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He was one lucky man! I think £475 would have been too much temptation for some folk. But maybe not so lucky the day before. Returning home with £475 and two condoms, does that suggest his evening out had been slightly less successful than he had hoped for! What are people like when they have had a few drinks, dropping money, wallets and whatever else all over the place. I was never like that. Well, if I was, I don't remember much about it. A month or so ago now, another man had a lucky day, though it went wrong to start with. He was driving down a hill on a main road, with a 30 restriction at the bottom. Put on the brakes, and there was a nasty noise & the car veered sharply left. He must have been quick to release the brake, and managed to control the speed well enough to turn into a side road, and come to a halt at the bottom, just before a junction. I would have thought that at this point, clean underwear might have been required , but he did not say anything about that! Anyway, he called the AA, and they came out. His NSF radius arm (the one from hub back at an angle to the sub-frame) had come out at one end, so there was almost no fore-aft control on that wheel. Scare-eee. He muttered something about a garage doing some work on that wheel a little while ago. The recovery man was obviously reluctant to tow him to a garage, and set about re-fitting the arm and replacing the missing nut & washer, with a rather limited set of parts he had. A 10mm shakeproof washer was needed, and at this point they spotted someone in a garage, just over the road from the breakdown. That was me. I must look like someone who keeps lots of bits & pieces of junk & nuts & bolts! I did find something of the right sort after a bit of firkling about. As it happens, I was in the garage machining up some ali bits for a custom LED reversing light. A little while later, he re-appeared at the garage door with two washers. One small, with a big hole, one big, with a smaller hole. "The AA man wants a hole that size" (big hole) "in the big washer", he said, not sounding very hopeful. "What we want is a vernier", says I, reaching down to pick up the caliper from the bench. "Ah, 13.0mm. What we need is a 13mil drill", says I, reaching down to pick up the 13mm bit that had been next to the caliper. "Drilling big holes in washers can be tricky, what we need is a lathe", says I, reaching down to pick up the chuck key for the lathe in font of me. I had just earlier been drilling a 13mm hole in my ali. Washer in chuck, drill in tailstock, quick drill, little longer file to de-burr, job done. One happy chappy. But what a co-incidence, to break down & need a job done like that, only to find the 2nd nearest house to the breakdown not only had the tools, but they were in use on the bench. It is not that often I am out in the garage using the lathe. Less than once a month. Spooky!

I do like the warm weather has returned, even if it's brought some persistent drizzle with it. Back to walking Brandy in just a shirt,compared to the double fleeces and beanie hats of a couple of days ago. In addition to the £16.37, gathered in loose change along the pavement by the takeaways, this morning. I found a wallet, whose owner had clearly put down and forgotten to pick up again. It was balanced on top of the street rubbish bin, but not in the fashion of it being abandoned but as if was placed there deliberately and absent mindedly forgotten I believe the right course of action in such circumstances is to try and find it's owner, through anything that might be in it and if that fails, to hand it over to the police. Contained within it was £475 in cash, three credit cards, one debit card, a gym membership, a driving licence, several receipts, two condoms and some business cards. The business cards were all all the same, suggesting it was the wallet owner's business. a graphic design studio. I phoned the first number on the business card and got a message "Thank you for your call! We are currently shut, our office hours are 9am through to 6pm, please leave a message after the tone; or try again later?" I left a message, and thought I should try the other two numbers on the card too, both were mobiles, and I was more likely to get the wallet owner. The first one, it just rang and rang, there was no message service to leave a message on. I then sent a text, perhaps it was switched to silent. The second number initially went to voicemail, as I got to the part ".... your wallet on a bin in Broadstone whilst walking my dog, just now", it was picked up. He was rather relieved, although he didn't realise he'd actually lost it, until I phoned.. He went and checked his coat pocket, as he'd thought it was still there. Apparently last night, he and and mate had taken a taxi from a pub in Poole to the Indian takeaway, they asked it to wait whilst they got their food. He was going to walk home and his mate would continue to Wimborne. His mate hadn't got any loose change for a tip. He keeps his loose change in his coat pocket along with his wallet. He removed the wallet and put it on the bin whilst he rummaged at the bottom of his pocket for change; his left hand was occupied with his takeaway bag. His mate then went off in the taxi and he walked home, leaving his wallet on the bin, not realising he hadn't put it back in his pocket. He was reunited with his wallet some 3 minutes later

Well, technically given the season it should probably be chestnuts...

I know we happily rag Vauxhall's cars and owners here but this situation is outrageous. Vauxhall wiring has always been a bit pony but cars that happily try to roast their drivers is a disgrace. Vauxhall need to man up, grow a hairy pair and accept liability sharpish. It wouldn't be permitted in America, a class action lawsuit would be incoming pretty quickly. Sent from my SM-G930F

I was going to email some pictures taken by me to watchdog tonight, showing the exact same damage as you seen on the corsa but in a fiat punto. Why are they limiting this publicity of fires to the corsa when the punto suffers the same problem with the melted wiring loom? the dodgy loom he showed covered in black tape is available as a genuine Vauxhall spare because these melted connectors is a big issue! Last one I done failed exactly a year later. I then replaced it with a modified wiring loom which has solved the problem.

Hi All, I've used this forum for years, and its been great, now I thought it was about time to contribute, as everyone is really helpful, I have had an issue with my boot when driving where the boot will open, generally when it is wet/ or cold. So today I decided to investigate, after reading some other instructions about fixing this on a C-max, however it appears to be very different as I found after disassembling the boot of the car. The only part which needs to be removed is in fact the boot switch itself, which is a self contained unit, once this is open you will find it is very wet inside, causing it to think the boot is actually being opened, when the ignition is turned on. You will need to remove the opening button below, I used a plastic pry tool to remove this it is stubborn as there is tonne of dirt, but it will come out. This is the connector which is connecting it from the back of the switch, just remove the switch using a small screwdriver, comes away fairly easy. You will find there are 6 tiny screws holding the switch together, be careful not to lose these, when removing them, you will need to remove them to gain access to the switch. This is what you will see when you remove the screws, mine was all wet inside, which needed to be dried out, once dried out, I put some WD-40 & used petroleum jelly on the inside to protect it from the wet, then reassembled. This all took me under an hour to complete, whilst enjoying a coffee in the cold. Hope this helps someone else with the same issue, from what I read on here, this is a known issue, and most people have returned their cars to Ford to have it repaired under warranty, but for those out of warranty, this may help.

Finally upgraded my car radio to an Eonon Android unit. Love it so far. Better sound quality than the previous Ford 6000 cd unit anyway. Would recommend.

what goes on pages 4-5 on the corsa user manual? the train and bus timetables.

"got my fingers burnt" once when i bought a zafira.

sold!! thought corsa owners had to give them away!

Sent from my SM-G930F

How very ageist of you Tom! In all seriousness, I do prefer electric windows, but in winter they are a pain in the backside when they freeze shut. I've never had a problem with the 405s windows in winter, as even if they are frozen a good yank on the winder frees them up, but in the Focus and C220 the electric motors are too weak to break the ice and you have to wait for them to defrost naturally, which can take over 30 minutes. Not exactly convenient if you want a quick cigarette on the drive to work!! Speaking of which (and getting back on subject), one of my colleagues quit smoking today... She sold her Corsa!! (Drum-roll please...).

I hooe you gave him a right good toot Tom!

VW pepper grey is a good match to Ford rock metallic from what I've read.

If we really learnt by our mistakes & mishaps, then some of us here would be the wisest things in the entire universe . Pity it does not really work like that though! I can't recall many jobs on car or home that have gone according to plan.

Nothing wrong with a sloping drive, except a gravel one in monsoon weather... Axle stand sunk so far in the car fell off it over night lol. Only thing you really need to be careful of is the jack bending/twisting on a solid front to back slope. I'd much rather do stuff at home than in a rented bay for the same reason as Peter, time restraints and things going wrong, they almost always do lol.

I prefer to look at some nice t i t s on my calenders.

Well it's a corsa. Less of them on the road the better Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk

Today marks a full year since I have had my MK3 Focus TITANIUM. What better way to celebrate this than to share some of the little changes I have done to it as it became my little project. Given that I am a menace when assembling things, I chose to let people with skill help me out rather than break things myself. Without further ado, please find below my little pride and joy. 1. Delivery. Last year this time, i went to pick up the keys. I was extremely excited and also fed up with the waiting. I ordered my car during a period where the Factory in SAARLOUIS is pretty much closed. Consequently, I had an extra 1.5 months delay on my delivery and when I saw it in the showroom I fell in love with the colour. I chose the DEEP IMPACT BLUE because of the catalogue. I really liked the way it was and in my mind the contrast with all those chrome bits and pieces would work. While this is subjective, I believe the blue suits the Focus perfectly and if you get the extra chrome parts around the car you get some nice results. As it was October, I told my dealer to put the winter wheels on straight away. There was no point for 3 weeks of summer tires and then go back to the garage and put the winter tires. In my area, winter tires are a must and the law enforces solid behaviour regarding this. My car arrived with the classic 16 inch alloys with 215 Continental Winter Tires. Not the best but now that I look back, they were solid and I will put them back next week :). Some annoying squeal on rain but grip on ice is good. This is how the little monster looked on delivery. It had less than 100 km in this picture. 2. Spring and Summer When the time arrived, I quickly went to my dealer and told them to put my summer tires on. I chose 18 inch alloys and decided to put Michelin Pilot Sport 3 as i had some experience with them. I am running 235/18/40 W tires and they are fun as hell. Comparing to how it originally looked, the wheels changed the car completely. I have no issue running these wheels contrary to what people say around these forums, when people want to upgrade from 17 to 18. After cruising for thousands of KM with the car, I came to the conclusion that if I am going to enjoy the car more, I needed to get rid of some of the body roll and twitching on braking. As I have the autobahn 40 km away from my house, unlimited speeds are quite common there. My country has a plethora of twisty roads so that body roll had to go or else. I then started looking into the one thing that could help with that : a suspension. Given that I was no stranger to suspensions, I have a second Ford, clipper, with a Bilstein Eibach combination, I was trying to make up my mind what to get. I looked into Bilstein, I looked into quite a few brands and then I settled for KW. A mate of mine has a TT RS with a KW Clubsport 3 way and after a few laps on the Nurburing with that, I said, KW is the way to go. I then had another dilemma. Which KW to get? They offered 3 possibilities for my car. After a few sleepless nights, I decided to go for the V3. It gave me everything I wanted in terms of adjustments and if decided to go hardcore, I would be able to do some corner balancing as well. After 3 days of wait, my KW V3 was built in germany and shipped. Two more days passed and the DHL van arrived with my brand new suspension. ...and of course the final result. Once this was on, the car was reborn. I started to lose contact with the brake pedal. Left turn, just accelerate and turn, right turn, press the accelerator and turn the wheel. The stability I gained from this suspension pays for itself every day I get in my car. Funny story, when i went to pick up my car, I wanted to sit down and pretty much fell because after so many months of sitting down in a certain position, the car was significantly lower. The mechanic laughed at me and said i should be careful now because the car is lower. After a few weeks, the suspension broke in and lowered a bit more. Springs were not as rough, however, the unavoidable coil rattle at low speeds is present. A small price to pay for a car that corners so well you will pretty much overtake on the inside on the outside above or even under. It goes wherever you point it and will not complain. The roll is minimal and the grip on braking is difficult to describe. Something worth noting here, the suspension is a good way to improve handling and to get confidence at higher speeds. Unfortunately, one does not need to forget that if things do go wrong they will go wrong. No doubt about that. A month in and i was already thinking of my next change to my car. What could I do to make it even more enjoyable? I made a few phone calls and I was given an offer for a remap. I set up the appointment and went to the guys who offered the service. They looked at my car and said I should not worry, the 1.5 ecoboost, rated at 150 hp, does not have 150 hp. I has between 170 and 175 on the dyno. Ford detuned the 182 version but not as much as some think. I was surprised to hear this and did not actually believe him. He ran my car 3 times and it averaged 175 HP without any modification. He then proceeded to load the new mapping and now the car has over 200 HP @5000 rpm. They also installed a cotton BMC airfilter and advised I change my sparkplugs every 15000 km to make sure all is in good order. The original Ford mapping was not bad but it was difficult to access. I drove through the Alps, the Chamonix area, and those hills up required me to constantly keep my car 4500 to 5500 for it to pull when I needed it too. This was annoying on the standard mapping and the new map gives me pretty much everything between 2780 and 5000 rpm. Much better mid range acceleration and lower consumption. 3. Winter and short term I doubt many cars, for the price range, handle the way my car does. I also doubt many, similar engine, burn rubber the same way, however, I must admit, others sound better. I am truly disappointed in the 1.5 Ecoboost and the sound. My significant other has a Fiesta which i helped her choose. We added a 3 cylinder ecoboost engine which sits at 165 hp with a pipe cross air filter. The car sounds beautiful and whenever I am in mine i just cringe. Having said that, I decided to change things a little bit. Some may have seen, I opened a thread on these boards regarding a rear valence. My car does not have Zetec or ST bumpers. It has the classic MK3 ones and flexibility is not really there if I want to change the exhaust. I ordered a duplex exhaust and realised that it will not be the best choice. The guys I ordered from were nice enough to let me change it given that they hand craft them for my car. I went for a single exhaust due to the limitation I have. For the time being, the car looks like this : As you can see, even if I custom cut the left side for an exhaust I have the risk of making my car look like really bad. The guys I ordered my parts were going to cut my valence and make sure everything would be perfect. I saw some pictures as to how it will look on a similar car to mine and decided to change the order. This does not look very good for me. Consequently, I will go for a single system. It is also more discreet and in case i do have a slight rear bumper issue, it will be an easy fix rather than have it custom cut again. I do not have any pictures yet of the new exhaust but I believe some specs will suffice for the time being. 76mm catback-system, right side 114mm round straight wide edge 200 cells HJS sport-catalyst / Euro 6 approved I get the exhaust installed at the beginning of November so I will continue my car log then. If you managed to get this far in the post, I thank you. Happy cruising!

Hi Everyone, I've just bought a Sony head unit with the sat nav screen. I've installed the new head unit in my Fiesta and everything is working spot on with a little help from a blue fakra gps antenna. The only problem is it has switched all of my miles displayed to kilometres on the car and on the nav screen. When going into the display settings to change back to miles it just won't let me click on it, will only let me select km? Does anyone have any idea what the problem is? Thanks in adavance to everyone

page 1 is exclusivley for fire brigade number. lol ( corsa owner wont be able figure out that number without it being written down )

Not exactly a burning love then?

Hi james i have a similar unit made by eonon I placed the sat nav antenna behind the passenger a pillar trim there is a clip on YouTube how to do it but it's very easy to do. I also have the camera and use it all the time when reversing especially at night when you have privacy glass

Ah right that would explain why they are only on the cars with digital heaters...

Great news

All done and all went well. New Brembo pads and discs from Euro Car Parts, and even had time to paint the callipers. Saved £163 over the Ford Dealer quote...

Saw this in the local news earlier!! Isn't it about time the poor police got better cars? (Thankfully the police officer only sustained minor injuries)

Peter you have been a wealth of information. Thank you.

I've managed to source a decent looking ELM USB cable, hopefully along with Forscan I can get a better idea of what is going on. Also, I have bought an injector loom with all connectors on it to try. I've read about resetting the PCM and Knock values using Forscan. Is this something I should do with the problems I'm having?

Ford call it Rock metallic grey, don't think there is a paint code for it as it gets asked for a lot from ST owners when they've Kerbed their alloys, same thing for the lighter rado grey. A good refurber or bodyshop should be able to match it, I had my OZ wheels refurbed in what they called Ford ST chrome, it's pretty close to rado grey but might be too light for what you want.

I've never had anything but a sloping drive to do my cars on and I've yet to undertake any car service under kind of cover. For rough weather servicing I wear a waterproof, windproof and insulated coverall. like this https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/dickies-padded-waterproof-overall-blue-l/ My current drive is a 9% gradient on one plane (north to south) and a 3% from (east to west), my previous drive was 20% sloping from the road to the house. When i lived in Tuscany, not only was the drive sloping but it wasn't a firm base (clay! firm-ish in the summer: a quagmire when it rains!). For that, I used to construct a scaffold board pathway and put the car on it. Providing you're sensible, a sloping drive is not a handicap and in some senses can be advantageous, (as Peter says), over it's level counterpart. Replacing the engine and gearbox, are whole lot easier on a sloping drive, for instance. The only two things I've found can be a little irksome working outside; but easy to overcome with a little preparation are welding on a breezy day and obviously spray painting. You need some kind of shielding around the area you're going to weld, or you can just increase the flow of the gas. With painting you're restricted to windless days with low humidity, or you can use one of those canopies that Joss mentioned, as a temporary spray bay.

gtfo. Wind up windows on a 13 plate no waayy Sent from my HTC 10 using Tapatalk

Hi Wes, The pic doesn't seem to work, might be my phone. I believe the wheels nuts I used were the same as shown in the below link:- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FORD-ALLOY-WHEEL-2-SETS-LOCKING-NUTS-FIESTA-ST-FOCUS-MONDEO-KA-ESCORT-COSWORTH-/142200174888?hash=item211bca7928:g:aUMAAOSwo4pYQ0Qh I think the issue has been sorted now, tyre place had a look and one of the wheels is buckled, the buckled wheel was on the front so he swopped and put front wheels onto the back, driving back to work from tyre place and it seemed fine. Hopefully all sorted, will know for definite tonight after I've been on the motorway. Thanks for everyone's help!

I have a 3x3 metre pop up gazebo thats good when it's raining for a short while until all the water starts running underneath and you end up soaked anyway! I paid £100 for mine a few years back.

Cheers mate :) Unfortunately the rings are very very weak. I'm yet to find a replacement bulb as they seem to be a first-party cheap chinese one, that close up photo is actually them turned on in the day :( I'll take a picture later of the normal headlights on down a dark country lane, there's loads round here :)

Thanks Tom Will have to brush up on my Math and Physics then lol. Sent from my SM-G925I using Tapatalk

I ordered the radio from www.eonon.co.uk on Black Friday and it was with me the following Wednesday, I have to say I was impressed with that.

BLG Have you ever thought of using a portable canopy? It has a metal frame work that is usually sturdy. You can buy them with just top or with sides too. example http://www.ebay.com/itm/Outdoor-Carport-Canopy-Car-Shelter-Frame-10x20-Garage-Cover-Tent-Portable-Gazebo-/161904328817

It was the first thing I was looking for - just someone renting out a flat indoor garage / work space. But they all charge monthly (many on contract), only a few by the week. And although decent prices not justifyable for a couple of hours work. Nearest I've seen to Coventry is 40-50 odd mile away in Milton Keynes. If all goes well I'd still save a bit of pocket money but get the experience of DIY. However that is if it goes well. Suppose your right to factor in the risk of mishaps and working under a time restraint. Something I need to ponder about. Thanks for the reassurance of working on a slope - it's only slight going down, but never worked on a car apart from a quick wheel change. So deffo will be doing some work on it now, when it's warmer though!

It looks a good fit. Is it sat nav too?

Heater resistor pack. Remove glovebox as find the blue or black park with 4 wires going to it.

Something similar happened with a Saxo VTS near my aunties, it was there for months on end then one Monday morning there was a letter on its windscreen. Couple of days later we went round there on the Wednesday and a recovery truck arrived hooked up to it, dragged it onto the back of the truck and off it went. Funny story, there is currently an Astra and a Transit also on that car park now which have been reported a number of times in the past few months, Monday just gone council turned up enquiring to who they belonged too, I expect a similar result shortly.

I find a bit of a slope on the drive a positive advantage, especially if the back wheels are to be lifted. Bricks under the front tyres, release the handbrake to let the car down onto the bricks, check both bricks are firmly trapped under the tyres, then you know the car can not move. The only way out is to use the engine (or a winch or tractor!). But a sideways slope would not be so good. Not good at all, in fact. But I know exactly what you mean about working in the cold! I just can not do it now. Gloves off, or touch cold metal, and my hands turn to white blocks of ice in an instant ! I remember changing a Triumph 2000 CH in February outside, many years ago when I was young, foolish & tougher (well 2 things have changed since then). The puddles had ice on them. I had to warm up every 15 minutes or so, but managed to do it. Never again though. I had a quick look at bay rentals. With charges by the hour, the pressure to get on and finish would be unpleasant, and could lead to dodgy short cuts. Any unforeseen difficulties (eg parts needed) could be expensive. If it was just a simple covered area, with no equipment or expensive labour overheads, and with a modest daily charge, it would be something I would consider.

It's the normal startup sequence for most cars - the accelerated idle helps warm the engine and exhaust more quickly, helping to cut emissions and I suppose help with engine power/health (at least, once the startup has finished). I think of it as the car having a choke and it being shut for the first bit of every cold startup. As for the knocking, is it definitely coming from the engine? Maybe a loose belt, or loose/bad bearing on any of the pullys?

Most importantly - You havent reused the wheel nuts off your steel wheels have you? They need to be the correct alloy wheel nuts to fit the alloys. There are different types of alloy nuts available too so make sure you get the correct ones. Most common types are either tapered (where it sits against the wheel) or dome shaped.

its not an issue you should be worried about, basically the glow plug module was not made weather proof sufficiently and over time can get moisture inside. its a 5 min job to replace.

I'm buying it from work, it is an ex car scheme vehicle. They just want it gone as they only have limited space and a number of cars coming back all the time so they unfortunately won't do this for me, though I may mention it just to see what they say. If its free of charge then its not a massive concern and I'll book it in as soon as i'm officially the owner, I just wasn't sure how big of a deal this was.

No! I know it is more complex than older generation charging systems, but the actual details of what it does are hidden in a mist of obscurity. I have monitored my system for some time, on occasions, and not noticed anything much different. It charges at about 14.2v (indicated in car, may be say 0.3v to 0.5v below actual battery voltage) most of the time. The only change I did see was when hot (climbing a long hill), it did cut back below 14v for a bit. Silver Calcium batteries are just another slight variant on the standard lead-acid battery, but they have a slightly higher nominal charge voltage, at 14.8v, compared to about 14.4v. So this, if sustained, will over-charge, overheat and damage a battery of the wrong type. I have never seen my car put out voltages that high. But then I have not always been looking! One thing that I do know is that the pcm (ECU) is involved. This is where the pwm control lines to/from the alternator go. And pcms are made by different vendors, and vary greatly from engine to engine. So I would expect differences in the charging system on different engine types, as the software will inevitably be different. The system on the Mk3 Focus is different again. It is a lot more complex, with a current, temperature & voltage sensing chip (BMS) on the battery, and fully digital (LIN bus) connections to the alternator. It is optimised for start-stop and regenerative charging operation. The PDF below gives some info on the Mk1/Mk2/2a Focus system, but is rather vague about any real details. https://www.fordownersclub.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=45412

The problem is going to be the ECU, how you tell the engine is doesn't have a turbo any more.

All Ecoboosts have turbos Jace. I have the 1.6 Zetec S 182 ps and its fairly rapid as standard.