http://passionate-about-cars.com How to survive the world of modern motoring Fri, 15 Jul 2011 13:40:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 © andy@wireworldmedia.co.uk () andy@wireworldmedia.co.uk() 1440 Just another WordPress weblog andy@wireworldmedia.co.uk No no http://passionate-about-cars.com/wp-content/plugins/podpress/images/powered_by_podpress.jpg http://passionate-about-cars.com 144 144 http://passionate-about-cars.com/2010/12/19-high-winds-and-insurance-companies/ http://passionate-about-cars.com/2010/12/19-high-winds-and-insurance-companies/#comments Wed, 01 Dec 2010 15:54:20 +0000 admin http://passionate-about-cars.com/?p=171 http://passionate-about-cars.com/2010/12/19-high-winds-and-insurance-companies/feed/ 0 18:26 In today's show Steve communicates the sad news that insurance companies prefer to use innaccurate methods to determine the severity of a weather event resulting ... In today's show Steve communicates the sad news that insurance companies prefer to use innaccurate methods to determine the severity of a weather event resulting in a claim. Andy: Hello everyone Irsquo;m with Steve Kennard on a very crisp November morning. Morning Steve. Steve: Yeh. Morning, Andrew. Andy: When I first arrived Steve was on the phone - he was having a very long phone call. Do you want to tell us what it was all about? Steve: Um. Yeh. Insurance companies. Almost an hour, talking to an insurance company regarding the storm force winds we had at the beginning of November. We had a little bit of damage done to the garage roofhellip; Andy: Irsquo;m just looking now therersquo;s some broken panes and stuff arenrsquo;t there. Steve: Yeh. The garage roof has got some large glass panes in it - therersquo;s quite a number of them. It is a large roof. In previous lives this was a bus garage. Andy: Ah. OK. Steve: It dates back probably to the early part of the last century - it was Tillings bus garage actually where they had the first electric busses in Brighton - and this was one of the depots. The busses used to pull in here - change over the batteries - these huge sort of 1 or 3 tons - these huge battery packs - change them over on the busses and then theyrsquo;d be back out on the street again. So these were the very early electric vehicles that used to run around Brighton back at the beginning of the nineteen hundreds. Andy: And thatrsquo;s a topic for another show - electric vehicles - we must talk about that - but lets back to your roof. Steve: Yeh - OK. Anyway this roof structure. There are dozens - close to hundreds of glass panels in the roof - large roof structure. Itrsquo;s a very tall building, an open building, and Montague Place here is very windy. Andy: Because of the flats. Steve: The block of flats opposite are 16 - 18 floors or something. So we get this vortex - I think wersquo;ve mentioned it before in previous shows - this vortex effect runs up the center of the street. Back in the early part of November - everybody will remember - we had strong winds for about a week. One particular day the wind speeds were extremely strong - I donrsquo;t know what they were because wersquo;ve got no way of recording them. They were strong enough to knock me off my feet, I got out of a car and the wind actually knocked me over - quite strong. Insurance companies say, nowadays, in order for it to be classed as a storm force or a storm event, it has to be a memorable event - and as a pointed out to them anyone who sustained damage - thatrsquo;s memorable. Yoursquo;ll remember if yoursquo;ve had damage caused by the weather - thatrsquo;s a memorable event. Andy: And you got blown off your feet which was memorable as well. Steve: I got blown off my feet, I did. But we also sustained damage in the garage here, we had a couple of the roof panels got lifted up, because theyrsquo;re glass it actually broke. A section of one of the panels fell out. Fortunately itrsquo;s in a corner of the building, nobody underneath it - had there been anyone underneath it, I hate to think what would have happened. Andy: Did it happen during the day or night, Steve? Steve: During the day. We were in here working at the time. We had to have the - again itrsquo;s a large entrance to the garage - every time we were opening the doors it was allowing the wind to come in, the garage was rattling - real strong, storm force winds. I would say they were almost hurricane force - but of course, ask Michael Fish and we donrsquo;t get hurricanes in this country. Anyway we had to open the doors to let cars in and out - as soon as cars were in or out, close the doors back up again - try and reduce the amount of wind that we get into the building. As we opened the doors to let a car in, a gust of wind came in, lifted these roof panels, broke the glass, and we had the damage. I thought another job for the ins... faults,,winter andy@wireworldmedia.co.uk no No http://passionate-about-cars.com/2010/05/13-engine-refits/ http://passionate-about-cars.com/2010/05/13-engine-refits/#comments Fri, 07 May 2010 16:21:02 +0000 admin http://passionate-about-cars.com/?p=126 http://passionate-about-cars.com/2010/05/13-engine-refits/feed/ 0 18:58 Steve talks about engine replacements and the new road widening at Handcross Hill in Sussex, UK. Andy White: Hello Steve, itrsquo;s been a couple of months because ... Steve talks about engine replacements and the new road widening at Handcross Hill in Sussex, UK. Andy White: Hello Steve, itrsquo;s been a couple of months because yoursquo;ve been otherwise occupied the last couple of times Irsquo;ve come to see you. Wersquo;re standing by your big RV. So, yoursquo;ve been out in it? Steve Kennard: Yes, we went out in it last weekend, just to give it a bit of a trial run after its refurb, let's say. We went just along to Chichester way but it was a nice weekend. Andy White: I thought you were going to say for a minute, went to Chichester and then stopped. Steve Kennard: No, no, no. Just went down to Chichester, I mean because of the size of it, we towed a little KA behind. So, we get there, park up on site and then use the KA to run around in locally. Andy White: So, it doesn't fit in the boot like some of those big American ones? Steve Kennard: No, it hasn't quite got the garage, is what you're talking about. I mean a lot of them have what they call the garage in the back of them, which basically sort of goes underneath the bed. The bed is raised up quite high and you've got this large space underneath that you can put small vehicle in. Andy White: How was it, Steve? It wasn't the inaugural trip was it, you've been out in it a few times haven't you? Steve Kennard: No, this was actuallyhellip; Andy White: It was the inaugural trip! Steve Kennard: First trip, yes. The one we were going to go one towards the back end of last year, last October, that occurred - well I had my little attack let's say. Andy White: Yes, your little challenge. Steve Kennard: Yes, the weekend or the week that we were due to go out in it. We went out on it, the idea was just a long weekend, just to give it a run out and see if there were any gremlins, iron out the gremlins. Andy White: Did you find any gremlins? Steve Kennard: The one real annoying thing was the old satellite didnrsquo;t work properly. Couldn't find, it couldn't find the actual satellite itself. Which was a little bit annoying but it wasn't out the way, the DVD player and that lot worked. The most annoying thing was, when we got back after the weekend I switched it on to have a look to see what was wrong with it and it worked fine. Andy White: Isnrsquo;t that always the way? Steve Kennard: Yes, I guess there is a little gremlins in their somewhere, which Irsquo;ll have a look at and get to the bottom of but the bus itself ran absolutely fine, turned a few heads. It gets a few looks where it is at the moment, parked outside the workshop. Andy White: I bet it did. I was going say, itrsquo;s the first time Irsquo;ve seen it actually out in the open because when we saw before it was sort of tucked into your garage at the side, wasn't it? Steve Kennard: Yes, it was tucked in the corner but it's now out in the open. It's all been, as I say, all refurbed inside and it drives absolutely lovely. You just have to make sure you give yourself a little bit of room when you swing it because of the overhang on the back. Andy White: Yes, the back wheels, theyrsquo;re way forward, aren't they? Steve Kennard: Yes, like a lot of these vehicles they have what they call a separate bedroom on the back and that is, it gives you some sort of about a seven foot overhang on the back. Ah, perfect noise in the background at the moment. Andy White: Thatrsquo;s okay, this perfect technology can still pick our voices up despite the road cleaning device coming along. Anyway, let's get on to the shop floor, what's been happening? It's now April, it's nice and sunny, still a bit chilly; what sort of problems are you having at the moment? Steve Kennard: Oh well, where should we start? There are loads of problems. Andy White: You are mentioning a lot of engine changes, actually replacing engines. Steve Kennard: Yes, we've got a high Hyundai, its been here for a little while, sorry not a Hyundai, itrsquo;s a Kia wa... faults,,maintenance andy@wireworldmedia.co.uk no No http://passionate-about-cars.com/2010/02/12-dont-drive-your-mini-through-a-ford/ http://passionate-about-cars.com/2010/02/12-dont-drive-your-mini-through-a-ford/#comments Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:01:11 +0000 admin http://passionate-about-cars.com/?p=114 http://passionate-about-cars.com/2010/02/12-dont-drive-your-mini-through-a-ford/feed/ 0 17:35 Amongst other things, Steve tells the story of how driving a mini through a ford resulted in a new engine. Andy: It's Friday 29th January, I'm at ... Amongst other things, Steve tells the story of how driving a mini through a ford resulted in a new engine. Andy: It's Friday 29th January, I'm at 1st Class Garage with Steven. Steven's just been playing - not dominos - that game where you have to move things around to make space with cars. Steve: Well, it's almost like musical chairs with the cars, just shunting the cars around so that people can get in and out. And, yes, I mean, it's the same sort of problem wherever you go in the town. I don't know; I don't know what the answer to it is really. Well, I do know the answer is not to fleece the motorists. That's basically all that's happening; it's all about money. I mean, if you go not too far from here there's, like, it's 11-hour meters. And if you go up and down those roads you'll find that most of those are standing empty because, of course, the cost of parking now. So we've got roads around here that has got not a lot of vehicles parked on them because they're now metered. Whereas before the meters, obviously people used to park there, so all the cars that used to park there, where have they gone? You know, they've only moved them to another area. And this is the common practice: when they started zoning this town people used to park on the outskirts of the zones, so they moved the zones out. People park on the outskirts of those zones, so it is a little bit of a knock-on effect. And the parking issues in this town, I mean, I could spend hours talking about it and I don't really want to go down that - because it does make the blood boil. Andy: Have you had any nice, juicy run-ins with traffic wardens recently, Steve? Steve: Just lately, no. I've got to say, in fairness, the guys we've had around here have been very understanding, because obviously we work with cars; we're in the town; parking is a problem. When people drop their cars off, you know, we then have to move vehicles around to accommodate them or we have to find somewhere that we can park them, you know, safely and legally. So yes, parking is a little bit of an issue and we've had run-ins in the past with various wardens - I don't know what their, sort of, their actual job title is now, but... Andy: Traffic enforcement officers, I think, something like that. Steve: Oh, traffic enforcement... Andy: Or parking enforcement officers. Something like that, I think. Steve: Yes. That's a lovely term, isn't it? I mean, just directly outside the garage here we've got double yellow lines. We did ask if we could actually have, like, the white bar that they used to put across sunken pavements. Because this is a sunken pavement, or a crossover as they call it, which means that you - you know, that really other people - or people shouldn't really park there because we need access to it. So we asked if we could have the white bar there because of cars being dropped off; it'll allow customers just to pull their cars up outside there without getting hassled. And one or two of the wardens in the past have really hassled us, you know, they don't appreciate that we have a job to do like they have a job to do. We've got to have a little bit of sense and just - it is, it's common sense really. Andy: But on a bright note it's good news about the understanding wardens that you've encountered recently. We salute understanding wardens, don't we? Well, I do. Steve: Absolutely, I'm all for it. Everybody has a job to do and I'm sure they hate to get abused, but there are ones out there that actually encourage abuse with the way they go about their job. You can understand why people do get wound-up and do, like, howl verbal abuse at them. I'm not condoning it - I can't condone it - but yes, you know, it'll make your blood boil, particularly if you're having a bit of a bad day and their lack of understanding is - it doesn't help matters. It's just fuel to the fire really, isn't it? Andy: Now Steve, last time I spoke to you, which was in December, was faults,,law,and,regulations,,winter andy@wireworldmedia.co.uk no No