2 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

Post time of 11.51pm...I reckon most FOC members were in bed!

But Not Uno(who) !

1 hour ago, Ponch said:

Litres are a volume unit (1/1000 m^3), it's equivalent to a 10cm (3.94") cube. A centimeter is about the width of an USB A connector.

Grams are a mass unit (that 1 Litre of water weights 1 kilogram ...under Earth's surface gravity, at 4°C (~39°F)).

So 1 gram is about the weight of a 0.4" cube of water (1mL water or 1cm cube).

The units on the "Solution" picture above indicate a concentration of 100mg / 100mL. That's 0.1 gram (of the active product) per 0.1L, thus per 10 of those 0.4 inches cubes of liquid. ((( Cube root of 40 gives a ~1.6 inches cube))).

Thanks, but the answer was already provided.  Litres use a capital L because a small l can be confused with other letters & numbers in written English.

VW won a few points back today when I found out they label everything with a part number.

And then a few bonus points when I realised that both fuel filter and air filter only require a T20 torx driver to replace.

 

Difficult to make out on the picture but it looks like there is a gap under the lid at the front edge.  And a reasonable puddle on the floor even after all the rain yesterday.

Turns out that front left screw was loose, not even finger tight!  Guess it must have vibrated loose over time.  Doubt the filter has ever been replaced and guess these housings are bought in from UFI without screw torque bring checked on the production line.  I have nipped it up and attempted a clean, but looked like it was still weeping afterwards.  Now not sure whether to try a new filter (with integrated top seal) and then tighten all screws evenly...or whether to just replace the complete housing.

As an aside, I also checked the pollen filter, which is grim as expected, and may also never have been replaced.  (PS - Note the German fuse next to it, marked DE. ).

No, it is a fuse from the Southern Hemisphere!

On 9/14/2025 at 11:51 PM, unofix said:

The world population is more than 8.142 billion (2024)

Well further to last night's post, just now we have a grand total of 4 online members (that includes me) !!

All that screen time must be keeping you awake !

1 hour ago, Paulkp said:

All that screen time must be keeping you awake !

I just don't do early mornings 🤣

There was some old fool messing about for ages in Tescos filling station this morning, trying to figure out how to get the filler cap off.

What I don't like is that it was me!

I was filling up my wife's car for the first time in ages, and being accustomed to "Easyfuel" had forgotten which way to turn the key in the locking filler cap on her car!😀

On our Vitara there's a fuel flap release lever in front of the driver's seat runner, just like the one on the Rover 600 we owned (which was a re-badged Honda). It's taken me a long time to remember to pull the release before walking round the car (the filler is on the passenger side) because I was so used to Easyfuel.

20 minutes ago, mjt said:

just like the one on the Rover 600 we owned (which was a re-badged Honda). 

That was my last "British" car in 1997 (620SLDi). Clutch failed on day of delivery. The day after I got it back from repair the electrics were dead. The terminals on the (unsecured) battery had not been tightened!

Ours was the 2.0L petrol 620SLi. Generally it was one of the better cars we've owned although going back through my records it did have a number of items needing repair in the six years we had it although nothing major or expensive. It must have been rear-ended in it's past life and the repair had been skimped because there were 8 trim retainers broken along the bottom of the rear window, allowing water into the boot, a bumper screw missing, some boot trim buttons missing and the RH rear wheelarch protector** missing.

It was finished in BRG and one of the things I particularly liked about it was the interior was beige. Not to everyone's taste I know but it made the interior much lighter and reminded me of my Mini 1000 which was also green with beige interior and is the only car I've ever had brand new.

Actually it turns out my memory is playing tricks with me. On consulting my records I find the release lever was for the boot, not the fuel flap (I found that because I'd recorded having to replace the bowden cable).

** on this car these protectors were just u-channel rubber strips that pushed over the edge of the arch.

21 minutes ago, mjt said:

On consulting my records I find the release lever was for the boot, not the fuel flap

Ah, I thought I didn't remember that! Didn't fill up as often as you, probably, being a diesel.

Once sorted, it was actually quite a nice car as you say, let down by sloppy QA/preparation. The car was delivered to my office by the leasing company while I was in a meeting, so the driver had cleared off by the time I picked up the keys. He must have known the clutch was dodgy, as it slipped all the way home and then failed completely in a very awkward place.

I wrote a little missive to the dealer principal at the dealership who had (allegedly) prepped the car and received a reply to the effect that "Rover quality is so good these days we don't do PDI"!!😠😠

 

 

Disclaimer! I am NOT a joiner/carpenter etc etc 

Neighbour is getting a bike shed built to keep her bike dry and safe during the winter months, absolutely no problem with that, even gives us a bit more privacy.

What I do have a problem with is, why did the joiner choose to use 2 bits of wood to make the back of the shed when, I'm quite positive, you could have used 1? 

 

Not only did it push my OCD up a wee bit seeing the joint, it went ballistic when I noticed that the horizontal join wasn't level!

 

I'm hoping he's coming back to finish off treating the joint strip and cutting off the excess wood on the sloping roof! 😀

Don't like a really irritating high pitched whistle coming from two different digital heater timers, both new this year.  Obviously need to be left on 24/7 for the timer function to work but they're far too intrusive for that. Is there any way of quietening them down?  Thinking about a small pad of adhesive sound deadening but not sure that'll be close enough to the noisy components to work?

Came home yesterday after a pleasant few days at the coast. My wife spotted a small damp patch on the bedroom carpet, looked up, and saw a drip from the ceiling. Oh dear!

Quick crawl in the loft suggested it was coming from the chimney area. Usually a nightmare finding someone to even have a look at things, but fortunately my new next door neighbour has a scaffolding business and has the right sort of contacts!

Guy turned up first thing, examined the chimney, took a video of the problem to show me (flashing, pointing, etc as I suspected) and hopefully should be back to sort it later in the week.

My new neighbour looks like turning out to be a very useful chap to know!😀

@Eric Bloodaxe it's not what you know, it's who you know 😉

He'll be a very handy man to know 👍

French paint. Coverage is so poor you'd think it had a D notice slapped on it. The opacity is that of Gin and tonic, it costs a fortune and sticks like a BMW on ice.My guest bedroom (5m x4m) has so far needed 45 litres of the stuff, Four coats of undercoat have not masked the light blue behind it.

2 hours ago, anon said:

French paint.

I imagined things might be of a pretty similar standard, wherever, but apparently not. Seems it's not a new issue, either:

https://www.survivefrance.com/t/english-paint-delivered-to-france/10419

On 10/4/2025 at 11:21 AM, Turvey said:

@Eric Bloodaxe it's not what you know, it's who you know 😉

He'll be a very handy man to know 👍

Well, as it turned out I had quite a saga with the guy my neighbour recommended.

It started well - turned up promptly to assess the work, taking a video to explain clearly what was required. After that, never arrived within 1 hour of promised time, one day never turned up at all with no explanation.

Arrived twice with wrong ladder and had to borrow mine. Needed water for cement (perfectly reasonable) but then found his colleague** had forgotten a bucket so had to lend him one! 

Anyway, just looking at video of completed work which thankfully has been done well.

My neighbour asked how it went and was most embarrassed at having recommended the guy. I think "words" will be had!

(**Rather suspicious of this person - very poor English and I doubt it he'd been through "right to work" checks - still, digital ID will sort that I'm sure!😀)

Seeing flashing Christmas Tree lights this early in the year on peoples windows on my way home tonight. 

I've only just started seeing Halloween decorations down here.  In previous years they've been up from 1st October.  Hoping that'll delay the xmas decs as well.  Haven't seen any of those so far!

21 hours ago, Tizer said:

Seeing flashing Christmas Tree lights this early in the year on peoples windows on my way home tonight. 

Or October!!! 😡

6 minutes ago, Turvey said:

Or October!!!

No more investigations into 'non-crime hate incidents' after Linehan case, Met Police says 👍🎉

https://news.sky.com/story/comedy-writer-graham-linehan-has-case-dropped-after-arrest-over-social-media-posts-13454029

Has anyone else suddenly started getting a load of marketing texts from O2?

At the end of the text it says call 2220 to stop them.  But that never works, just says try again later.

Have also downloaded the app and checked my contact preferences.  Those are all set to NO, including for marketing and offers.

Anyone know of another way to stop them?

5 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

Anyone know of another way to stop them?

Smash the phone?😀

Seriously, no, I'm with Tesco (though they do use the O2 network) so I don't suppose I'd get them anyway.

But I have had all sorts of rubbish texts from Tesco - mainly about my 5G service being activated even though I don't have a 5G phone and (according to the O2 coverage checker) we dont yet have 5G in my area anyway!