Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

76

General Discussion Area / Re: Brave

« on: 19 August 2025, 20:42:08 »

Yes I use an ad blocker, but as you say sites increasingly detect it and demand that I disable it for access. 

Absolutely.

Running internet sites is *VERY* expensive, and somehow needs to be funded.  So assuming the site isn't selling anything, that means either:

Subscription required
Ad funded
A kind benefactor/sponsor that pays for it


So for ad funded sites, using an ad blocker means stopping that income for the website owner.  Therefore I believe that website owner has every right to refuse to show the content when ad blockers are being used.

The internet isn't usable without an ad blocker, so they have themselves to blame if they don't get my business as a result.

77

General Discussion Area / Re: Small Pot Pensions....

« on: 13 August 2025, 23:23:25 »

I'm now at an age where mine is moving away from risk into lower returns.  I guess a sensible move, as a big hit now might not have time to recover before I want to retire.

One thing worth adding is that workplace pensions do this on the assumption that you will want to be drawing from your pot on day 1 of your retirement, whenever that's defined to start. Depending on your appetite for risk, what other schemes you have, whether you'll be retiring in a big bang or dropping a few days a week for a while and so on, you might want to keep some of your investment at a higher risk until later or spread it around in other ways.

I'd certainly second the advice to get a good IFA, especially if you're putting away a big chunk of income. I should have done it earlier in life rather than leave funds to the default investment strategies of various workplace pensions.

78

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 11 August 2025, 21:39:23 »

Mrs TB was stressed a few weeks ago when I borrowed a chainsaw* and I started cackling like a madman.  But I had fun

She is half aware I have history of chainsaw accidents when I was a nipper.


*it was only a cordless one this time, but I was mega impressed with its performance.  Impressed enough I considered buying one, but not worth it for the very limited use I have for one. It was a 12V Milwaukee one I borrowed from chrisgixer.   I also borrowed some cordless DeWalt pruners which were very impressive, and was just about to buy some when Mr Bezos offered me an unbranded set on the Vine programme

To cope with my conifer trees, I have a Stihl petrol chainsaw, an extendable pole Stihl petrol chainsaw/hedge trimmer multi-tool, an electric chainsaw and electric hedge trimmer, but by far the best addition to those is my battery Stihl HLA 86 extendable pole hedge trimmer and my battery Stihl HSA 66 normal hedge trimmer that I bought around 3 years ago.
They are so good that they’ve pretty much made the other tools redundant. I would be the first to slag off battery powered tools in the past but these are awesome, and the battery lasts for ages as well.    I just wish that I could justify buying battery chainsaws as then I could get rid of all the petrol tools. 

My dad has a battery Stihl chainsaw and it's absolutely great. Still need to fire up the 2 stroke one for the really large diameter stuff, and the latter makes a quicker job of it, but the battery one you can just pick up and use with no messing.

79

General Car Chat / Re: Scrap prices

« on: 09 August 2025, 20:20:05 »

With those mods it's definitely sellable

Yes he'd might get more with a no reserve listing on ebay. Although saying that, I did that with the Mondeo, it went to £155, the buyer didn't make contact and later cancelled via ebay. 

Does anyone sell LPG anymore?  All the places round here where I used to fill mine up have stopped selling it. 

I saw some for £1 a litre the other day. Yeah, right. 

80

General Car Chat / Re: Old car?

« on: 09 August 2025, 20:17:22 »

I'd like to own a 1960's-1990's classic British sports car.

I'd love a TR6 although French Albitz informs me they are utter shite. Perhaps a TVR Griffith 500 would be the sensible choice.

.

My mate has a 1974 MGB GT V8 it has been completely restored the total cost including the purchase price is around £60,000 it looks & sounds terrific, but after a ride out in it you realise how much vehicles have improved  I felt quite vulnerable in it .

One of my neighbours has one, and I helped him fix some issues with it. Nearly exited a roundabout backwards, and that was with only half the engine working

If you're used to anything modern something built out of the BL parts bin will always be a massive disappointment.

Possibly a Lotus is the only thing that'll handle from that era. That's not to say they aren't rubbish in other ways...

81

General Car Chat / Re: Tyre Pressure Sensor

« on: 08 August 2025, 18:12:01 »

Yeahbut, how does the car actually know which wheel is in which location?

The sensors count wheel rotation and so does the ABS ECU, so it's easy to correlate the two and figure out which sensor is on which wheel.

82

General Car Chat / Re: Behold!

« on: 04 August 2025, 16:23:54 »

It looks like the MOT will be changing to do a particulate measurement to catch cars with gutted DPFs (I suspect 2026 so you have some time)

Not sure how that will work...

Surely a well maintained non DPF car won't produce any more soot that a dpf equipped one.

If that were true why would they be fitted in the first place?

83

General Discussion Area / Re: What has P*ssed you off today?

« on: 30 July 2025, 07:33:31 »

A white van, with a  thieving Eastern European couple touring around our area to see who's left their garage open or left something of any value outside, number given to police vehicle untaxed, suprise surprise.

Yep, and my betting is that the Police will be "unable to trace" the owner of the vehicle, just like when one of the pikey ****s reversed into MRs. KW's car. Despite having his business card, photo, CCTV evidence, registration number, etc. They are above the law because the Police choose not to deal with them.

84

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 18 July 2025, 14:40:15 »

Unless its an auto and they never get used and seize up come MOT time!!!

Precisely. The only parking brake I have ever had any issues with is the separate one on the Omega.
It's not just lack of use. I used my parking brake religiously. The friction surfaces never do any work so are never wiped clean of rust. They never get hot enough to drive moisture away and so on...

85

General Car Chat / Re: Did this belong to anyone on here?

« on: 10 July 2025, 22:52:16 »

No one ever looked at my Mondeo...     I quite liked that though to be honest, as I could park it anywhere and nobody paid attention to it. 

Today I pulled into a filling station and there was a black BMW 325i Touring parked up. As he drove away he took a long look at mine.  I think he had size envy!

Standard BMW driver, then. 

86

General Discussion Area / Re: The Royal Train

« on: 03 July 2025, 14:21:21 »

In a perfect world, freight would travel by rail and trucks banished from the roads, other than smaller trucks to do local runs from train stations to delivery depots.
People who cant pass a test to prove they are capable of driving to a reasonably high standard forced to take trains and taxis because they are banned from the roads.
Then, nice clear roads with high standards of driving, and no motorway speed limits for the rest of us.
We can but dream. 

Exactly what I experienced driving through Germany on Sunday, in fact.

87

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 21 June 2025, 18:30:57 »

Drove it to Strasbourg. Driving on decently maintained roads with drivers who drive and are treated like adults it's an incredibly comfortable mile muncher.

88

General Discussion Area / Re: Ancient Central Heating System

« on: 19 June 2025, 07:39:13 »

As you say, possibly a siezed motorised valve keeping the CH on if it has such a thing.
Often in older systems they just turned the pump off when CH not required and they could then circulate a bit by gravity.
Sounds worth investigating the header tank, if it has one. Often they'd have a primatic hot water tank by which means the CH would be topped up and they're properly bonkers, and very prone to getting the system in a bad way if the primary and secondary water don't stay separate.
Does she have an immersion heater that would cover the hot water demand this time of year?

Kevin

89

Omega General Help / Re: Is it okay to have a hole in the transmission?

« on: 15 June 2025, 23:11:34 »

That hole should normally have a rubber grommet in it. It's the access hole for the torque converter bolts. It won't do any great harm, but might be worth getting a new grommet in case you get any gravel or other contaminants in the bellhousing.

90

General Car Chat / Re: Who owns a milk float on here?

« on: 13 June 2025, 22:19:49 »

These figures you guys are bandying around are making my head hurt! 

Me too, that's why we drive crap old cars

With new cars getting more crap with every model year, who are the fools here?