johndps

I have my spare on board. Needed it 3 times in six years, including when a pair of snips pliers lodged themselves in the tyre. Also ran over a pothole that destroyed the tyre and I was in a hurry to hospital appointment. Glad on that occasion that I carry a cordless impact wrench as well.

I'm gonna disagree that you cannot get damage unless you use loads of pressure. I have had my Sealey rotary for about 8 years and polished many cars. Initially, I used on an FTO and melted the paint on one corner. I was more careful after that. Just keep the thing moving and lubed with water. I have also had a Festool RO150 electric DA sander, converted to polisher and it is superb. Lightweight, fast, huge torque. Can polish cars and can also apply and remove wax at a fast, fast rate. Expensive for the Festool, but my understanding is that the silverline and other polishers are similar, maybe just not as much torque. In my experience, hand polishing or waxing does not achieve the same results. Reduced time and effort is the clincher for me. By the way, I have described waxing and polishiong as two different process here. For me, polishing is cutting into paint, waxing is laying product OVER the paint. hth

The diag reader looks fine, but don't think it's Universal, as stated. No one machine will read all cars. No one machine will access all areas of car. eg, my C Reader does not recognise Rover 25 2002 model, but when you tell the machine to clear the engine management light it does it. My mate gave a me £180 Autel, it cannot see the Rover and can't reset the light. The Autel works with more cars though.

Snap on are the best available for fit and long term performance. They tend not to break in the first place. Lifetime guarantee, but not their mugs. Halfords pro have lifetime guarantee but the moving parts so ratchets, no, but most managers WILL replace if you are decent with them. Various others are very good, Facom, Britool, Draper, Mac etc. Diagnostics? Now there's a minefield. NO MACHINE will read all cars. Some read more codes on more cars than others. I have a Launch c reader 5, reads most of the modern cars that I see, most functions. Recommended by my MOT station who did a lot of research on the things, they also have the big X431, almost 3k worth. C reader 5 is abot £60. There is a C reader 6 about £120, colour screen and supposedly faster, but for what I need the machine for, the 5 is fine. Doesn't read Gen 6 Celica, dunno if anything does.

I called a local place in the summer. Got quoted £40 to take take two sets of 4x4 wheels and tyre and swap the tyres between the wheels. Balance the fronts. ie, eight wheels, eight tyres. I did ask them again when they said 40 - you know it's two sets of 4x4 wheels and tyres, need the tyres swapped over? They said yup. Took them down, told them they could balance the lot at that price. They siad balancing the fronts would push the bill up. Had to make it £45. Oh yeah, says I, go righht ahead. Must have been a quiet day for them.

I have bought and sold loads of Celica, along with others. Celica is cheap for what it is...sporty four seater with decent performance, decent economy, decent space. A good sporty all rounder. I always try a car at a higher price for a while, then drop it. The car always finds it's buyer. Some cars go to folks that want it at all costs, but that is a rarity. Most go to those that are looking for a car, not a Celica. At this end of the market cost is first, then the make and model. So a Celica at 800-1600 is competing against many many other cars of varying styles. Most of my Celica go to families or couples, so the competiton is huge. We cannot be undervaluing if it takes a fortnight to sell a decent £1000 Celica. Undervaluing would be making it 600 and it sells in an hour.

Get a GT4 while you still can. I had a bit of a fling with fast cars a few years ago. I had a few Nissan 300ZX's 3 litre twin turbo. Having a fast car is a hoot, but eventually you drive at your own pace and blast it a bit when conditions allow. Grin factor is incredible. I went through that phase but eventually came to the conclusion that the car was only going as fast as the car in front that was holding me back. Expensive to run too, fuel, servicing etc. I am glad I did the fast car thing, now in a Celica 2.0 that I have owned for almost 6 years and am happy with it. I would recommend a fast car for while, knowing you will go back to a more "normal" car later. Be under no illusions though, buy the best you can afford and accept it may still cost lots if it goes wrong. You are in supercar territiry and costs can rise sharply up there. ps, I drew the line speedwise when I had a WRX Scooby in race trim. I had swapped one car for the scooby. Frightened myself and my girlfriend at the raw sheer power in it, promptly swapped it for a turbo Skyline which was much more manageable. Do it. Go GT4.

You guys do realise we already have a Corp member doing flocking? dannymac

Any car done up in the Rusteze colours would be a kid's dream. My grandson would go nuts. I am about to get little Autobot stickers for my convertible because he says it's a Transformers car. I say go for it. You will be a local hero.

Just because he has a traders policy does not necessarily mean he is insured to drive YOUR car. There are dozens of policies with hundreds of clauses. As said, ask your insurance to add your car for a day. Last time I wanted a 8 hour test drive I paid seven quid for the insurance and had to have that before the car dealer allowed me out in the car unaccompanied.

err, no, and err, hell no !!! He says he could do it for 250. That quote was probably based on a standard job using standard techniques. Paint is a very complex job and he can only quote on what he sees. What most painters would like is do the work, work out costs and labour and charge at the end. Customers want fair job, fair price. Firm price before the work starts. Reality is in the middle. He has come across a problem which cold only show up after the job is started. He should be abe to inform you that the job will cost more and depending on your reaction, he can gauge whether to go ahead with the job. Be understanding and you will get a lot further. The firm price is what the hang up is in most quote situations. The garage wants the business and will quote best price. Customer takes this price and compares with others. First timers will go for best price. More experienced paint-shop-customers will pay extra forbetter job, better painter etc. ut what happens when unforeseen circumstances happen? Garage that has quote cheap either foots the bill or passes it to the customer. Foot the bill too often and you are out of business. That's not good for either garage or punter. So, advice to all - garage and paintshop prices are at best an estimate. What do I do? I have had hundreds of paint jobs and garage jobs done over the years. I have trustworthy guys that I use. I hand them the car, tell them what is needed or allow them to diagnose. They sort, I pay at the end. Trust.

Click the smiley for the external link. Wax for a car. There's dearer than that out there.

Phew. Hard one, but... Experienced paint suppliers and experienced painters can usually look at a colour and get it right. What you need is someone that is trustworthy enough to suggest a colour. Then you have to try that colour against the car. Is it possible that someone somewhere has developed a scanner of some sort to determine an exact colour? I haven't heard of such a device but it would make sense.

Body shops use it for final degrease before painting a car. It's like a mild form of thinners. Wipe the panel and all grease is gone. It evaporates very quickly too. Any body shop supplies or paint shop supplies place will have it in stock. Also good at getting tar spots off the car if you don't want to use thinners for that. You've just had the front end sprayed - go ask them for some panel wipe. Probably get for nowt. It's about £12 for 5 litres, from memory.

Been blinded by HID's on cars coming the other way. My thoughts? Why would you want to increase the risk of someone not seeing where they are going, coming the other way, towards your pride and joy? Just because you want to have lights that are a bit bluey-whitey. I spoke to my mot guy last week, he said the hid on mot's was on the back burner, no plans to introduce YET. Also on the back burner is management chips. No plans to introduce mot fail for chipped cars. However, no engine management light when there should be one WILL be a fail. That should be in the mot by 2012.

Heat to get the air inside to absorb more dampness, aircon to provide dry air and so able to soak up more dampness, open window to let damp air out. Aircon comes on at any heat level, using aircon with windows open should not do any damage. Before doing any of the above, give the windows a clean. Soapy water and white backed scouring pad, dry with Bounty kitchenn wipe or the like. If the windows are very dirty or this is your first clean, consider wiping down with panel wipe. Was, panel wipe, wash again. My windows rarely steam up at all. If they do, they demist very quickly.

I am all for recommending the wee guy in the back street garage. BUT...half the battle in getting a garage to look at your car - be willing to work on your car - sort your car - not rip you off for the look/work/sort is finding somewhere you can trust. If you have built up the trust with your mate, I would take it back to him. If you are unhappy with your mate, take it to the end of the street. Interesting you should say the guy at the end of the street is always busy. There's always cars lying around your street. That means they aren't fixed, not that they are fixed. I drive about 13 miles to get to my preferred mechanic and I know tons of garages in my area, I am in the trade after all. When he finishes a job, he gets on the phone to have the car picked up. He doesn't have too many cars cluttering his place because thay are sorted and back to the customers. Obviously some cars need more than others, point is, be wary if you see the same cars day after day. It means they are not sorted.

I have chopped and changed a bit over the years. 17" on gen6. 215/40/17. Might be 45 section. Cant remember. Took off 4 mismatched cheapo tyres when I first bought the car and put on 4 Uniroyal Rainsport new. Massive difference. I discovered these tyres when I had a Merc 190 which performed much better when these were on. Moved onto 4 Toyo Proxes T1R. Great tyres, tendency to wear quick though. Swapped onto Goodyear Eagle F1 on front, Toyo T1R rear. This combination is what I have maintained. In the dry, most tyres perfform fairly similarly, quality tyres having the edge over budget. In the wet, budget tyres tend to suffer sliding, not good. My thinking with my combo is the F1 clear a path in the wet enogh for the toyo's to grip at the back. F1's seem to last longer on the front than the Toyo. Recently bought a set of wheels and tyres so I could get the tyres off and onto my car. They were chepo brand and what a mistake that was. The no-name brand tyres do not grip the road anything like as well as the worn out F1 and Toyo combo that I took opff. So goodyear f1 and Toyo T1R, when worn out, grip better than nearly new cheap tyres. Problem I had was two tyres had good tread but damaged sidewalls, two tyres had good carcass but worn out tread. When I get a minute, the F1 and T1R combo are going back on, but for comfort will go for a higher profile.

My local bodyshop guy used to apply primer with a roller. His jobs came out fine. Always wondered if this could be done. Would a roller not go through much more paint?

K seal. Legend (maybe fact) has it that K series engines were always prone to head cracks, even under warranty and that Rover developed this stuff to get the engines past warranty period. ie customer comes in with almost new car and overheating probs due to head or gasket failure. Service guys pop this stuff in and it works, stops the water leak to exhaust system. As shown by Angus, it is not recommended. Well, not recommended is putting it mildly. If you use this stuff you are a loser, you're a lazy beggar for not getting the fault rectified and you will be despised by all and eternally damned to the bad fire. Well, yeah, BUT. There is a place for this stuff. Highly not recommended, but let's take an all-too-familiar situation... the car is not worth much, the owner has no intention of spending dosh on the car, the owner perhaps has no money to spend. What does he do? Scrap the car or drop in the K-seal and hope for the best. I know what I'd do. So even though it shouldn't be used, there are situations where it is the only option open.

Zebra stripes

Really got to know what the crud on the exhaust is first. Hitting it with autosol is going to do zilch if the crud is concrete. If the crud is rust, then you are looking at wire wool, sanding, wire cup brush on a drill to get it off. If it's just road tar, then I'd be wiping with thinners first, ideal at disolving tar spots. Then I'd look at polishing. But got to get the crud off first.

He also added in reply that all Celica convertibles were imports.

Convertibles generally are not first cars and are generally not used much in winter. Have a look on car sales sites, most convertibles have lower miles. Talking specifically about Celica, most convertibles are imported from Japan, where mileage is less again. So in this case, Jap import, convertible, then yes, not that low a mileage.

Probably km's. For a convertible that is not low miles. The guy messaged me back - says he checked and the miles was 17230 or something. From 117000 to 17230, nah.