Car DIY Thread.

[James]

Just be careful. Advanced drivers use brake lights as an early signal to following drivers. You don’t want a two ton suv planting itself in your back seats because you were being ‘clever’ with the brakes.

Having been rear-end by a driver who simply couldn't stop as quickly as I could, I say the best defense is to allow a bigger gap for the vehicle in front of me. It means I have more time to pull up and avoid my part in sequential nose-to-tail collisions. I really hate drivers who activate their brakes just so they maintain a minimum following distance, which actually slows the flow of traffic altogether. If a 2-ton SUV were to plow into me, it'll be due to their inattention rather than my frugality with the brakes.

 

[Tony Lockhart]

Whatever

 

[Mullardman]

I have been 'rear ended' (Ooohh err missuss.) on two occasions. Both were due to inattention on the part of the following driver.

 

[stevec67]

I have been 'rear ended' (Ooohh err missuss.) on two occasions. Both were due to inattention on the part of the following driver.

Well, unless you are in reverse it can hardly be otherwise! I too have had it twice, both times low speed/slow traffic. Once at a roundabout with mild damage, once in a car with a towbar. The other car had a bent bumper and wrecked numberplate, mine was unmarked.

I do try to give an early nudge of the brakes if I can see stationary traffic ahead, just in case the driver behind is asleep. I well remember once queuing for a roundabout on the A65, I looked in the mirror to see a Citroen BX closing fast with smoke coming off the tyres on both sides. I was just starting to drive off the road when he stopped.

 

[Suffolk Tony]

Only been rear-ended once, when in my old Minivan on the Kingston Bypass. The lady who did it was absolutely beside herself, in floods of tears. Her hubby contacted me that evening and offered to pay for the damage, so I got him to cough up for a new one-piece fibreglass door in place of the two small doors. Did me a bit of a favour in the end.

I'm getting heartily peed off with cars, usually black-out BMWs, screeching up behind my 911 & tailgating me. I had a very near miss the other day when one of these came squealing out of a side turning behind me, then had to take panicked evasive action when I suddenly had to slow for a car coming in the other direction that'd pulled out around a parked car. I braced myself for the bang...

 

[Tony Lockhart]

As soon as anyone gets too close behind me these days, I lightly touch the brakes to show the brake lights, then slow almost imperceptibly if they don’t take the hint. I love never being in a rush

 

[-alan-]

@Suffolk Tony - I've noticed definite distinctions in tail-gating depending on what car I drive.

When I'm in the family shed runabout - the Yaris Verso - I'm plagued by drivers of large and invariably German saloon cars sitting right up my chuff, almost in a GTF out of my way you lesser being. When driving my own 'exec saloon', the majority of similarly equipped drivers seem content enough to keep back a reasonable distance, unless I leave space to overtake in front, in which case most of them do. In the exige, however, there's a different pattern altogether - it's much more common to see somebody close in from behind for a closer look / read the badge and then back off to a respectful distance which is then usually maintained, even if I back off enough to leave space in which for somebody to overtake. I've checked this with the other guys in Elises and exiges, and it is a thing evidently. Your experiences in the 911 might have been the early part of the last approach perhaps ?

There is a pecking order out there

 

[MichaelC]

I find barely anyone tailgates me. In fact the number can be counted on the fingers of one hand in the four years I have been in the Alpina. I have to admit though that on a couple of those occasions I did light up the afterburners...

What I have found on the whole is that other drivers hang back until I move over, which I do do!

It was a totally different experience in the M car when it seemed every other driver wanted to race.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

I think I've noticed a bit of a trend in bad driving from Merc drivers, notably the current A class, and the AMG45 variant in particular. I blame the interior. I've seen a recent photograph of the A class interior and it's a bit full-on, eye-wateringly fugly, garish and brash. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that this raises the level of emotional arousal in drivers and makes them more assertive and hyped up. Contrast this with the calm, intelligent interior of your average Volvo. When were you last cut up or tailgated by a Volvo driver?

 

[stevec67]

Careful, some people get very upset if you dare to suggest that drivers of (insert brand here) drive in any way differently to anyone else. Of course they don't. Hyundai i20, BMW M3, same people, same behaviour.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Careful, some people get very upset if you dare to suggest that drivers of (insert brand here) drive in any way differently to anyone else. Of course they don't. Hyundai i20, BMW M3, same people, same behaviour.

I know but I'm positing a different angle now. It's the 'I'm not an arsehole, the car made me do it' line.

In all seriousness, I imagine there might have been some research done on what car interiors do to affect drivers' emotional state. There's probably a trade off between being hyped up and aggressive, or simply alert and responsive; or relaxed and calm vs dozey and inattentive.

 

[matt j]

I find that pretty much all modern cars accelerate quick enough to cause impatience, regardless of the brand. People have zero respect for vehicles that can't be doing 70+ in two seconds after either pulling out to overtake or exiting a slip/roundabout.

Others that boil my piss are those that speed up when they pull in to let you by, so 68mph was fine for the previous 5 miles but now you've moved over to let me pass you want to do 80, f*ckwits.

 

[Barrymagrec]

Many years ago, an uncle of mine, an inveterate car botherer, decided to put an inspection pit in his garage. First time it rained it became a plunge pool. Not sure it ever dried out.

Same thing happened to the pit I dug in my Dad`s garage, so I put some cut up 9 X 3 joist down as duckboards - worked fine for me, a little later my brother came to use it and jumped down onto the boards but he failed to spot that by then they were floating in six inches of water.

I once discovered a headgehog down at the bottom - bit oily but perked up once rescued.

 

[wow&flutter]

My father dug a pit in his garage almost 60 years ago now. The pit is still there but now with around 4 feet of water in it. It can only be maybe 8 feet long as all we had were Minis or Austin 1300s back in the day.

The pit is the same but the garage went from a single to a double and from wood to brick.
He asked me to pop over one weekend to deconstruct the wooden garage in preparation for the new brick one and cut up the wood. He felt bad his £50 investment had only lasted 60 years. I put an ad in the local Gumtree “buyer dismantles”. He got £200 for it and could have sold it 10 times over. He had treated it with creosote mixed with old engine oil, almost every panel was intact and rot free. The buyer was delighted as were we not having to dismantle it!
The hole is covered with cut down railway sleepers that are still intact after all this time which just shows how impregnated they were from new( if they ever were new) and each one weighs a ton!
His house electrics tripped once and called me up to have a look, I managed to isolate to the garage only to find the water had reached a light mounted on the pit wall and shorted it. It must have been a good 5 feet up the wall!

My brother dug maybe a 20 ft pit in his previous house and built a garage over it. First layer of brick was sealed with tar and roofing felt in an attempt to keep it dry only for we suspect the brickie who built the internal to pierce the membrane. So he had a 20 ft pool in his garage although due to the water table was only ever 2 ft deep. He invested in an electric pump which would drain it in no time!

 

[James]

There is a pecking order out there

Firstly, whether we admit to it of not, but most of us associate the type of person to the car they are driving. Twats drive Audis and grannies drive Yaris (GR variant excepted). Secondly, we subconsciously feel less threatened by things smaller than ourselves, and so inherently we tend to be less respectful of smaller cars. I discovered this first hand when I traded a large sedan for a small hatchback back in the 90s. I rarely see a small hatchback tailgating an SUV, whereas the opposite is rife.

 

[stevec67]

Firstly, whether we admit to it of not, but most of us associate the type of person to the car they are driving. Twats drive Audis and grannies drive Yaris (GR variant excepted). Secondly, we subconsciously feel less threatened by things smaller than ourselves, and so inherently we tend to be less respectful of smaller cars. I discovered this first hand when I traded a large sedan for a small hatchback back in the 90s. I rarely see a small hatchback tailgating an SUV, whereas the opposite is rife.

You must have slept through the 80s. In the days of the hot hatch they tailgated everything. SUVs at the time were driven slowly by farmers.

 

[James]

You must have slept through the 80s. In the days of the hot hatch they tailgated everything. SUVs at the time were driven slowly by farmers.

Where I lived in the 80s, there were no farmers and very few SUVs. Besides, I was referring to my current context. Yours on the other side of the world may be very different.

 

[-alan-]

Firstly, whether we admit to it of not, but most of us associate the type of person to the car they are driving. Twats drive Audis and grannies drive Yaris

Note to self: use exige more, Yaris - maybe less

 

[Suffolk Tony]

An old friend of mine, determined to make his fortune, decided it would be a splendid idea to make an amphibious beach buggy, them being all the rage at the time. We bought an old VW, took the body off and had a lot of fun zooming round his field with just the seat & steering column held in place by an axle stand. We built a mould and nearly gassed ourselves laying up a fibreglass tub in his garage. We got as far as fixing this to the rolling chassis, but we'd given no thought to how we might seal the axles etc. Of course, it was totally impractical.

The tub languished in a corner of my friend's yard, until someone had the bright idea of sinking it in the ground to make an inspection pit. We duly dug the hole, and mixed up some weak concrete to act as a surround. Being outside, this more or less immediately filled with rain and, being very thick fibreglass, proved difficult to make drainage holes in. As it happened, my friend had a firearms license, so we had fun making holes with his Browning 9mm hi-power.

I've no idea what became of this pit. It soon became too unpleasant to use, filling up with mud & rotting vegetation. Probably still there.

 

[cctaylor]

I'm the same

I use the brakes a lot less than most on the road. One thing I discovered though is that if you underuse them, you tend to get the calipers seizing up, and end up with only a partially swept disc, and reduced braking capability. Nowadays I tend to take a point of making a couple of proper disk-scrubbing stops every week or so, get some heat and movement into the callipers and clean the gunge and oxidation off the disks properly. Keeps the system in good shape in case you ever do need to drop the anchors in an emergency.

The best way to keep the calipers free is to try to press the pedal through the floor when stationery. You get far more pressure in the system than you would ever get except in a full blown emergency stop. It also is much kinder to your tyres. Land Rovers and Discoverys are prone to rear calipers seizing if you are a gentle braker. Probably once a month is enough, reminds me, I must do this next time I take my Skoda Octavia out. Any caliper with one piston can have this problem, usually the rear calipers where to balance the braking forces there is force applied.

It is good manners not to do this while sitting in a queue in the dark. (My pet hate is people who sit in a queue with their foot on brake in dark rather than use the handbrake!)