Giant slayer

thanks mate i will pop into halfords and get me some of that stuff!

maybe snooty not the right word but round where i live you will only get a a shocked and bewildered look if you say "morning" to someone in the street. Either that you a reply of "No, Polska". If i was to be buying in london it wouldnt be until march which is when the contract on the house we are renting runs out. Should the market have settled by then. I am just looking to do some early research at the moment to see what i can afford.

thanks for all the help guys. I definitely think wandering around and noting down the estate agents working there and the properties that are for sale. I think the leaflet drop and chatting to people in gardens might not be that effective with the snooty nature of people in London unfortunately! As much as i would love to get out of london and maybe move back to Poole where i grew up there is no work for me outside of London but strangely enough i might get offered a 12 month placement at the oil refinery in Milford Haven. If i did that i would by a run down place on the pembroke coast and do that up over 12 months and sell for a healthy project as a nice holiday home.

yeah that auction list could be good. i guess you have to commit to buy on the day though without even looking at the place. Seems a bit too much risk to take on. If you can find me a place with the above criteria (2 bed, garden, period) in the highlighted area in chiswick W4 london for under 250k that needs some work then you will get a finders fee of an amount i have not yet decided.

Tried that. Just comes up with a load of sites that look like scams. You pay to subscribe and they give you a list of too good to be true property. I can go the estate agent route and there are only a few different estate agents to cover. I just was hoping that there was a website that had them all on. I had a thought that the estate agents might want to keep really run down places off the website because it might make them look pony but i guess a sale is a sale.

how do i find out about auctions?

I will soon be starting to look to buy my first place. As a first time buyer and hoping to stay in quite an expensive district I know I wont get much for my money. What I was hoping to do is to find a place that was cheap because it needed a lot of work which I would be prepared to put in myself and boost the value of the house. However, I cant seem to be able to find such places using rightmove and primelocation. I reckon any place like that will immediately get bought up by a property development company hoping to make a quick buck. I'm sure they just look at the price, location and size and buy it up without even looking at it and before it has time to make it onto a listing. Is there a special website that advertises these properties or a way of finding them? On these location, location programs they never seem to have any problems finding places like that. Maybe there just isn’t many old grannies popping their clogs where I live. I know the answer to be move to a cheaper area or something like that but I am only happy with the best (which is why I own a big, mad unnecessary car like the zed!) and I have highlighted an area that is only about a square mile big that I want to live. And I would prefer it to be 2 bedroom, have a garden and be a period property……..oh and the moon on a stick please!

this sounds a quick, easy and cheap job to do and maybe even as a preventative measure before it happens to the old hose. Leaking petrol is not only a waste of money but it is also pretty dangerous. would be nice if this squeezed out a few more mpg too. I used to have a faint fuel smell sometimes but that seems to have gone away since i went round my engine bay with a fist full of cable ties tightening up any hoses.....oh and i removed the empty petrol can from my boot around that time too! One question. Where can i buy this 8mm Fuel hose? I have found it online but do they sell this stuff in shops and if so which ones?

Bigman, Could you be kind enough to elaborate on the "inline condenser" thing because i have had a search on google and cant find anything. I think i know what you mean from seeing them in halfords but dont they go between an amp and its power source? I do have an amp also but this has no real impact on the signal. ChisD, Do you mean the square bit of plastic at the back of the targas? That is the place i did think of installing mine because not drilling into metal and would look quite good there centrally placed and slung back. Would it be possible for you to email me some pictures (tom.ventham@mwkl.co.uk) of the install? did you drill or glue? how did you manage threading the wire through to the head unit? Thanks guys.

ok i get it. DVLA looks your best option then. Hope you enjoy your long awaited for day tomorrow!

trust me. try the phone method out. It is one phone call that is no queuing because there are no human operators and it might even be freephone or national rate. All MOT stations that aren't still using bow drills will be on the VOSA system so you should be alright there.

I have got a a sony DAB stereo in my zed which i have had for the bet part of a year. I am well happy with it and hardly ever listen to CDs or ipod anymore on short journeys. The signal is pretty good with the internal aerial (well it is actually an external aerial that i rest flat in the front window) but the signal tends to get worse if the heaters and /or the headlights are on. they are now HID headlights but not sure if they are better, worse or the same for interference than the std ones. I know i should afix the aerial outside if i want better signal but i dont want to ruin the lines of the car or be drilling holes into the bodywork. The signal is fine with the headlights and heater off but is there a way i improve the signal / reduce the interfernece without driving to work with no visability and freezing cold!?!

just call up mate. It is the simplest thing ever. all automated and they check your insurance and MOT validity electronically. They send it out there and then 1st class and i got mine the next day. It was also dubious first time round but was backed into a corner by laziness and bank holidays but would never go back to the post office route and everyone who i have convinced to phone agrees. I think you might need the road tax reminder/renewal form with you for a refererence number if anything.

no problem mate. im made up that i have been able to help someone on here after all the help i have got from others. PS If it keeps happening think about changing out your ecu for a new one as that is most likely to be the route of your problem. I think water got into mine and caused the damage. At it worse the injectors kept firing until the cylinders were full of fuel and could not crank. In that case pull out a plug and crank the engine with a rag over the hole and it will push out the fuel to allow the engine to crank. Put the plug back in and follow the above procedure to dry the engine out.

is it flooding perhaps?? I have had that on mine before and it turned out the ECU was malfunctioning and telling the injectors to fire when the engine was off so the plugs were sodden and wouldnt ignite. take the fuel pump fuse out and start it a few times to dry the plugs then jam open the throttle and leave it 30 mins to air out the cylinders then put the fuse back in and try it. The fuel pump fuse is a cartridge one in the smaller fuse box on the drivers side. Might not be this but all i can suggest.

was loving the advert for them which seemed to be on all weekend, esp during the grand prix. Beautifully crafted car. Anyone know what the song is that is on the ad?

there are rubber coolant hoses that go around the engine block. Some of them carry coolant to the throttle bodies and are not actually needed. These rubber lines run on the top of the plenum and you can see them better if you remove the coil packs. As for the heater matrix lines i believe you can see two hoses entering the firewall. There are plenty of people who have had a similar problem if you do a search. Sorry i cant help anymore than this.

i was on my way back from oxford that sunday and that traffic on the A40 was unusually heavy for a sunday so i decided to take hanger lane into chiswick, hence the u-turn. I might print this page off to show to my boss to prove i wasnt oversleeping last week because the traffic was unusally chaotic A40 westbound on wed and thur morning and it ended up taking me an hour to go 6 miles! Incredibly I havent managed to see you yet and i have been keeping my eyes extra peeled since you spotted me. PS I agree about Kens stupid CC zone I am a member of the David Lloyd gym on cromwell road next to the sainsburys and it is just inside the CC zone by 0.3mile! It means i cant go to the gym after work which is dead annoying!

I would recommend Nassa Engineering in Aldershot. Not sure if that is the exact name but i have a business card somewhere. I took mine there to get the O2 sensors done and they did it no fuss. There were 3 other zed's there at the time too and they said they probably work on zed's more than any other car. Good work, decent prices. It is only 4 junctions down the M3 from us too so not too trick to get to and get back from. i would definitely go out of london to do it because all the garage i have tried in london in the past have been scammers who wont have a clue about your car.

i am with orange broadband and have an orange mobile contract. They are absolutely terrible to ring up and try and get something sorted out. In france and probably here too if you ring them up and give them sh1t they put your number on a blacklist so whenever you call them in the future you will never get through. Even worse than that they block all withheld numbers and numbers unknown to them (like landlines) because of people using other phones to call them up to complain about their terrible service. Not surpised they have so many complaints. There website is carp too and always crashes. Saying all that i have never had any problems with my phone or broadband so thankfully not really had to call them much. Though i better watch how much i download now....but 40gb is quite a heavy amount!!!

stevie has helped me out too FOC by lending me a tap and drill bit and didnt freak out when i said i couldnt find it to send back (eventually found it under the boot carpet!). Big thumbs up to the guy from me too!

I know that there exists a heater diagnostic you can perform from TTnet http://www.ttzd.com/tech/autocctech.html but if have the heaters that justy gives the set temperature and the ambient temperature not the fan speed and direction etc. Will this method work or is there another diagnosis method for these heaters?

I have got the word file with the instructions. PM me your email and it will send it on.

watch out guys! Location: A4 into london on the traffic light on the junction on Syon Lane with the shell garage (no v-power today!! GRRR!) and Gillette tower on your left. new style truvelo which looks like a stumpy metal telegraph pole. about 7-8ft high will a rounded blue top (basically looks like a massive.....Johnson). In fact it is actually hidden behind a sign so even more sneaky. It is the truvelo style so has 3 close together line rather than the long set of hash marks. What is EVEN EVEN more sneakier is that the lines are place just after the stop line for the traffic lights so you dont notice them. Guess they could be jumping red lights camera (which in my opinion is a crime and should get penalised) but think it will be speed device because the A4 seems to be a testing ground for speed cameras and there is one almost every 1/2 mile. It is a 40 limit (for a 3 lane carridgeway is a joke but that is another story!) SO WATCH OUT!

sounds right if it happens only in certain conditions. Have you checked to see if it is just loose and shorts out in the wet due to exposed contacts? It is up by the gearbox somewhere.