rufford ford

Will some cars come to harm if you just tow them without lifting the wheels off the ground? That might take the gilt off the gingerbread, if you have to pay for a new gearbox for (say) every 5th one you tow. :)

It happens that GB formulated :

No, only if they are towed a longer distance.

Dunno. I?ve often wondered how many are deliberate ?insurance jobs?. Cars needing expensive repairs etc. ?accidentally? written off.

Tim

depends if they are left in 'park'

That locks the driven wheels on an auto.

Can you tow Electric cars? Brian

If only. ex MOT/garage-owner neighbour says that it is quite common for auto-cars parked but hit by another vehicle typically suffer broken parking brake pawns.

If they have electric parking brakes (as many modern cars do) and the battery is 'flat', how do you release the parking brake ?

Andrew

The ford at Ide, just outside Exeter, is similar. It's basically a flat river bed that you drive along for about 100yds. I drove along it just for the experience back on the late 1960's. Fortunately the water was quite low, because my old MG-TC had holes in the wooden floor where the pedals and handbrake came through.

As to the people driving through Rufford ford - why shouldn't they, for goodness sake? The water wasn't that deep; there were vehicles on hand to pull out the ones that did get stuck; everyone was obviously having a good time and no one got hurt. Don't be such a bunch of killjoys!

Admiral (the insurers) suggest that they wouldn't pay in these circumstances.

Most insurers put flood damage into two categories ? avoidable flood damage and unavoidable flood damage. Avoidable damage could be classed as someone driving into flood water ? you never know how deep it is."

You do know how deep it is with those fords with depth gauges.

Admiral suggest that 6 inches is deep enough to cause trouble. :)

They might find themselves in sticky position with the ombudsman on that

- as a number of fords are normally deeper than that and form part of the normal road network.

Yes, my Seat Toledo had the air intake below bumper level. My Anglia managed 18"

That is completely silly with most vehicles and a slow flowing ford like that.

Yes, it is possible with a manhole cover that floats away but that doesn't happen with fords.

I'm glad to say that my daily driver has its intake at about 18" and my kit-car's is going on for 2-1/2 ft ... although, well before that, the back end would be floating and I'd have no drive!

Is there any fundamental reason why the air intake of modern cars cannot be from just below the bonnet? Old cars with a "frying pan" housing for the air filter on top of the carburettor(s) had the opening level with the top of the engine, and even the alternative winter-setting air intake that took warmed air from near the engine block was usually half-way up the engine. So why the modern trend for some cars to take the air intake at bumper level?

I managed to rip the plastic undertray off my car in a very shallow flood.

Its not just the engine...

I can see no reason. Especially with intercooled turbos. The point of bumper level intake is presumably to get a cooler air in. But there are other places avaalable.

Several of the 4x4 going for "full send" seemed to lose random bits of bumper, grill, under-tray etc ...