Yea, i would still trade for the freedom or at least an option. People with personal insurance tend to be more careful thank when accidents are paid off by mandatory insurance.
I used to have dealers license and on few old-timer license plate back in Germany which was ok alternative. Now I have lots of space without regulation to not really care anymore but not very friendly for low jaguars.

 

[QUOTE= You only have to watch something like Just Rolled In to see what kind of chaos would rule if you trusted the general public to maintain their cars to the same kind of standard that car enthusiasts tend to in the conditions we have here. Working brakes should never be an optional extra, lol.[/QUOTE]

I have watched several editions of "Just Rolled In". Hilarious stuff. I don't need and more of those driving around me than I already have. I see why so many mechanics are just discussed with the general public. However, things cost so much now not every one has the $ to pay for it. So if it starts, they drive.

 

yea.... i could tell stories... or film more episodes of just rolled in... Maybe that is idea how to get my YT channel to grow lol

one thing which triggers me most is that nobody replaces here the coolant water and uses the magic fluids from petrol station to fix everything. Then they wonder when they take the car to me and i tell them i need to fix everything and bill is 5000€ on their 1000€ junk. 🤷‍♀️
Maintenance is cheap people, that is repair what is expensive.

 

Expanding foam is cheap after all.

 

While it sounds good, and it is what the government would have us believe, the facts just don't stack up. Take this for instance. Granted, I am using US stats, so not sure how that compares. Here DUI crashes cause a SIGNIFICANTLY higher number of fatalities and crashes each year than do accidents from parts malfunctions. Quick check with NHTSA shows about 30% of all fatalities each year are from drinking and driving. Whereas with mechanical failures, it's only just under 1%. The thing is that you are assuming that if inspections were not required that many more people would have cars like are on JYI and it has been proven time and time again that is not the case. The vast majority of people want to drive safe cars and maintain their vehicles. This is evidenced by the fact that in the state I live in, according to the state police (who is in charge of the inspections), only about 2% of all vehicles fail inspection for one reason or another. So, yet another government overreach of enforcing arbitrary regulations and charging the 98% to cover the problems of the 2%. This is literally the definition of overreach and unfair.

We agree 100% that cars should be in good running order. I just don't happen to agree it is the governments job to enforce these regulations. They sure do a smash up job with DUI fatalities, don't they? Conclusion - even the strictest laws and regulations do not stop criminal behavior.

 

Well the facts do stack up as road fatalities continue to fall, despite more cars being on the roads. It's pointless requiring manufacturers to include all sorts of safety features in new vehicles, if a few years down the road they can just be disconnected and the owner drive round on bald tyres with the chassis held together with expanding foam.

Annual safety inspections ensure that old cars finally go off to the scrap yard when they fail their last MOT and the car is worth less than the repair. An annual MOT really is a minor inconvenience compared to having to share road space with dangerous **** boxes. Sometimes it isn't all about the individual, but about everyone around them and the air we all breathe.

As I said to begin with, small crowded roads in Europe are totally different to wide open spaces with little traffic that might be what you find where you live, and the fewer **** boxes on the roads where I live, the better.

 

I would be for it, if the new cars were not so much worse made than the old ones. Many cars do not pass MOT also because updated emission regulation standards or whatever they come up with. In Germany they made even 6 years old diesel cars useless and the push will be higher.

You might find that in 6 years value of your darling jags drop down to zero because they force you to drive only in country roads, or to retrofit hybrid drive or drive on ethanol or whatever they come up with.

It always starts reasonable and builds up as people get used to it.
Freedom is always better option then oppression even if we live with majority of irresponsible or apathetic idiots.

People driving shitboxes would get their driving license removed if they caused accident, which would teach them lesson to take care of the car. It has nothing to do with required MOT (which btw is here now for many cars even every 6 Mo).

 

😱 What a great response! You definitely get it.

Though now I am afraid I have derailed the spirit of this thread 😂.

So, I can get us back on track. Today, I will be working on finishing the rearranging/upgrading/organizing my garage. Very much needed. If I have time, I will either try to get one of my XJLs out from in front of the garage door as it has an air compressor not working, OR changing the brakes on my MINI as it is, ironically, requiring an annual inspection.

 

.....I had spent some time in my grandfather's garage when I was growing up. He was a master mechanic who not only repaired cars and trucks but built racing engines. I say that because I just returned from the shop where work is done on my 1999 XK8 . I asked the mechanic to please check the brake pads because I purchased the care with 84,000 miles on it and its how 120,000. Also, look the car over...it rides a bit rough so look at the suspension. Phone call yesterday.... "the shocks and struts are shot as are most of the rubber connection points. Also, you mentioned the air conditioning seemed to take a bit of time to get to cool. Well, the pump and the exchange or condenser (?) are leaking and beyond repair...need replacing." Looking at a lot of cash here. Point is I wish a had spent that time with my grandfather learning something. I have neither the facility, the tools or the talent to take care of any of this. However, I run my personal finances with what I call the buckets....Every check is divided with paying current bills including groceries, etc. Then there are the buckets: Home repairs, Travel, Insurance, a couple of others and Jag Cash. There's not enough in that bucket to pay off these repairs but enough to take the bite out of it. Oh, the good news.......the brake pads are fine.
Chuck

 

Tried one just now. My original, unextended antenna worked better.

 

Man, that's a rough one If I didn't have at least a small facility and the know how and tools I'm not sure if own a Jaguar, as much as I love them. Other than having a significant disposable income, I'm not sure how anyone could really afford that. Hopefully, it gets easier.

Mike

 

Replaced my Power Steering pump to Steering Rack High Pressure line.
Easy enough but the totally different routing of the "New" variant of the hose is the worst part.
IT GOES NO WHERE THAT THE OLD HOUSE WENT IN ITS ROUTE.

 

I also go no where in my old house. Thanks for this helpful warning.

 

oh, I yearn for the life before auto-spell / auto-grammar correct. In some cases the result is humorous. But mostly it’s just another modern life pain in the rear end.

Z

 

As a last hurrah before this thing goes to the scrap yard or out of state, I decided to change the upstream O2 sensors. Those are the only things in the intake mixture/catalyst system that haven't been changed, although one was from the current car, the other from a car with supposedly about 78K miles (about half of mine). I put the 78K mile cats on mine, but that set was missing an O2 sensor so I nabbed one of my old ones.

Anyway, there are some threads about removing them by pulling back the carpet and using an AC vent drain hole. I found mine fairly straightforward to remove from the top. I used a crowsfoot O2 sensor socket, a long 3/8" ratchet, and a 3/8" breaker bar for one that was stubborn.

Removing the air intake tube provides direct access to the RH one. The octopus hose gets in the way a bit and you have to finagle the socket under the hose. But once the socket was on and in position, I got the sensor loose.

The LH sensor was messier. One should remove the expansion tank to get better access and, natch, coolant dripped everywhere. The heater control valve hoses block things up a bit but by finagling a bit I could get the socket onto the sensor. As this sensor was the one I'd swapped during the cat changeover it didn't require the breaker bar.

Now we're just waiting for the new sensors to arrive. With any luck the CAT monitor will set and I can drive the thing legally once more.

 

Conclusion - even the strictest laws and regulations do not stop criminal behavior.


I couldn't have said it any better.

 

New Contis on all 4 corners and I replaced front rotors, pads, callipers and hoses.

Now I know how my wife feels when she buys new shoes (which is very frequently).

 

Pulled my non operational CD multi disc unit out of the trunk. Gave it a good clean, resoldered a few iffy looking joints and reinstalled.

It started up, loaded and worked perfectly, the first time in 4 years of ownership.

Some things are just gravy.

 

I've had some issues I've been putting off because I thought they were going to be struggles that I didn't want to deal with in the heat we've been dealing with.

First were the "bulb fail rear" alerts on my '98 convert when backing and signaling a turn. I of course had tested the signal and back up bulbs and tried replacing them, but to no avail, so I procrastinated. Then, yesterday, a woman followed me into a dollar store where I went to buy a battery for my mutimeter, and told me my tail lights weren't working. I was embarrassed to admit that I knew it and that I was there buying a battery for my tester in order to repair the problem. So, today my wife wanted to go to an art fair in a nearby town, but it was very hot again and the forecast was for heavy rain–a good day to stay home and do some indoor work. Because multiple bulbs were involved and they had tested positvely, I assumed I would be chasing down a faulty ground connection or wire. I steeled myself for an afternoon of disassembly and crawling. I removed the bulb assemblies, laid them in the trunk where I could see them from the front seat and set about testing them. The left side was all good, the right side side tail and brake lights were good but seemed a little dimmer than the left, the right side signal and back up bulbs were lit but very dim. I figured I had diagnosed a bad ground correctly. I started to remove things to examine the right side wiring beginning with the connectors on the bulb holder panels. I hit pay dirt immediately! The ground pin on the right was badly rusted–maybe crawling wouldn't be necessary after all. I cleaned the rust off the pin with a wire brush in a dremel tool, then sprayed it with CRC electonic cleaner, applied dielectic grease to all the pins and sockets though nothing else was rusted? This puzzled me. Then I thought I'd have a look at my disabled
'99 out in the barn. No rust on any pins, but the negative was slightly discolored. I decided to swap. I took it back to the garage, wire brushed and greased it then installed and checked it out. All good! I put the repaired one in 99 and was all done.

I figured I was having a run of luck, so I'd take a look at another electrcal problem I was procrastinating on–my x type winter car. It had been sitting outside for a while, disused, because I keep the top down on the XK and it gets the garage all summer when I'm not working on some other car there. Last week I thought I'd take the X for a little drive to warm it up and do the oils before fall. The battery, however, was dead, so I put the NOCO Genius to work on it. The next day the genie said it was all taken care of– green light–so I tried to start it. No go! I backed "Kat" out of the garage and put the jumpers on it. Now it starts, so I drive about five miles to warm and charge it. No problems except the ABS, DSC and O2 sensor that I've been procrastinating on (It's summer and I have lots of gardening and greenhouse work every day, and then there's swimming and convertible drives; whenever, I get a break from home maintainance and repairs). I park it in the middle of the driveway, so I can mow the lawn. Next day is dump day, so I go to start it and !!#:&, it's dead again. This time jumping won't work either. The trouble lights all flash along with the red light on the console and it won't crank. But, there's a hint–it's now got a gearbox fault. Looks like a battery problem, so, I put the genius back to work, this time in repair mode for a day. Next day NOCO gives the green light, voltage measures above 12 on my old back up meter (the digital needs a battery) but it's all flashing lights and no action. I decide to give it a break and think about it awhile. That brings me back to today. I put the new battery in the digital meter and get 10.2v. After dinner I decide to go and get a new battery for the X as well. Put it in, voila! All is well! Maybe tomorrow I'll tackle the O2, ABS and DSC problems.
Thanx and good luck with your problems–may they just fly away.

Best, Rick

 

NOTE: dielectric grease impedes the flow of
electricity,

any improvement seen after using it is in spite of the grease, not because of it . It should only be used on rubber bulb covers, spark plug boots, to seal out moisture etc. Never directly on electrical contacts.


there are many conductive grease products made expressly for benefiting the flow of electricity. They are copper or silver based, with the silver ones being the best and priciest. But you don’t need much of it. A 7 gram tube of it has lasted me many years

dielectric :

What is a dielectric in simple terms?

Dielectrics are materials that don't allow current to flow. They are more often called insulators because they are the exact opposite of conductors.

Z