JemP

One of the MOT failure points was no parking brake effort on the offside. I put new shoes in, adjusted it all up, sent it for retest, and it failed again, still as bad! I've looked under the car at the cables, and it looks like there's little scope for movement on the offside cable, its got about a centimetre only of pull available, yet the nearside has a good 4/5 cm available to pull the handbrake on. I realise its just one cable that goes round the semicirculat cable guide that is pulled by the foot pedal, but try as I like I cant adjust the cable to have the same amount of pull on both sides! I did manage to move the cable around once, and then put the brakes back together, pushed the pedal down, and still no brakes on the offside, and the cable returned to where it was before!! Any ideas??

If the belt is slipping, won't it be slipping all the time? The steering noise is only when turning the wheels, or would this put more stress on the belt and possibly cause it to slip and creak?

I bought a GS300 Mk1 a few weeks back and I have found the power steering very heavy. Its working (as its even heavier with the engine turned off!) I've also noticed that when turning the steering wheel there is a squeaking which seems to be coming from under the bonnet, and not from inside the car. I've changed the power steering fluid, and will change it again a couple of times (syringing off from the reservoir) but no difference yet. Any ideas what this could be?

Yes you'll lose about 25% fuel economy, but its worth it. I bought my GS with lpg fitted (it didnt increase the value of the car either!) so I don't need to do any miles to recoup any outlay, so essentially when I convert my pence per mile into petrol costs, I equate to around 45 mpg over the last 12 months. Not bad, although it was better when the differntial in price was sometimes 3 times!! Considering I would have had to buy petrol to do the same miles without the LPG, it represents a major saving for me. Interesting about the fuel use, for the last 20,000 miles odd of LPG I've used in the GS, I've put two tankfuls of petrol in it. Mine clicks over to lpg soon after start up and runs on the stuff all day. High miles too, and many long fast motorway trips. I guess I'm just lucky, and was also as lucky with my Range Rover which only ran on LPG, although the V8 engine finally gave up the ghost after 210,000 miles. The only problem I experience on lpg is lack of range. doing a 200 mile commute most days i need to fill up nearly every day.

Aircon doesnt burn gas or petrol, aircon doesnt burn anything, it runs off the timing belt. Timing belt is run off the engine.the more energy you want from the engine.the more fuel you have to supply.Therefore,the Aircon will effect the fuel consumption. Agreed of course, but if the engine is running on lpg, the air con can't be burning petrol, as I said the air con doesn't "burn" either, but it does put a load on the engine therefore if running on lpg, using air con will use more lpg.

Aircon doesnt burn gas or petrol, aircon doesnt burn anything, it runs off the timing belt.

I had a similar problem with my GS300, and I kept driving as I realised that all these circuits couldn't all be faulty and figured maybe an ECU blip, I kept driving, and more circuits went out, radio stopped working, aerial went down, wipers slowed up a lot. Obviously for some reason there was not enough power to keep everything running. Turned out to be the alternator failing. Changing the alternator is a very easy job, took about 40 minutes and everything working just fine now