OT: "Mixed up the brake and accelerator"?!?

Arguably better than the Powerslide...

Actually the "powerslide" was pretty reliable and durable. The performance and efficiency stunk - but lots of Dynaglydes etc were replaced with PowerSlides - and they are still the transmission of choice for many bracket racers - and even a lot of "class" dragsters - some of them putting out mega HP.

My car failed the other year because one of the headlights was aimed too high and too far to the right. I'm not sure how it had got out of adjustment, unless I had to replace a bulb and the new has seated slightly differently in the housing so the filament isn't quite at the optical centre of the reflector.

Being a sensible, helpful garage, they fixed it immediately and recorded it as a pass, with a status of "advisory - corrected for test".

That shows that headlamp aim *is* checked. It then has another 12 months to go out of aim before being checked again ;-)

The problem is that some cars have no warning or else tell you once you have completely run out. In the old days you could see the tank and could see the level, providing you remembered to check under the bonnet periodically. Nowadays the tank is usually hidden within a front wing and the filler hose is bent, so you have no way of visually checking (either from the side or from above) and are reliant entirely on the warning (if any) or on the absence of fluid when you try to wash, and then filing from a bottle if you keep one in the car.

My dad's Ford Sierra had a warning light, but the icon on it was as incomprehensible as they usually are. Once I can work out *what the F* the icon is showing a picture of, working out what that means is usually trivially easy. I was driving and suddenly there was an insistently flashing orange light. On the basis that a flashing light usually means "this in important: attend to it NOW" I stopped and looked through the instruction manual. Next problem: the icons in the manual look different to the ones on the lights themselves, so you've got that added problem of "which icon in the manual looks most similar to (rather than identical to) the one on the dashboard".

Because they may be bloody-minded and because it means you have to pay a re-test fee (some proportion of the full test fee) which probably means the garage get their cut of that.

I once had a scare. I bought a new car (new to me, but about 3 1/2 years old). I was given an MOT certificate in amongst the paper work. I assumed (wrongly!) that the MOT would be due at the same time as the tax disc, on the assumption that the car was taxed from new and then had 1-year tax every year from then. One day I happened to look at the MOT certificate and found that it had run out a couple of months ago and was due at a totally different time of year from the tax disc. I had to phone round various test centres to find one that could do it *now* so I became legal ASAP. I was very careful not to do anything that would get me stopped by the police: while it is legal to drive with no MOT if you are on your way to a booked test, there would be the inevitable questions about "have you been driving it illegally for the last few months".

The problem wouldn't happen now because the tax payment now always dates from when the car changes hands, so there is no longer any correlation between tax date and MOT date: you *always* have to look at the MOT certificate. Nowadays, you cannot sell a car with n months tax remaining. Instead the seller always claims a refund for the unused portion, and then the new owner has to take out a new 12 month period of tax from the day he buys it. Logistically this is is a pain because you can't use the (untaxed) car to drive you from the garage to the nearest post office to buy the tax. I'm not sure whether you can buy the *first* tax of a newly-acquired car online (by posting them the documents they need to see) or whether the first one has to be a a post office, with all the subsequent ones being online. I've not been in that situation since the rules changed, because I bought my present car (ex demonstrator at 18,000 miles) long before they abolished the concept of selling a car with n months' tax outstanding.

This was a manual with all the gears inline? I've seen automatics with column shift where all the positions are inline - but then they are in a floor-mounted selector lever.

Our CRV, like my wife's previous Civic, has the gear lever coming out of the dashboard rather than the floor. It still moves in the same way: forwards/backwards rather than up/down. It looks slightly odd, but it's very convenient.

It's rare that our CRV engages the rear wheel drive - or at least it's rare that the relevant dashboard light comes on to tell you it's done so. But then we've not had much snow since we've had the car. The only time I saw the light come on was when I had to pull onto a verge to let an oncoming car past on a very narrow road, and then accelerated away afterwards. Normally that doesn't put the light one, but this time it did.

Illogical but it used to be almost universal. My mum's Morris Minor and my dad's Hillman Hunter had reverse to the right of the 3/4 plane against a strong spring - ie like the above diagram but without the 5/6 plane. The first car I remember with reverse in "an unusual position" (ie to the left of first) was someone's Vauxhall Viva HB. I think putting it to the left of first started when 5-speed gearboxes became more common in the 70s. But evidently not 100% of the time, as our Honda shows. I'm sure I've driven other fairly recent cars with it like that.

I agree that putting reverse next to first is a more logical place.

No real logic to it. In the days of BMC and column gear shifts, Morris had the 1&2 plane towards you, Austin away from you.

That really is illogical. To have different conventions even within the same parent company (BMC, later BL) is absurd. I could imagine a different standard between (for example) all BMC cars and all Fords or all Vauxhalls, but I'd expect one company to be consistent. I suppose the Austin convention was more logical as it is at least the same way round as a floor-mounted gearshift, if you imagine looking from the knob towards the steering column (verus looking from the knob towards the floor of the car).

Did all column gearchanges have the 1/2 plane as up/down or did some even turn things round through 90 degrees and have 1/2 as towards/away?

I've never driven a column gearchange car. The only car I can remember seeing was my Dad's 1967 Ford Corsair which had a column-mounted

(*) Some of which were branded as "Consul" rather than "Cortina", in the same way as some Ford Granadas in the 70s were branded as "Consul" - I believe Regan and Carter's in The Sweeney (NHK 295M) was technically a Consul not a Granada, even though identical-looking cars were also sold as Granadas at the same time.

The Dynaflow was no efficiency champion either. A friend had a '59 225 and I thought it was like driving a power boat. Send a message to the

It's possible Austin and Morris set their convention before becoming BMC. And wanted to keep owners loyal to that marque.

Rolls did much the same. Their first autos had the selector on the left hand side of the steering column, in the 50s. Odd when they liked right hand floor gear changes. ;-) When indicator stalks arrived, they mounted that on the right. And continued to do so into the 70s.

Was the Morris ISIS a column shift - never drove a column shift BMC car..

Not any of the above - my Bedford van (vauxhall victor FB mechanics IIRC) was towards you and up for reverse, towards you and down for first

- away and up for second and away and down for third and that was yer lot.

Never happened to me, even parking on ridiculously steep hills.

Freezing in panic is absurd. Nothing was ever gained by remaining still. Rabbits do that then get run over.

Er.... ABS doesn't brake for you, you still have to be able to react to the danger and press the brake quickly. That should still be tested.

It's very easy in fact. The tester taps his clipboard on the dash and you have to brake immediately.

You half release the clutch first, which prevents rollback while you move your right foot over to the accelerator. I don't even have to think about it, it's automatic.

Handbrakes operate using a feeble cable instead of the hydraulics of the footbrake. Handbrakes wear out. And since I don't need one, I don't care for repairing it properly. The garage makes it work for the duration of the MOT test and that's it.

A footbrake can be pressed lightly or heavily or anywhere inbetween. Try doing that with a handbrake, especially as they latch on.

That's an unusual car, I've never known one like that.

That's what you get for living in the outback.

A rolling road isn't that expensive when it's used many times a day. It saves the mechanics a lot of time, and wages cost money.

I do laugh when I see the person in front of me physically moving from side to side to release the handbrake.

Then they can't have hit you very hard if they didn't reach other parts of your car. I very much doubt the gearbox would have even felt it.

And since most cars have a handbrake far too weak to stop another car shoving it forwards, the gearbox will still get shunted.

When that happens you make a massive great profit. Especially when the insurance says it's a right off but you manage to repair it. I was given £700 for a write off. I repaired it for £70. £630 into my pocket.

Ebay is your friend.

Everyone I know does. Belt and braces incase one fails or you forget one.

Stupid law.

And if there isn't? Australia is hardly that crowded.

More in other people's actually, people who can't park straight so give me less room in the space next to them. Anyone over the white line gets my door or supermarket trolley rammed into their paintwork.

It's not wise to threaten me. Last person to do that got 13 stitches.

A few cans sorts that out. Anyway, don't you use a dishwasher?!

That's a lot to own, why do you destroy them so quickly?

Reading the end part of that, not sure why we have this override thing on autos. I've used one ONCE, on a VERY steep very LONG downhill in the French alps to avoid wearing out the brakes. Also tested same one just for a laugh. I selected 1st at 100mph. It very sensibly dropped a gear precisely when it was possible. The rev counter precisely hit the red line on every gear change. That's German engineering for you.

That's just laziness.

Still, imagine the customer was a woman. She could swerve off at an angle for no reason and kill people.

But if it breaks, then it reverts to being a car with no ABS. So if you used to have ABS but it broke, you have to fix it, yet you're no more dangerous than your friend who never had it.

I am pretty sure that you can do it online from your phone using the new keepers section of the V5C. You can take out 6 months or 12 months tax and have the option to pay it monthly by direct debit.

There are a few things to catch you out though. You'll probably need to arrange your insurance in plenty of time, because some companies can take days to update the database. You can't tax an ex-motability car online for the first time, as the system can't cope with the idea that a new owner means a change from tax exempt to taxable without you going to the post-office - although in my case, I was buying from a dealer and we could drive to the post-office on his trade-plates.

Another gotcha is if you can't find the V5C for your existing car and have mislaid the reminder, as it arrived weeks before you could actually tax it. You can phone, pay £25 for a new V5C and they can generate the new number and tax it for you there and then - except that they fail to tell you until you have paid the £25 (non-refundable) fee, that you can't set up a monthly direct debit over the phone, only online and they can't give you the number over the phone!

If it is a brand new car, then the dealer normally sorts it out, but if it is second-hand and has been taxed before, then you can do it online.

SteveW

I've driven cars with failed ABS for years (it pays to be nice to the mechanics). They work just fine. Usually only one sensor failed, and it still does the ABS thing for the other three wheels.

The trouble with power steering is it hides things. I once drove 10 miles with a completely flat tyre and didn't notice! By the time I got home, the tyre was shredded. On a car without power steering, I would have stopped, changed the tyre, and been able to have the puncture repaired.

But I do like the light steering it provides.

But it is yet another thing to go wrong. My current car has a power steering leak. One garage told me it must be repaired at some phenomenal cost. The next garage just cleaned up the leak, tightened a nut, and topped up the fluid. It still leaks slowly, but it works, and it er.... passed the MOT.

My mother has a Hyundai with the indicator stalk on the right - on the couple of occasions that I have driven it (test drives after doing work on it), I have found it very hard to adjust. I'm sure I'd be fine after a longer drive.

Similarly, the first time I drove a left-hand drive car, I found myself swerving very slightly when changing gear - much like many learner drivers do. As I had a few hundred miles to my destination, I soon got the hang of it.

SteveW