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1

General Car Chat / Re: New UK car sales for September 2025

« on: Yesterday at 08:44:14 »

And lets be honest, for anyone under 40, as long as it has CarPlay, nothing else matters.

This fills me with gratitude, that at the age of 41 and a bit, my daily driver is still an Omega V6  which can't play anything from my phone, and keeps skipping the tracks on CDs until it's warm. I am clearly just out of that age threshold 

You're an old man now, Mr JamesV6CDX

Just not as old as STEMO, obviously.

I can still manage a half a shandy and a curry, if ever you're game. It's been a bloody long time. Maybe this time we can skip the part where we bench press an AR35 onto an Omega, first? 

.. or one of those BMW diseasel boat anchors, in the rain, using bits of TheBoy's garage door to fashion "special tools".

2

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

« on: 05 December 2025, 18:22:05 »

Had the plumber coming to service my boiler earlier, but he didn't turn up. 

When I phoned him he said he couldn't come as he was doing another job and wouldn't be able to come round before Christmas. 

I'm not having much luck with tradies at the mo.   

If your boiler is working, why bother with a service? They only clean things up, it can still pack up the minute he's out the door

Well if something did happen it's a handy get out for the insurance company if it hasn't been serviced within the last 12 months, and I'm a bit paranoid about gas, so like to check it's gas tight every year. 

Oh, I don't think ours has been done since we moved in.. In 2004.

3

General Discussion Area / Re: Ukraine peace stalemate

« on: 04 December 2025, 21:37:18 »

If Europe could make a decision about it, it wouldn't take much more support for Ukraine (along with more sanctions against Russia) to turn Putin's feeling that he's gradually winning to one of gradually losing.
That would be a game changer. The US can't be relied upon to do the right thing so Europe's future is in Europe's hands...

Since when has 'Europe' ever made a decision, about anything? Too many competing interests, ideas and cultures. If Russia nuked the UK, Europe would find a way to say that we're not really European and, anyway, it's our own fault for being so British.

True, and exactly my point.

4

General Discussion Area / Re: Ukraine peace stalemate

« on: 04 December 2025, 20:41:59 »

If Europe could make a decision about it, it wouldn't take much more support for Ukraine (along with more sanctions against Russia) to turn Putin's feeling that he's gradually winning to one of gradually losing.
That would be a game changer. The US can't be relied upon to do the right thing so Europe's future is in Europe's hands...

5

General Discussion Area / Re: Sticky for Jokes

« on: 02 December 2025, 18:18:50 »

A small tanker type of truck was in front of me today as I drove home.
Reg plate was T11ETS or similar so it was obviously for emptying septic tanks.
It had a sticker on the back which made me laugh out loud.

"NO STOOLS ARE LEFT IN THIS VEHICLE OVERNIGHT". 

I saw one in a town called Robertson in South Africa. The tanker was painted in the black and yellow paint scheme of a US school bus and on the back was "Robertson Stool Bus".

6

General Discussion Area / Re: Boiler boffins.

« on: 28 November 2025, 17:16:33 »

I've turned the burner around (so it is facing outward)...

  Good job there was no spark or you'd have had an industrial sized flame thrower to deal with.

7

General Discussion Area / Re: Budget.

« on: 28 November 2025, 17:14:02 »

But I won't be investing in any British stocks.

This is the thing.. She's doing this to promote more investment, yet when I look where my ISA investments are, precious few of them are here, probably because the magic money tree hasn't delivered the growth Starmer and Reeves have been banging on about for 18 months while stifling it with every move.

8

General Discussion Area / Re: Kentucky plane crash

« on: 27 November 2025, 07:42:32 »

What they're saying is there were pre-accident fatigue cracks in 3 of the 4 mounting lug surfaces for the #1 engine. The engine "fell off" when the 4th lug gave way under the overstress of the take off. Whilst it's possible a bird strike was the straw that broke the camels back, the root cause of the accident is the fatigue cracks. It appears the design can withstand cracks in one and two of the 4 lugs, but if/when the third cracks the fourth isn't strong enough to hold it all together. And you wouldn't expect it to be.

So the report will IMHO concentrate on how/why these cracks occur, and how to inspect them such that the fault is detected when the first crack appears, rather than waiting for the engine to fall off when all 4 become cracked.

Indeed. Bird strike or not, that aircraft was an accident about to happen when it started its take-off roll, and potentially so is the rest of the remaining  MD-11 / DC10 fleet. Given its obsolete status and the fact that there are relatively few airframes left flying, I wouldn't be surprised if the inevitable inspection and rectification actions that would be required to continue safe flight turn out to be prohibitively expensive.

9

General Discussion Area / Re: Budget.

« on: 27 November 2025, 07:36:42 »

Point being just because your house is hypothetically worth X amount doesn't mean you paid anything like it

.. and the fact that this measure is conveniently based on an arbitrary value rather than just applying to the top council tax band, for example, means that this will be yet another tax threshold that they can conveniently freeze  until, in a decade or two, after a bit of inflation, we're all paying it. .. and whereas the council tax banding system has arguably worked OK for a couple of decades without constant re-valuation of properties, this one won't.

Not that Rachel from accounts has that long left in the job.

10

General Car Chat / Re: 2009 XF 3.0 petrol project

« on: 26 November 2025, 06:54:39 »

Seem absolutely daft that it would need to be coded. Alternators don't have any unique characteristics that might need to be coded in.

Then again, modern cars are daft.

11

General Discussion Area / Re: Boiler boffins.

« on: 24 November 2025, 07:29:07 »

And yet 60% of homes in Norway have them, and year ok year they don't all freeze to death...

I think it's far more likely that we in the UK don't have the expertise to size, install and configure them correctly (yet).

.. but they build houses properly, have actually invested in their energy infrastructure since the 1960s, have an abundance of renewables and don't put daft green subsidies on their electricity bills, I'm guessing.

Being Scandinavian, they probably supplement it with lots of wood burning, too.

12

General Discussion Area / Re: Boiler boffins.

« on: 23 November 2025, 17:27:46 »

If it's not igniting at all it's not the photocell. More likely the ht transformer, fuel solenoid or pump.

13

General Discussion Area / Re: Kentucky plane crash

« on: 20 November 2025, 23:29:06 »

NTSB preliminary report is out. 

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/Pages/DCA26MA024.aspx

Wow. That series of still images is quite chilling.

14

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

« on: 19 November 2025, 21:35:34 »

A month before the MOT is due my XE has fallen out with one of its TPWS sensors.

Just one?

Might be worth swapping wheels around to prove it to the sensor or the initiators.  Most likely the sensor.  I've yet to have a sensor fail mind, but I think the battery life is quoted as 7 years.  I've bought a couple of packs of 4 from egay in the past, paid around £40 for 4 both times if memory serves, but I bought them when I didn't need them, so could wait for discounts...

Yep, just one, and I have a feeling it's the wheel that has an aftermarket sensor, as I bought a spare wheel and pattern sensor shortly after I got the car. I do need to rotate the tyres anyway, so will find out if it moves with the wheel then. I suspect the recent morning frosts have been its last straw.

When I asked about a sensor for my full size alloy spare, I was told only four can be programmed in. It stands to reason that a fifth sensor in the boot would confuse matters. Mine's a Vauxhall/peugeot thingy, which do not have batteries, so yours may be different.

Yes, the Jag ones have batteries in, and the car figures out what sensor is on what wheel with no need to program them.

15

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

« on: 19 November 2025, 19:12:13 »

A month before the MOT is due my XE has fallen out with one of its TPWS sensors.

Just one?

Might be worth swapping wheels around to prove it to the sensor or the initiators.  Most likely the sensor.  I've yet to have a sensor fail mind, but I think the battery life is quoted as 7 years.  I've bought a couple of packs of 4 from egay in the past, paid around £40 for 4 both times if memory serves, but I bought them when I didn't need them, so could wait for discounts...

Yep, just one, and I have a feeling it's the wheel that has an aftermarket sensor, as I bought a spare wheel and pattern sensor shortly after I got the car. I do need to rotate the tyres anyway, so will find out if it moves with the wheel then. I suspect the recent morning frosts have been its last straw.