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maithri

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Everything posted by maithri

  1. maithri

    Volkxwagan

    Wow, a Beetle? Older the better, a 1303 is more power but a lot more trouble as well, try a real classic if you can. Maithri
  2. maithri

    Peugeot 206

    Hi All, Back here after a long time, The peugeot 206 a veryvery popular and stylish car in the uk market. There are many different engines, the diesel 1.4 and 1.6 turbo's are at a premium here as they do well over 50mpg (around 95 KM to a 4.5 l gallon) using common rail diesels. The maintainance is cheap needing servicing only once every 12500 miles and a fuel filter chnge once every 3 rd service without using extremely expensive long life oil The petrol engine ones are also very efficient using multi point injection. They are very resilient to corrosion and has decent handling and equipment levels like air con- electric windows remote locking etc. The technology in european cars nowadays are way ahead of most Jap cars so maintainance in SL may be very hit and miss. If you find a well looked after example you will be thrilled with the comfort levels and handling as well as the power outputs from relatively small engines. If you are bold go for it-in the Uk it is way ahead of the Toyota's, Nisans, Mazda's and the Honda's-Mitsubishi sells very few small crs here. Maithri
  3. Guys, One of my neighbouring businesses modifies and tunes Subaru's, the owner is a serious enthusiast and a proper petro head! His wife recently treated herself to a brand new Fiat 500 Abarth, Just the same grey paint as in one of the pictures above, what a great little car! Fantastic and even gets the husband impressed, Fiat makes some really great cars, specially little ones, the punto is outstanding! and for any Japanese Tin box fans-don't even try to compare, not in the same league, to mention a cherry in the same conversation as in a 500 is sacrilage! And yes I did own a cherry once a 120 A and been in many fiats including the Bug Fiat mentioned above, all cars with character unlike the the soulless Jap cars. No offence Maithri.
  4. I have many years experience with tyres used in the UK, starting from the poor quality rubbish all the way to the top brands-without exception they must be balanced after fitting on to the rims. I have seen a brand called CEAT sold in the UK once they were associated with Pirelli, now it is an own brand of a major tyre and exhaust etc.retailer in the UK. I would be proud to say Sri Lankan tyres were fitted to my car but, here in the UK we have not seen any yet! Maithri.
  5. Guys, A BMW maf sensor is a known fault and un likely to be damaged by a K & N filter oiled properly. I would just change the Maf sensor and also make sure the Lambda is switching properly - use a scope if available. Maithri. PS Clearing anything from our so called clearing agents after importing to SL will make most sane people go mad!
  6. maithri

    Throttle Body

    Hi, I agree with gihan, the coolant running past the throttle body is actually not needed in SL due to the very high average temperatures. Air drawn through a venturi will get cold so throttle body icing is possible in a country where a very cold air temperature is present, like Japan, Northern USA, UK,Northern Europe etc. In SL this is very un likely to cause a problem even on a very cold day in Nuwara Eliya it stii is above freezing! So a by passed coolant line at the throttle body has little significance and absolutely no bearing on a emmision test done on a stationary vehicle in Colombo where under bonnet temperatures must be horrendous-more in need of a charge cooler than heat in the inlet air pipes. Maithri.
  7. Guys, I just picked up a friend from the airport on their return from SL, they tell me that the speed limit is no longer enfoced in the country,is it true? Now we get to see the full potential of the Viking with Hino power! Maithri.
  8. Hi all, Nitrogen is an inert gas so is safe and also the pressure is more accurately maintained when the tyres heat up under extreme driving conditions. I very much doubt any improvements will be noticed by the driver or the passengers in the vehicle during normal use. In my openion it is an expensive way of inflating tyres with little benifit to the user. Maithri. P.S. I believe helium was mentioned as a joke!
  9. Hi all, Coming from a society that thinks it,s cruel to put kids in seat belts I am not surprised some moron decided that the seat belt rule applies to all cars. Belts are only safe when properly installed and correctly used, not welded or bolted to anything that looks strong enough and used with poorly adjusted webbing and half broken seats. The rule should apply to cars fitted with seat belts as standard or with belt mounting points built by the car maker as standard. So cutting off or unbolting the cruel belts is not used as the soft option. Retrospective laws are unfair un democratic and eventually ignored when a sensible judge is persuaded the whole idea is stupid! So even though I support a seat belt law where ever people use cars to ask the driver of a Model T ford to fit seat belts is crazy as well as un realistic, the law in this instance is an ass! I hope some one in authority clarifies this law before it becomes useless as a result of a legal challenge. Maithri.
  10. maithri

    Vw Golf

    Hi Guys, VW's my special subject! I own a Golf GTI and used to work for a Main dealer (Agent). Yes I have driven the V6 4 motion MK4 The R 32 and everything in between the 1.4 and the R32. I have no special favourite but the R 32 is a car I would love to own. The 180BHP diesels are awsome and at 50 + miles to a gallon when driven normally and lots of power when needed they are great practical and fun cars that can cause some great upsets in the traffic light grand prix's. The so called pedestrian 115BHP versions with the PD engine can be easily chipped to get in excess of 130 BHP without any external evidence. But where are you going to drive any of these in Sri Lanka? Milindu is right he tested one here in the UK and enjoyed it, Hi Milindu hope to meet up next when you are in the UK. How ever the latest Audi A3 with the 2.0 liter PD engine is to me a far better buy, I drove one last year nd the car feels better built than a VW. These cars are as reliable as you can get, with cutting edge technology not found in Jap cars, No I am not dis respecting SL's beloved Jap imports but when it comes to diesels the Japanese are still in the Stone age compared to some European Makes. So have no fear buy the best your money will get you and avoid the low powered 1.4's and the 1.6's. You need a minimum of 1.8 with a turbo preferably to call it performance ot a diesel with 130+ BHP. Good Luck Maithri.
  11. Hi, Just my 2 pennies worth, as you were driving in town and not doing a lot of constant braking ask your garage/mechanic to also look out for a wheel bearing(razor?) with excessive play, or even a partially siezed piston on a brake wheel cylinder or a caliper letting go suddenly. What ever you do have it throughly investigated as sudden brake loss in an automatic car can be very dangerous. If decending a hill in an auto please use the lower gear 2 or 3 rather than D even 1 if it is very steep to allow engine braking and use the foot brake sparingly only when needed. Maithri
  12. maithri

    Iridium Plugs

    I think Saturn has experienced what I was trying to say, that the car must be capable of and need the higher cost long life type plugs. NGK-R stands for resistor type plugs required in european markets for radio noise suppression I believe. NGK has an on line spark plug application guide, try this first and buy only the recomended plug for your car, not what your friend fitted to his as in extreme cases an incorect plug can destroy an engine. Maithri.
  13. Hi, Tune up seems to be widely used in SL as a means of cleaning injectors using chemicals such as w**th, cleaning throttle bodies cleaning and re gapping spark plugs, and trying to at least clear learnt values from the ecu by disconnecting the battery. In pre ecu days-(my youth in SL) the points were cleaned and adjusted, the tappets/valve clearances nwere adjusted,carburettors were cleaned and timing if the ignition was set up as well as the fuel air mixture of the carb. Them days in the west we used to have Sun, Crypton etc engine tunining equipment with oscilla scopes etc to bring a more scientific angle and I used to be good at it with my Trusty Crypton 440! Nowadays the modern car allows very little adjustment, a chip in the ecu is mapped to carry out all the variable functions and all that can be attended to is the mechanical bits, so have the valve clearances set if non hydraulic tappets are fitted, clean the throttle butterfly and housing if contaminated by the oil fumes from the breather system, Use a good fuel system cleaner once every 6 months or so in the petrol tank . Re setting the ecu to factory basic setting is not really needed unless the idle is erratic as the system has adopted to drive at its premium level according to your driving style and going back to basic will mean time spent re learning them. As to the need for one or the required frequency and cost I cant help you with. How ever if your car runs well and is giving average fuel economy for a similar model I suggest you leave thing as they are and just stick to the throttle body clean, new plugs at the right interval and the odd can of fuel treatment in the tank. Maithri.
  14. maithri

    Iridium Plugs

    Hi all, Iridium plugs are to get a longer life, so the intervals at which you change the plugs are much longer and iridiums work well under high stress for longer in high performance engines. Fitting them to a normal small engined car is not really economicaly sensible as you will not have a parellel performance or economy increase.Also they replace Platinum tipped plugs-in my experience replacing normal copper core plugs with platinum plugs specially in a car from the past with a low energy ignition system causes over loading and poor starting, I am going back to the 80's and before, used in a mid to late 90's car replacing original platinum plugs should not be a problem. How ever using really expensive parts to save changing them sooner has to be an economic argument not an engineering solution. Maithri
  15. Hi all, I was initially thinking of ignoring the incorrect term "phase" used, then felt it may help to explain the correct terms which becomes self explanatory. We call this re-facing or skimming-or even grinding. Thr job involves removing a very thin layer of metal from the face of the brake disc-the contact area with the pads,to remove the high spots caused by distortion of the brake disc. The same theory applies to cylinder heads as well. On another angle before you fit discs on to a car make sure the mounting flange is throughly cleaned and completely flat and smooth. Any un even patches here regardless of how small will cause the discs to warp(distort) after a short period of use and will ruin your new discs. If you had to use excessive force with hammer blows etc to remove the old rusted discs it may cause damage to the flange. Maithri.
  16. Bharath, I totally agree with you about the beaches in the south west, some very beautiful and wild streches of sand there. I first went to Cornwall in 1984 as a student and camped near the Lizard point, and have gone there many times since. I no longer camp but use a holiday park as a base to explore from, the driving is great too some very scenic stretches of road. The cream teas and the Cornish pasties along with the local beer from small breweries make it my favourite part of England! Really looking forward to it. Maithri
  17. I can vouch for Ginigathena Nuwara Eliya, Ramboda Pass, etc having been a passenger in a car last August. Shame I couldn't drive as I have no SL driving licence now.(I am old enough to have a book type old licence lost now and told no longer valid) Next visit I will bring a IDP and hire a nice car from Malkey to enjoy a trip out to the hills. Those in Nuwara Eliya in April I envy you, I hope to be in Cornwall in SW England for the Easter break, nice part of the world but Nuwara eliya is better! Maithri.
  18. Hi All, I have my sympathy for your predicament, every salesman will say his is best, here's a few clues from a man who was an area manager for a huge company who is a large tyre retailer, and been to more tyre training courses than most CEAT GT Nankang etc are all budget brands, they do an adequate job, are extremely un likely to wreck your suspension, definitly no competition for the pot holes in SL roads! Taking into account the average speeds in SL I think buying a Superior brand for more than double the money rarely makes sense. Un like in europe where speeds on the Autobahn's can exceed 100 MPH (160KmH) In SL the speed rarely exceed 60KmH, the surface is poor that even a premium tyre will struggle to maintain grip. So by all means buy the best that you can afford but do not waste your money on abilities you will not use. As for fitting sets etc, if needed do all four but if only 2 are needed just do 2 and fit them to the back, YES THE BACK! regardless of front rear or 4 wheel drive, if you need to know why look up the Michelin web site for fitting advice, their resarch is second to none and the advice derived from it is free! If you are looking to replace just one tyre try and match with the tyre on the opposit side of the axle to maintain stability. Maithri.
  19. Hi, I have no knowledge of the model of car you own, but a failed Maf sensor normally will remain faulty so the problem should be there pretty much always, yours tale 100Km s to show up. To me this sounds like a component overheating and breaking down within the ignition system or in the fuel delivery i.e.injectors etc. Have the basics tested, is the ignition coil in good order, you can test this if the primary and secondary resistance values are known and have access to a basic multi meter. Without hearing the misfire I can't judge if it is fuel related or ignition related but I am sure if no one so far mentioned a "petrol miss" among your mechanics it is un likely. The wildest theory here is to clean the catalytic converter, I have never heard a cat causing a misfire, a blocked exhaust will stop the car long before 100 Km, so dont waste your time or money on cleaning the cat-no way to clean it and a waste of time and money. Sorry not possible to be more specific. Maithri.
  20. Guys, It appears that a lot of you think re setting the fault codes by removing the battery will make your car run better. The ecu's on most older cars do not have self learning parameters that adopt to the driving style of the usual driver. The factory settings are basic parameters only then adopted to the style of the driver to optimise economy. This facility requires more than the battery disconnection to re set to basic setting, some diagnostic tools have this ability, The theory is sooner it learns your driving style the better but like everything else the parameters have to begin somewhere. Most mapped ecu managed cars have no adjustments with screws etc, the older ones sometimes allow basic ignition timing to be carried out and the very old ones allow limited adjustment of idle rpm and co. Before you "tune" the engine try some new plugs, air filter, fuel filter and give it a good run to clear the combustion chambers if possible using a fuel system cleaner in the tank. Maithri
  21. Guys I can't see how a higher octane petrol can damage a car.most 90's cars running on Un Leaded petrol are set to perform on 92 to 95 octane for optimum performance. There is more chance of detonation related damage when using 90 octane on a car that's Ecu is optimised for 92 or 95 octane. Rarely have I seen a recent car that needs any tweaking before using a lower octane fuel, that's due to knock sensors fitted to the engine that tells the ECU when detonation happens and it taking action to stop that. How ever most of these cars will see an improvement in performance and smmothe idle etc when using 98 octane Super Un Leaded as we call it in the UK. With better performance comes better economy if your driving style remains un changed. To me if your car is designed to run on 92 octane minimum you should use that as the lowest octane number to use regularly. Use the best you can afford if it is available. SL motorist think nothing of spending money on "servicing" every 3000Km's, when most cars have a service interval around 4 times that, so why not buy the best quality petrol too! Maithri.
  22. Hi All, Like in all discussions classics are a source of conflict-did you see last two weeks Top Gear they thrashed 2 morris Marina's and raised many objections. By the way GT AM I have driven and maintained a Citroen BX GTI 16V the top model, powerful it was but for real fun in driving I preffered the Renault 5 GT Turbo, I also owned a 205 GTI which was driven at its limit almost on a daily basis for 100,000 miles by me in 3 years -both above already classics in the UK-but so are the Morris Oxfords, Marina,s, Allegro's Cambridge's as well as hoards of the various Subaru's-how ever at least in the UK the Nissans Toyota's Honda's apart from the very rare 3000 turbo and the honda s2000 do not seem to inspire the kind of devotion by previous owners to restore and use as classics-they love their Classisic British Disasters mainly! The italian cars, mainly the Alfa's do have a very strong following. Some like the the 70 and 80's american Muscle cars (they emptied most of the arab's oil wells), They normally believe Elvis is alive! I am still looking for a Peugeot 203-Some will think that's extremely sad-I know but I still love them! Maithri P.S. I hope you all have enough petrol to drive on whilst the Courts and Tin pot Govt. posture over who is bigger!
  23. GT AM, Just surprised about your French cars, The BX and the XM best for scrap value! I agree with the 306 The Avantine-A coservatory on wheels! Where is the 206? The 406 Coupe etc. Maithri
  24. Guys, About revving an engine, here in the UK the way it's done is: Petrol engines: With the engine warm, i.e. guage showing normal, hot coolant pipes or fan cut in we test the CO,HC and Lambda readings at 2500 to 3000 RPM in the initial basic test which requires the readings to be taken over a 30 second reriod followed by a further 30 seconds of stabilisation time, then the engine is allowed te settle at idle and just the CO is tested at idle. The option is there to test the oil temperatuer but we hardly use this initially. If the car does not pass this the actual manufacturer agreed limit is applied and this may mean holding the RPM at around 3000 for nearly 5 minutes to allow the catalytic converter to properly function so the car gets every chance to pass the test, this level of RPM should not damage a normal engine in decent state of maintainance, but if the bearings are knocking and the belts are rattling it needs sorting first, but that is not the fault of the test, a car is a useful, essential and a fun piece of metal but it is also a lethal wepon, so if you can't look after it please park it up till you have money to fix it as a poorly looked after car is a danger to all the other road users as well as to it's owner. Off my pedestal! Diesels: These are revved to the governed limits from 1 to 6 times and the smoke particles measured, in most modern engines this is far in excess of 3000. How ever we do not hjold it at the limit, it is a gradual step on the pedal within around 10 seconds and off the pedal as soon as the governer cuts in! We do ask the presenter of the diesel cars if it's cam belt changes are up to date and will refuse to test if the belts are not replaced in time or any knocks or rattles are heard from the engines. There is far more to it but above is the basics so if you have a properly maintained car you should have no worries. That does not how ever mean I agree that we need to do this in SL, there is a lot more priorities in my humble openion, but I didn't elect the politicians who brought it on. Maithri
  25. Guys, I can relate to the problems with the Mini fitted with a SU carburettor, I suspect there is hardly any mechanics left in SL who knows how to set up one of these simple carbs properly, even then they struggled to pass the test here in the UK as the test is designed to fit the needs of the majority! All we used to do was wind the jet up so it fuelled less, pass the test and wind it back to make the car drive acceptabaly! I know this is cheating but what else can you do, the carb was too simple to work in the required test bands so the way out. Maithri
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