bazz54

IF you Google "celica pronunciation" you get 407,000 hits. I go with sell-ee-ka myself, or maybe sell-eee-ka. Definitely, the US sell-ika is wrong, as evidenced by their pronunciation of MX5 as Miata .

Speaking as someone who has owned a Gen7 for nearly 14 years now, I think it would suit you very well. They have to be be amongst the most reliable cars on the road - really important for your job. When maintenance is needed, there's no problem at all in finding new or recycled parts. When that hatch is opened up, it is like Dr Who's Tardis in terms of what will fit in there. Petrol consumption - pretty good as long as you drive appropriately. Value for money - incredible, but you need to find one that's been looked after.

There are special battery clamps like this http://www.vehicle-wiring-products.eu/product.php/563/disconnect-battery-terminal which means you can disconnect and reconnect in seconds.

I've had a Hozelok reel for a very long time and it's only now got one pinhole in it. Although it doesn't seem to be a very popular method, for years, I've been using one of those brushes that you place a small stick of soap inside and attach the the end of the hose as my "first line of attack". Only problem is that you need get the flow rate just right or the soap just gets blasted away too quick. I've got a pressure washer but never liked it on the cars.

Sounds like it has diffused in to the plastic, in which case it is probably there for good. If the reservoir is megabucks to replace, trying to clean one purely for under-bonnet aesthetics sounds like the 'risk / reward' ratio is off-putting.

Changing the steering fluid is somewhere on my "to do" list, but I wasn't aware that there's a gunge issue. From what you say, sounds like it's not water soluble, so guess something like white spirit might be the next thing to try?

I didn't do a patch using Flag by itself; maybe I could add that. I think the Jenolite has to have some paint applied on top of it, in fact, Jenolite now do a paint. Also, on my Rover, I've done some bits with Flag and some bits with Jenolite (both with primer and top coat); I just hope I've kept good notes on what areas got what treatment . Over 20 years ago, I treated some absolutely rust-rotten hand-wheels from the valves on my central heating oil storage tank by immersing them in simple phosphoric acid (which we had at work) and then painted them, and the rust has never come back.

Brown stuff... had me worrried there for a minute! Incidently, when I painted my sills recently, I also set up a little corrosion experiment - it's a strip of what was really rusty steel, cleaned up with a wire brush, and then I painted some patches on it, some straight on the metal, some on top of Flag's anti-rust (which you recommended), some on top of Jenolite. The paint is zinc phosphate primer. This is not exactly scientific, and I don't know how long it will take to show any effects, but I'll post any results when they show. As well as my 15 year old Celica, I've also got a 19 year old Rover 600 to keep fettled

Exellent! As above, a looked after 7 seems to be pretty bullet proof in terms of MoT's. I guess the main issue as they age will be keeping rust at bay?

There's quite a few things to think about here. I had been using the same small garage for my MoT for ~20 years and never had any grief -but then they closed. I decided to try a local garage and I've never seen such a long list of advisories as they came up with (this was not on my 7 but on another car). Fortunately, someone put me on to another garage and the same car has subsequently passed another 2 MoT's with no advisories. Of course with that car, and now with the 7, we're talking about cars which are pretty old, so it's more likely they will have problems than a say a 4 year old car. You just cannot be 100% sure that you've sorted everything prior to the test. Bit I also share the same feeling that I really hate anyone else touching the my cars. So, it's not so much that I feel nervous, but more like the bad feeling that somebody is intruding where they are definately not welcome.

Yes, if that is what the diagram means, the LED will not allow sufficient current for the coil to pull in. As suggested, the LED needs to be wired in series with a resistor (~1000 ohms is about right) and the LED/resistor combo wired in parallel with the coil. A single LED will only take about 10mA current, whereas the relay will need ~300mA (?) for the initial pull in. Also, when the relay drops back out, it will produce a voltage spike and the LED may not like that. Additional components could be used to protect it... but do you really need it ? Can you get a relay with a LED built in?.

Absolutely agree; underseal is black goo, good for hiding stuff - even from yourself! Need to do best job you can to get all old rust off, then use a zinc phosphate primer and then a top coat. It's also a good idea to get both primer and top coats from the same company; different makes don't always go well together. I use a phosphoric acid treatment (usually Jenolite) on anything that has got more than surface rust.

Not just the actual space but it only has the boot opening rather than a hatch. As for RWD, for most of the driving your're going to do on clogged British roads, you're not going to enjoy that very often. The grass is always greener....

I recall seeing a figure of just 18,000 for US sales of the GT86 during its peak year (2013); guess that fits the trend.

I've just been checking out the GT86's sales record. Launched in 2012, worldwide sales peaked in 2013 and then went sharply downwards. If you search Google, there are quite a few articles speculating over its future. When it first came out I was surprised that they had stayed with the same idea of the high-revving engine with little low-end torque as per G7. Recall Tiff Nedell driving one around the TT course on IoM for "5th Gear". Both G7 and GT86 needed better (bigger?) engines. I'd guess that if the GT86 went out of production, used car prices would tumble quickly, as per usual and GT86 ownership might soon be more easily attainable...if you want one!

I take your point about being a nod back the past; the popularity of the MX5 and of vintage sports cars is evidence of that appeal and I do not 'dislike' the 86. But as a practical everyday car which still retains some driving pleasure, the G7's handling is well above average and, if the 86's is better, that alone doesn't tip the balance for me.

Well; I think the 7 looks better the 7's hatch is just soooo wonderful does the 86 feel *significantly* more powerful? at these 'modest' power levels, is RWD something you want/need? If so, why? depreciation on a 7 is negligible now. No contest; I'm keeping my 7!

I recall Ed China using it on one of the cars on Wheeler Dealers. Certainly, the before and after figures on his exhaust gas analyser showed a marked improvement immediately after he done it, but what does that mean? There are certainly some products on the market that are used a day or two before an MoT to pep up an old engine/catalyst to get a pass. Quite how those work, I'm not sure. As for Terraclean, I'll give that a pass.

My Gen7; had it over 12 years and absolutely love it; never had significant problems My Rover 600 (an Accord with a Rover badge on it) had it over 12 years and absolutely love it; never had significant problems. And I could say the same about the Mazda 323 and the Honda Accord I owned before them. That's because I don't buy pups like you do! B

Ok, so it's interesting to look at this http://www.bilthamber.com/media/downloads/PG-BH13-001.pdf which may have been posted on the forum previously. Of course, the obvious limitation of this test study is that they applied the "underbody treatment" directly to bare steel and leave you to assume that the results would still be valid if they'd put it on painted steel. But then, perhaps they would have found that when put down on top of a good paint system, the underbody treatment adds little additional protection? The test do prove, very convincingly, that without paint, the underbody treatments all allow rusting under the test condition being used.

It would be really interesting to know the name of the product they are using. Don't get me wrong about putting additional "rust protection" on your car, I'm all for that, but I'm definitely not a fan of the black, soft, goo that people have traditionally referred to as "underseal". I did my rear sub-frame and petrol tank (using zinc phosphate primer and then a professional metal cladding top coat) back in April, and judging by the thread which has started about front sub-frames, looks as though I need to get the brushes out again

Well that is interesting, because as I've said on here before, I stopped using "underseal" years ago. During the 60's and 70's when cars were real rot boxes, loads of firms started up to do underseal and that was usually black sticky stuff that didn't seem much different from tar. When new it was really soft but it progressively dried out and after a length of time it was often possible to pull it off in great patches and pretty often there was rust occurring underneath. So the questions seemed to be; (i) just how effective is this stuff at preventing corrosion (ii) how good is at at forming an adhesive bond with the paint layer and (iii) can it actually make things worse, if only by hiding rust? Waxoil came along later and seemed to be better (?), but at the same time, paint technology improved enormously, so body rot on cars now takes far longer to get started than before. So if the stuff these guys are using looks like hard paint, then maybe it is hard paint, but one that's formulated to be a thick tough barrier and resistant to impact, which I'd guess are the key properties of an "underseal". But I think I'm right in saying that you can still go down the high street or go on-line and buy tins of black tarry stuff (just like 40 years ago), labelled "underseal" and is just fine..... for a car you're going to sell next week. B

When you ask for someone doing "underside treatment", are you including the pre-cleaning and application of either a paint or an anti-rust treatment prior to the underseal? This place (near Aylesbury) has an interesting website http://www.thepaintshoppros.co.uk/car-underbody-rust-protection-service/ but I have no experience of using them. They apply what looks like a phosphate conversion treatment before the underseal. One point to note is that they reckon that their whole process needs re-doing every few years. Personally, I definitely want some good rust-inhibiting primer paint going down before underseal and think that any other approach is a mistake. Underseal hides what's going on beneath it and I don't generally use it these days. B

Those comments are absolutely true, and if you can get something in to a workshop and have easy access to all the surfaces, fine. But that strategy is harder to live up to if you're dealing with the underside of a 15 year old car, and even more so if it's just sitting on axle stands. Under those circumstances you're probably going end up with 4 kinds of surface; i) areas in original condition and still good ii) areas which rusted and you were able to do a really good job or brushing or grinding back iii) areas which rusted, but were hard to get at and you did "the best you could"; there may be some traces of rust left. iv) areas so badly rusted, welding is required So you have to decide are you going to re-paint each of those areas in different ways, or adopt a compromise solution to cover everything. I think the outcome here is that there is no one perfect answer and ultimately, people will tend to go with the approach they believe has previously worked well for themselves or their friends. That said, I suspect that there are some totally over-rated products out there, and some of them have managed to stay around for a long time and some have big price tickets!