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Hi all, just thought I’d give you an update after a bit of a wait .. the Westy has passed its MOT today as a non cat vehicle using the engine specialist report I got and emails from DVSA! You should see the smile on my face and a great day for a blast! Thanks to all for your help and advice with this!!

I believe they call it 'inbuilt obsolescence' Manufacturers love that stuff. More repair work, shorter lifespan, more sales, more profit etc

Yeah... no local stock. They claim 7 days delivery till they try to place the order... honda will not serve it to them.

Good Shout Ash. I've placed a post there. Let's see.

That's certainly true. We seem to have gone from over built boat anchor engines that easily outlived the rot box bodies that they were installed into, to engines with 'improvements' like wet belts, low tension piston rings, water thin oils and the like that consign otherwise good condition cars to the scrapper.

Charge anxiety would be a better description. Think back to our last petrol shortage when we all had ‘range anxiety’. We also suddenly discovered how far our cars could go on a gallon when driven carefully too. @joolz my MOT tester just sold his Passat. Similar story to yours, 260k, he paid £700 for it about 5 years ago IIRC. Key thing there is it predates the worst of the modern ‘improvements’. I sincerely doubt a current equivalent would perform for you as well as the Passat does. The perception, or worse, reality of being forced to adopt something new is always going to be unpopular. We naturally want to carry on just as we are. Stick to the familiar.

Came out of Wales yesterday. Far too many 20mph restrictions for me. It’s just so slow.

I don’t think we will see the changes threatened/promised materialising personally. The deadlines will get pushed back & diluted, the problem will get kicked down the road again and again. Short term expedience will always win out.

I think that it's more than that - I think that it's a resistance to forced change - especially when it's badly thought through change. BEVs definitely have a very good use case; for some things they're great but they're very obviously not a universal answer. Yet the sale of ICE and hybrid alternatives are getting banned. 15 minute neighbourhoods are a great idea but instead of encouraging small local businesses they try to do it by banjaxing the road system instead. An increase in the use of public transport would be great but encourage it by providing that public transport regularly at a sensible price, not by taxing us our of cars. It's politicians that need psychologists, not the public.

I'm going to castle Howard tomorrow if your over that way for a run... 👍 Classic car show https://www.facebook.com/share/p/14LunjnMLZR/

That is correct @Stuart

Yes I watched that too, made me realise how absolutely useless the governments here have been at 'putting the great back in Great Britain' We may be a wealthy country but we are definitely not a country full of wealthy citizens like Norway seems to be by comparison.

One of the reps for a local motor factors I use told me that at the main dealerships people are trading in their full electric cars for hybrids. Is range anxiety still an issue? Might we need psychologists in dealerships alongside sales people? On a personal point my 267k miles passat is still going strong, is averaging just over 60mpg including towing regularly. It cost very little to buy and costs very little to run. I'm in no hurry to go electric.

After my off at Prescott last weekend I need a set of standard track front wishbones top and bottom, steering rack 2.4 ratio, a pair of dampers and a drivers side cycle wing bracket for Cortina upright. Cheers

A key point there I think - resistance to change. Much of the potential burden can and should be handled by the car itself. For a long time I would have said if anyone needs regular long trips, Tesla was the only sensible answer, but that is thankfully changing. It used to be kind of frustrating, now it has darker undertones thanks to the political persuasion of musk. Tesla have somewhat opened up their charging network to non-tesla cars, but there are caveats and ad-hoc changes which is exactly what nobody needs or wants. No denying there are still lots of issues with charging networks in this country, but it does look to be getting organised finally, albeit slowly. Octopus do an all you can eat subscription that gets you unlimited home charging for £30 a month. For those that won’t be doing long trips much or at all, if they can home charge, I just can’t see the objection myself. I had a PHEV because I thought it gave best of both worlds - no cost on short trips, long range when needed. In hindsight, I think that was true, but it also came with the worst of both worlds. Complexity and cost. Time will tell if my move to EV was the right one for ME or not. At the moment, I really can’t see any downsides to it. Most of my driving will be done on solar that I already get paid for even if I use it myself. My electricity tariff gets me a discount on charging at apparently almost 1 million charge points in the UK (although I bet a large number of those are not all that useful). The car has a 2 year service interval at which the big ticket item is new wiper blades….. eta correction to Octopus charging offer.

Maybe next time. Family holiday tomorrow Andy

Not envious, one little bit! Have an amazing trip, I’m sure it will be epic. I would love to send you off at Tagg Lane Dairy but will be in Anglesey with family. Looking forward to Bagpuss TV updates! Andy

I think we agree on your use case. 600+ miles a day sounds like purgatory to me though. Sadly, there are a lot of unreliable engines out there these days. Wet belts are sadly very common now, and just as problematic in many brands. MB even managed to cram one behind the flywheel on their A45 engine. Even Honda use them now. And the engines that still have chains? Ingenium anyone? But they all seem to suffer chain issues to some degree. Direct injection WILL lead to clogged inlet ports that need cleaning. EGR clogs, NOx sensors failing with expensive regularity, DPF clogging, low tension piston rings leading to early engine demise. The list goes on. The majority of these issues arise from the ever increasing demands for reduced emissions and increased efficiency. Many are aggravated by short trips. Proper servicing can help, but not prevent all these issues. Some actual stats on engine lifespan would be interesting. There is a vague claim that ICE lasts 150 to 300k miles…but I suspect there won’t be many achieving that figure, particularly Ford and JLR….oh, and BMW with their appetite for big end bearings. Not sure when ICE peaked in terms of longevity. Maybe the 90’s? GDI & EGR started the rot imo.

It's fascinating how many people are convinced that EV's can't work 'for them' without having tried. Is it easy to jump from an ICE car to an EV and use it in exactly the same way? No, it isn't. You need to be comfortable with satnav route planning, install apps, learn where the fastest, cheapest, most reliable chargers are dotted around all over the country and learn what the car is capable of and what works best for it. Or buy a Tesla, which is infuriatingly well catered for in those respects. For example, for long journeys it isn't even enough to navigate to a charger location. The car also has to KNOW it's going to that charger, as well as knowing what the charger capacity is, and it needs to know that more than 30mins beforehand because this lets it condition the battery (heating or cooling) in preparation, otherwise it won't hit peak charging speeds.

Price reduced too £600

Price drop too £155 for the pair.

The assertion was, and still is that for people who do more than "commute", and there are plenty of us, and (a point which perhaps I failed to make as clear as I wanted) where road transport infrastructre is the only option for the journey, EV's are a non starter. Perhaps non-starter was a bit harsh. Definitely a compromise that needs careful thought. I did also say it was about me and my use case as that is all I have direct experience of. As I say, there are plenty of us driving far in excess of the double charge range of an EV quite a lot of the time. EV's turn those journeys into a potentially costly affair in both "fuel" and time. Not sure I agree with ICE engines being more unreliable, the Ford Eco-Bang notwithstanding (wet belts? Really, Mr Ford?)

The forecast is.....expect cake to be served, the weather is looking good for this so we will go for a run out afterwards 🏎️🏎️🏎️🎂🍰

Having tried this once, see here…. I thought I could improve on it if I tried again. Main problem was it was a little too high, reducing the gap between steering wheel and my somewhat sizeable thighs, and also the back support wasn’t great. I could do a much better job with a second pair of hands, but that’s not possible currently, so this is where I am. Having been reassured last time that pouring the whole lot in one go wouldn’t fill the garage with foam, I went for it! I taped the bag up as high as it would go, to cope with any overfill, and poured it all in. Sparing you all the detail, it basically went well, filling up behind my back and around my shoulders very well, although ironically this time leaving a bare patch under my bum which I couldn’t manage to fill. At least I was low enough this time! I trimmed up the excess from the top and sides, cut the hole for the harness, put some foam over the bare patch, glued it to a thin piece of ply to give it some rigidity and then taped the whole thing up. Finally, I added some vinyl to make it look a little better. Beautiful it still isn’t, but it probably looks a bit better than the last one. More importantly it sits me lower in the car, giving me better clearance between wheel, hands and knees, and also has better shoulder support. You can see from the shoulder width that I’m not really built for a narrow Westfield 🤣. Having seen @Andrzejseat with the narrow shoulder support, I simply wouldn’t fit in there! So, I think this one will do me for a while, it’s comfy and secure, and gives me a better position than the previous version.

Glad you are enjoying the Yorkshire area @Martin Bell - (Bellyboy) East Anglia AO some good roads round ere and plenty of farm animals as well 🤣