PeachorLemon.com Fanzine

2006-04-29T12:20:00.000+01:00

2001 ALMERA SUSPENSION FAILURE

If your Almera has had suspension failure please get in touch via www.peachorlemon.com and hit the contact us button.

5 years on from new and my Nissan Almera 2.2 Sport has blotted it’s reliability big time. I had just done about 150 high speed miles, well 70mph, with another 40 odd to do when the front offside suspension collapsed. Luckily, I was fed up with motorways and dual carriageways and doing about 30mph on a country lane when it happened.
The suspension plate that holds the spring had buckled and the spring had broke in 3 pieces. What went first I do not know but a piece of spring jammed into my tyre and put a 6 inch gash in the tyre! 2 minutes earlier, I was doing an indicated 75mph on the A120. I think I was a lucky man that night. It was a Sunday, raining and the RAC were brilliant. In 38 years of driving, I have always got home under my own steam, until now, well done RAC.
The garage where I bought the car, Glyn Hopkin, in West Essex (London borough) did not want to know, as did Nissan, even though I made it clear I did not want any compensation. I hoped that they would be interested in terms of safety and check other Almeras of that age. I'd have thought that given Nissans enviable releability, they woulg have wanted to examine the broken spring to see if there was a manufacturing defect, but no, not interested was the reply. All they had to do was to tell me to take the stuff to Glyn Hopkin to be inspected. I know what manufacturer to avoid when I change cars later on.
Because of the design, I had to have 2 coils, 2 suspension legs and 2 shock absorbers. A new tyre, balancing and a new stud bolt and nut because it had jammed on (common fault on early Primeras but not on Almeras) all for the princely sum of £616. My local garage in Halstead, MOT Services on the Broton Estate, charged £40 per hour and done an excellent job in good time and under quote as well.

2006-04-20T10:00:00.000+01:00

CATEGORIES OF WRITE OFFS - WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

A A vehicle that should be totally crushed, NO spare parts.

B Spare parts may be salvaged, but the body shell should be crushed. The body must never return to the roads

C A vehicle that has been extensively damaged and the insurer have decided not to repair, but which potentially can be repaired to a high standard.

D A damaged vehicle that the insurer does not want to repair, but can be repaired.

F A Vehicle damaged by fire, which the insurer does not want to repair.

THEFT
These vehicles have not been recovered and ownership rests with the insurer who made the total loss payment.

In other words, if this category of vehicle is cloned, ringed, cut and shut or for any other reason it is on the road, if found by the police or authorities, the vehicle will be returned to the former legal owners with no recompense to the poor bugger that may have paid thousands to buy it.

LET THE BUYER BEWARE

2006-04-20T09:59:00.000+01:00

USED CARS, REMEMBER THESE WORDS.

Buying a used car is fraught with money danger. You have more rights buying a sack of potatoes than a car so please remember these words and their meanings, that way you are more equipped to deal with the sharks that sell them to us.

THE RINGER.
A Ringer is a stolen vehicle with a false identity. The name comes from the phrase “dead ringer” as the stolen vehicle has the registration and often the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) of another car.

THE CLONE
Similar to the ringer. The identity of this car is duplicated onto another car and provides duplicate and forged documents. This means that there are two seemingly identical cars driving about on the same number plate.

CUT AND SHUT
This is a nasty one because of its obvious danger. Sections of different vehicles that have been crashed or failed MOT (unroadworthy) that are welded together to make a car that can be then sold on as a pukka car.

CLOCKING
The mileage has been changed to a lower reading which gives the seller a better price because it has fewer miles. Ask to see the logbook and get in touch with the previous owner. If refused, walk away and report them to Trading Standards.

VIN
Vehicle Identification Number, or in old money, chassis number. This is a plate welded to the bodywork carrying a usual 17 digits to identify the car. Much better than a number plate but is still falsified.

PAPER CAR
This car does not exist except on paper only. Usually used while buying a car over the phone because of a possible long distance to travel to see the car.

LEMON
A term used to describe a car with a dubious mechanical history or a car that keeps on going wrong.

PEACH
A term used to describe a good car in all senses. Good to own, if you find one, keep it.

2006-04-20T09:58:00.000+01:00

INSURANCE WARNING

DOC (Drive other Cars)

Brimming as we are with goodwill over the festive season, we might feel inclined to do a friend a favour. But if it involves driving their car for them after they've had a couple of sherries, you might want to think twice.

Norwich Union Direct and sister insurer RAC Direct are removing the 'drive other cars' (DOC) cover from the terms of their policies. This traditionally allows a driver with comprehensive cover for his own vehicle to drive another car – with the owner's permission – with third-party cover.

Aviva, which owns both firms, says the system, originally intended to cover emergency situations, is being widely abused. Unscrupulous motorists take out a comprehensive policy on a low-risk car in order to be covered for more powerful and expensive cars owned by friends, family or partners, without having to be being named on their policies.

It is also argued that this form of 'cheating' makes it more difficult for police to catch uninsured drivers, as it is more laborious to check up on drivers who aren't the owner of the car, or a named driver. But in the process it is going to inconvenience the honest majority motorists.

RAC Direct changed the terms of its policies when it launched at the end of October (when the RAC ceased to broker other insurers), so anyone who signed up after that time will not have DOC. Customers who bought or renewed policies before then will retain the DOC for the remaining term of their policy. If you're not sure, call and check.

Norwich Union Direct is changing the terms of its policies from 1 January, so if you're a new customer signing up before then you will still have DOC. Eric Nelson of Norwich Union says: 'We are not changing the terms of customers' policies overnight. If you're an existing customer, you will retain DOC for the duration of your policy – and, if your renewal date is during January you will also retain DOC for that year.'

Asda policies, underwritten by Norwich Union, have not yet followed suit but it's thought they will do so very soon.

2006-04-20T09:57:00.000+01:00

HYDROGEN POWER OR NOT?

A good deal of discussion is going on within the motor industry at present about the use of hydrogen as a fuel. Several manufacturers are working on ways to make it a practical proposition, and you can see why. Hydrogen is, as near as makes no difference, an infinitely renewable resource, being by far the most common substance in the universe, and it burns very cleanly indeed. The principal product of combustion is water, although burning any substance produces oxides of nitrogen, which create their own environmental worries.

If hydrogen is so plentiful, and if the pollution it creates amounts to little more than a few drops of water, why are all our cars not running on the stuff? Well, there are all sorts of problems, which the boffins are currently attempting to address. Not the least of them is the fact that at normal temperatures (in fact, at any temperature higher than really jolly cold) hydrogen is a gas. Petrol and diesel are liquids, so if you put them in a tank they are likely to stay there until you ask them to come out again, but a gas will take any opportunity it can to escape.

You could turn it into a liquid, of course, but that would mean storing it in a very special tank which would have to be kept incredibly cold at all times. Not really a practical proposition.

Or you could store it in a pressurised tank, as is the case with most fuel cell vehicles using hydrogen. Kennerly Digges, president of the Motor Vehicle Fire Research Institute, points out that if such a tank ruptures "a lot of mechanical energy would be released." In other words, if you break it, it will go bang in a big way.

A third option, which is being studied by DaimlerChrysler, is to store the hydrogen in a honeycomb structure, though these will be expensive to build and also limit the amount of gas that can be carried.

Safe Or Not?

There are safety issues, too. Opinions on these differ according to whom you are talking to. Buford Lewis of ExxonMobil, one of the world's largest sellers of petrol, reckons that hydrogen "has far more safety issues than gasoline". While it's easy to detect the presence of a vested interest here, ExxonMobil does in fact process hydrogen and says it would expand this side of its operation if it made business sense to do so. A contrary view comes from Karen Miller, vice-president of the National Hydrogen Association, who says that, "hydrogen is no less safe than gasoline or other fuels and in some cases can be much safer. The key to any fuel is handling it safely."

Indeed so. One of the biggest problems about putting hydrogen into a tank is the fact that it is apt to pick up a static electric charge, which leads to an explosion. An example of the efforts to prevent this happening can be found on each of the two FCX vehicles that were built by Honda and have been leased to the city of Los Angeles. These cars have two fuel doors. Opening the first of them reveals a connection for a grounding wire, which has to be put in place before the second is opened to receive the high-pressure nozzle with leakproof seal, which allows the hydrogen to be put into the tank.

In addition, hydrogen is odourless (the universe would be a very smelly place if it weren't) and burns with a clear flame. Both these aspects make it difficult to spot that there is a risk of explosion before the explosion actually takes place. Hydrogen can also penetrate some metals and make them brittle.

All this is being worked on, of course. "These are the problems we are going to face and overcome," says Bill Reinert of Toyota North America, which has supplied two fuel cell SUVs to the University of California (and had to recall them in May this year when a leak was detected).

The explosive qualities of hydrogen are also being discussed by safety experts. There's no point in complaining about the fact that it does explode, because that is what any fuel intended for use in an internal combustion engine must do. What is being said about hydrogen in particular, however, is that it is more explosive than petrol.

Thinking It Through

When this piece of news was reported to CARkeys it caused a certain amount of head-scratching, since it goes against one of the key points we understood about hydrogen. Some clarification is therefore in order. A given amount of hydrogen in fact releases considerably less energy than the same amount of petrol, which is one of the most explosive fuels available - more so than methanol, a popular alternative in South American markets and some motorsport applications, and more even than the nitromethane used in top-level drag racing (where its advantage is that you can cram far more of it into a cylinder without drowning the flame). This is why hydrogen-fuelled engines produce less power than petrol-fuelled ones, a point that is discussed surprisingly rarely.

However, any fuel has to be present in a certain density before it will burn, and this density is lower in the case of hydrogen than in that of petrol. Less of it therefore has to be ignited before a reaction will take place - or, to put it another way, hydrogen is more likely to go bang than petrol is, though petrol will produce the bigger bang.

At this stage of the game, a safety disaster in a hydrogen-fuelled vehicle might turn public opinion violently against the whole subject. Engineer Rhoads Stephenson, who acts as a consultant to the Motor Vehicle Fire Research Institute, says of manufacturers and other concerns working on hydrogen that "one spectacular fire or explosion on the evening news will set them back twenty years." It would be similar to what happened when the Hindenburg airship very publicly erupted in flames on live television several decades ago. The fact that the blame for this catastrophe was much later pinned on, among other things was the highly flammable material in which the outer structure was coated did nothing to prevent the incident bringing the airship industry to its knees.

If an emergency does take place, it's worth remembering something that was mentioned a while ago by the engineering expert Dan Wright, better known for his work on aerodynamics and the development of the Sprintex supercharger. Wright mentioned the possibility of a burning car and suggested that it would be better for the explosion to have been caused by hydrogen, which would quickly rise through the atmosphere out of harm's way, than by petrol, which would run burning along streets and down drains.

Green Qualities And Transport

The question also arises as to how environmentally friendly hydrogen-fuelled vehicles actually are. If you measure what comes out of the exhaust, there is no argument: hydrogen beats petrol hands down. But how do you create the hydrogen? The best method is to pass an electric current through water. To do that you need to create the electricity, and if this means increasing the workload on coal- or nuclear-powered generating stations, the environmental advantage of using hydrogen becomes less obvious. Electricity generation by wind, wave power or the force of water falling down a hillside (as in the case of hydro-electric stations) is not sufficiently widespread to restore the balance.

Having created the stuff by whatever means, you then have to transport hydrogen to outlets where customers will be able to buy it. Another point not often raised in discussions like this is that you need an awful lot of hydrogen to power a car (another result of the fact that it does not create large explosions), and that means carrying it around the country in very large quantities. A motor industry source recently voiced this concern to CARkeys as follows: "If all the cars in the world were converted to hydrogen tomorrow, one in every five vehicles on the road would be a hydrogen-carrying tanker."

That's a lot of tankers, creating a lot of traffic. And every one of those tankers would have exactly the same storage safety issues mentioned above.

Experts say that mass-produced hydrogen-powered vehicles are at least a decade away. At a time when environmental issues are at the forefront of so many people's minds, hydrogen seems to be in one sense the perfect fuel, but those ten or more years are going to have to be spent addressing a great many issues before its everyday use becomes a practical proposition.

Thanks to ITV-motoring.com and David Finlay in particular for this article

2006-04-20T09:23:00.000+01:00

DRINKING & DRIVING - THE FACTS

We at PoL will never advise drinking and driving, get a Taxi or nominate a driver who will be sober but we feel that we have to give you the laws as they stand so we all know the score. Remember, ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it.

When can the police require a breath test?
Any person who is driving, attempting to drive, or in charge of a motor vehicle on the road, or in a public place (eg a pub car park or a garage forecourt), may be required by the police to provide a breath test, to ascertain whether they are over the prescribed limit of alcohol - 35 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath (or 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood).

The request must be made by a police officer in uniform, but can only be made if one of the following situations apply:-
1 the police officer has reasonable cause to suspect that you have committed, or are currently committing a moving traffic offence, or
2 if, having stopped, an officer has reasonable cause to suspect that the person driving/attempting to drive/in charge of the vehicle has consumed alcohol, or
3 the police officer has reasonable cause to believe that you were the person driving/attempting to drive/in charge of a motor vehicle which was involved in an accident.

So does that mean that the police can just stop your car if you are driving along and insist on giving you a roadside breath test?
The answer is NO. They are entitled to randomly stop your car, but they can only insist on a breath test if they have reasonable cause to suspect you have committed a traffic offence, or have consumed alcohol (eg they can smell it on your breath), or they reasonably believe you have been involved in an accident (eg the description of your car matches that given by a witness).

What happens if the roadside test is positive, or you refuse, or you can't give the necessary sample?
If any of these happen you will be arrested and taken to the police station. At the police station you will usually be asked to provide two specimens of breath for analysis (using approved evidential instruments either an Intoximeter EC/IR; Lion Intoxilyzer; or Camic Datamaster). If the two readings differ then the police must rely on the lower reading. If the reading is over the prescribed limit then you will have committed an offence and you will be charged.

You do not have a right to insist on supplying a sample of blood or urine instead. If you fail to supply a breath specimen at the station you will committed an offence, unless you have a reasonable excuse. Being too drunk or unfit to supply the necessary breath specimen is NOT a reasonable excuse. A medical condition, which prevents you from supplying enough breath for the machine to sample, may be a sufficient excuse. If you have such a condition you must advise the police at the time.

The police may legitimately request that you provide a specimen of blood or urine as an alternative to a breath test, if:-
1 No automatic measuring device is available at the time of your arrest, or it is not working properly.
2 The offence involves drugs and the police officer has taken medical advice that your condition may be due to drugs.
3 The police officer making the request has reasonable cause to believe that breath samples should not be requested for health reasons

What happens if it is close to the limit?
If the lower of the two breath readings at the station is 39 micrograms or below, then you should be released either without charge or with a caution. If it is between 40 and 50 micrograms, then you MUST be offered the option of providing an alternative specimen of either blood or urine (if the police fail to offer you this option then you will have a defence to the charge). You should be asked which you would prefer, but it is up to the police to decide which one they offer you, unless, again, you have a medical condition which would preclude you from providing the necessary sample. The police cannot take a blood sample without your consent, but if this is the option offered and you refuse to consent then the police can rely on the breath sample they have taken.

If you are asked to provide urine they will ask you to provide two samples within an hour. If blood then this must be taken by a police surgeon, who will have to be called to the station.

You have a right to have the second sample taken and you should always avail yourself of this right.

What happens if you are charged?
If you are going to be charged you will have the charge read out to you and you will be cautioned about saying anything which may later be used in evidence. You will then be asked to sign the Charge Sheet and a copy will be given to you. You will usually then be bailed to attend at Court on a specified date - ie you will be free to go and must attend Court on the date and time given. You will not usually be allowed to drive from the station (as you would most likely be committing another offence), but you are free to drive until the date of your hearing when any ban that may be imposed will come into immediate effect.

If I get a ban can I get my licence back before the ban ends?
A person disqualified for more than 2 years, may after 2 years, apply to the court that imposed the ban to have the remaining period of disqualification removed. They must appear in person and must satisfy the court that:-
1. They have committed no further road traffic offences during the 2 year ban, and
2. There is a good and adequate reason for the return of their licence (eg the chance of a new job, promotion, moving to a rural location and need a car [proof of successful alcohol abuse treatment may also be relevant in drink driving cases])

These are the relevant drink driving offences

Failing to provide a roadside breath test (Code DR70)
Penalty - Fine - up to Level 3 (£1,000)4 penalty points on your licence
Disqualification is at the discretion of the Court

Driving/Attempting to Drive with excess alcohol (DR10)
Penalty - Fine - up to Level 5 (£5,000) and/or up to 6 months imprisonment
Mandatory disqualification for at least 12 months for first offence
Mandatory disqualification for at least 3 years for second offence within 10 years.

Being in charge of a motor vehicle with excess alcohol (DR40)
Penalty - Fine - up to Level 4 (£2,500) and/or up to 3 months imprisonment
10 penalty points on your licence
Disqualification is at the discretion of the Court

After Driving/Attempting to drive refusing to provide samples for analysis (DR30)
Penalty - Fine - up to Level 5 (£5,000) and/or 6 months imprisonment
Mandatory disqualification for at least 12 months for first offence (18 months tends to be the norm as you are considered to have been trying to avoid being found guilty)
Mandatory disqualification for at least 3 years for second offence within 10 years

After being in charge refusing to provide samples for analysis (DR60)
Penalty - Fine - Level 4 (£2,500) and/or 3 months imprisonment
10 penalty points on your licence
Disqualification is at the discretion of the Court

All of the above has been researched by an amateur motoring enthusiast and consequently must not be relied upon as points of law in court. Although these points are factually correct, please consult a solicitor for confirmation.

2006-04-20T09:16:00.000+01:00

BLACK BOX SPY IN THE CAR BOOT

Thanks to - Becky Barrow, Daily Mail 21 October 2005

Car insurance is set for a major shake-up, with pay-as-you-drive policies based on a hi-tech 'spy' in the boot.

The black box devices will log details of all journeys, meaning lower bills for those who drive less often or in daylight. But civil liberties groups will be concerned about the Big Brother aspects of the system, being launched by Norwich Union.

Insurers will know exactly where a client has been and there will be fears that the information could be sold on to other companies. The information in the black boxes will also make it possible to calculate a driver's speed.

The firm says this will not be done unless a driver asks for it - after an accident, for example - but it admits that police could also request details. Pay-as-you-drive policies, in which drivers are asked to pay itemised monthly bills instead of an annual premium, are already popular in the US.

Norwich Union has been offering them to young drivers since earlier this year, 2006, as well as running a trial with another 5,000 motorists.

Now the company, which insures one in seven of Britain's 24m drivers, is opening the scheme up to all groups. The black boxes are in constant contact with global positioning satellites to log every detail of a journey - its time, place and length.

The details are transmitted to the insurance company using mobile phone technology. Drivers are sent an itemised monthly statement, similar to a phone bill.

Those who use their cars less often could end up paying considerably less than with their existing premiums. This would be good news for mothers who limit their motoring to the school run or a weekly trip to the supermarket.

Drivers can be charged as little as 6p a mile between 6am and 11pm, because accidents are less likely during the day. At night, however, the charge rockets to £1 a mile. There is also a fixed monthly charge to cover theft and damage while the car is stationary.

A Norwich Union spokesman said: 'It means we can personalise insurance policies. It is a much fairer product.'

Critics warn that many drivers, especially the young and the elderly, will be put off by the likely £200 initial cost of the equipment, which can also be dashboard-mounted.

An AA spokesman said last night: 'Some people will be concerned about having technology which tracks where they are and where they are going'.

The civil rights group Liberty said there would be 'concerns' if information was handed out to third parties. A spokesman added: 'Everything has to be done under the Data Protection Act and used only for the matter specified.'

Paul Smith, of the road safety lobby group M4 Protest said: 'I am certainly worried about the civil liberties aspects. We don't want the police being able to take these boxes and use the data for other purposes.'

Despite the doubts, the initiative by Norwich Union, Britain's biggest car insurer, is likely to force its rivals to follow suit. It will be the most dramatic change in the industry since the launch of Direct Line in 1985, which cut out the middleman and forced down premiums.

Insurance companies have already started to launch more personal products, which can be cheaper than standard deals.

A spokesman for Sheilas' Wheels, which sells women-only insurance, said: 'For too long, motor insurers have paid too little attention to exactly who is behind the wheel, the cars they drive or the journeys they make. With tailored policies, consumers really are in the driving seat.'

But pay-as-you-drive will not suit everyone. High-mileage motorists will still get a better deal from an annual policy.

Switching to pay-as-you-drive has already saved Matthew Smith around £1,000. The 18-year-old passed his test in February, but found a fully comprehensive policy cost £2,000.

Matthew, a health care assistant at Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire, switched to pay-as-you-drive and now pays only some £20 mileage a month, plus a £60 fixed charge. It is less than half his old bill.

He said last night: 'Having my journeys logged doesn't bother me. What matters is the extra financial freedom.'

2006-04-20T09:13:00.000+01:00

M11 FIASCO.

Did you get caught up in the M11 fiasco on Saturday 25th February? I was lucky as I heard it on the radio and so went throught the back doubles to get past the problem, but many did not.
As is the case with all Motorways, the M11 is managed by the Highways Authority, and did you know that there are no cameras on the M11 and no information boards toboot.
The excuse is that no-one knew to what the extent of shutting the motorway down would mean in chaos and the "authorities" needed time to evaluate the problem that may be caused. What a load of old bullshit!!!!!
Add the problem of the traffic lights at junctions 7 and 8 were still giving priority over the traffic wanting to get ON the motorway it seems that good old GB still have too many jobsworths who hasn't the faintest idea what to do for the best.
It really isn't rocket science to figure that one out as a 5 year old could have seen that one through.
We are now in the blame game after the event and the faceless wonders are now saying it MUST NOT HAPPEN AGAIN. How superbly ironic. These are the same idiots who said a few years ago that it must not happen again after the M11 was closed due to snow a few years ago.
FOOTNOTE.
The electronic information boards in Ipswich, yes Ipswich were telling drivers about the M11 closure. That is about 70 or so miles away.
Have a moan and e mail the Highways Authority, I have!

2006-02-24T21:16:00.000Z

BEWARE OF GARAGES WITH COMPUTERS.

Here’s a thought. Has anyone out there been dissatisfied with their car after a garage has serviced it? If it has been to a garage with the ability to interrogate your car’s computer, then this is a scam worth looking into.

You take your car in for a, say, 12000 mile service and leave it with them while you toddle of to the shops or work. The garage plugs in their computer and it tells them what needs changing or fixing etc etc.

You come back and they hand you a bill for, Oil, filters, spark plugs, a couple of sensors, fluid changes and so on. The cost is about £180. You wince, pay up and drive off knowing that the car is in tip-top condition, and above all safe. Wrong. Let me explain, as it is quite simple.

You think all the plugs have been changed as per the schedule. No, no, no!

If the computer says that Number 2 plug needs changing, then only that one is changed. If the computer says that the oil is still good, then that is left in the engine. In other words, you have paid for a full set of plugs but only received one, an oil change but no oil and filter and so on.

Therefore, you have paid for all these things to be done as per the car’s schedule but have not received them!!!!

Add to the average hourly rate, then the garage is on a good earner. Makes solicitors rates look peanuts now doesn’t it?

Please beware of garages with computers who use them as a chief mechanic as it could easily happen to you.