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1

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

« on: 10 January 2026, 14:38:57 »

Don't try to tell me you don't use the voice commands on your car

The XE, well certainly the LoLine fitted to her poverty spec one, doesn't appear to have a voice command to cancel the satnag.  That is REALLY annoying, as means pissing around on the touchscreen trying to find the option.

Nope. I spotted the button once and pressed it out of curiosity. Asked it to call my Mum. After about a dozen tries and accidental phone calls I gave up and used the menus (which are also pants).

..although the function to get it to read out SMS messages is OK. (Because reading SMS messages while driving is apparently bad, whilst reading an essay that comes up on the screen about how it's bad to read SMS messages while driving must apparently be OK).

2

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

« on: 10 January 2026, 14:37:17 »

Don't try to tell me you don't use the voice commands on your car

The XE, well certainly the LoLine fitted to her poverty spec one, doesn't appear to have a voice command to cancel the satnag.  That is REALLY annoying, as means pissing around on the touchscreen trying to find the option.

Nope. I spotted the button once and pressed it out of curiosity. Asked it to call my Mum. After about a dozen tries and accidental phone calls I gave up and used the menus (which are also pants).

3

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

« on: 10 January 2026, 00:13:01 »

…………….
I rarely use the contacts list in the phone, I still dial them manually for most of my friends and family ………..

My particular annoyance is Voice dialling. It’s probably me at fault but it never calls who I want it to call.   
In the car, I press the steering wheel button and it beeps, I say the command for telephone and it prompts me to speak the persons name. For example, I say ‘Call Dad Mobile’ and the display says ’Calling Beefeater Torquay’.     As it happens, I do have Beefeater Torquay in my phone as we’ve used it several times, but how does it confuse ‘Call Dad’ with ‘Beefeater’. 
I had to stop using voice dial as the Beefeater in Torquay were getting pissed off with me calling them and hanging up. 

I used to get that with early versions of Siri - it always called one particular person, no matter what I said.

The voice system in the car works flawlessly for me, be it making calls, entering destinations, or using the stereo.  Mrs TheBoy however, it really doesn't like her carrot cruncher accent...   ...seeing as she lived around 7 or 8 miles from you, that must explain it.  Alexa completely ignores her as well, sensibly

 

At school they said that we sounded like faaarmers, so maybe your theory is correct, as Alexa ignores me as well.    The Audi has a 40 word speech recognition system for voice coaching, but it still gets it wrong.    My wife’s a townie so I’ll get her to try it next time. 

If God had intended us to p*ss around trying to talk to software, he wouldn't have given us keyboards and mice.

4

General Discussion Area / Re: Faster internet....finally.

« on: 22 December 2025, 22:54:19 »

How are the computers connected?

You won't get near a gigabit unless you have a cabled connection to the hub.

5

General Discussion Area / Re: Biomass boilers

« on: 11 December 2025, 07:39:00 »

You should be able to see an arc across the electrodes when it is trying to ignite?

Removed it (and the ignition transformer) and there is a nasty crack across on part of the electrode. Connections were also black and brittle. Unlikely to get a good spark, I think.

Black transformer box is bloated and puffy. I'm guessing it is the original from 1999.

Yes, that doesn't look too healthy.

6

General Discussion Area / Re: Biomass boilers

« on: 09 December 2025, 18:59:53 »

Who on here as any experience of these?

Looks like our old oil boiler from 1999 is pretty shot, so not worth throwing good money after bad in order to get it to limp on for another couple of years.

We have a plentiful supply of wood, so commercial wood pellets for the biomass boiler would not be required. This would help with running costs.

Also, I believe there is a £5000 government grant available.

Unless the heat exchanger and baffles are completely shot, it's always possible to keep them going for affordable money. All the bits to fix the burner are generally pretty cheap.

I think I have eliminated most of the possible culprits....

There is plenty of oil getting to the pump and nozzle, but no spark.

Photocell seems to function as it should.

This leaves the control box and ignition transformer.

My money's on the transformer or possibly shorted electrodes. Should be able to check the transformer windings with an ohm meter, although that might not catch all failure modes.

7

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

« on: 08 December 2025, 20:18:21 »

Tried to diagnose an intermittent issue on sons 05 Civic.
Every once in a while the temp gauge climb to the top and at the same time very little heat comes from the vents with heater turned up to max.
Im thinking possibly a sticky thermostat ?   

Overheating and no heat from the vents sounds like a lack of coolant circulation to me. Has it got some air in the system? Or exhaust gas?

8

General Discussion Area / Re: Biomass boilers

« on: 07 December 2025, 23:36:57 »

Who on here as any experience of these?

Looks like our old oil boiler from 1999 is pretty shot, so not worth throwing good money after bad in order to get it to limp on for another couple of years.

We have a plentiful supply of wood, so commercial wood pellets for the biomass boiler would not be required. This would help with running costs.

Also, I believe there is a £5000 government grant available.

Unless the heat exchanger and baffles are completely shot, it's always possible to keep them going for affordable money. All the bits to fix the burner are generally pretty cheap.

9

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

« on: 06 December 2025, 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".

10

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.

11

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.

12

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...

13

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".

14

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.

15

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.