Redsteve

Hi Guys, I have the DHP pack on my car. When my tyres were due for replacement, due to the ridiculous price of the 245/50/17 tyres, I put 235/50/17s on. I am running Falken tyres and have no complaints about them. They cost about £115 each (fitted and balanced, old tyres disposed of) from E-Tyres about 2 months ago. This is the second set of Falkens I have put on the car, they wear quite well and are quiet, grip is also good. I will use them again next time. Hope this helps. Steve.

Hi Guys, I can vouch for this item from Maplins, I have one and it is, by far, the best way I have found of playing MP3s through the standard stereo. I use my phone as the player (HTC Sensation) and it is as clear as a bell with no hissing. Hope this helps. Steve.

Hi Colin, my boot was full of water a few weeks ago. My problem was the water was creeping over the boot seal below where the number plate goes. The boot lid was not compressing the seal enough to keep the water out. All I did was stick some draught excluder on the boot lid to compress the seal. I have had no more water in the boot and I have extensively tried to get it to leak. The way I discovered where my leak was to park the car on a level surface with the boot lid shut and pour jugs of water all around the shut lines. Then, very carefully, lift the boot lid and see where the water was getting in. I hope this helps. Steve.

Hello all, I hope you are enjoying the great weather that we seem to be having at the moment. B) I thought I would take advantage of the lack of snow, rain and wind to get a few jobs done on the old LS (MK IV 2000). I replaced a blown sidelight bulb, tidied up the boot seal where I had recently repaired it, took off the number plate light covers and gave them a good clean and cleaned the throttle body. When I went to restart the car it was ticking over at about 2000 RPM when cold, way higher than normal. I thought it might have something to do with the carb cleaner I had sprayed into the throttle body so I left it ticking over until it was warmed up. At normal operating temp it is still ticking over way too fast, about 1100 RPM instead of the 700 RPM I am used to. I remembered reading on this very site that when people had cleaned the throttle body they then had to adjust the throttle position sensor to get the car running sweetly again. Armed with my screwdriver I confidently strutted round to the nearside of the car to make said adjustment only to find that someone had been there before me with a badly fitting screwdriver and chewed the heads off the screws. There is no way I can get the damn screws undone while the TPS is attached to the car. I am seriously hacked off that I am now going to have to spend tomorrow stripping down the throttle body and removing it just so I can get to two little screws to cut slots into the heads instead of spending the day with my wife. :tsktsk: Rant over, thanks for listening. Steve.

Hi Mikey V, with regard to your leaky boot I have just had to fix mine. I got a puncture and had to use the spare wheel, when I lifted the boot floor cover I was stunned to find 2 inches of water sloshing around in the spare wheel well and the drivers side compartment next to the wheel well. The reason I was surprised was that the boot floor cover was bone dry. On further inspection the water was creeping over the seal at the low point of the boot opening (near the right hand side of the edge of the number plate) and running down into the wheel well without touching the boot floor cover. To fix the problem I have stuck some draught excluder on the boot lid to compress the boot seal. I have tested it by pouring jugs if water all round the boot lid and pressure washing the car as well as the car sitting under all the snow for a couple of days. So far, so good, the wheel well is bone dry. I hope this helps you out. Steve.

Hi Will, assuming your problem isn't a blown bulb or pads that are worn down (best to check) it is likely to be the sensor wire that has broken. This is a pretty common problem and easy to fix. On one side of the car there will be a wire that comes from the front wheel area to the brake pad, check this wire (actually two wires inside a sleeve) for any chaffing or breaks. If you find it is broken then just solder it back together. It should take you no longer than 15 minutes. Good luck. Steve.

Hello chaps, I don't want to rub salt into the wounds here, but after reading this thread I was beginning to panic about my upcoming insurance price. I am insured through Adrian Flux at the moment at the cost of approx £500. I did an online search yesterday and found a quote from Swintons for £350. I have full no claims, no accidents (that were my fault) and no convictions. I am in my 40s, my wife is in her 30s and my Father (a taxi driver), who is a named driver, is in his late 60s. I wonder why other people are having massive price hikes while mine has dropped like a stone? Steve.

That is a very nice sound. Is that a replacement from the cats or is it just a couple of new back boxes?

Well chaps, I have spent God knows how many hours trying to sort this out. I have been to the sites which you have suggested and downloaded the relevant bits and pieces that I seem to need but all to no good. I found a How To section on one of my discs hich I have followed to the letter but it still doesn't work. I am downloading the relevant emulator and then putting the game Roms into the emulator Roms folder but when I go to play the game all that happens is a new window opens up for about a quarter of a second and then closes itself. I have been looking on gaming forums for help but the people on them don't seem to want to help, they just keep directing me to the FAQ pages of other sites. None of the FAQs seem to cover my problem. I think I am just going to have to admit defeat. Steve. P.S. Happy New Year. :D

Thanks for the response Guys. I have followed the link to the MAME site and downloaded the relevant emulator. Now I have it the games still don't run. I am sure I have to do something with it or the game files. When my friend installed it on my PC many years ago it took him several hours of moving stuff about. As I said in the original post, I am no computer expert and I really don't understand the dark art of telling one bit of the PC to talk to another bit. If there is anyone out there that can talk me through it in idiot proof instructions I would be most grateful. Thanks once again. Steve.

Hello Guys. I hope you all had a nice Christmas and I wish you all a good New Year. This is a bit of a long shot but I was wondering if anyone on the forum knows anything about MAME (faithful reproductions of the old arcade games)? Recently the hard drive in my PC fried itself and I had to have a new one. While the guy that did it got most of the stuff off the HD he didn't manage to get the bit of MAME which runs the games. I have the games on discs but without the missing files they won't work. A friend that I am no longer in touch with installed it on my PC a few years ago and now I don't know exactly what I am looking for to replace it. I thought that someone out there might know where I can get the files I need and then, what to do with them (I am no computer expert). I hope someone can help me. Thanks in advance. Steve.

Yes, you are right, it is an American company. It is part of the Mars (the chocolate bar) group. Maybe they have had to save some money to pay for all the new equipment they are installing in our factory at the moment. :winky:

I agree with you totally, why should we invest our hard earned money in these products if the company can't be bothered to invest their money in an advert aimed at the country they want to sell to. Another thing that annoys me is car makers that don't swap the direction of the wiper blade sweep for the right hand drive market. Having said all that, please can you keep buying Uncle Bens products as I work in the factory that produces them and it's their money that keeps my Lexus on the road. :winky: Steve

Not sure what has happened but your link isn't working for me. I notice from the URL that it is something to do with Orange, my wife's phone is with Vodafone. Steve

Hi Parthiban, in the Wireless and Networks menu there is no option of USB Settings, all I have are; Flight Mode Wi-Fi Settings Bluetooth Settings Tethering and Portable Hotspots VPN Settings Mobile Networks. I am guessing you have a different phone to me. Steve.

Hello again chaps. I think we have solved my connection issues. I spent a bit of time on the Android Forum at the suggestion of Daz and read a few threads about USBs and connection problems. I then read about pulling down a menu from the Idle screen. I tried it and it worked, I got the option to connect as a Mass Storage Device and when I ticked the box I got the Android icon just as Parthiban said I should. Happy days. Thanks guys for all your help and advice, I wouldn't have got it sorted without you. Steve.

Hi, I have just checked the phone, it is running Android Version 2.3.3 The only thing I can find with anything to do with a USB connection in the Wireless and Networks tab is in the Tethering and Portable Hotspots submenu. With no USB cable connected the next menu page has USB Tethering greyed out and "No USB device connected" displayed. When I connect a USB cable the USB Tethering writing turns white and the message underneath now says "USB connected. Tick to tether." There is also now USB icon at the top of the phone screen. The PC has just chimed to acknowledge something has been plugged in and on the My Computer page it is showing Removable Disks F G H I J K all of which say "Please insert a disk into Drive" when I open them. If I tick the box on the phone that says "Tick to tether" the PC chimes again and Removable Disk K disappears from the My Computer page. There are no new icons displayed on my PC near the clock as I would expect if someting was connected in either setting. Sorry if this is a bit confusing. Thanks for your help and advice so far. Steve

Hello again, I have dowmloaded the latest version of Kies from the link you provided and, good news, it worked...once. It won't reconnect now, the icon at the top left of the Kies screen just keeps spinning. As for your "silly question" when I plug the phone in I don't get any options on the PC or on the phone! I don't get a screen with an Android on it or any connection messages. I am going to have a look on the Android Forum to see if anyone else is having a similar problem, I will report back with news. Thanks for everyone's input and ideas so far. Steve.

That is a damn fine idea, I don't know why I didn't think of that. I will do it ASAP. Thanks. Steve.

I have installed the drivers 3 times now. If I don't really need to use Kies do you think I should remove it from my PC, maybe it is causing a issue with connectivity behind the scenes. Thanks to you and Rory for the advice so far. Steve.

If you could get that info I would appreciate it. Thanks. Steve.

I did find that in the box and it is installed. It is working OK as I have sent a picture from my phone via Bluetooth to my wife's new phone and I have checked that it saved it to the SD card. Thanks for the idea though, no doubt it is just a setting on the phone that I need to change but I just can't figure it out. I have downloaded the instructions direct from Samsung but they don't go into enough detail. One thing that is a bit worrying is, when you open the Kies page it doesn't say; "If you have a problem connecting your phone..." It says; "When you have a problem connecting your phone..." I hope we can get it sorted otherwise it kind of ruins the phone experience. Steve.

She ended up with a Galaxy Ace as our budget was so small. The phone seems nice enough...but we can't seem to connect it to the PC via a USB cable. I don't have Wi-Fi of Bluetooth capabilities so they are out of the question. I have downloaded Kies but the phone will not connect when using it. I have tried downloading and using the PC Suite, again no luck there either. I tried to just use the phone as a Mass Storage Device but although the PC acknowledges that I have plugged something in when I try to open the device I just get a message saying "Insert disc into drive K" or something like that. Do you have any ideas where I might be going wrong? Steve.

Thanks Parthiban, for that little nugget of info. We should be going into town today to try and get the new phone sorted. I hope most of the Apps are free or I can see where my hard earned cash will be going for a few weeks! Steve.

Hello Guys. My wife's phone has just expired and she is going to have to invest in a new one. She likes the idea of getting and Andriod OS one so she can have Apps on it. My question is; Where do we get these Apps from? Is there a main site or do we just have to trawl the net and see what is out there? I think she just wants a few simple games and maybe some books. Let me say from the off, I don't intend this thread to become an Android vs Apple discussion, as far as I am concerned it is each to their own. Thanks in advance. Steve.