Jump to content

Cars I (you) have owned, and thoughts thereon:-


powerdesal
 Share

Recommended Posts

Most modern engines are controlled by an ECU (electronic control unit, computer).  This controls the amount of fuel put in, when it's put in and on a petrol engine, when the ignition lights it up, amongst other things.  On a diesel it controls the amount of fuel and when it's injected, amongst other things.

These parameters are pre-programmed into the computers memory.  When you have a remap done this information is changed.  On a diesel they tend to inject more fuel, this results in a slightly smokier engine when being driven hard but gives you a significant amount more power.  This is the bit I was always very sceptical about, and to be honest I still don't believe it or understand it.  If you put more fuel in how can it make the car more economical?  All I know is the two vehicles I have had remapped have used 20% less fuel (measured over tens of thousand miles in my old company van and my current shed) and both have been significantly faster.  My old Peugeot Expert had 15mph added to it's top speed and needed less gear changes to keep it going up hills etc.  My Corsa's remap paid for it's self within a month or two.  A friend of mine had his Golf remapped and the thing was a monster and still returned 42mpg being driven like it had been stolen.

If you abuse the extra power you will loose the saving but get there quicker[6]

Hope this helps

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 54
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Here goes;

Baby Austin A35 (bought

for £30.00 and sold £27.50 (reg FAG 896 )

Morris Minor 1000( paid

£50.00)

Razor edge Triumph

Mayflower( bought as a project /dream on!)

Singer Chamois (Bought

while in Jersey ( reg J 1672)

Zodiac Excecutive

Automatic

Riley RME paid £15

sold £45

Mini Countryman

VW Beetle 9 (reg DLL I4

)

Rover 3500

MG Midget (kept it for

two years and sold it for £50.00 profit)

Fiat 127

Audi 100

Daimler Sovereign

BMW 525

Plymouth Gran Fury

station wagon( used it as a container to bring our goods and chattels

back from Canada!)

Volvo estate ( drove

for two years with no MOT) oops!

Honda accord

Vauxhall Carlton estate

Jaguar 3.2

and for the last 6

years

E class Mercedes 220cdi

,currently.

My brain is knackered

after remembering/typing all the above.

PS. also owned a Harry

Ferguson tractor!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have owned, albeit briefly far to many cars to list, between the ages of 17 and my early 20's I used to buy MOT failures, repair them, mainly welding, smoke them around for anything from a few days to a few weeks and then sell them on, I used to shift a couple every month.

I will only recount a few of the more memorable ones.

A 2cv that I bought for a tenner from Shoreham lighthouse car auction, the only reason being that we had not bought what we were hoping and needed wheels to get home, we had such a laugh in it on the way back stopping at several pubs on the way that we started to make plans for it, we decided on a budget of £3, all that we had between us after the beer, it was the time of the Dukes of Hazzard so we decided to create a homage to the General Lee and hence the General Disaster was born of our drunken imaginations.

I welded the doors shut (they kept flapping open anyway), my pal went and swiped a couple of litres of orange paint from his firm, another whipped some castors off of a crate trolley which I welded onto the roof gutters, a quick blowover and some handpainted graphics and she was ready for competition.

We adjourned to our favorite roundbout and set about seeing who could get the fastest lap or who tip her onto the castors first, I would never have believed how far a car could lean without actually falling over, I swear that I scraped the door handles first, happy days without too much traffic on the roads when we wanted to hoon around.

Many years later I had the pleasure of pilotting another 2CV in the 24 hour race at Snetterton so my mis-spent youth served some purpose.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Crossy wrote:

''JK have you thought about getting your Touran remapped? My Corsa has been and I now get 61mpg instead of 50mpg and it goes like stink. Okay, if you use the extra power it's a bit thirstier but driving gently it's a huge improvement. The next car I get will be another diesel and it will get a remap.''

2 reasons at the moment:

a. It would invalidate the warranty

b. Don't know where to get it done properly!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The first car I bought the wifelet was a Diane. You just had to learn to keep speed up or you needed a clock to time the 0-60mph. We used to go to Wales for the weekend and the only way to overtake on backroads was to overtake into bends on the brakes, to some strange looks.

I got it up to 90mph once with 5 people and a dog in it.

With the wifelet driving and a younger bro and I standing watching the stars out of the full length roof on the way back after 10 pints of ESB was life enhancing - tho later my bro pebble dashed his bedroom wall but the springer spaniel cleaned it up to nearly six feet. Happy days.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sorry Chancer set me off on 603cc Citroen twins.

I had meant to post about the XR2i when they first came out. We picked it up after it's first service and on the twisty road back home came upon a 911 driving at some speed.

He was obviously a bit hesitant or didn't know the road so I overtook him.

He had far more power but I could leave him around the bends. He just stayed right behind. There was a steep up hill short straight and I just knew he was going to do me up the hill.

I gave it the full nads - it was one of the moments when the wifelet uses unladylike language and tells me I have done it again - as a pungent steam enveloped the car inside and out in a great cloud of steam.

I couldn't see a thing and the Porche flew buy.

Had to get a breakdown vehicle out and take it back to the Ford garage. Two months old and it had blown a core plug and dumped the coolant all over the exhaust manifold.

Never mind all fixed under warranty. I bet the 911 owner had a laugh at my expense.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looking back through the thread, it is interesting to see the number of A35s.

My father had an A35 van when we were kids - 6 of us plus parents! Mum and Dad in front with baby sister; 3 lads on "back" seat; me and my younger brother in the tiny space between back seat and rear door. How we all got in there and why the rear door didn't burst open under the pressure is now a mystery.

No side windows so the only ventilation was a little tin flap in the roof. It was like the Black Hole of Calcutta by the time we reached a holiday destination. To make matters worse, I sufferred with terrible car sickness for years so one brother was instructed to watch me at all times so that Dad could pull in quickly and yank me out of the back door before I threw up over the lot of them.

As brothers got older and eldest gained his own transport, my growing little sister joined younger brother in the back space and I was elevated to the middle seat. Which was even more airless and almost impossible to escape from before stomach contents revealed themselves.

Happy days!

Later, a friend of mine had a similar A35 van but with a highly uprated engine and various other mods. It went like stink. Stopping it was something of a problem, though.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My parents were given by my grandfather his pre war Morris 8 series E tourer, my place was the dickie seat above the rear bumper amongst all the sundry baggage for our family holidays, if it rained my parents and elder sisters could put the roof up and keep dry, I had no such luck, probably why I like the great outdoors so much.

Now I am no stranger to minimilist vehicles having built and raced many Se7ens and replicas but when I first saw a Morris 8 series E tourer in the flesh I was gobsmacked by how small it was, if someone from my generation cannot believe how small it is then the current generation of families would never believe it was possible for a family of 5 to go in holiday in one.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I forgot the Imps - or rather Singer Chamois. We had several in the family, from the standard "shammy" to my eldest brother's Sunbeam Sport, a sort of Ghia version.

They were great to drive, although we had to weigh down the boots (at the front) to keep the front wheels in contact with the road at speed. Amazingly flexible engines and gearboxes compared with other cars at the time.

My brother was one of the first mechanics to be trained on the Imps by Rootes and was a real specialist. We had people turning up from all over the place so that he could set their engines up, selecting from rows of shims to adjust the valve clearances. He could take an engine out in no time, dropping it onto a large block and simply pushing the car out of the way.

Unfortunately, many owners - and garages - did not treat the alloyed engines with the respect they required and the cars unfairly got a bad name for reliability, warped heads, etc. We never had a problem with any of ours.

Up to then, I had been driving a Hillman Minx with no synchro on first. The difference was demonstated to me by my cousin who had passed her test but was still nervous about driving her Imp unaccompanied. After the first crossroads, she pulled off in first, accelerated hard in second and managed to slot it straight back into first at God knows what speed without any problem - for the car at least. When she lifted the clutch, it was like slamming on the brakes and I as passenger rammed my head on the windscreen (no seat belts fitted, of course). Not long after, unaccompanied, she wrote it off by driving into a parked vehicle, because a car was coming the other way and she saw another one coming up behind her in the mirror. It apparently didn't occur to her to brake. I think the driving test examiner must have had an off day when he gave that pass, or perhaps he didn't want to risk sitting next to her again. Lovely girl, though.

Another local female (sorry ladies) had a bit of a disaster with an Imp at a garage/petrol station in Malvern. She had been told that the filler cap was in the boot and opened the engine cover at the rear. I can't recall which cap she mistook for the petrol filler but, wherever it was that she tried to squirt in the petrol, it quickly blew back over the hot engine, setting fire to the car.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@ AZ

Having previously had a twin cam MGA the OHC on an imp with alloy head was fairly familiar, only problem was bleeding the heating system due to the height of the heat exchanger in the dash. It replaced an old VW beetle without synchro which I had bought in a bar under the Plaza Mayor, Madrid, from an american one evening. Discarded in late 60s cos the police at a foot &mouth barrier at the scotch border had asked nasty questions about import duty, it had dutch plates. But back to the imp, in I think 1974 when working at the Kalengwa Mine in Zambia I was introduced to a Coventry Climax water pump, to my surprise it looked like half a Hillman Imp engine. A good little engine for a pump an imp and indeed a lot of lotuses.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUHmvrk_R5w&NR=1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Among my favourite cars in the past was my Triumph Herald. Two tone light blue and with a sunroof. Great little runner. Only problem was that it had a reserve petrol tank, and for some reason, I was forever running out of petrol because I'd not turned the reserve tank on. Looking back, I probably never filled up the tank due to lack of funds, so hadn't a clue how how many mpg she did.

I actually had tears in my eyes when she went off to the Scrappie. They don't make them with that kudos any more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="powerdesal"]I found a recent thread about motorbikes on the same theme, Coops suggested a 4 wheel version, as she needs cheering up (I suspect), here is a topic................[/quote][:)]

Since Frecossais posted in the night it's meant I've spotted this great thread.  Thanks Steve.

I have a pass out today but will begin my trip down the 40-odd car memory lane when I get back.[:-))]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Frecossais, that was my first car (sorry, repeating myself as I'd already told you all that earlier on) and I loved it.  Mine was two-tone black and cream.

Didn't you love the way you could turn it all the way around in the tightest of turning circles?

My mistake was to take it down to Devon and Cornwall and, with suitcases and boyfriend in tow (or was it first husband in tow, I forget), it would only chugg reluctantly up the hills.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

on a rainy day back in blightly with no oak reconstruction to consume my time I have time to reminisce, hope you don't think this is gonna be brief . . .

Austin Ruby, my first car, a lovely stately old lady with big ends knocking, the only place we had to work on it was the scout hut field, and a friend helped me strip the engine, that's when I learn't white metal bearings are time consuming, by the time we got the engine back the car had been trashed by the local hooligans.
Then NSU quickly (not, where did they get that name from?), BSA c15, oily, felt it was never gonna stop, Mod Lambretta great fun, if you got down below the flyscreen you could hit nearly 65mph. Got fed up falling off and wet so test drove a TR2 but ended up with a Rover 90 HMV valve radio and leather seats, great passion wagon! swapped that for an Austin 7 countryman tuned by twin carbs, polishing the head, ports and butterflies [:)], swapped that for a frogeye, several in fact, bought and sold half a dozen, got into hill climbing and sprints, still got the last one I built with a  peter may engine  After that of course the only way was a healey 3000 and at the time I was working for a classic car specialist so bought and sold acres of the best stuff for what is laughably no money now, drivers included loads of Astons 4, 5, 6's, (agricultural g/box and awkward round town) Healeys, (hairy) Porsche (irritating dogleg box and dodgy in the wet, I'll never forget discovering in the first 1.6 911 the front bumper was loaded with lead to help its balance[:-))]), the worst drive must have been a VW beach buggy looked so cool but was evil, like a 3 litre Capri, now that was dangerous in the wet; and a Muira (Sounded and looked trif but didn't run properly and could never get the twin dizzies sorted) my personal fav was a  lagonda rapide real grace & space with brio, only regret was turning down an Aston Martin DB2/4 for £600[:-))] but did buy my Healey 100/4 for £100 as a basket case, bit like [quote user="powerdesal"]  MG TC (1947 model), a year to rebuild from multiple cardboard boxes, great fun, lack of sidescreens created weather ''issues'' whilst driving in the rain. [/quote] these pics are almost the spit of my car which I kept for 30yrs ultimately swapped for a Stag and dosh to fix the barn. (err, wife's choice, comfortable and I still have it, maybe one day I'll do the BMW 4.0 conversion, c'mon loto)  Things had to get sensible for the family so swapped a 3000 for bog standard escort which was unbelievably underpowered so swapped that for Cortina Mk1 1500, then a GT like this one in Alan Mann colours so brilliant I swapped  for a Lotus Cortina with real minilites, exciting to drive but discovered Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious spells LOTUS! caught fire three times (one no airbox, twice wiring, third time I stood with the fire extinguisher for about a minute before deciding to flip the battery switch and put it out, sold it just before prices rocketed, LMK 395C where are you? Triumph Herald in a silly deal next, sorry F 'n Sweet it was only made better by a couple of Vitesses that followed. [:'(] so MGB, more fun, had several and still got the family GT which my wife used as her daily runround til a few years ago (and no1 son has tested to destruction in several ways, but never succeeded, always planned to convert to V8 but probably never will) A range of company cars from Montego (Jeez sus) to Sierra (faultless ford) to Golf Gti (put me off VW after it blew up with a manufacturing fault just after warranty expired) then probably the best ever company car (my company!) cosworth sapphire just did everything a driver asked, like a rocket sled on rails, went round corners, stopped and handled like a dream whether wife down to shops, repping around or a weekend thrash to Cornwall; unfortunately every villain around wanted it for nothing, stolen three times, and written off in a PO raid. the Scorpio and Saab that followed were just mundane, the BMW1.8 baleful. Retirement followed and a diesel Jeep Cherokee, probably the worst truck I've ever owned, got rid and Merc estates up next, a W123 one family owned and still lovely convinced me everyone should have one, after a new MOT I loaded it with an Oak staircase on the roof and a variety of other stuff and cruised down on the Motorway with 24mpg to bring down to our house here, magic, so e-bayed it for a lot more than was decent and spent it on a W124estate and did Tuscany for a couple of weeks when the tunnel was closed, up over the  St. Gotthard Pass it was great but juicy so traded for a W124/230 which I still have. I may have forgotten a few (need to know basis) and haven't mentioned the Bedford (still have the plate), Toyota, Peugeot, and Renault Vans, or the fun shopping cars like the A40 with sprite engine, Peugeot XS, MG metro etc or the 150brake Vectra estate (fun in a straight line but faulty), but if you're still with me then that should have taken up a bit of your day Coops[:D]

[quote user="Frecossais"] Only problem was that it had a reserve petrol tank, and for some reason, I was forever running out of petrol because I'd not turned the reserve tank on. Looking back, I probably never filled up the tank due to lack of funds, so hadn't a clue how how many mpg she did.[/quote]

If memory serves me the idea was that you didn't turn on the reserve until you had run out of petrol, then flipped the lever to bring the reserve thereby informing you of the need to refil, how erm convenient [8-)]

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="just john "]

[quote user="Frecossais"] Only problem was that it had a reserve petrol tank, and for some reason, I was forever running out of petrol because I'd not turned the reserve tank on. Looking back, I probably never filled up the tank due to lack of funds, so hadn't a clue how how many mpg she did.[/quote]

If memory serves me the idea was that you didn't turn on the reserve until you had run out of petrol, then flipped the lever to bring the reserve thereby informing you of the need to refil, how erm convenient [8-)]

 

 

[/quote]The reserve worked by moving the outlet pipe in the petrol tank into the deeper area where sediment could collect. It did give you a few more miles to find a filling station. Problem was that people often forgot to switch the lever back when they  refilled so there was no reserve the next time they needed it.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

[quote user="Rabbie"][quote user="just john "] [quote user="Frecossais"] Only problem was that it had a reserve petrol tank, and for some reason, I was forever running out of petrol because I'd not turned the reserve tank on. Looking back, I probably never filled up the tank due to lack of funds, so hadn't a clue how how many mpg she did.[/quote]

If memory serves me the idea was that you didn't turn on the reserve until you had run out of petrol, then flipped the lever to bring the reserve thereby informing you of the need to refil, how erm convenient [8-)]
[/quote]The reserve worked by moving the outlet pipe in the petrol tank into the deeper area where sediment could collect. It did give you a few more miles to find a filling station. Problem was that people often forgot to switch the lever back when they  refilled so there was no reserve the next time they needed it.[/quote]

Indeed, though I omitted that the key problem was that you needed to get out of the car, and open the boot to reach the lever,[8-)]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh,  Steve, you are going to regret this!

My Life in Cars part 1 (well, if I'd counted my parents' cars I guess it would be Part rather more than that but I might be going home within a few days so I'll start with ours for the sake of everybody's sanity.) 1972 to 1980

 

1969 Escort 1300 GT

The car my o/h had when I met him.  I was 18 at the time so a bloke with any car was a bit of a bonus, let alone  - by the standards of the day and the nature of the finances - a sporty saloon, so he was off to a good start.  It had been slightly modified and was thus a bit pokier than the insurance man at the time probably knew [:$].  Mr C had a flat in Croydon - to which I later moved- and I worked in Dorking.  We used to time the runs between the two places and it did pretty darned well on some occasions.

The poor old girl was never the same after a fuel pipe leaked and started a fire under the bonnet.  We hung on to the Eggbox for a couple of years after we got the next beast but never really had the money to return her to her pristine state.  Pity really.

Still, as a lure for unsuspecting women, clearly it worked.

Oh, and I think that maybe I lost something in the back seat.....[Www]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you to SW17 for your story about your Triumph Herald, and to the technical experts about reserve petrol tanks. Not being very technical myself, I'm with Henry Ford on the subject of cars: "Any colour as long as it's black" .......................or white  or red  or blue or silver, (but never white). In other words, colour matters!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So Mrs C, i think I guess what you lost.....

- the first we had was a PA Cresta! After that was a bright orange Mk 01 Capri - the original one with fins - even my brother had one - the front windows wound down, taking the central pillar with it, so when the rear windows were wound down made a sort of hard top - my brother's version had a sun roof which was canvas and when open from the front windscreen, made the car a real convertible.

Then there was the original mini FAH708C, (nearly nicked from Southfields).

Then the white Mk1 Escort 2 door (nicked from Gipsy Hill & never seen again).

Then the 2-door Morris Marina hatchback, followed by the bright lime green VW Golf GTi.

Bearing in mind I was writing and test-driving cars at this time for the newspaper i was writing for - doing JC's job before him (and I ride motorbikes). Drove everything from the James Bond Lotus to a Testarossa to a Saab and even a Skoda Fabia!!!

Beware ol little old grey-haired ladies - they've had a past!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not truly a petrol head, as to me cars are boxes on 4 wheels helping me to get from one place to the next,  but here goes for my life in cars :

When I was about 5 I think, my father bought his first ever car : a second hand Citroën 2CV in a sort of dirty dull green colour. By 'eck we were grand people on the estate! In those days not many living in a Z.U.P. could afford a 2nd hand car, never mind a new one. We could now go on Sunday outings and go for picnics. I remember my parents taking all the seats out and us the kids using that empty hull of a car as our den. Fantastic memories ! That car stayed with us for a good 10 years.

Then he bought a Citroën Ami 8. I was all grown up by then and I thought that car was the most uncool car ever ... He then put that to the big car heaven somewhere and got a Citroën Pallas, then a Citroën Saxo and now I think he has a newer version of that Citroën Saxo. The bloke should be used as advertising material for Citroën. A car was not a car if it was not a Citroën !

Anyhow I left home and came over to UK, the home of the Mini! I had a fascination with them Minis. The only car I truly yearned for. Criteria number ONE for selecting boyfriends. Indeed I ended up marrying one of them. He had a Mini Clubman. The room in the back [;-)]

Sadly that Mini had a sorry end and because I was in the puddin' club we needed a roomier car so arrives a Renault 12, which didn't last very long as it was a sieve for all the rust on the body. That got replace by an airportable ex-army Land Rover. Gawd !! if there ever was a tank to drive, that was one. I did like it at the beginning but when I got int'puddin' club again, I refused to drive it. 

So various cars followed : A Volvo hatchback, a Montego estate (what a piece of carp that was !!), a Mercedes Station wagon,  a Peugeot 505-7 seater estate, a Volvo Estate, a Ford Ranger pick-up. The kids shared a Nissan Micra which ended up being stolen and taken for a joy ride in Manchester. All these cars were 2nd hand (one was 4th) and truly driven until they expired and went to the scrap yard. That Nissan got replaced by a Renault Clio. I sold that and got a Peugeot 308 which duly I wrote off thinking I was Sonja Henie [:$] during that very bad snowy winter in UK some 18 month or so ago.

Now got a Peugeot 207 and it takes me anywhere I want and will have to suffice to the end. Still dreaming about getting a Mini. The new ones seem quite some fun... Maybe one day when I win the lottery.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share


×
×
  • Create New...