Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

Good for him. Fucking Yanks, buying things then ruining them.

My Dad was a development engineer for AP for years, mostly brakes then moved over to clutches in his last few years before retirement. So he might have 'developed' that (often testing to destruction by having someone else* drive it down the Grossglockner then fixing/improving it with what they'd learnt).

Is that on the Volvo? That just reminded me that while he was testing on the Stelvio once the Volvo gang were also there and one of their cars went over the edge on a bend. Luckily they were all fine, no doubt due to being in a Volvo.

*He's scared of heights.

AP (fronts) on the Volvo, it's a kit specially developed for the 850, sadly they didn't make rear units so those are still the stock Volvo units, which are a bit rubbish. If your father can recommend something from the AP catalogue that could work in this application I would be all ears.

Hnnnnng

Hnnnnng

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One of the late ones. There's one on feepay at the minute for 15k. That's tr6 money

Is the interior meant to look like that?

Go to screwfix and buy a gallon of 'heavy duty degreaser', its about £7 and its the tits*

*for something that be used in the great outdoors on cars and such without killing all the ecology downstream of you, and not cost a huge amount/actually works. Its the concentrate that muc off/sh1t shifter is made from (loosely speaking). I wouldn't leave it neat on any finished surfaces for a long period of time, but for cleaning gunked up stuff its very good.
I use it in a plant pot spraying thing (you pressurize it, then squirt it out), low pressure spray over, leave to soak + agitate then high pressure shift it. Immediately rinse with a spray of water and does a good job without leaving residue.

Took the A272 to my parents this morning, tremendous fun stretching it to 7,000rpm in second as the road opens, then matching the revs back down from fourth/third/second into the start of each turn. Having the roof down means you can hear the flat six barking and howling, much fun.

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Sweet, I'll track some down and give it a go.

It's probably a good time to scratch the itch. Like everything else, good ones are only going to go up in value. Are you thinking of an S4 or one of the other models?

If I wanted to move the 850R to agreed value insurance how would I get it valued?

Depends on the insurer. Most will ask for some photos and just agree from that. Some want a letter from an owner's club or specialist dealer.

Hmm, the VOC eh?

Yeah been here 22 years :)

Boring car advice please:

Mrs Hotdog is learning to drive and with her test looming, we're buying a car for her to practice in.

I think we've narrowed it down to an 07 onwards Skoda Fabia (probably the 1.6) and was wondering who has experience of these and what type of things we should be looking for when viewing?

Thanks.

S4, yeah.

Although, it isn't going to happen- I now have another sports car in the Scuderia Fredo garages!!!

Stay tuned.

My '06 Focus ST is squealing. I do not care for this.

It's relatively faint, and really occasional and unpredictable (a couple of times a week for 20 seconds or so). I've only heard it at low speeds (it's too faint to hear at higher speeds / revs) and disappears when the clutch is pushed in - even just a little bit, not fully. It'll do it when idling or moving.

The internet suggests a clutch release bearing could be the issue. Does this sound likely (72k miles)? And more importantly given the sound is intermittent and that I can't replicate it reliably, I don't want to just hand the care over to a garage and say 'it's making a noise sometimes'. Is there anything else I can look for / log over the next couple of weeks to make the diagnosis more reliable.

Not to my knowledge, I'll check the history but I think not (I believe it's just followed the standard service routines).

Would that be a bigger job than the bearing (if it turned out to be that), or one of those that you'd do at the same time?

2 spoilas yo. The window cleaner look. 😎

No idea why I hit reply btw.

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On old rwd volvos you can get a bit of oil on the clutch release bearing, and if this temporarily stops the noise you know it's the problem. Mines been whining for at least 12 months...

Ok - thanks. That's very useful - I'll investigate this. If its at all possible...I'd really like to get the problem more thoroughly diagnosed before anyone touches it and this could answer that...

If the CRB is playing up its part of the clutch kit so you'll do the whole lot together as its pointless spend a shit load of money to replace a £30 part then 3 months later spending another shit load of money replacing the clutch.

Thanks for this also. If this is the cause, I'll have to decide how serious I am about remapping it to decide whether upgrade to the RS clutch.

To access the CRB you basically have to take the clutch out is the point.

You shouldn't put it off. A failure of the CRB can cause all kinds of damage. Flywheel etc... At least that's my understanding

Looks amazing, very Imp like.

What is it? How much are they worth?