. I've no doubt it'll be solved at some point but better batteries are getting more investment at the moment so are quite likely to come first. Most of the manufacturers have now ditched the hydrogen fuel cell option for cars but this is how it goes - ideas surface, they are picked up up by one or other car maker and either buried or developed and it's quite hard to work out which one is the betamax.
Time will tell
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Posts
I'm with your OH on this one Ergates. Oh how I wish I'd hung on to my Triumph Bonneville I bought in 1997 and then our VW Westphalia campervan a couple of years later. Spent a week in the VW one summer in Wales pi**ed down the whole week. What is it with Wales and rain.
As you did I traded both in for cars.
'The power of accurate observation .... is commonly called cynicism by those that have not got it.
George Bernard Shaw'
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Good job we have no plans to go there then, except, maybe, by train.
Still very much agianst electric cars because of the human and environmental costs is building their batteries so roll on the latest solar powered innovations and their refinement to something useful. I don't see why the roof, boot and bonnet panels of all vehicles shouldn't be fitted with printable PV panels and sooner rather than later.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
And then there's this - https://dutchreview.com/news/dutch-startup-launches-first-solar-car/ I can definitely wait a few years for the purchase price to become reasonable.
Time will tell
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
New study suggests ancient megalodon could eat whole wales in a few bites
They just get worse, don't they? (and Wales is a lovely place - really like it there, especially Anglesey!)