craigowl

Underpowered, too, IMO. Look elsewhere.

Cheap "Dremel" type thingy. http://uk.aldi.com/uk/html/offers/58_4420.htm

Do not kid yourselves. Dr_ mat is on the right lines IMO. And NEVER fail to wear your seatbelt. A young man in a case I was involved with is a shadow of his former self physically and mentally. He was in the passenger seat in a works van that failed to take a bend on black ice and crashed head on into a Granada (yes they were still about a handful of years ago). He was not wearing a seat belt and was flung through the windscreen onto the road after firstly damaging himself on the windscreen frame. The driver was uninjured. Seems to be some kind of dumb macho thing in works vans, to chase each other and overtake down icy rural roads and not wear seatbelts. We've all seen them. But wait for this - - He took the driver, his employers and the local council (gritters) to court for the damage he suffered!

I agree with dr_mat. IMO far too many batteries are ditched when there is nothing much wrong with them. The Corrado appears to have idiosyncratic battery drainage problems. I believe a scarcity of lead has put car batteries at an all time high price - I saw Halfords calcium for Corrado was almost £100 the other week :shock: .

Only ten in 37 years. I always needed a reliable car for commuting to work, shifts, site visits, etc. so rarely had the luxury of owning an interesting used car until 1995 when I could use the train. 1970 Reliant van :lol: (new - J reg) 1972 Opel Manta 1.6 (new - K) 1975 Citroen Dyane (new - N) 1978 Vauxhall Cavalier 1.6 GL (new T) (to me it was an Opel Ascona :lol:) 1980 VW Polo GLS (new - V) 1983 VW Polo Formel E (new - A) 1987 VW Polo GLS (new - D) 1990 Peugeot 1.8 GLD (new - H) still got it 1999 VW Golf GTi MkII (H) 2001 VW Corrado Storm (M) still got it.

As an aside, years ago carbon tetrachloride was a brilliant cleaning solvent. Cleaning ladies used to splash lashings of it around the office. Had to be banned as it destroys the ozone layer iirc and some cleaning ladies died, too, as it is absorbed through the skin and heads straight for your kidneys. :( (Ah....the good old days, none of this pc nonsense or Health & Safety to spoil your fun. :lol: )

Would not recommend paying over £10 for a second hand one, and then only if you are totally skint, desperate and prepared to gamble. The cracks can be very difficult to see - even if you have the thing in your own mitts on a bright sunny day! Our chum's link to the guys doing one for £95 is probably one of the best money savers on here for a while. :thumb right:

Glenn, for carpets, I believe the ordinary carpet cleaning products you can buy in places like Tesco are as good as any at reasonable prices. I adopted this policy after reading advice from others on this forum. Special car care products are probably overpriced, but cannot be certain of this. I like the stuff you spray on from an aerosol, work in and then vacuum off. The cream leather and carpet is difficult to get totally clean, I have found from my own car. Still, you have a good chance now that you have the bits all out of a car. 8)

Pi$h! :( Here's hoping you get that sorted out.

At the filler neck, in the upper wheel arch, is a mud trap. You can remove the rubber grommet from around the filler cap by freeing its retaining sprung ring. Have seen threads on here before (ages ago now) about this. It is best to get in among this area with a hose and waxoyl area about once a year. Plug the open filler cap neck, of course, while you are working.

Yeah. those challenges are not very satisfying as far as I am concerned. More like a slapstick comedy show than a motor program. (More yawns!) I'd rather watch Tiswas reruns! At risk of sounding like a technophile anorak, do you get the feeling we are being conned most of the time? Doors falling off and letting out torrents of water, cars breaking down in African deserts and getting back on track in a short time with minimal tweaking? - give me a break! I would far rather see the challenges done in a fair fashion with the cars having been made reasonably roadworthy , etc before the contests. The exotica are interesting but how many of us have an old runway and the loan of a new Aston Martin to pi$$ around with. I would rather see more "ordinary" affordable cars - or old classics - in tests and comparisons. The humour and chemistry between the 3 presenters is first rate entertainment but they have not got the "motor car" ingredient correct IMO. All those posers in the audience in the hangar trying to catch glimpses of themselves on monitors, too. Yuk. I'm surprised one girl the other week didn't slip out of her top so anxious was she to impress.

Stag, you mean? It was over 150% of the price of the Opel! We were both working shifts but had a mortgage and a child on the way, so £1450 was the limit IIRC. Anyway, the Stags all ended up needing new engines pretty soon, too, IIRC. A cool buy nowadays, though.

Aw! Jim, have a heart! - I'm too old and frail to stand up to all those shirt lifters in jail!

Scanning at 200dpi. Will 300+ increase size of document so that forum pix system will reject? Wiil experiment - thanks, guys.

I'm trusting the MODS there aint any copyright issues reproducing these pages here? I do not think "Motor" lives anymore but that may not matter. Images are scanned "grayscale". Anyone know of something to help improve readability of text?

Toyota Corolla Coupe "Motor" Road Test

This ad is from inside cover of 1971 "Motor" Road Tests. A brand new 2- bedroomed semi-detached villa in Ayr cost us £4750 in 1970. BMW 633 about 8% dearer at £5118 (including purchase tax?)! However, same house in 1973 went for £9250 IIRC. This was a period of fastest rising house prices we have known IIRC. For decades I have heard warnings of house prices falling - ain't seen anything significant in 35 years that I can recall. Are "they" trying to give us a bum steer? It would be interesting to read comments from finance/accountant/property experts on forum about any of the above.

In early 1972, I bought the above book which came out each year IIRC. We bought the Opel Manta 1.6 after considering everything inside the book (and others not in it including the Triumph GT6 and Land Rover - ain't we daft when young? :lol:) I thought this book had been binned by me in a fit of spring cleaning a couple of years ago but was delighted to find I had held onto it. The glue in the binding has dried out and all the pages (over 260 of them) are now loose. Anyway, I thought some of you would be interested in a few of the tests, so have copied the cover listing the included cars. Need to find out about copyright regarding putting tests on this forum. NEW: Have e-mailed Autocar Haymarket to ask if this will be OK.

Great work, man. 8) Have VAG confused themselves a bit, though? I dont have "O" in Corrado handy but "O" in our UK only (?) "Storm" badge looks a bit different, perhaps?

IMO you need look no further than the first two in your list. Have fun!

Beautiful! 8) You're a devil, stormcharged VR6! :evil: :lol:

I read "plusgas" aerosol was best for freeing rusted screws, etc. Have used this recently and not had any probs, but appreciate that is not a scientific assesment. Can you dremel a new, broad slot in the screw head? I would never be without my dremel (or, rather a copy of it) for things like this.

Distance on VR6 is accurate, I believe. Here to Dundee has always been 63 miles whatever car I have used over the past 29 years! Mpg: 20-25mpg on short distances from cold, through town traffic and negotiating a car park or two. Runs over 15 miles using motorway and running in a bit of heavier traffic, too, 32-34mpg.

Yes - I am sure wild birds take in a fair bit of grit when feeding. Worms, for example, contain quite a bit of earth. I made same mistake on my daughter's Mk4 black golf - just trying to be helpful like! That modern black paint finish is awful, I thought. Seems designed to show up every little scuff and scratch.

or help these guys out.... :D