Car returned today, everything works fine. Clutch feels a *lot* lighter (which suggests it's been this way for quite a while) now.

Glad to have my car back, although my wallet now hurts, quite a lot...

225/45/18 Ultrac Sessanta's (x2) - £110

Tyres on the back have a slow puncture, and for £110 (Camskill want £126 each!) I couldn't say no.

Quote from Klutch :

sigh

.......

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

Also a question related to the people in the UK more than anything; when I took the contract out I was told I wasn't allowed to cancel it within 14 days :| Can they enforce this?

You have no right to a cancel a contract if you signed up in store by law, although *some* networks give it to you.

Quote from Forbin :

Do we get to say "told ya so?" Or rather, we told your dad so.

All that hesitation for a week. You could have had your car back by now.

True, but I really wasn't expecting it to be the DMF.

Quote from Luke.S :

so how much are they going to knock off for damaging the front of your car?

Or if they offer to repair it make sure they do a proper job of repairing it and respraying it rather than touching it up.

I haven't discussed it yet, going to wait until they no longer need to work on the car before going mental.

I'm not going to get the bumper repaired, nor would they have the facilities to do so. I'll just be looking for straight £

Been to the garage today and had a look. Definately DMF failure - 100% free play in it, lots of hot spots on the plate.

Total bill - £1,379 which includes a new DMF, clutch, master, slave & labour. Ouch.

Took a few pictures:















And the damage to the bumper:

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

That is why garages have insurance, if they did a pre-pickup check to show there was no damage (which you signed) and then a post-pickup check to show there was damage (which you signed) then they will foot the bill for repairs.

There were no sheets etc, it's a small local garage.

Update - they've had a look, and believe it to be the DMF and want £1200 to repair it.

I'm slightly suspicious they've had the car for 2 hours (not enough time to remove it) yet have diagnosed the most expensive repair possible.

Talking to them via my Dad atm which isn't helping (he advised me to go to this garage in the first place, despite past experiences).

We've agreed they are going to drop the gearbox and have a closer look, then order the parts required, once we've had a look at the DMF / clutch.

I'm not feeling good about this, at all, but I feel like I have no choice

Good news - garage picked my car up for further diagnosis.

Bad news - in the process of picking it up, they managed to put a massive scratch on the bottom and front of the bumper, and seem to of cracked it a little as well. Not happy.

None of this makes any sense.

Anyone who steals a car with any real value never takes it for a joyride... it either gets parked up (to see if it's got a tracker) or put in a container (to fool said tracker and wait until nobodys looking for it). A car like that is going to stick out like a sore thumb, especially as it has no plates which will immediately get a reaction from any ANPR-equipped car.

These guys can't be opportunists if the car wasn't in a running condition, and the UK is not the place where you can just pay your way out of anything.

Secondly, apparently the car only has a 20L fuel tank. No petrol station in the UK will let a car fill without a number plate, and while it is possible to pull over and refuel from a can... whats the point? I doubt they stole it while they had the fuel with them, so there'd probably be a car travelling on convoy. In which case... why not just tow the thing?

Also... what real value does this car even have? Some parts (body kit, some engine parts) could probably have some resale value in a far away market, but it'd be harsh to shift all the parts being custom etc. Much easier to steal a BMW or something and ship it off to Eastern Europe...

Lastly... they did at least strip it partially which suggests that they had some plan (rather than just joyride), but all the seem to of taken off are the lights and wing? Neither parts are really worth anything - stolen BMW / Mercs get stripped down to the shell that night, so by the next morning they've got nothing but the cube of the shell weighed in for scrap and a load of parts going out... I can't believe someone who put in this much effort would do nothing of any real damage to the car.

I can't help but think this is all some elaborate stunt...

I find it beyond ridiculous that the car is on the road. Nobody is stupid enough to drive a car with no numberplate on the ****ing M25, let alone one that sticks out like nothing else.

I wonder if theres something else going on...

(but I could totally understand if it was stolen to order, with various parts turning up on eBay and the engine / shell appearing sans serial numbers).

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

Especially the vented type. They look good on almost any car though, so when someone is breaking a Laguna that is always the first thing up for sale.

Personally I prefer the "Cupra" splitter, was tempted at £20 but SEAT have now jacked the price to £40... :/

I wonder what effect adding a 7L engine has on Mr Chapmans motto of "adding lightness"

Perhaps I was a bit over-zealous there...

Jacked it up, the wheel gets progressive easier to turn the higher gear I select. It also spins easier with the clutch in. This suggests that at the very least something is going on down there.

My Dad's new helpful suggestion... "inertia flywheel" whatever that is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... p;feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ... SkiYIQ&feature=relmfu

Best bit... the passengers face!

EDIT - same guy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYUlNXwJ8fY

Last edited by Jakg, Fri, 10 Jun 2011 14:37.

My Dad found that the master cylinder was under the battery box and some clip might of come out so he asked me to remove the battery box so we could look.

He had a reach inside and appears to of found the gear selector cables - and it doesn't seem like it's engaging any gear properly. Could this be the problem?

Sorry for not replying to half the posts - I'm still getting the hang of car mechanics (before I bought the ZT i'd never even changed a headlight bulb before!), and I've been having my Uni exams. Next week me and my Dad can crack through all the suggestions and have a look.

PC spec? Could it not be your PC takes a little while to load the extra player / car / model?

Quote from ColeusRattus :

It's actually quite easy to prevent, as it's listed in the market which services the app needs access to. If you think that those permissions don't go along wih what an app does, then don't download.

Unfortunately that doesn't really work - most apps need far FAR more permissions than they should because of the crap thats bundled with them and sloppy coding.

I would much rather a checkbox for each permission (even if it could break the app)

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

Of course under XP, if you still prefer to run it (like me) then you will only get 3.5GB RAM due to the unique way in which Microsoft works. Good times.

It's nothing to do with Microsoft, it's memory reserved for IRQ space iirc.

Gearbox oil changed at 92k (manufacturer recommends every 90k), 11k ago.

My Dad's had another suggestion... I always park in gear, and so it's been pretty much permanently in gear for the last year and a bit. She's never laid up much (being my daily drive and all) but my Dad mentioned that I might of damaged the idlers (or something like that).

He's also had a look at the driveshafts and declared them working fine.

Suggestions?

Quote from S14 DRIFT :

What carrier are you with brother?

O2, although if it was the iPhone I was after i'd be with Three.

EDIT - I say that because O2's 3G coverage is virtually non-existant in Suffolk, and a fair amount of Norfolk as well.

From a while back:

Quote from mrodgers :

Prepaid!

The UK has one of the cheapest phone markets in the world. I pay £35pm for an iPhone 4 (which was £40 upfront) with 1200 mins / unlimited texts / 750MB data for 18 months.

I'm guessing a similar plan in the US would be ~$70+ and even then it would have lower limits.

Quote from Bose321 :

Apple whore saying iOS is the best mobile OS out there. herp derp

Also, on what do you base your statement?

iOS being the "best" is a matter of opinion, but out of all the mobile OS' out there I don't think you'd find anyone who wouldn't put it in the top 2.

Quote from logitekg25 :

theh bangs you hear, may be the gears on the diff shearing, and finally they just let go?

They went on for quite a while, and was a clattering rather than a "bang".

I also then drove 35 miles home without issue, then another 2 miles before it went.