Car tuning, car styling and driving.

How to remove stone chips.

2011-07-29T12:09:00.002+01:00

Keeping your motor in good condition should be at the top of your list. A well looked after car will fetch a much higher price when it becomes time to sell it. In fact resale values can fetch a premium hike of as much as 10 or 20% when the car has been detailed and kept in excellent condition throughout its life. So we will look at how to repair stone chips.

The most obvious area to care for is the paint work. It seems that there are a plethora of problems and issues determined to ruin your paintwork. Even cleaning a automobile if not done right can cause scratches and swirls to appear. Those circular swirls in your paint are nearly always caused during cleaning. The round motion people use in cleaning is the only thing that can cause round swirls. If the paint is very swirly you should use a cutting polish to remove these but this is best done after cleaning and ideally you should use a random action polisher as it is very time consuming to do by hand.

Firstly to keep the car in good condition you should wash the car on a weekly basis, this prevents the grime and dirt from eating into the paint work. You should use a lamb’s wool wash mitt as this keeps scratchy grit away from the paint instead of allowing it to scratch the paintwork as is the case with a sponge. Use plenty of water too and rinse the automobile off before you even begin to loosen the dirt. There are some really good foaming sprays that can be used to lift the dirt from the paintwork.

Cleaning the alloys is very important as the brake dust and road salts can eat into the paint causing it to bubble and crack and corroding the wheel beneath. Be careful with some off the shelf wheel cleaning products as these can be very harsh and are little more than acid. Leaving these on the alloys and not rinsing off is just asking for trouble.

In winter time a lot of areas put salt on the roads and this is extremely detrimental to paintwork and wheels so regular cleaning in the winter months is of vital importance.

You will notice stone chips appearing in the automobiles paintwork and over time these will just build up. Eventually the deeper stone chips will corrode and start to rust. So stone chips are best treated sooner rather than later.

First clean out the damaged area motorefully with a fibreglass tipped pen, knife or very fine wire brush. If there is any rust it will need to be removed immediatly and treated with a rust inhibitor.

Then with a touch up pen build up the paint in layers to just below the surface of the existing paint. Then touch up with a clear lacquer coating so this is just proud of the surface. Leave about 1 hours drying time between each coat.

Finally with a fine grade of wet and dry sandpaper on a small sanding block, rubber, piece of chalk or similar sand the area so it is flat and matches the surrounding paintwork of your car. On most motors with solid paints you can get a near invisible repair done, on some metallic’s the best you can hope for is a close match. Even pro body shops will struggle to get a perfect paint match.

Then use a cutting paste on the area, usually labelled polish to blend the repaired new paint in with the slightly faded automobile paint around the area.

When you've finished cleaning and repairing your motor it is worth applying a good wax coating to protect the paintwork. Beware of bird guano as this will eat through your paint and MUST be removed immediately.

Beware of claims of paint protection waxes that last for years. These invariably need to be topped up every 6 months or so with a "care product" and even the best waxes typically only last for 6 months. On modern paint we suggest using a sealant rather than a wax and these are sometimes called synthetic waxes.

Online MPG calculator

2011-06-08T16:08:00.002+01:00

With rising petrol prices we note that lots of our visitors like to keep track of their fuel costs and fuel economy.

This is why we originally supplied our mpg calculator and it is proving to be more popular than ever before.

Adjustments and refinements to our mpg calculator have seen many new features added. In addition to tracking your last 4 fill ups and mpg to allow you to see trends (which is now a selectable feature rather than automatic due to a silly EU directive on cookies), you can see what your annual fuel cost is.

The cost per mile proves useful to people who are couriers and need to charge a cost per mile basis and a few have emailed us thanks as they would have been running at a net loss without this information.

You can alter the annual mileage to give an approximate annual fuel cost.

We have also updated our fuel saving tips on this page allowing you to get more miles out of every gallon of fuel you use.

There are also a few other new MPG related calculators including one that gives the annual fuel cost of 2 cars from MPG and price of fuel allowing you to make an informed choice on your new car purchases.

We nearly bought a diesel because of the extra MPG but the extra fuel cost didn't add up to a saving overall so we stuck with a petrol with a lower purchase price and lower running costs.

It's amazing that most people pay around £2000 per year for fuel and still don't think of it as being a major part of their budget.

The more fuel we all save the lower the demand and this will help keep down prices and if you are believing the hype save the planet!

A new look for TorqueCars

2010-10-20T10:52:00.002+01:00

We wanted the readers of this Car tuning blog to be among the first to know that TorqueCars has an exciting new look and feel on their modified cars site.

It was long overdue a makover with the original design and graphics dating back about 6 years or so! We have tried to keep the images used exciting and fresh and reflect TorqueCars cutting edge approach to car tuning. Unlike other car tuning sites and blogs TorqueCars gets regular updates as old articles are reviewed, refined and updated with the very latest tips and tricks.

To keep pace with the developments in modding cars you should also join thier car forums where you can read and swap ideas and tips with other car tuners with experience in the same make and model of car that you own.

We hope you like the new look and we promise that there is a lot more to come in the near future. So watch this space and keep up with the latest car modification trends.

BHP Performance cars show video.

2010-05-07T16:41:00.003+01:00

Just got back from the car tuning and styling show at Lydden Hill in Dover Kent, known as the BHP performance show.

It was a very very good show. We will be uploading pics of the hot show cars to our car styling tips.com website and featuring some of the cars in detail on www.torquecars.com

To whet your appetite here is a video we took from the show! A stunning 10 minutes of inspirational cars of all shapes and sizes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ3V_-GQqd8

TorqueCars now have a Twitter feed.

2010-04-12T18:30:00.002+01:00

Catch up with the latest Car Tuning and car styling news on the TorqueCars twitter feed, perfect for anyone interested in cars and car tuning. We have posted an extract below of the upto date news items and snippest collected in our Twitter feed.

Style - Who says estate cars are not cool?: If you think that estate cars are boring and driven by people with no ... http://bit.ly/aNPR2y

about 6 hours ago The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

Posted By Power tips - Hybrid turbos http://bit.ly/dtlo4A

6:33 PM Apr 9th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

Posted By Style - Drift Nissan Skyline: Today we feature another of the amazing drift cars from GDA sports cars. This Nissan... http://bit.ly/djvxYO

5:02 PM Apr 9th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

Posted By Style - Full Drift style bodykit: This Nissan typifies the drift style bodykit – the lower sills and bumpers have ... http://bit.ly/9XoPbN

5:02 PM Apr 9th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

Posted By TorqueCars: Tuning the cars engine for better MPG means reducing power. :- Tuning for Stingy people http://bit.ly/dpgpdK

2:37 PM Apr 8th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

Posted By TorqueCars: Tuning the Alfa Romeo range of cars :- The national Alfa Service! (Sorry for the pun!) http://bit.ly/cBNSlq

2:37 PM Apr 8th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

Posted By TorqueCars: Delocking - How to Delock a car :- Locking yourself out. http://bit.ly/943FOL

2:37 PM Apr 8th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

Posted By Style - A cool BMW with quad bonnet vents: Underbonnet temperatures can really affect a cars performance so it is ... http://bit.ly/9NtCET

3:54 PM Apr 7th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

Posted By Style - Nissan S15 drift car styling: The Nissan S15 is favoured by drifters, the Nissan engines give plenty of tu... http://bit.ly/9w0gnS

3:54 PM Apr 7th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

Posted By TorqueCars: EVO 6 Tommi Makinen No 2 :- Ian's Mitsubishi Evo VI http://bit.ly/cZTu0F

4:58 PM Apr 6th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

Posted By TorqueCars: Bonnet vents. :- Performance. Bonnet vents. http://bit.ly/bRputZ

4:57 PM Apr 6th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

Posted By TorqueCars: Tuning and mods for the Citroen Saxo :- SAXOn warrior http://bit.ly/cXagFw

4:57 PM Apr 6th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

Posted By TorqueCars: The quest for cleverer cars. :- Hi tech - Hi Cost - Hi Stress. http://bit.ly/d9XymU

4:57 PM Apr 6th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

Posted By TorqueCars: Add It To The Wish List :- Parotec 206 CC Body Kit http://bit.ly/c2oayv

4:57 PM Apr 6th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

Posted By Style - BMW drift car from the Netherlands: Drifters love BMW’s. Not quite as much as Jap cars but there are many ... http://bit.ly/clYEKK

2:49 PM Apr 5th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

TorqueCars: Engine oil and the importance of good lubrication. :- Oil: Oils well that ends well. http://bit.ly/dq7kjJ

12:15 PM Apr 5th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

TorqueCars: Blow off valves, dump valves and screamer pipes :- Do I look BOV'd! http://bit.ly/dtB2I6

12:15 PM Apr 5th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

TorqueCars: Frugal, Quick and Ready To Mod :- 150bhp Diesel Astra Sport Hatch http://bit.ly/bbFTMZ

12:15 PM Apr 5th The following Car Tuning news item was posted to Twitter

TorqueCars: Eclipse Tuning :- It's a total Eclipse http://bit.ly/9IDIUG

Car tuning and modified cars update

2010-01-26T12:13:00.002Z

We have not been idle, although the blog has not been updated for some time. We'd like to thank all of our loyal car tuning fans for thier support, kind comments and words of support.

Most of my efforts have been devoted to the car tuning forum at TorqueCars.com and we have seen phenomenal growth with over 13,000 members and lot of very interesting car tuning projects on the go.

We have also created a Squidoo lens on modified cars and another on car tuning myths and are hoping that we can dispel a lot of the bad information out there when it comes to car tuning.

If you want to keep up with the latest and greatest car tuning trends and modifications please visit the sites listed in our blogroll.

Our own car tuning projects are also moving on a pace and we will have some very interesting features on TorqueCars.com soon so stay tuned for updates.

TorqueCars in the press.

2008-08-08T12:51:00.002+01:00

TorqueCars are proud to be featured as the website of the month in the September issue of Performance BMW Magazine.

We have been recognized as a very useful resource for those looking for an introduction into the often mystifying world of car tuning and car styling.

The articles on TorqueCars have been written with the intention of making complex tuning principles easily understood.

The world of car tuning certainly moves quickly with new developments that continually push the envelope further. Sadly though the number of innovations is matched by the new scams and downright over optimistic claims about car modification parts.

There are new articles appearing on the site and the latest ones cover electric water pumps, exhaust wraps and we examine cryogenic engine treatments in detail.

The forum has seen a dramatic explosion of new registrations and there are many new active topics and threads starting all the time.

Tuning the Toyota Supra

2008-04-08T08:40:00.002+01:00

The Toyota Supra is one of the most impressive production cars in terms of its tuning capabilities. It would appear that the engineers created an engine that were suitable of handling 600 BHP. The final power output of the engine know was reduced to around 350 breach BHP due to pressure from executives who didn't want to be accused of releasing an uneconomical and dangerously powerful car.

Quite simply with a minimal outlay you can produce one of the fastest cars on the road. The first thing you should look at is a the turbo, many Supra owners opted for a larger turbo which increases the mid and high range output of the engine. Select a turbo with a ball bearing rather than a thrust appearing as the spool up quicker, and last longer.

The next step of the tuning project involves the sports computer which manages all aspects of engine timing and boost. With the simple modifications you could be looking at power gains of double your starting baseline. See torquecars for more index tuning advice on the Toyota Supra and the benefits and drawbacks of the many different types of modification on offer.

Biofuels good bad or ugly?

2008-03-25T13:57:00.003Z

Biofuel has been hailed by many as the answer to our dependence on oil. A bio fuel is one which can be produced from biological matter. The theory is that the fuel crop grows and absorbs Co2 and then it is processed, turned into fuel and burnt in our engines.

Biodiesel is popular with some people starting to produce their own bio-diesel at home with kits. The nearest you can get to petrol is ethanol which is a form of alcohol but a petrol engine needs extensive modification to reliably use ethanol. The latest thinking is that a small percentage of our petrol can harmlessly contain ethanol and this will reduce oil dependence by 10-20% a year for the average motorist.

The downsides though which are some what ignored.

Damage to engines. Ethanol engines are different to petrol one due in part to the corrosive nature of ethanol within an engine. Even a watered down mix will potentially cause damage to an engine, research is currently being conducted into this assertion but the early indicators are not good. Ethanol is also hydroscopic meaning it absorbs water easily so it will mean the average driver without a permenantly full tank will have fuel and water pumping into his engine.
Ethanol is difficult to produce and requires a great deal of energy for the distillation/filtration and processing. We seem to be robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Ethanol produces less energy per equivalent volume of petrol. This means that our fuel consumption/gas mileage is reduced and we end up burning a greater volume of fuel.
Modern diesel engines are not happy to run on unprocessed vegetable oil and again there is an energy overhead in the conversion/manufacturing process.
Crop space is taken up producing fuel crops instead of food crops. This could impact on farming and food production. Where new land is ploughed and used the trapped Co2 in that virgin land is now released into the enviroment.

We clearly need more research into bio-fuels and their future impact before we start switching over to use them. Bio Fuel can only ever be a partial solution to the problem. Our consumer led lifestyles have more impact on Co2 than even a high mileage drivers car emissions. The UK are potential going to introduce compulsory introduction of bio/mineral fuel blends at all pumps. This has already been a policy in the USA and already lobbyists are calling for a reversal of this misguided attempt to save the environment.

The future of tuning?

2008-03-14T07:44:00.002Z

The new Nissan GTR is certainly turning some heads. It would appear that the gadgets and wizardry that make the car work can perform magic.

We are talking supreme levels of traction and power throughout the rev range. Despite it gargantuan size it handles like a car half its weight. The Nissan R&D boys have turned out something special. The car at is stands is a very complete package. However there is a down side for the car tuner.

To produce such amazing power levels the car has been hardwired to resist tuning. The GTR contains one of the most anti tuning and aftermarket modification defence array we have ever seen. This step was taken to placate the Japanese authorities that the car would not become a 1000bhp monster like the previous incarnations of the Skyline in the hands of Japans premier tuners.

The main ECU is pretty damn hard to open and reprogram due to encryption. Further to this the car has accelerometers and GPS receivers and it is able to work out if the car is faster than it was designed to be. So too much acceleration, faster cornering or sharper braking all trigger the "anti mod" warning, invalidating your warranty at best and at worst the car will start to protest.

This is only the surface, try fitting larger wheels and you again hit the anti tuning defense grid. The speed is also restricted unless the GPS pinpoints your location to a Nissan Recognised track so the car will actually police your speed limit depending on where you are.

I'm sure that many tuners will find ways around all of this and I can't wait to see what extra power and performance can be extracted from this monster. I know the guys at TorqueCars are keenly watching and waiting for updates. This does show the car makers attitude to car customisation and personalisation and it is certainly a worrying trend in automotive design.

Hitting a pheasant - not very pleasant.

2008-03-06T15:54:00.002Z

Driving along the motorway the other day I noticed an abnormally large number of pheasant corpses lining the road side. To be honest I didn't really pay too much attention - its just one of those things you notice when something happens.

At cruising speed there is not a lot you can do when something decides to take a Kamikaze run at you. I saw a Pheasant sitting in the central reservation, he seemed to have happily negotiated a busy carriageway of oncoming cars and I imagine his Pheasant friends were egging him on to go the whole way.

It then looked up at me and when it decided was the most optimum moment for a Lemming like run it went for it. Although I jammed on the brakes I sadly hit the bird killing it outright.

Then you start to analyse what happened after the event. It was a bird that I hit. Hang on a minute birds are meant to fly? What was up with this pheasant and I assume all of the other pheasants lining the roadside? Was it some kind of suicide pact? Was it a lemming copycat flock of pheasants? I guess I will never know but I have a cracked number plate and small dent to remind me of this brave little bird that went for it.

The ricer or Racer test.

2008-02-25T12:00:00.002Z

Ricers are those kids who know little about style and subscribe to the "if it makes more noise it must be faster" philospophy. Although Typically aimed at Japansese cars the word has evolved to apply to any kind of tastlessly modified car.

The racer is the ultimate car enthusiast who drives with skill on our roads and only goes fast and pushes the limits on a race track. There are of course many categories in between but this survey will help to identify which classificiation you fall into.

http://www.torquecars.com/tools/racer-ricer-test.php

Here is what I got - do let me know what your results are using the feedback section.

The Track day Racer
Congratulations you are officially a Track Day Racer. You shun all things glossy and shiny. You know a lot about tuning and performance cars. You would rather have a standard looking car with a highly tuned engine than drive anything that shouts "look at me!" You accept breakdowns and component failures as the price of trailblazing the cutting edge of car ownership.
Your average weekend will be spend underneath the car tweaking the suspension and tuning up the engine. Alternatively you will always attempt to be the first away at the lights, but only if you are up against something that looks it might be a challenge!

You have the reflexes and driving skills of a pro driver.

Because of your responses to the survey we can make the following, more detailed comments.

You are welcome to join TorqueCars as you enjoy many aspects of cars and driving. You can join here www.torquecars.com/forums/ We feel that you would have a lot to contribute to our tuning forums and will certainly learn a lot. You do not enjoy general chat forums so our car specific topics are where you will spend most of your time.

We are sure you will appreciate our mpg calculator so you can now quote your exact fuel consumption and see how much you can save in fuel prices! You will also appreciate the fuel saving tuning and driving tips we have in our main articles section. You are the type of person who expects to get what they pay for. Quality over quanity is your mantra so have a read in our styling section and see which mods would be the most worthwhile. www.torquecars.com/styling/. Our articles will help you to avoid making mistakes and purchasing the wrong modifications.

This personality profile report for you demonstrates that your main focus is on speed and performance. There is a lot more to driving than going fast in a straight line. When you learn to take the corners you will achieve a higher place of driving Zen. Perhaps you should look into drifting or track day driving rather than the drag strip.

The pitfalls of car tuning.

2008-02-19T09:27:00.003Z

Car tuning has become more than a popular hobby it has become a multi $1,000,000 industry. There is no shortage of parts available for every conceivable make and model of car. Sadly though many of the manufacturers' claims are far from the truth. A common ruse used by the car manufacturers is to show the performance gains of their products fitted to a high performance engine. On a 300 BHP car the parts may well deliver a power increase of 30 BHP but on a much smaller engine car producing just 76 BHP you would not be able to see a power gain in excess of a few BHP.

The problem there is more serious than this as some performance parts can actually reduce the performance of a car. At the very least the car ceases to become usable into normal everyday driving conditions. Tuning a car for the use on track is very different to tune in a car that is going to be a daily run around.

In everyday use you need a good balance of economy and reliability along with the performance gain. Four track use, reliability is not so much of an issue, as the car will typically be stripped down and rebuilt after each race, or a few times in each race season. The track car will also spend most of its life in the upper Rev band where most of the power gains are. An everyday car will spend most of its time in the low power band and will be moving slowly so heat buildup is to be avoided.

It's for these reasons that I started writing car tuning articles and posted them on TorqueCars. Having spent a lot of money tuning up a car I quickly learned that many performance parts were not performance enhancing and actually reduced my enjoyment of the car. TorqueCars take a look at the many advantages, disadvantages and benefits of each type of modification. Before buying a performance parts or modifying your car I would strongly recommend that you read some of the articles on TorqueCars and at least be a well informed purchaser.

What is car tuning?

2008-02-07T17:37:00.000Z

We often talk about car tuning without really defining what we mean. A few years ago it was little used apart to describe what a garage would do to ensure peak engine efficiency. Usually the car is put on a diagnosis computer which reads engine codes and helps the mechanic set the optimum timing for the engine.

Today car tuning involves much more than just setting the car up to its peak operating efficiency. Tuning will have the aim of maximising the power delivery of the engine far and above what the original manufacturer designed it to be.

This is acheived through the addition of aftermarket parts. Induction kits, performance exhausts, uprated suspension and even modifications like adding on a turbo or supercharger or doing an engine swap can be considered tuning in the purest sense.

Have a look at the tuning articles in the car tuning section of this site to get a deeper understanding of what car tuning involves. The best candidates for power gains are usually turbo charged vehicles which through a new computer timing map will offer power gains to the order of 30% or even more in some cases.

The general rule of thumb remains that the more you start with the bigger your return on ivestment will be. So tuning a small engined car will cost as much as the same modifications to a larger engined car but the power gain will hardly be noticed.

You will also need to keep in mind that performance tuning has hidden costs and shows up weaknesses elsewhere in a car. At the least you will be decreasing your servicing schedule intervals and at the worst you may break down more often.

Car tuning and car styling

2008-02-06T12:12:00.000Z

Regular readers may have noticed that this blog is no longer called Waynne's world. This seemed a little too vague for a blog which features on the cutting edge of car tuning and car styling trends. This blog is intented to support our main site TorqueCars - car tuning and styling

The title will allow a better and narrower focus for all future posts which will revolve around car tuning and car styling. I have a particular interest in driving from a pure fun point of view and will offer commentry as usual on the following areas of car ownership.

Legislation. Both passed legislation and proposed legislation with a look at the impact this will have on the driver.

Ownership of cars. This will include aspects of car maintainance and car care with tips and observations from my long history of car ownership.

Environmental. The green revolution is very much here and the motorist gets blamed for so many things. We will take a driver friendly view and report on trends and developments in the auto world which affect the environmental impact of cars.

While based in good old Blighty we will cover topics of interest to American, Canadian, Asian and Pan Europeans but will stick to the english language.

Ban all the uneconomical cars?

2008-02-05T08:34:00.000Z

Yesterday on the radio an ex oil company director was quoted as saying that he couldn't see any point of having a car which did less than 35 MPG. He called for an outright ban on all cars which returned less than 25 MPG across the European community.

On the surface of it it seems a sensible proposition and one of the environmental lobbyists will certainly applaud. However, if people want to buy performance car primarily for use on the track this would not be possible if this law were approved.

Drivers who run high performance cars which return 25 MPG or less typically use the car for leisure purposes at the weekends and infrequently and are not major contributors to carbon dioxide emissions. I really can't imagine a group of Ferrari enthusiasts standing around the bar and talking about the MPG that their car returns.

Legislation is already sufficiently tight and the manufacturers are continually pushing the boundaries of fuel economy trading of as little performance as possible. In fact back in the eighties Daihatsu produced a 1 l engine capable of propelling the car to 60 MPH in just 7.x seconds and was able to return of 30 MPG. The current high cost of fuel will more than regulate demand. To produce economical cars are manufactures often use lighter weight material and produce smaller cars which, TorqueCars, feel will increase the number of injuries sustained in traffic accidents.

Old drivers vs young drivers.

2008-02-04T08:45:00.000Z

The debate or you might call it the battle between the older and younger drivers continues at TorqueCars. Here are the two sides of the argument.

Young drivers feel that they are invincible take unnecessary risks and should be slowed down or restricted from obtaining a driving licence. Compulsory tests have been suggested as have tougher tests and raising the driving age to 20 years old.

Young drivers often gets tarred with the same brush, whereas in reality only a few drive recklessly and at dangerous speeds. Raising the driving aged 20 will not eradicate the problem just to move it to an older age group. And many young drivers take great care in perfecting the art of driving. Young drivers have generally faster reflexes and older drivers and what they lack experience that make up for with reaction times.

This is a difficult debates to pursue objectively, but as with most disagreements the truth generally lies between the two. Young drivers are inexperienced and it is often experience that teaches an older driver the dangers associated with taking risks behind the wheel of a car.
It is fair to say that's driving tests, particularly in the UK, a much tougher than they used to be years ago. There are many drivers in their seventies and eighties who have never taken a driving test and still failed to grasp the theory of how to use a roundabout or other complex junction systems.

Torquecars can certainly see the benefits of retests two rays general driving standards, particularly a theory test to appraise the drivers grasp of current legislation and modern road systems. We certainly see many of our younger drivers taking an interest in the debates on road safety and TorqueCars continues to promote the SAFE enjoyment of the car.

I'm not a brilliant passenger.

2008-02-01T17:41:00.001Z

I got a lift this morning to work (I know I had determined to walk more but hey it was really cold! Almost 4.5 degrees!) Here are the thoughts that ran through my head.

"Flipping heck the pedal on the right is progressive not just on or off!
Wow that was close, did the driver realise they were so close to that car.
Hmm, oncoming car. Slow down, sloooooooow. There still coming and we're heading straight for them. Phew I wondered what the pavements were for it was a good job they exist.
Whats that noise, oh yes it is the sound of alloy wheels scraping along the kerb. Is the driver deaf? Oh good were moving out a bit.
Ouch, do you have to aim for every single pot hole in the road.
Sit at junction and wait for a gap.
No don't pull out there's a car coming, oh well if you put your foot down it won't be too bad. Ummm accelerate - they are getting closer. Does this thing have an engine.
Ah traffic lights, slow up then its changing to red. No that's the accelerator. Phew that was close"

Then I get out and say, "thank you for the lift. It was much appreciated!" whilst shaking on the inside and vowing to walk next time. (Providing its not too cold or raining, I do have my price!)

Was I really too spineless to speak up? It is just me or do other people find themselves in this situation where out of politeness they have to bite their tongues?

Road deaths - speed or congestion?

2008-01-31T15:38:00.000Z

When people start moaning about speed enforcement and start to make a case for it they often site road safety as an argument.

These people allege that speed itself is a cause of road traffic accidents. I have no detailed statistics to quote from, but this is a new project of mine so I will report back with my findings soon.

My theory is that congestion and pinch point in traffic are the major causes of traffic accidents.

1) Cars waiting to turn off a main road often cause a tailback. This is a prime opportunity for a driver (at normal road speeds) to come round a blind bend and fail to notice the situation ahead and plough into the car in front.

2) Journey times are longer due to congestion and long journeys are associated with tiredness and reduce driver reactions.

3) Overtaking. This could be put down to speed but generally a driver will miss time an overtake maneuver and hit an on coming car. If our roads flowed well and there were suitable passing places there would be no need for the risky overtake maneuver.

4) Crowded streets lined with parked cars make it hard, or near impossible to spot pedestrians wandering out into the road. Again with less cars on the road we would not have this problem to contend with.

5) Anger and road rage are major causes of bad lapses of judgement resulting in accidents. Stress and tension are greater when the congestion is greater on our roads.

So rather than slowing cars down with speeding fines, which some say is a smokescreen for raising revenue, I would suggest that our road infrastructure is at fault for a major proportion of our road deaths and injuries. If my theory is borne out by the facts I will publish these for all to see.

Oil companies make more money.

2008-01-31T14:15:00.000Z

We are all pretty depressed at the cost of a tank of fuel. The rising cost of oil is not bad new for everyone. I note this morning that Shell have just posted obscene profits of 18.5 billion euros. With the global demand for oil increasing the price is set to climb even higher. Why though should a company that makes fuel which we all need be posting such high profit annoucements.

To my mind this smacks of a cartel. Competition is supposed to mean lower prices for the consumer but we see that this adage does not seem to apply to the fuel industries (this includes gas and electricity prices as well!)

The profits made come very much from the prices paid by you and I the average consumer. There are some things we can do to encourage more healthy competition in the energy/fuel market.

1) If we shopped around en-mass and boycotted a company it would be forced to lower its prices and then as we start buying from them again another oil company will also drop its prices.

2) We reduce demand for oil. If we agree to walk instead of take the car for every journey we can walk in 20 minutes, we reduce our demand for fuel. We will also be a lot healthier and reduce our cars running costs and maintenance by not using it for short journeys.

This 2 pronged approach requires we all synchronize our habits and mindset. We already have one thing in common - we do not like paying the current high fuel costs and we choke when we see the obscene profits made by the oil industry.

How though can we all shop around with the same buying parameters - here is an idea. Taking the letters that make up the company name we could boycot them if the letters of the current month contain the same letter? Strangely enough it works out that we boycott the main oil companies for 2 months in a row.

Speed cameras that debate continues

2008-01-11T07:24:00.000Z

Over at TorqueCars the great debate for and against speed cameras continues. Thinking about it there's not many people for speed cameras road safety groups insist that the roads would be safer if the average speed was reduced by one MPH. The fact of the matter though, is the reckless minority in are the ones that cause the accidents therefore rather than targeting all motorists, efforts should be putting to targeting those that insist on exceeding the speed limits by a fair margin.

The most annoying thing about speed cameras, when speaking with our members is the fact that other cars travelling at the correct speed will reduce their speed while passing a camera for fear of being photographed. This causes dangerous bunching of slow moving cars and disrupts the traffic flow. This deceleration and then acceleration causes fuel to be wasted and increases the pollution from cars.

Torquecars certainly do not endorse speeding on the roads, and we actively encourage our members to improve their driving skills, awareness of other drivers, and practice in anticipation of the road ahead. There are surely enough hazards and obstructions for driver to concentrate on without the addition of speed cameras.

The time will come when cars are fitted with a GPS tracking systems which monitor a driver's speed and match this to the driver's location and automatic fines can be sent should the driver exceed the speed limit of the road he is on. This move will be very controversial, but cars are already being fitted with tracking devices for insurance purposes whereby the driver agrees not to use the car during certain hours in return for a lower premium. Luxury cars have essentially what amounts to a black box recorder and police have prosecuted drivers after an accident based on the evidence in a of the black box.

I've never really got the speed cameras as a safety thing. I can't help but think that most people are missing the point of the accident statistics. The fact is that there are so many accidents on a certain road is because there are so many cars on the road. Simple law of averages. If you compared the number of cars and accidents today and obtained a ratio then compared this with to say at 20 years ago I'm sure that the accident rate would be substantially reduced. Our cars today are safer both for the occupants and for pedestrians and due to congestion road speeds are reduced inner urban areas and due to congestion.

Car tire puncture repairs

2008-01-10T07:52:00.000Z

One of the annoying things about owning a car is the fact that the odds of getting a puncture are so much greater a if you have a new tire. I seem to go a long period of time without getting a puncture or any kind of tire damage, and then, when I purchase a new set of tyres I get a puncture in At least one.

One thing that I did learn was that punctures can be repaired if the puncture is in the central third of the tire. If apparently repairs in the outer third are less reliable due to the flexing of the tire in normal use. It is handy to knows that many punctures can be repaired because many tire fitters will use this opportunity to sell you a new tire. Of repair typically takes 15 to 20 minutes and providing you do not put the repaired tire under any undue stress whilst it is curing the tire will last as long as a normal tire.

In the the years gone by you had the option of adding a new inner tube, unfortunately, this is not possible with modern tyres which are marked tubeless. This tyres have ridges on the inside to add to their rigidity, but these ridges will rub and wear away the inner tube causing a potential blowout at high speed.

There are are a number of new liquids which can be pumped into a tire which automatically sealed the puncture. On bicycles these can be very effective but TorqueCars have yet to see and assess the effectiveness of these liquids in car tyres.

UK law changes and updated proposals

2008-01-09T13:49:00.000Z

Firstly I must apologise for not making any block entries for the last 30 days. I've been suffering from a condition known as bloggers brain.

A notice a couple of prominent car related news stories have hit the headlines recently firstly a lady has been in stopped and a prosecuted for driving too slowly on a motorway. If she managed to hit to the incredible speed of 20 miles per hour. She proved to be a danger to herself and other motorists and was seen driving erratically swerving in and out of her lane and jabbing her break on and off. Her licence has been removed and she will need two retake her driving test. This case highlights a number of issues but mainly that of drivers who are no longer healthy enough to drive a car safely. These cautious drivers cause a danger to all those around them, Torquecars members have put forward the suggestion of compulsory RE tests every 10 years for those over the age of 16 which will include a full medical.

I also note this morning the UK law relating two deaths from careless driving will probably be amended from a prison sentence to a community related sentence. Sadly if someone did cause of death from driving without due care and attention, a moment's lapse of concentration, they will have this on their conscience for the rest of their lives. A prison sentence it does seem too harsh in this situation but is without doubt the correct sentence for someone engaged in a case of reckless driving. Causing death by using a mobile telephone whilst driving will be regarded as an act of reckless driving.

Hesitant drivers.

2007-11-14T10:01:00.000Z

These really wind me up and are a complete nightmare. They are a danger to themselves and all that they encounter. The typical profile goes something like this:-

They will not pull out onto a main road if they can see another car coming. (The road has to be completely empty for them!)
They will start to pull out and then stop halfway causing an obstruction or overhanging part of the main road.
They will see you coming on the main road, wait, and then pull out in front of you. Rather than picking up speed they will dribble along at a really slow pace with a long line of cars behind them.
At night they will slow to a crawl if there is an oncoming car. Then when the road is clear and you have an opportunity to overtake they pull out into the center of the road!
On roundabouts they will start to pull away then stop dead and will frequently have other drivers going into the back of them. (I know the other drivers are at fault but some blame must be shared by the hesistant driver who stopped for no apparent reason!)
Joining the motorway the hesitant driver will park at the end of the slip lane because he hasn't taken an opportunity to pull out and wait for a long gap in the traffic.

I accept that we all make mistakes and will not admit to being perfect. On a daily commute you often encounter the same cars and when they consistantly do the same things you really start to wonder.

I wish that all drivers were retested every 5-10 years and this will help to keep driving standards focussed in peoples minds. We all pick up bad habits but I'm sure we would all be a little more studious if we knew that we were going to have to face a retest every few years. This test will also get a lot of old (incapable) drivers off the road. It is a hard thing to give up your licence, but when you face a danger to yourself and all those around you it is time to concede that it is time to hang up your driving gloves and hat and take the Bus instead.

Cars don't like sitting around in storage.

2007-11-13T16:25:00.000Z

One thing I have noticed with all of the cars I have owned is that they like it when you use them regularly. Having owned 2 cars for much of my driving career there was generally a daily runaround and a fun car for the weekends and summertime. Of all the cars I have owned as weekend only cars there were problems attributable to not using it often enough.
Silly things like corrosion acceleration where the rust seems to accelerate quicker, pipes start to split and crack and even quick deterioration of brake disks. When a car is used often it seems to keep all of these things at bay.
Tyre pressure also mysteriously decreases when a car is left standing. Fuel tanks empty. Fuel pumps fail. Doors get stiff and creaky. Electric windows seize up. Air-conditioning systems just refuse to reactivate themselves.
The list goes on and on. I can only conclude that cars are meant to be driven. Now I am running just 1 car my servicing and maintenance costs for the year are less than 30% of what they were for 2 cars.
If you are storing a car. Leave it in a dry garage with the brakes off and chock up the wheels. Running the car once a week and revving the engine to simulate road use rather than letting it idle will help to keep the car in a good condition.

Lambswool car cleaning mitt

2007-11-06T11:29:00.000Z

Torquecars members like to keep their cars looking clean and shiny. I recently splashed out and bought a lambswool mitt for cleaning my car the other day. I didn't realise that lambs had mitts!

You've probably noticed, especially in sunlight that the surface of your cars paint has swirls and scratched. Very very light scratches are actually caused by the cleaning process. The big culprit is usually the sponge that most people use.

The dirt builds up on the car and then we slap a sponge on it and rub the grit and dirt around and then wonder why it acts like sandpaper. The key is to use something that lifts the dirt away from the cars surface where it can't scratch it and this is where the lambs wool mitt comes in.

If you drop your sponge on the ground this is another opportunity for small particles of scratchy grit to get embedded in it. Also the lower down the body work the larger the grit particles so start at the top and work down the car doing the roof, windows then bonnet and boot then top half of doors and bumpers and finally the bottom quarter of the car. All the while you are moving around the car.

Nothing looks better than a clean car and making sure you have the correct tools will make all of the difference to the finish you get. If the car has already got scratches then you can improve this a little with some cutting polish. In the worst cases though the only thing you can do is get the car resprayed and look after it properly.

Headlight bulbs

2007-11-05T07:55:00.000Z

The bulb went on the Audi for the second time in a couple of weeks. That will teach me not to use a second hand replacement bulb. This though forced me to go to the shop and buy a new one.

I didn't realise there were so many to choose from. There were economy bulbs, expensive bulbs, high power bulbs, off road bulbs, bulbs with a whiter light and bulbs with a blueish light. This is starting to sound like a washing powder commercial!

To say I was confused would be an understatement, I hadn't even got to the part where I had to get a bulb which was compatible with my car yet. I decided that the blue tint didn't work - the light still looked white. I also rejected any that were not street legal because of the hassle of changing them again at MOT time. I went for some Phillips 80% brighter lights after an hours indecision reading the box and seeing what other people were buying.

I asked if this was the right bulb for my car, and was told it wasn't. When they showed me the recommended bulb I could tell it would not fit my car. So having looked at the 3 sizes available we decided between us that this was the correct one for my car.

Now came the part I always hate, paying for them. I was a little surprised that they cost so much. I could fit energy saving bulbs to my entire house for less money, and still have enough left over for a bag of chips, but I hoped that "one gets what one pays for" applies here also. I fitted the bulb, and although I brought a pair, I just replaced the defective one and left the other bulb in.

I wanted to see if the extra money was actually well spent. I turned on the lights to compare them and walked away from the car. They both seemed pretty dim to me! I had forgot to run the engine. The car only puts its sidelights on without the engine running. So back I went, started the engine and went back to my vantage point.

Was it brighter? Yes, I could clearly determine from a number of angles that the new bulb was indeed brighter! Was it 80% brighter? To be honest I haven't a clue, I might get a light meter on it sometime but visually it was brighter. Now the crunch question was it worth the small mortgage?

I had been hoping for something so bright that people would be opening their curtains and waking up in the mistaken belief it was morning. Alas this did not happen. It was just another car with its headlights on. So in conclusion it was better but probably not £30 better. Go for something better than standard bulbs but bear in mind that nothing is going to be worth more than 30% over the cost of the standard bulb.

Reliability issues when to scrap the car.

2007-10-30T16:57:00.000Z

One of the most annoying things about car ownership is unreliability. When it comes to breaking down I think I have to be a gold medal holder and got to be on first name terms with the AA recovery call center staff. This goes back to the time I owned a Rover 220 Gti, a car which I greatly loved and my first real hot hatch.

The previous owner had neglected servicing. Actually he thought servicing entails topping up the oil when the oil light comes on. Needless to say after a few weeks the engine went. I replaced this and within 200 miles the new engine had gone as well! A garage diagnosed a serious drive shaft wobble in the gearbox which I likely to have caused the engine to fail. So next time round I got the replacement engine stripped down and sources a stronger gearbox from a 220 Turbo which had a torsion diff and lower gear ratios.

Even after this I had trouble with oil leaks, and minor electrical component failures. Starter motor, rear washer, split core plug, exhaust failure due to a speed bump.

I got into the trap of throwing good money after bad in the hope that there was nothing else that could go wrong! In the end the car cost me £1000's in repair bills. It would be far simpler if there was a simple formula we could use to determine if a car is worth repairing. So here is my philosophy which I will now set in stone (or type at least)

Repair the car if:

The total cost of the repair is lower than 30% of the value of the car and the total mileage the car has covered is under 70,000.
If a car is over 7 years old and the repair cost is lower than 50% of the value of the car and the car is under 80,000 miles.
If the car is over 15 years old and the repair costs less than 80% of its market value (we are getting into collectors car territory here.)

Do not repair the car if:

The mileage is over 100,000 and the repair cost will exceed 50% of the market value of the car. Or if the total cost of repairs exceed 60% of the value of the car.

Each time you repair the car deduct 50% of the cost of repair from its market value for the next calculation. (That way if a car become unreliable you will only lose a certain amount of money rather than need to finance it with a bottomless pit.)

Make a business decision and dump the car before it sucks all of your money and time and cut your losses and invest in a newer car.

Car cleaning in the rain.

2007-10-29T09:08:00.000Z

I do a fair bit of motorway driving and this results in a dense film building up over the paintwork. I also have very little time to spare and rashly promised to clean the car on Sunday as there was an unusual hole in my schedule. As with any job I approach I left it and ignored it until it started to rain. A promise is a promise so I though I'd better get on with it before it gets really heavy.

Then an idea struck me! Take the car to a car park in town and pay someone to do it for me. Sadly they had all gone home! I guess you'd be mad to clean a car in the rain! I drove to the out of town hand car wash to see them all going home. It looked like I was on my own so I drove home praying for a gap in the clouds. Sadly this never came and it just rained harder and harder.
I parked on the drive, put on a waterproof jacket and hosed down the car. The dirt seemed to lift off more easily than normal, even bird strikes just rinsed away with the hose. Next step was the shampoo, and soft sponge (*we actually recommend using a sheepskin mitt as this prevents scratching and swirling of the paintwork. See the Torquecars article on car cleaning for more cleaning tips!)

This stage went well but it was difficult to keep track of where I had and hadn't done so I did it one panel at a time and worked down the car to avoid getting grit into my wash mitt. This stage went really well also and took less time than normal. A bit of alloy wheel cleaner sprayed on the wheels and quick brush over took off all the brake dust with no scrubbing required.

In a moment of madness I decided to polish the car. It took a lot of rubbing and I used more wax than normal but I got a good coating of wax on the car. I could see streaks from the wax residue when I ran the hose over the car and decided to finish it off with a chamois leather. (It was raining so I knew I wouldn't get the car dry!) This took a good hour but the car looks fantastic now. It proves that you can clean a car in the rain, and the rain can actually help make the job easier.

The only thing to remember when cleaning a car in the rain is that no matter how much you try you will never get it dry. Thankfully though rain does not spot and leave residue like tap water so the finish is faultless and I could see the water beading and running off the car. All I need now is a sunny day to inspect my handy work.

Clocks go back accidents go up!

2007-10-28T10:49:00.001Z

The clocks went back last night. I know its not just the UK that does this and it is hailed as an important change especially for agriculture. For the motorist though this has serious implications.

With the clocks moving back an hour we are now driving home in the dark. The accident rates always increase this time of year and many experts and analyists link this with the move of the clock.

Other than the fact that we are now driving home in the dark there could be other implications for this increased accident rate. Firstly our sleep pattern is disturbed, we are now going to bed and getting up an hour later. This disruption to our body clock causes lack of concentration and other effects similar to the jet lag experienced by travellers.

Also our meal times are now shifted. For 6 months of the year our bodies get used to recieving food at a set time but with the time shift we now eat an hour earlier than our body clock is used to. This will generally mean that because we are not used to being hungry at these early times we eat less. As the afternoon progresses we start to get hungry and we either eat concentration sapping high energy foods or drive home feeling hungry with lower blood sugar levels.

It is unlikely that a mass uprising of people will refuse to move their clocks so we are stuck with this ludicrous time system that has little to recommend it just because the farmers and agricultural workers do not wish to start work earlier to take advantage of the lighter mornings!

We can though ensure we get sufficient sleep and before and after a time change we can slowly move our sleep patterns and eating times to allow for a smoother transision. With a little common sense we can breakfast later, take lunch later (eating at the end of our lunch hour instead of infront) and this may help reduce the higher incidence of accidents in the darker evenings.

Winter is coming - I hate winter driving.

2007-10-25T15:57:00.001+01:00

Winter is well on it's way. OK I admit it - I hate WINTER. It is cold, wet and dark. Normally I wouldn't mind but we really have not had much of a summer this year. Even my sojourn into France was filled with Dodgy damp weather. But winter has implications for the motorist.

Firstly the cold means that you windscreen will generally be steamed up. Often it will start of perfectly clear but as you pull away and start breathing it quickly becomes a solid sheet of white haze. I hate wiping the screen because it leaves smears and the more times you do this the worse it gets so I park up and rely on my in car heater. (Thankfully it is quite efficient and the screen quickly demists.)

Personally not being a morning person we have the added problem of the sheer cold temperature of the car. If you wear gloves and boots you can't feel the cars controls and a scarf and hat will obscure you view of the road to dangerous levels. Perhaps I should take up hibernation.

When you have ICE to scrape from your windscreen you may have noticed that it is proportionally thicker according to how late you are. Then when it is all removed how many of us use our washers out of habit and this freezes instantly taking you back to square one.

Then as you drive along the road you will notice the trees have been busy throwing their leaves at the road to form a surface more slippery than a greased pig on roller skates! Drive carefully.

As if this wasn't enough the sun joins this conspiracy and stays low in the sky which is a pretty lethal combination with the misty screen. This is even worse when the road is damp as the glare reflects up at you.

Then we have to contend with Snow and Ice in the Winter months. Thankfully I have located an article for winter driving tips so I suggest you read up and prepare for the worst.

Our new car styling tips site.

2007-10-23T11:41:00.000+01:00

I've been really busy recently with more of a work/work balance instead of the work/life balance I have been trying to achieve. I've just set up a new blog full of car pictures. If you like heavily modified show cars you'll love this. If you like to laugh at the ludicrous amounts of money people spend on their cars you will find this pure entertainment. The cars featured are hand picked and we will be fussy over what we feature but I must point out that I can still find something interesting without actually liking it!

The web address of this new site is http://www.carstylingtips.com/ and as the name suggests we are planning to run how to articles as well as providing a comprehensive library of pictures for inspiration or entertainment. In the meantime the articles on car styling at Torquecars will have to suffice.

When it comes to show cars the aim has to be to create something unique and original. Just bolting on parts which come from a regular aftermarket parts catalogue is just not going to work. The whole idea of this new site is to show what I consider to be the best examples of original show cars.

Just as art is subjective so are modified cars and certainly one mans idea of car styling differs a lot from the rest.

The guys cars we feature are all original photographs taken from shows around the UK. The question they get asked the most is why did you spend so much money on this car and not get a sports car. They will always answer that they do it for fun, and make the point that anyone can go out and get a sports car. they are driving something distinctive and unique.

New submissions are always welcome though and we will try and get 1 new picture up per day or at least 5 new feature cars per week. You are invited to add your comments although overly critical or negative comments will probably be ignored.

Don't blame the car!

2007-10-12T07:26:00.000+01:00

A Torquecars member recently said to me, "have you noticed what happens when a man stalls a car?"

I hadn't, but he explained that, "all men will glare at the dashboard as if to see why the car decided it will cut the engine."

Most women drivers will just restart the car without the glare but there is something in the male ego which means they cannot accept responsibility for their errors (not that men make errors!)

This got me thinking back to the days when I was chained to a desk in an insurance office and the theory holds true - it is always the car which is blamed for everything. Here are some excerpts from accident claim forms and they all have one common theme.

The car skidded on ice.
I braked and the car skidded into the other guy.
The car swerved off the road.
The car veered off the road.
The car went out of control.
I couldn't see the other car as it was obscured by my Windscreen pillar.
The cars windows were steamed up.
The car stalled.
The car pulled out.
The car hit the (wall,pedestrian, tree etc...)

I could go on all day with these but it goes to show how reluctant we are to admit blame or responsibility. The common theme in all the above scenarios was the driver was not controlling the car withing the limits of the road.

The word accident should be removed as well as this implies an unavoidable or unpredictable event. This is simply not accurate as nearly all crashes (this is what I'm going to call accidents!) could be avoided if people paid more attention to what was going on around them.

What is it with Cool cars and uncool people?

2007-10-08T16:33:00.000+01:00

Have you noticed how many cool cars are driven by people who frankly would not look out of place in a bus queue.

When we are talking cool we are really thinking Ferrari, Aston Martin, Maserati and other exotic cars. They are so expensive that they are out of reach for most younger drivers who have to put up with average cars. Then suddenly as they near retirement they decide to get the car they always dreamed of although they are now unable to enjoy it to its full potential.

Typically the driver is overweight, and in some kind of mid to late life crisis. The sad fact is that the car will never achieve its full potential and probably only goes out on sunny Sundays which in the UK is about 10 in a whole year. The car then pootles along at well under the speed limit.
You really should get this out of you system while you are younger and it won't look as daft and at least you'll be able to enjoy the car without fear of upsetting your back! Torquecars thought they would help by providing some assistance and help you avoid looking daft in your car choice.

The rule is as follows:-

Only buy an exotic car if you still look cool in shades,
do not look out of place in modern styles of clothing,
can hold a conversation with a teenager and understand everything they are saying,
Can read a text message without translation required
you still have your hair (unless you shave your head because this looks cool - otherwise that's me counted out then!)

If you do not qualify then you can still buy a fast car but trust me - don't go for anything that draws too much attention unless you like people laughing at you. Take a standard car and modify it if you must go fast but just don't change the appearance of the car.

Parking on hills

2007-10-03T15:24:00.000+01:00

Today I parked on a pretty steep hill and noticed a difference between what I did and what 99% of other car drivers did. This gives me a great opportunity for a rant and a chance to re-state the patronisingly obvious that most people claim they do but the reality is somewhat different.

Firstly some background information, a car rolling down a hill will cause a lot of damage (just think back to the story of Jack and Jill!) The aim on hills, is to keep the car parked where it is, so when you return it is still in one piece. Is this just me being a bit paranoid? Well when your car has disk brakes all round as most modern cars do, they are subject to the rules of expansion as they get hot. Theoretically then, when you use your brakes a lot the disks warm up, you apply the brake pads to the surface and as the disk cools it contracts thereby loosening the grip of the pads. On a steep hill this can cause it start to roll. Hence the suggestion of what you should when parking on a hill from way back when you learnt to drive.

When parking on a hill, put the car into gear and turn the wheels into the curb or away from the curb depending on whether you are parked facing up hill or down hill. The theory is that if the handbrake fails the engine will help anchor the car and if it rolls it will roll a short way until the wheel hits the kerb and then it stops the car. The worst thing you will find returning to your car is that it has moved a couple of inches.

Now most of the cars I saw didn't bother to rotate their wheels and although I can't tell for sure most seemed to leave the gearstick in neutral.

Sharing a car.

2007-10-01T14:45:00.000+01:00

We all have that gut wrenching experience of sharing our beloved pride and joy with someone at some point in our lives. Here is a little insight into the problems this can cause.

The experience varies from letting a mechanic briefly drive the car for a test run, to regularly parting with the car whilst your other half, son, daughter, friend, room mate etc takes the car on a regular basis.

Nothing causes friction like the pressures caused by a communal car share arrangement. Expect arguments over the amount of fuel used, to the division of bills for wear and tear items like tyres and breaks. Then larger focused discussions occur when the car has new scratches and scrapes which in fairness could have been caused when the car was parked up.

The regular annoyances will stack up though. Drivers tend to adjust the seat, mirror (usually all 3) and even set the radio to a different station or just keep swapping the CD. Then after you have delicately set up the balance of warm/cold air jets and angled them precisely your evil NEMESIS car sharer seems to take delight in turning them to the opposite settings. After a week this will really start to grate then the tension will build and build.

Another thing that happens is that the car gets dirty and needs cleaning and hoovering. With 2 people sharing a car this job seems to become less frequently done and the last one to clean it will continually whinge at the other when they bring it home slightly dirty!

So next time you enter into a relationship, or worse still offer to teach someone to drive think carefully about the implications of sharing a car. You need to have a strong personality and set the ground rules firmly at the beginning. A camera will help you establish the defaults switch settings and resolve disputes about damage but this can be rather time consuming.

Sorry - I've got to go now! My wife wants to use her computer now so I must dust off the keyboard and realign the mouse mat. (NOT!)

New british highway code 2007

2007-09-28T15:39:00.001+01:00

I see that Britain has a new updated highway code today with some 29 more rules and another 40 pages compared with the last edition. A Torquecars member first gave me the heads up and then I heard reports on the radio this morning. Journalists have seized on an attention grabbing headline which implies something along the lines that smoking in cars is illegal!

In reality it is drivers who cause an accident whilst smoking at the wheel will now be prosecuted for driving without due care and attention. Listening to loud music, talking to passengers, eating food, drinking from a cup or bottle and reading maps are also highlighted as examples of driving without due care and attention (do we really need this pointing out to us!) I have often wondered about smokers - lighting up at the wheel will usually take a great deal of attention from the road and often means taking both hands off the wheel and this seems more dangerous to me than using a mobile phone. At the moment this is just a guideline but we can surely expect smoking in cars by the driver to be formally outlawed. Coming soon a hands free smoking kit to a car part shop near you.

The driving theory test has also got harder with more questions to answer. I wouldn't mind betting that most drivers on the roads today would fail the theory test. Especially judging by the amount of people that can't use a roundabout or even use their indicators correctly. It would not be a bad thing to introduce a compulsory theory retest every 20 years as a refresher course to drivers - a lot of things can change in 20 years.

Tougher penalties apply to motorists who cannot give the details of a driver who was in charge of the car when caught by a speed camera. The owner of the car is now liable to points and a fine if they fail to name the driver. Other minor changes include alterations to the wording about riding horses and bicycles on our roads.

ModdedUK - car show in Kent

2007-09-24T16:33:00.000+01:00

I went to the ModdedUK car show in Kent at the weekend. The weather was fantastic and the turnout was also good. I managed to set a new record of 997 photographs and 15 minutes of video footage! I'll get these posted up on Torquecars as soon as possible.

Disappointments.
The quality of a few of cars on club stands left a lot to be desired but many had really made an effort and there was some awesome cars on display. The drag strip was shut down. The Monster truck show only lasted a few minutes. There was very little in the way of trade stands and the trade hall was empty. Awards were given to demo cars made by companies with big budgets. Litter! I was tripping over bottles every few minutes and there were sadly some reports of morons throwing bottles at some of the show cars! It isn't hard to enforce a no bottles ban and would really deal with these fundamental issues.

Surprises.
It was nice to meet the guys from Modball and they had some impressive rides on show. Many other clubs had really good stands and some very lavish cars on show such as X2-C, Force the limit, Ecruze, B-carz Showcarz and Hants-cc to mention but a few (Respect to these guys for keeping the spirit of car modding alive!)

Everyone I spoke to around the site was very friendly and we have a few articles coming soon to Torquecars with some very impressive and unusual mods. As always we will be focusing on the engine and power oriented mods but we also have some photo reports on some of the show cars.

My legs are killing me having spent around 12 hours walking around a field and squatting to take photographs. There were lots of clubs I would like to have seen and spoke to but I just ran out of time and energy SORRY!

Best car chase sequences

2007-09-21T13:02:00.000+01:00

One essential scene in any good action movie must include the ubiquitous car chase. Every bond film has a car chase scene in it and there are a large number of car chase scenes which stick in the memory from other movies. Firstly lets reminisce a little then lets look at some of the essential elements and the drawbacks of car chase scenes.

Most Bond film car chases are well choreographed with Bond (nearly) always managing to evade capture. I guess the gadgets fitted to the car make the Bond sequences stand out and certainly make us all wish the parts list on new cars included ejector seats, oil slicks, smokescreens and rockets. Some of these gadgets would help with combating daily traffic issues like heavy traffic, road blocks and taking the mother in law out (only joking!)

The Jason Bourne films take a different approach with a hand held camera giving very shaky and blurry footage but it is cut together in such a way that we can make sense of the scene and actually follow the action at a personal level imagining that we are there. There are no gadgets but some slick defensive driving techniques.

Fast and Furious films portray the glossy side of cars and the chase scenes are usually more glamorous and race related. Complex camera angles and special effects are combined to give the impression of speed and 10 second races are stretched to an impossibly long 10 minutes at times.

Every car chase should end in a crash and reflect what happens in real life. The compelling thing about watching them is the continual feeling of an impreding major smash up. We also deep down like to see a £100,000 worth of car written off and this takes us back to when we were children and we used to smash up, crash and even burn our toy cars. Often though this never happens and the "hero" car usually drives away.

Movies often portray cars as indestructible and worse still gives the impression that drivers can walk away from serious crashes. During a typical chase scene often a number of identical cars are written off as 1 car would not be able to take the punishment. If the movie studios showed a more responsible and realistic approach to car chases and the consequences perhaps we would see less deaths and injuries on the roads. Then again perhaps people are more sensible than to try and copy what they have seen in a movie!

Killer cars - yes even yours!

2007-09-17T17:18:00.000+01:00

We all accept that cars are dangerous things. I think we all underestimate the impact (pun not intentional) that we have on the life of our planet.

When you look at the front of your car after a long journey it is typically plastered with the remains of unfortunate little bugs and insects. A closer inspection reveals impact injuries, beheading, amputations and other nasty injuries. When you drive at night the amount of kills increases as the bugs fly towards your headlights thinking they are reaching their life long target the moon and then their dream is so suddenly ended and another bug family have one less member.

Perhaps we don't quite feel emotional about the bugs we kill but surely if we hit an average of 1,000,000 bugs each year they deserve a small consideration and a minutes silence.

I have seen bug defenders fitted to cars which resemble a mini spoiler at the nose end of the hood and they cause a turbulent flow of air which deflects the bugs and although they get a little dizzy they still live to fight another day.

On a slightly more serious note we should be more cautious in country lanes. A recent survey of TorquecarsThe amount of dead badgers, foxes and even birds I have recently seen is moderately alarming. Something larger than a bird can cause serious damage to a car so at least from a selfish self preservation front lets cut our speeds a little at night and keep a good eye out for animals at the side of the road. There is nothing worse than the sickening thump and realisation that you have killed injured or maimed a poor defenceless creature.

Breakdown personality types.

2007-09-10T14:38:00.000+01:00

I've noticed that when people break down in a car they tend to fall into 2 camps. One knows about cars and tries to fix the problem the other knows nothing about cars. The interesting thing though is that both drivers will open the bonnet. The first will also tend to get on the ground and whip out his emergency toolkit and start hammering and banging - the second will just stare and prod things at random.

Why do people do this? Staring at an engine you know nothing about will not fix it? Are these people hoping for some inspiration? A piece of pipe flapping around in the engine bay and a hole to poke it back in is probably the best they can hope for as even they stand a change of fixing it. Perhaps the whole lifting of the bonnet and staring at the engine is a way to prevent appearing helpless and somehow they imagine that passing motorists are quietly impressed at their mechanical skill?

"Whats wrong?" The passengers ask, Mr clueless replies, "its probably an air flow sensor problem!" basing his assumption on the conversation he had with his garage about how his air flow sensor was sticking! A little knowledge is also a dangerous thing, don't poke things in the engine or undo screws unless you know what they do. If a TV breaks down people will get in an expert - they will not just open it up and stare at the internals? Why when a complex piece of machinery like a car breaks down why do they open the bonnet?

Please note that when your engine breaks kicking the tyres will not fix it. So many people kick a cars tyre - it really tells you nothing about the car. When people buy cars they will often kick or prod the tyre with their foot? Why? Tyre pressures are not measured by the bounce or the thud sound? You can't tell about the state of the steering or how frequently a car is serviced from a quick kick of the tyre! If tyre pressures are really low then a visual inspection is all that is required. Torquecars have a wide range of articles aimed at helping newbies find there way around the engine bay and covers the practical aspects of car ownership such as servicing.

Car interiors are so boring.

2007-09-07T15:41:00.000+01:00

Look at any car interior and you have to conclude that it is boring. Most are dull colours if you can actually use the word colour most are shades of black and grey. Nearly all car interiors I have seen are very plastic looking and after a short period of time the trim starts to suffer from scratches and knocks and ends up looking very shabby.

When manufacturers design a car interior they have to take into account the fact that the car has a life span of around 20 years. As any house decorator will tell you colours and styles change every few years. Also tastes differ from person to person and one persons Mona Lisa will be another persons Graffiti and vice versa. So they have adopted a safe colour scheme.

Grey and black is neutral enough to last for 20 years without going out of style. This is no excuse as we spend more time looking at the interior of our cars rather than the outside and we expect to be able to specify the paint colour when we buy a car so why not the interior? (Some sporty models have a number of cloth pattern but the overwhelming colour is still grey and black and red is available in leather for some cars which looks great.

We do not have to be stuck with the dull interiors though as an aftermarket parts source has sprung up allowing us to fully customise any aspect of our cars interior. See the interior styling guide at Torquecars for some inspirational ideas. Simple stick on panels, gear knobs, car mats to interior neons and complete re upholstery services are available the only limit is your imagination. We should really aim to update the interior of our cars every 5 years or so and this will also prevent the wear and tear shabbiness from building up and can reflect our personally.

BE WARNED THOUGH - If you choose a fluffy pink interior you may well find it difficult to sell the car again unless of course you find someone else who likes fluffy pink things.

Some people should never have a car.

2007-09-05T14:20:00.000+01:00

I have a friend who is a talented graphic designer living in London. (He knows who he is and I exaggerate his story - but only a little!) I always have to smile at his comprehension of what he classes as car ownership. Because I run Torquecars the car tuning site he often asks me his car related questions rather than take his car to a garage and get ripped off.

Servicing - This is something he believes that needs to be done when the car breaks down. Servicing is never considered a prevention. The only regular thing he does to his car is fill it with petrol. Light bulbs get replaced when they have all failed on the basis that with one headlight you can still see where you are going. I believe he also cleans his car occasionally as this is usually quicker than pulling out the weeds growing in the dirt stuck to the paintwork.

Here is a brief summary of his car problems. Red light comes on in the shape of an engine. "He thinks hmmm a pretty red light - I don't think that was on before. I wonder what it means. Now I come to think about it the car is running strangely." Next day he is surprised that the car breaks down on him, so he manages to get it parked and walks the rest of the way home.
About a week later he remembers he had a car and then tries to think about where he parked it? After a few hours searching the streets he has still not located his car and it actually takes another week before he finds it. He gets a garage to mend it and he is back on the road.

A few weeks later his car is no longer parked where he left it. He reports it stolen to the Police who inform him that it has been towed away and stored in a compound. He knows he parked legally so pushes his case a little further and discovers that unfortunately his road tax expired and this is why it was towed away, he has a fine to pay and needs to get the car taxed.
To get his car tax he needs his documents and he can't locate his MOT test certificate but he is sure it had an MOT a few years ago! The story goes on but needless to say he finally gets his car back.

Then a few days ago I get an email from him with a sketch drawing of a pipe with 4 bolt holes at each end with a message, "this fell off my car the other day, do you know what it is or where it goes? The car is making a funny noise now?" It was the hose from the air box so wasn't very major but I dread to think what the next email from him is going to be!

I have come to the conclusion that we are not all destined to have a car.

French Roadtrip part 3

2007-09-02T18:23:00.000+01:00

It was quite an experience driving on the wrong side of the road. The weird priority rules still baffle me and they seem to apply in towns and built up areas. Anyway apart from nearly pulling out on 2 motorcycling gendarmes the Holiday went well.

We were looking for an Internet cafe so I could get online. After much searching around rural France we actually found one but it was closed for lunch. Now I thought that the whole idea and concept of a cafe was to serve lunch but our continental friends do things a little differently. When I finally do find an Internet cafe open for lunch I discover that the keyboard layout is just plain strange and took 3/4 of my prepaid time trying to get an @ symbol to appear!!

French lunch hour appears to run from about 12:00 to 14:00 which is pretty good going.
One thing I love about motoring in France is the absolute lack of any kind of parking enforcement on the basis that there are no parking rules to enforce. You can pretty much park where you want and as long as you are not blocking the road it is ok. Pay and display car parks are also thin on the ground but every town and city have free parking areas. In some areas you will notice that you can park on one side of the road in the morning and then in the afternoon it switches to the other side. When you think about the fact that the roads are only wide enough for 2 cars an inconsiderate parker could effectively close the road.

Road side service areas are plentiful but if you want cheap fuel you have to travel in to the in town hypermarches. When you have a British number plate and a GB sticker you can get away with murder when it comes to doing u-turns and pulling out at junctions. I never once encountered road rage and saw some strange things like a HGV driver who just stopped in the middle of a roundabout to ask the car behind for directions and what looked like a 20 year old citroen tank truck for sale which was absolutely immaculate (just through lack of use rather than restoration).

French roadtrip update 2

2007-08-21T22:21:00.000+01:00

Driving along in France you suddenly realise that the conventions of driving no longer apply. In England when you meet another car coming along a narrow track one of you stops and pulls over to give way. In France the cars just drive along the grass verge or up the embankment without even slowing. When this first happens it is a little disconcerting but after a while you find it quite liberating to be able to just drive on the verge or up the bank. I'm sure that this approach to driving really wrecks your suspension and if you needed to do an emergency stop on the road with half your wheels on a low grip surface you will not be able take evasive action.

The roads also have unusual rules which leave you never quite being sure if you have priority over other cars, and unless you are happy playing a game of car based Russian roulette you tend to become rather adept at emergency stops. I think all drivers visiting other countries will start off driving rather cautiously. You then encounter drivers of slow vehicles and delivery vans which have some psychic power that enables them to overtake you on blind bends!
Sign posts are pretty good and somewhat informative when you develop a basic grasp of the language with most number referring to some kind of speed limit. The speed limits are not too dissimilar to what we have over here in good old Enland, it just takes a little while to convert them from KM to Miles. I'm still struggling to come to terms with driving on the right side of the road but this seems to be the preferred modus oparandi for most of the world. One day I'm sure that we will just move over to the continental style of driving on the right and this will ensure that we get cars which are fully compatible with the rest of Europe without having to change them or get them converted and messing around with headlight.

We encountered an emergency vehicle which was following us up hill. It looked like some kind of fire engine and I'd swear the thing was powered by a 1.0 diesel engine. You look in your mirror and see the flashing lights and start reducing your speed, then you look again and see that despite your slowing up it is still in the distance. Still not being quite sure what is going on we decide to pull over and wait for the emergency vehicle to lumber past. This seemed to take quite an age and eventually we were able to slowly follow it. Next time I think we will wait and see if the hing has enough power to keep up with us before deciding to move over.

The European commission does appear to be standardising road signs and regulation across Europe which makes the transfer to continental driving a lot easier to adapt to. One thing we don't get in good old England is the breath taking scenery and the exhilaration that one wrong move in the bends will result in the car plummeting down a 2 mile drop from sheer rock face. When you get the hang of the bends and learn not to look down the sheer drop you start to enjoy the roads and actually start driving at a pace which even the locals are unable to keep up with.

Driving in France

2007-08-20T14:36:00.000+01:00

Time to report in my sojourn across the channel. Last year we flew down to France and hired a car. At the time this seemed the most cost effective option with a flight costing as much as fuel but the cost of hire car was a lot more than we had anticipated due to the "optional" extras like fuel, collision damage waver and additional driver. The car they gave us was a new Peugeot 205 Diesel and apart from the steering wheel and pedals being on the wrong side of the car it drove like a dog. On the twisty country roads it was hesitant and stogy and seemed to have had its suspension modeled on a supermarket trolley.

This year we decided to bite the bullet and drive down, a somewhat scary prospect considering the sheer distance we needed to cover and the fact that we couldn't understand half of the road signs. Thankfully the ferry journey was very simple, with no airport style security and check in lounges to fight our way through.

Despite my initial apprehension I must say that driving in France was a bit of a pleasure. The motorway system is very well maintained and intuitive and there are good service facilities with opportunities for toilet, sleep and a good cup of coffee every few miles. I prepared a small sticker to remind me to drive on the right which is only really needed in town areas when pulling out onto main roads and this also includes the statutory speed limits for each type of road (including conversions from KM to Mph as the KM measurements are not very visible in most road conditions). There were signs up apologising for poor road surface on roads which were better than out most well maintained surfaces. Fuel economy was also better, perhaps it was the lack of congestion, the sheer distance we travelled or just the fact that the car did not have to fight with bumps and poor surfaces. Our car typically returns around 37 mpg and for a distance of over 500 miles it hovered at 42.2mpg and considering we were doing 130 most of the way this was excellent (kph not mph!)

When you get off the motorways and into the towns you see rural decay everywhere. Buildings appear to be neglected and whole towns deserted, that is until the siesta time finishes and people start arriving in their droves. Road manners were also impeccable and only a couple of drivers cut us up - something that happens every few minutes back in good old blighty. There are also an unusually high amount of old cars - real classics but with little attention or care lavished on them. (I'd be surprised if there is a French word for Restoration!) Perhaps this is due to the lack of rain and rust or perhaps the French do not place a high priority on buying new cars.

Driving makes us lazy.

2007-08-16T07:09:00.000+01:00

Car ownership makes us lazy. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen someone park right outside their destination, often illegally instead of parking further up the road and walking. Most Torquecars members when asked also agree that having a car has made them a little lazy. People popping in to their local shop are the biggest culprits.

How many journeys are really necessary. I think that at some time we have all taken the car around the corner for speed or if it is raining. Years ago we used to walk to school, now children are delivered to school by car. Is the growing problem of childhood obesity down to the car induced laziness as much as the increased junk food diet.

We need to ask ourselves when was the last time we walked for 30 minutes? Its not a long time and certainly not a long distance but most people would consider taking the car for this short journey, which has some major drawbacks.

The wear and tear on the car is much greater on short journeys when the engine does not have time to warm up.
It would be another missed opportunity for some gentle exercise.
A wak of 30 minutes refreshes the mind, in the car we tend to be distracted more and usually put the radio on. The silent contemplation whilst walking is beneficial and you will often solve problems or be more effective at work.
Stress levels are reduced when walking, you are less likely to get raised blood pressure whilst walking compared to driving the same distance.
You will be easing both congestion and local pollution levels as any Asthmatic or hay fever sufferer will fully appreciate.
You save money.

What though about the extra time cost? When you think about it logically a 30 minute walk is about the same as a 5 minute drive on an uncongested road, the thing is that we do not have uncongested roads. My journey typically takes 10-20 minutes at a crawling pace on most days and they I can spend anoteh 10-20 minutes looking for a parking space. You might live in an uncongested area and If you do I am a little jealous, but with our modern lifestyles do not expect that to always be the case.

Throw away the car keys for short journeys and WALK instead. 2 legs are for walking, if we were born to drive we would have 3 legs, one for each pedal ;)

Car Paranoia

2007-08-13T21:23:00.000+01:00

We at Torquecars all take a pride in our cars, the question we need to ask is are we obsessive over our car? Some warning signs of obsession include waxing, vacuuming or potentially washing the car once a week. It is nice to have a clean and tidy car and I would be the last to object to someone cleaning their car, but to watch their expression as a bird targets their gleaming paintwork.

Then the rules start appearing, particularly when children are around.

No Eating in the car
Remove dirty shoes before entering the car
Touching any part of the exterior including door handles is forbidden
If you put it in you take it out again
Windows must not be breathed on and wiping them with the hand is a definite no-no
Shoes with buckles may not be worn (Leather seat paranoia)
Buttons must not be pressed
Switches must not be thrown
No rubbish or refuse may be carried
Ashtrays are strictly for coins only
He will open the doors for passengers to protect the doors
When children are playing football in the street he will keep his eye on them at all times

If someone else were to wash the car the paranoid owner will ask what cleaning products were used and then complain that there's a new swirl mark in the paint. He will insist on using a wool mitt to wash the car with a separate one for the initial, main and final wash process.

Taking this to the next level includes the driver that parks in the furthest bay from the shop entrance and then proceeds to walk for 3 minutes to the shop in order to reduce the risk that anyone accidentally or deliberately scratches their paintwork. If such a space is not available they will park across 2 bays diagonally to avoid the possibility of a car opening its door into the side of the car.

The same paranoid car owner keeps the car in a garage and only drives it when 3 separate weather forecasters have confirmed there is no chance of rain. Cars cared for to this extent usually are also driven very slowly for fear of getting a stone chip or worse still a scratch mark from a hedge. To liberate yourself from this harmful compulsion take the car through a safari and pause in the monkey enclosure. At first you will be extremely stressed and vexed but after 10 minutes you will be thoroughly cured of your paranoia until you get your next car.

Beware of drivers wearing hats.

2007-08-10T14:15:00.000+01:00

I recently noticed a pattern which identified bad drivers and should shout out as a warning to all other motorists. It is simple and we need to perform a scientific study to see if this is a cause or is the result of being a bad driver.

The revelation is simply this - "Bad drivers wear hats". The worst cases of driving ineptness I have encountered this week held up this theory.

I was driving along and caught up with a car doing half of the speed limit, when the road was clear and the possibility of overtaking him safely appeared he would move into the middle of the road and speed up. This was an old driver wearing a Trilby. I really don't think he was aware of me following him despite the fact my car is purple, my lights were on and I was honking my horn and waving my arms at him. (OK, so I lied about the horn and my arms but I was nearly tempted!)

Then he turned off and allowed me to continue my journey. Then a young blood in his mothers shopping car which for some reason he had replaced the exhaust pipe with a drain pipe and covered the front wing in stickers of manufacturers who wouldn't even dream of making parts to fit the car he was driving, proceeded to screech out of the petrol station into busy traffic causing cars to swerve and skid all over the road to avoid him. With his generous dissemination of Drum and Bass to the neighbourhood I think he was completely oblivious to the other drivers around him. Did my theory hold up for this driver too? Yes - he was sporting a charming baseball cap which appeared to be facing the wrong way!

Following this an old lady with a dog proceeded to attempt to park at the side of the road managing to get both back wheels on the pavement. I checked out my theory and yes you've guessed it - she was also wearing a hat (a big white floppy one if you are interested!).

So the question that remains is does wearing a hat do something to your brain? Does the heat build up impair your judgement or hamper your social interactions? Or do people with impaired judgement and bad social skills always choose to wear a hat? Is this natures way of warning those around of an approaching moron?

Do all colours show up the dirt?

2007-08-09T06:39:00.000+01:00

Most Torquecars members agree that the nicest colour for a car is Black. Nothing beats the shine and reflections that gleam from a freshly cleaned black car. After a good wax layer the surface of a black car becomes highly reflective and this makes it look fantastic in a way that no other colour can. The downside is that Black is one of the hardest colours to keep looking nice and the dirt and grime show up so easily.

White is also another colour to be avoided by the work shy as this too will show up every spec of dirt. One of the biggest problems with white is when you get splashes of tar up the paint which is a problem on every freshly laid road surface, the only way of getting the tar off is with the use of a solvent based cleaning product. Having owned a white car you get to appreciate the need to always rinse of with fresh clean water - the slightest amount of murkiness seems to leave a coating over the paintwork.

This lead me to conduct a minor survey of what colour is the best one for people who want to avoid washing the car frequently and the results are in.

Most strong colours like Blue, Red and all dark colours will show up the dirt and grime, as will light coloured cars such as beige and yellow. Grey seems to be a good colour though and metallic grey for some reason just does not dirty. It seems to be the one colour which is able to seamlessly blend in with the dirt along with mid tones of blue although this can still look grubby in a short period of time.

So if you are work shy get yourself a grey metallic car and only wash it every six months!

Driving in Rainy weather

2007-08-08T12:06:00.000+01:00

In rainy weather beware of aquaplaning. This happens when the tyre is unable to push away the water causing the car to float on a thin layer of water. When this happens the steering will feel lighter and the car will seem to veer on a set course. And you will have no steering or braking control over the car while it is aquaplaning. Do not start Braking, steering or accelerating just ease off the throttle and hopefully grip will have been restored before you hit something.

Flooded roads also present a unique danger. Driving to quickly through a flood will cause water to splash up into the engine components and cause the car to stall.

Rule 1 is keep your speed down and do not enter a flood unless you are sure the car can get through it.
Rule 2 is keep the engine revs up - dip the clutch if you want to slow up. If you lift off the accelerator you run the risk of sucking water in to the engine and a water filled engine will require a complete engine rebuild

Be especially careful on bends and corners and on poor quality road surfaces as these can exacerbate the problem of aquaplaning. Try also to stay in the swathe cut by the car in front as the road will usually be a little dryer. If you have a 4x4 you will notice the acceleration is still good in the wet but you must remember that braking and steering will still be poor so do not drive beyond the safe limits of control. Also check you have plenty of tread depth on your tyres the more the better.

For more driving tips on coping with weather conditions read the Torquecars article this blog page inspired on Driving in weather hazards.

How to avoid a speeding ticket!

2007-08-06T14:27:00.000+01:00

Torquecars rule number 1 has to be don't speed! Any driver who exceeds the speed limit by a fair margin deserves to be caught and punished for that. Speeding is a major contributing factor in accidents and either increases the possibility of a collision by decreasing the margin of error and increasing the drivers reaction distance and braking distance. If you want to drive fast, sign up for a track day with the associated safety features.

At times we all tend to blend in with the traffic and as we look down we notice that our speed has crept up to exceed the speed limit. It is on occasions like this that we are discussing, wilful speeding is anti-social and very naughty ;)

If we are caught by a camera there is very little we can do the process is automatic and evidence is accepted by the courts. Keeping an eye on the road ahead will usually alert us to the proximity of speeding cameras. Also warning signs like brake lights ahead will often indicate the presence of some kind of law enforcement apparatus.

The next rule is to blend in. If we are in a line of cars which are all travelling at the same speed a police patrol will have to select a motorist. If he has a choice between a young driver in a hot hatch covered with stickers and plastic parts and a mature driver in a boring family saloon he will usually go for the former. Young drivers often have more to hide and there may be other vehicle condition violations to add to the speeding ticket.

So drive an ordinary looking car, remove badges and trim that could indicate performance. Choose a silver, black, grey or blue car and avoid red and fancy metallic colours. Loud exhausts and blaring music also attract attention and the key is avoid attention at all costs. Moving at a similar speed to other cars will also mean we blend in, if we are travelling at twice the speed of other cars we become an obvious and conspicuous target.

The police officer has a job to do. A speeding conviction will require he submits paper work and files a full report. He has the law on his side and if you show a proper amount of respect and avoid getting his back up he will probably let you go with a warning. Do not try to be funny, sarcastic or rude and never allow the officer to provoke a negative response. Evidence for the speeding offence must also be provided and the officer will try and get a confession from you - if you can realistically deny all knowledge of your speeding it will make his job harder.

Take 2 cars or just own 1 all rounder.

2007-08-01T17:53:00.000+01:00

Car ownership is getting expensive as all Torquecars members will tell you. When you start tuning up a car you increase the running costs by reducing your fuel economy and reduce the reliability of parts because of the extra stress on the components. The servicing regimen on a highly tuned engine is generally a lot tighter than on a standard car and by tuning it you are reducing the margin for fault toleration.

More drivers are switching to run a track tuned car and many kit cars like the Caterham, robin Hood and Westfield are gaining popularity. The idea is that you can have a hardcore track car to throw around the track and get a car with a power to weight ratio greater than most supercars and an effortless 0-60 sprint of sub 4 seconds. Having a track specific car means you can throw out the comfort to maximise the track performance. Most track bred cars are a simple lightweight scaffold pole style chassis and large power plant such as a Honda Type R supercharged or Vauxhall or Ford pinto derived engines. Kit cars are also a popular choice as they have very lightweight body shells and huge engines and many good quality replicas of supercars are around with engines that outperform the originals they mimic.

Your other daily commute car is then an ordinary run of the mill realiable car and the combined running costs of the 2 cars is about the same as having a highly tuned car which you use every day.

Never underestimate the fun you can have with a classic or large engined American car on the track and often older car have lower tax and other concessions that make ownership of them a little less expensive.

The road is Long....

2007-07-30T10:08:00.001+01:00

From time to time we all have long journeys to make in our cars. The longest drive we do tend to be our annual holidays and we really should prepare well for this unusual test of our endurance.

Get a good nights sleep the night before. Tiredness is one of the biggest accident causers on our road. The hassle and worry of the journey and packing for our holiday usually prevent us from getting a good nights sleep. Unwind before you go to sleep - read a book. Don't drink coffee or do any strenuous exercises before you go to bed as this is likely to keep you up. Keep a notepad by the bed so if you wake up and remember something you have to pack you can note it down and go back to sleep rather than laying awake and worrying about it.

Prepare well. You will be using roads you are unfamiliar with and you really need to have planned your route carefully and have in mind the main towns and cities so you can make snap decisions at complicated junctions and at least take the exit that keeps you going the right way. There are a number of excellent online route planners.

Rest. After the first 3 hours take a 15 minute break. Walk around, get a coffee. As the journey goes on you need to brake more frequently so I would suggest another break at 5.5 hours in to the journey and then 7 hours and then 8.5 in to the journey. If you feel tired then take a nap (pull over in a safe place to do so and lock the cars doors and leave a window slightly open if there are more than 2 occupants in the car) - a 30 minute nap is often all you need to keep you going another few hours.

Entertainment. Take some music or audio books to keep your mind occupied and take an interest in your surroundings, noticing landmarks and other cars. When you get bored you will notice that tiredness kicks in much more quickly.

Make sure the car is serviced before you go. If there are any unusual noises from the suspension or engine get this addressed before you leave. Top up the washer fluid and check the oil levels - nothing consumes oil as much as a long journey at fast constant speeds. Take a spare bottle of oil with you.

Engine computers are getting too smart!

2007-07-27T15:34:00.000+01:00

I recently took my car into the garage for some work which require that the battery be disconnected. This results in resetting the computer to the factory setting. When you get the car back you realise all of the little things that it does.

Now when the car goes into neutral the revs rise and fall bouncing around an average and then settles. Apparently the computer will learn the exact amount of RPM that the engine idles at without stalling and will set this as the default option.

I also had to reset the clock and the date and lost my accumulated average MPG and average speed since the last reset - things which I use to compare the cars performance and a sudden drop in MPG usually indicates an imminent problem. Now I wish I had written all of the data down (GEEK ALERT!)

The electric windows also have a one touch up and down setting - but since reconnecting the battery I have to work out how to switch this on again. The car also feels a bit sluggish and does not seem to be the car I put into the garage but since it only had a new starter motor fitted this can only be down to the computer relearning the optimum settings. The steering and even the braking feel different, I know it is not just me and that this must also be down to the cars computer. It is kind of nice to think that the car gets used to its driver.

Doing some research on the Internet and speaking with other Torquecars members I note that other drivers have complained similarly of problems with the car following the computer reset and have taken their cars back to the garage and complained only to be told that it will sort itself out in due course. Some owners of automatics report a really soggy gear change, again down to the computer needing to relearn the drivers habits and its engines own personality. I'm sure other people have had even weirder stuff happen to them following an ECU reset.

I don't know about you but we tend to take it for granted just how much technology affects our lives. Perhaps we should go back to cars with carbs and no ABS or Power Steering.

Carism - the new predjudice.

2007-07-25T07:24:00.000+01:00

We should never judge a person by their race, skin colour, sex, age or religion. We are all individuals and such generalisations are harmful and not constructive.

When it comes to the cars we drive though we tend to make judgements based on the type of car about the driver. I suppose this borders on acceptable because generally speaking we choose the car that we drive. If we dress like a clown, a tramp, a tart or a put on a business suit we have made a decision and this reflects our personality. So on this basis we shall now engage in some shameless generalisations but don't tell the members of Torquecars or I am likely to get lynched.

BMW - Big on image, most BMW drivers sought a prestige badge to give them credibility. Most BMW drivers are business owners, or work in a competative sales environment.

Audi - German engineering at its best, unlike BMW there is not the same degree of Image attached to the Audi badge. Typcial drivers are accountants and professionals who appreciate a good car but do not want to be seen as overly ambitious.

Toyota - Reliable cars. Styling has always seemed to be rather ordinary and average (until recently) and Toyotas are bought by the sensible driver who looks at economy and running costs. Typically purchased by the older driver (unless its a sports model).

Honda - Japanese reliability. Honda owners are not generally as old as Toyota drivers and often this will be the choice for the for those looking for a good all round performer with economy and in gear acceleration as their priority.

Ford - Fleet heaven. Appreciated by the city rep and long distance traveller alike. Usually a budget buy but often equipped with aftermarket parts like high power radio and alloy wheels.

GM - Mr Average. Run of the mill cars which appeal to run of the mill people. Often neglected and run to enormous mileages.

4x4 & SUVs - Big and in your face. These drivers like to cucoon themselves away from the general public and got a large family car for protection. 2 types of SUV driver exist - we will refer to them as shiny and muddy. The muddy SUV is Favoured as a workhorse many of these have a hard life transporting horse boxes, camping equipment and work tools and the 4 wheel drive is used. The shiny SUV driver wants to feel safe and protected and is not worried by the cost.

Diesels - The practical modern choice for those on a budget. Reliable and dependable this is the choice of the long distance rep and as a family car.

There are always exceptions but these stereotypes characterise the generally opinion of these car driver groups.

Why I will never buy a new car.

2007-07-23T21:04:00.000+01:00

New cars depreciate like tickets for a Titanic return voyage a Torquecars member will tell you. Well they lose a lot of their value. If you sell a car in the UK after 3 years of ownership you will have lost around 50% of its list price. The more options to get the more money you will lose when you come to sell the car. So on a 7,000 car this equates to a loss 3500 and on an 80,000 car you are looking at 40,000! SUV's and executive cars are notorious depreciators and can lose up to a staggering 60% of their list price!

If you take the options as separate items from the basic list price they will typically lose around 80% of their value, although some options are now considered essential and a car without them will not find a new owner easily. Other than air conditioning, power steering, ABS, alloy wheels and a good set of sounds, ignore other options like leather or heated seats, sunroof, courtesy lights, arm rest, driver aids like audible parking proximity sensors, metallic or special paint finishes, paddle gear shift on the steering wheel and sat nav. None of these will add much if anything to the resale value of the car.

My other gripe with new cars is the sheer toxicity of them. The new car smell is slowly killing us and we allow these carcinogens to build up in our bodies. When plastics get warm they give off chemicals and leave a tell tale film inside the windows. (A whole subject in itself which I aim to cover shortly!)

New cars also have faults. many new cars have faults or niggles that get fixed under warranty. Buying a car at 3 years old will have been thoroughly troubleshot and still have plenty of reliable life left in it. Then if I sell it at 6 years old I will typically lose just 30% of my outlay.
A 3 year old car with minor chips in the paint and slight scuffs or swirls in the metal reduces my anxiety. If the car was perfect looking when I parked it I would desperately take every measure possible to keep it so and avoid parking near the busy ends of car parks, leaving it on most streets would be a no-no to. A used car does not induce the same level of paranoia and fear of vandalism so you get to lead a less stressful life with fewer worries and concerns.

Green Motoring is this the answer to climate change?

2007-07-20T15:17:00.000+01:00

Much hype exists in the media about green motoring. There is more of an agreement on the reality of climate change nowadays as people are becoming concerned at the changing weather patterns. A new multi million $ industry of Green living has sprung up from governments introducing new Green taxes to reduce emissions of CO2 to car companies releasing fuel sipping varients of their popular engines.

Bio fuels are hailed as the solution. Bio fuel is a fuel source which is grown instead of being drilled or extracted from our earths limited resources. Oils can be extracted from crops and made into a viable diesel alternative and Ethanol, a type of alcahol, as a substitute or additive for petrol based engines. Although this seems like a good solution we still demand huge amounts of fuel to power our modern lives. Questions are being raised about how much bio fuel can be produced without impacting on our farmers ability to provide essential food crops. The conversion and refining process also requires large amounts of energy.

Another solution involves the use of electric power to augment a conventional CO2 emitting engine. There are some very impressive implimentaions of this from the major manufacturers although questions again are being raised at the amount of CO2 generated in the production of these cars and particulalry the batteries which store the power and will only last for 100,000 miles or so. Once again we seem only to have a partial solution to the answer. Is is possible to combine the two approaches? We have yet to see a hybrid diesel engine but a petrol/ethanol mix with electrical supplimentation is a practical application. Is this enough to reverse the thread of major catastrophic climate change?

There are millions of cars around already and it will not be practical to convert these. We have to ask what causes the largest emissions of CO2 and take a view that the humble motorist emits little more than a minute portion of the total CO2 and then we need to make some serious lifestyle changes if we are really serious about reducing climate change. A consumer driven society with its throwaway and replace an item mentality needs to change. We also need to travel less and work from home. Growing our own food will further reduce our carbon footprint. So the answer to the problem is not to spend more money on "Green" technology we need quite simply to spend less money, evaluating our needs and denying our wants. This is perhaps not realistic, people adopt the "let others go first" mentality and we are left with a problem that is not being sorted and have big business corporations and governments around the world profiting from the "green" revolution.

Road rage triggers and how to avoid it!

2007-07-18T09:53:00.000+01:00

What sort of things trigger road rage? It is something we have all experienced at one time or another and either been on the receiving end of it or dishing it out ourselves. Many Torquecars members report horrific and scary incidents involving road rage.

When we get into our cars we enjoy our freedom, the space inside the car is ours and we expect to be able to go where we want to when we want. If there is some external obsticle infringing on our freedom we may start to get frustrated. Anger is the human response to stress and some people control stress better than others. We obviously need to be more tolerant of other road users and forgiving of their mistakes. Good anticipation will allow us to avoid many pitfalls that can create problems for other motorists.

To avoid becoming a victim of road rage.
Drive considerately, letting other drivers join the traffic flow where safe to do so. Avoid erratic driving, frequent changing of lanes and sudden changes of speed. Anthing that draws attention to yourself potentially makes you a victim for road rage. Even driving a flashy or agressive looking car can create an angry response from other drivers where a normal looking car would have been largely ignored. Never drive at a speed substantially higher than the other motorists around you. Never block another car joining the traffic flow or cut into a traffic lane at the last possible minute. Avoid cutting up other drivers or causing them to take evasive action.

Avoid following the car in front too closely - remember that need for personal space still applies when we are in a car. Only overtake when it is safe to do so as cutting in at the last minute or causing the car we are overtaking to take evasive action are major precursors to road rage incidents.

If you have done something silly raise a palm as an apology and that often diffuses the anger of the car behind.

You may drive a car that is playing up and unable to maintain a steady speed, so pulling over and letting cars pass you will prevent the frustration and anger from building up. This includes the drivers of agricultural machinery and caravan drivers.

The self repairing car strikes again.

2007-07-15T22:01:00.000+01:00

Well it passed the MOT with flying colours. The front tyres were near the minimum tread depth so I have ordered some Dunlop SP Sports to match the rears. I would never have chosen them but they were all I could get on the rears and since they have been fitted I really like them.
They cope well in all weathers and are pretty hard wearing consider the abuse I give them!
A small fault developed though after the car had been returned which I noticed the following day. When using the starter the engine would start and then the starter would grind and clank.

I suspect that the release solenoid is sticking causing the starter to remain engaged in the starting ring longer than necessary. After about 10 starts though after the weekend it seems to have sorted itself out. When we first got our Audi A3 the door sensor was playing up causing the interior light to stay on and the digital dash computer display would flicker on and off. Both of those problems went away so I must take my hat off to German engineering having produced a car that repairs itself!

Bills and repairs so far in the 3 years of ownership other than standard service items totals £0.00! (Unless you count the tyres at £65 each but I'm prepared to put them in as a service item!) I'm very pleased with this car, especially since my last car, a Rover 220 GTi cost me around £200-£300 per month in repairs with repaired items failing a few months later with alarming regularity!

Vorsprung Durk Technik!

MOT time makes me nervous.

2007-07-12T17:29:00.000+01:00

Its that time of year again to get the MOT test. The car is booked in. I have checked the obvious things, such as bulbs and washer fluid following the list provided by Torquecars. The car is also due a minor service so it makes sense that both are taken care of at the same time. Thankfully Audi 1.8T engines have a really long service schedule with Plugs lasting 40,000 miles and oil changes every 2 years. I had a performance washable air filter fitted so this will just be rinsed through and re oiled. All that needs doing really is the oil and I won't be going for the Audi long life oil, Instead I'll be going for a good quality 5w30 fully synthetic.

The MOT always worries me and I will spend most of tomorrow pacing up and down like an expectant father waiting outside the Maternity suite. Will they find the small chip in the windscreen or on the light lenses? Is that suspension bump from the rear anything major. What are the emissions going to be like? 1,000,000 of questions like these run through my head and they will probably pick up on something I've not even thought about. The car is 5 years old so should theoretically sail through but I was a born worrier!

Once that is out of the way its time to apply for road tax. Insurance comes out next month and then no more bills for another year all being well and keeping my fingers crossed.

How can a 500 bhp engine be more impressive than a 1000 bhp one?

2007-07-11T08:11:00.000+01:00

What is more impressive, a BMW v12 F1 engine that puts out 1000bhp and redlines as 12,000 rpm or a BMW engine which puts out 500 bhp and redlines at 6000 rpm?

The F1 engine of course. If peak power output is the measure then you would be right but lets break this claim down a little. The F1 engine is stripped down and rebuilt after every race by a dedicated team of mechanics who also monitor every facet of the engine during each race. The 500 bhp engine is that fitted to a road car and as such it must last 100,000 miles at least before it required rebuilding and it must cope with long service intervals and a wide range of weather and driving conditions. Needless to say that the average driver does not have a pit crew on hand to keep everything running smoothly. When we put it like that we start to realise just how amazing our car engines are, and start to appreciate that there is a trade off when we ask the engine to put down more power.

Nearly every engine can have more power squeezed out of it and with some engines this can be as much as another 40-80% more power. This will usually reduce the service intervals and decrease the life expectancy of the engine though and presents the hidden cost of tuning.
Many people just can't see the point of F1 but when the things learned on these highly tuned and greatly stressed engines is applied to production going versions of cars you start to see the point, and actually realise the great benefits of the money companies pump into their motorsports divisions. Many innovations like traction control, active suspension and even tyre technology find its roots in F1.

Torquecars helps users decide which car tuning modifications are the best ones for their car and highlights any tradeoffs or compromises that need to be made for the sake of performance.

Obsessive tendancies In a car.

2007-07-09T19:42:00.000+01:00

We all have little rituals and to a degree we all have bit of compulsive behavior disorder. It is good to be regimented orderly and tidy, but we need to be careful that it does not start to take over our lives. This is a fairly tongue in cheek article that contains little in the way of real phsychology and is not intended to be anything more than an amusing diversion.
Here are some of the things to look out for.

When Parking.

We have to park in middle of a space even if this means we go forwards and backwards a number of times.All wheels must be parallel to the kerb so we would never leave the car with our front wheels at an angle. The distance from the kerb must be equal on the front or back. When parking up we also ensure that the Steering wheel must always be straight. We cannot let the wipers rest unless they are in the parked position at the bottom of the screen. We would even restart the ignition to ensure that the wipers are correctly resting. We touch each pedal a set number of times with our feet as we turn off the engine, blip the accelerator or depress the clutch pedal.

Before we set off.

All of the vents must be set in a symmetrical pattern, if the outer ones are pointing up so must the inner ones. If the left one is pointing left we just dont feel right until the right one is pointing left to mirror it. We make sure that the mats in the car are all straight and that the headrests are all at the same height.

When driving along.

You tap or wiggle your left foot, or clench your jaw each time you pass a lamp post, mailbox or other marker.We try (especially in the wet) to make sure our tyres go over the same bit of road as the car in front.

General.

We get annoyed when the tyre valves do not line up.

None of these in themselves are a problem but if we start to become obsessive over them or are guilty of a significant number of these we need to be careful that this does not develop into a major problem. We could test ourself out by forcibly breaking the rule/behaviour pattern that we are having trouble with.

What makes a good driver?

2007-06-18T16:16:00.000+01:00

We all know what winds us up in other drivers from the recent www.Torquecars.com survey, so what is that essential ingredient that makes a driver stand out above the rest. The primary skill in driving is anticipation, reading the road and traffic conditions ahead.

A good driver will see congestion, blackspots or lane restrictions far ahead, be fully aware of the drivers behind and around him and move into a safe position and gradually adjust his speed well before he hits the problem. His aim is to keep the traffic flowing so he will avoid stopping, slowing to a crawl where necessary but a stop will create a delay for the traffic behind. This includes moving into a free flowing lane or even taking a left turn, if the right turn lane is blocked, and then doing a right further up the road to resume the original course. The less time we wait at junctions the less congestion there will be.

Being aware of the drivers around you, and especially those behind, can make a big difference to road safety, is the driver behind close, is he concentrating on the road, is he weaving in and out ready to overtake? A good driver will adjust his distance from the car in front to allow extra stopping distance to enable the car behind to stop safely.

When passing a junction a good driver will slow and be ready to sound his horn as a warning should a driver pulling out fail to see him. Making eye contact with drivers is a good indicatior that you can continue past the junction. If you have not made eye contact you must assume the worst and be ready to stop, slowing a little and moving your foot to the brake pedal which saves precious stopping distance.

At all times a driver should maintain a bubble of space around the car, using every available inch of the road. For example on an empty road he will drive closer to the center line as he passes a junction. If a car comes in the other direction towards him he will move away from the center line and slow when passing an occupied junction.

Being prepared to take evasive action saves seconds when the unexpected happens. As a driver you should condition yourself to look for every possible hazard and prepare an escape plan. Thoughts like "car at side of road could pull out, the other lane is clear and I can move into that" or "oncoming driver could have a heart attack and veer across the road, I can use the verge and swerve away!" It sounds silly but after a while it becomes second nature.

We learn in our test the maxim "mirror, signal, manoever" and we should all make a point of checking that whenever we plan to change our path, direction, or change lane that it is safe to do so BEFORE we start the manover!

Most accidents are caused by carelessness on the part of one driver and usually by the negligence of the other. A cautious driver will be able to counter the carelessness of others and build into his driving a safe margin.

Who are the worst drivers on the road?

2007-06-05T16:11:00.000+01:00

Worst drivers:- We asked Torquecars members which drivers they thought were the worst on the roads and got a plethora of vitriol and tirades of frustration.

Top of the hate list came taxi drivers with their percieved "I own the road" attitude. Perhaps this is a little harsh as Taxi drivers clock up more miles in one year than some motorists do in 10! Perhaps it is true that familiarity breeds contempt and as we all encounter our fair share of taxi drivers it could go some way to explain their unpopularity. The cited reasons for annoyance include, double parking, cutting in too sharply after overtaking, aggresively pushing through gaps and general rudeness never thanking drivers for giving way and never allowing other motorists to pull out on to busy roads or giving way themselves. It is probably fair to say their is a vicious circle going on here with taxi drivers experiencing bad manners on the road from other motorists and responding in kind. I'm pretty sure you'll actually find that Taxi drivers have fewer accidents per mile they drive than other motorists.

The second most hated group are the hesistant drivers. Quite a wide ranging category typically characterised by undue caution, hesitation, slow speed and generally lack of assertion. Many drivers fall into this category and we probably all have been here at one stage of our drving life. Typically the hestitant driver includes the new inexperienced driver, the nervous old driver and the timid Sundays and special occasions only drivers. We must remember that we will also fall into this category if perhaps we are driving a new car which we are not used to for the first time, or perhaps our car is experiencing a technical problem and may cut out on us at any time so there is a need for caution. We may find ourselves in an unfamiliar area and be attempting to navigate but struggle to get in the right lane in time something which typically affects us on holiday. So perhaps we should cut a little slack for the hesitant driver and encourage them rather than sit of their boot driving aggresively and putting them off!

White van drivers also came in for some stick too. The way they cut up other motorists, drive really close to the car in front, jump lights and just leave the van parked in the middle of the road with its hazzard lights on (the hazzard lights do not in fact render the car invisible when turned on as many white van drivers seem to think!) We have a little sympathy for the stressful life of the delivery driver with ever shorter deadlines, early starts, vague addresses and route plans and a need to deliver to addresses which have no convenient parking facilities.

Old drivers also get to have their own category. They seem to have little awareness of other motorists keeping focussed on a very small patch of road in front of them (even when reversing). We know that many old drivers have very good driving skills, but when a driver only covers 1 or 2 miles per week he cannot possibly expect to stay sharp. Add into the mix the fact that the roads are very different from when these OAPs learnt (if they went through a formal set of tuition and tests) and the fact that reflexes and motor skills diminish with age along with eyesight. Per mile driven the older driver has the greatest number of accidents than any other motorist. We at Torquecars support the practical step of a retest, particularly for the over 70 year old driver and many of our members would even support a refresher test and course every 10 years to ensure that all motorists on the road conform to the required standard.

Mothers on the school run also got some criticism. I guess the effect of getting up early, having been kept awake all the night becuse little Jonny is crying and then taking the other 2 kids to school in the morning, with them argueing in the back over whose turn it is to choose the in drive movie, probably equals the equivalent of driving whilst 2 times over the breath alcahol limit. The stress and frustration the mothers experience is clearly demonstrated in their driving style and the way they park (dump) the car half off the road and pull out without so much as looking for other cars.

4x4 drivers, cyclists, bus drivers and HGV drivers also came in for some criticism but to be honest we couldn't write an article entitled "most hated motorists" and then include everyone!

Driving is a priviledge and not a right. We all do silly or plain daft things behind the wheel and rarely give other drivers much slack when they do daft things. Generally speaking if we all showed consideration and patience with even the hated groups of driver the roads would be a much better place for all of us.

Phsycology of thanking other drivers

2007-05-28T14:27:00.000+01:00

The way we thank other drivers for letting us go through tells a lot about our personality:- Interested to hear your impression on these and any others you think of (keep the gestures friendly though ).

Nod - Nervous driver typically too scared to take hands off the wheel.
Thumbs up - Younger hot hatch driver who has just taken advantage (Cheeky person).
Full Palm - The older Jaguar driver usually does this (Denote confidence).
Wave of the Hand - an old Jedi mind trick useful when you are in a hurry!
Thumb and little finger extended with bend wrist - Gangster tendancies shown usually by a wannabee rapper!
Index finger raised - Usually done when other driver has only just managed to realise he has to give way - a token thanks.
Index and first finger raised. - A Bit PAPAL this one again typically done by the older driver in a Mercedes who actually owns the road you are on!
Both Hands wave - Muppet style thanks - you recognised the other driver and they are oblivious to who you are. (This one is fun to do to see the reaction. One Torquecars member reported "just thought i'd let you know i tried the muppet wave tonight......a word of warning to other drivers, do not try this at home.....the guy i done the muppet wave at was so shocked that he just missed hitting his jag off the railings")
Flash of the lights - All social interaction is shunned by these loners - all their holiday pics are of scenes with no people in them.
V Sign (backwards) - Churchill style Victory salute 'cos you won the game of chicken.

The List goes on and on - but we are firm belivers that the way you thank other drivers says a lot more about your personality than you would like to admit! Please visit the Torquecars site for original articles on driving, tuning and styling cars (a bit more serious than this one) we would also encourage you to consider becomming a member and getting involved in topical motorist related discussion in the forum.

Why spend £10,000+ modifying a car?

2007-05-10T17:26:00.000+01:00

Sometimes people wonder if its worth it - then they pay a visit to www.torquecars.com and see what all of the fuss is about. Why do we do it? If we saved the 10,000 we spent we could just go out and buy a bigger or better model of car without all the hassle.

Surely you never get the money back when you come to sell it? If you are worried about losing money when modding a car, I think you've missed the point of it. It's fun and gives you great satisfaction, as well as some thrills if you are into engine modding. You could always buy a ready modded car for half the price of doing it yourself, but hey! Where's the fun in that?

We could all go out and buy a faster car but there is so much satisfaction in modding you car so you end up with something unique and that is set up exactly for you. A car becomes an extension of the drivers personality. Some like to draw attention to themselves and others like to be annoymously quick, surprising people at the lights! We all like cars though and agree that standard = boring and run of the mill!

Take a typical city suit, driving the compulsory BMW M3. His car costs around 30k brand new, its got leather seats, and average stereo and good performance. Then you take the modifier, he drives a pug 205 1.9 gti, which, he bought it for 1500 quid, he then spends 10k on mods eg T16 turbo engine, some new speaker components, head unit, brakes etc and has a PERFORMANCE BARGAIN which is setup to suit his driver preference.

That is why people buy a car and then spend 10k+ modifying it. I love that mentality.. "some new speaker components, head unit, brakes.. OH, and throw in an engine which belongs in a rally car while your at it!" Brilliant!

People ask me, why do you keep doing stuff to your car. I say to them why do they go fishing? Eat cauliflower? Watch Trisha? That makes no sense to me, but they enjoy doing it. I like the planning, taking a base car and thinking how can i make this really special? I love looking for bodykits and wheels online, and then excitedly ripping open the boxes as soon as they're delivered and getting straight to work fitting them, even though I know I'm supposed to be going somewhere in 5 minutes (like the supermarket, the in-laws' or work) and then razzing it around town when i've finished and people are turning their heads to look because there's nothing else like it on the road. It's the best feeling in the world.

For up to the minute advice on modifying your car look no further than this tuning guide.

Naked roads - the arguement for and against.

2007-05-08T17:32:00.000+01:00

Naked roads are hailed as the answer to all of our traffic and driving woes. The basic premise of a naked road is that all road markings, signs, traffic lights etc are removed. All traffic calming measures, barriers, cycle lanes and even pedestrian area markings are removed.

This sounds like chaos and anarchy but the reality of the situation is that motorists wake up. They are no longer cukooned in a safe unthinking stream of traffic they are forced to pay very careful attention. In a number of trials the frequency of accidents and incidents was reduced by upto a third has increased and the speed of traffic is reduced by around 4 mph - a big plus all round.

No-one knows for sure the long term implications and the trials continue. It is possible that when the novelty wears off drivers will again start going with the flow in an unthinking manner and the incident of accidents will increase as unfamiliar drivers thread their way through the local traffic. So in short as far as I'm concerned the jury is still out but it is an intriguing notion that could well catch on.

2007-05-03T17:00:00.000+01:00

One of the things that really get members of the Torquecars tuning club wound up are the state of the roads - particularly the surface of them.

Pot holes and ruts are really annoying, they distract the driver creating the impression that the car is about to fall to pieces or considerably affect the handling of the car. Ruts are often caused by lorries and heavy vehicles running over soft tarmac. The undulating road causes a wave like bounce with each vehicle repeating the process and thereby deepening the rut. Pot holes are a sign of extreme wear on a road surface and can also indicate poor construction.

The damage caused by running over a deep pothole is certainly not negligible and ranges from the cost of a suspension realignment to a replacement hub or drive shaft in the worst cases. For tips on suspension setting and setup read this suspension tuning article.

The addition of speed bumps are another obstacle the modern driver has to cope with and the general poor maintenance of our roadways adds an unnecessary amount to the maintenance of a car. We strongly recommend that you avoid driving over pot holes and take time to report them to your local authority. If the motorist sticks together on this issue we will surely see an improvement in the state of our roads and we will all save money in unnecessary maintenance costs.

2007-05-02T17:17:00.000+01:00

What are the things that passengers do that really wind you up when you are driving? We all have our little pet hates and in most cases drivers make terrible passengers. If you ever get into my car please note the following:-

Don't touch my radio that includes turning it up or down.
Stop screaming at everything that comes towards us... hang on, no, it's me who does that. Erm... Sharp intakes of breath, or going "Oh my Goodness" and when I say "WHAT?!!??!!!!!" the answer comes "I've forgot to wash something" or something else that's completely unrelated to my driving and frightens the life out of me because I think maybe she's seen an out of control petrol tanker on a collision course with us that I've somehow missed.
Don't you just love it when someone draws on the on the condensation on your windows - the little smiley face comes back week after week.
Dont give driving advice either - I'm the one with the steering wheel. Back seat drivers are pests.
I especially hate it if I have my parents in the passenger seat. They leaps for the grab handle if you take even the merest change in course at more than 5mph. Bends that you could negotiate in the wet at 100mph are treated like downhill hairpins. And if you come off the pavement you really get some stick!....

Please note I always follow the direction on my driving licence. "tear along the dotted line...."

2007-04-29T15:08:00.000+01:00

We all know that blokes hate asking for directions. Sat nav was hailed as the answer to this age old problem and hopefully men will never get lost again! Unfortunately the SAT nav has a darker side as people start depending on it too much.

Aside from the obvious problem of a driver fiddling with his sat nav and crashing the car it seems that many of us will blindly follow the instructions given. It's interesting that a search for sat nav accidents in Goole returns over 300,000 results (admittedly not all individual accident reports but still alarming none the less.

In Germany a 53 year old followed a turn right instruction without even looking where he was going. He entered a building site, drove up a staircase and wrote off a portaloo!
Another driver saw signs on the motorway saying that the motorway was closed due to road works. The sat Nav insisted - continue onto the motorway and he came to an embarrasing halt on a pile of sand!

A £96,000 merc was writted off after a woman followed its instruction up a country lane clearly marked unsuitable for motor vehicles and attempted to cross a Ford which had overflowed and ended up being swept down stream. The electrics cut out causing the windows to open and the terrified driver was struggling to get out when a local swam across and rendered assistance. A local garage confirmed that there was water in the engine and the car was deemed a total loss!

Another driver turned right at a railroad crossing onto the tracks and was hit by a train! Yet another motorist managed to turn right into a supermarket and crashed through the doors into the tinned fruit isle! The stories are endless!

Then I was in Cornwall, it had been a long arduous hour drive and we were pretty desparate to find our accommodation.... eventually we arrived at St Ives in Cornwall and it sent us up a steep cobbled high street full of people on a Saturday afternoon - only about a car wide labelled 'access only' for motor vehicles.

So people were giving us black looks and prams were being pushed out of our way. It was one of the most embarrasing experiences of my life. Clutch was burning badly and the thing was getting harder to control then it said turn right up a little road that was about 1.4m wide!!!! So we had to continue up the high street to the end!!!!

I wouldn't mind but it was a wrong turn completely - the map didn't line up with the street. I guess Cornwall lies on a moving techtonic plate!! In my defense the SAT nav was completely wrong and had miss named the streets! Still I do feel pretty daft - don't tell anyone!

2007-04-27T13:52:00.000+01:00

Many people take tuning a little too far. Torquecars decided to make it easy for people to know if they have gone too far with this little article.

You know when you've overtuned your car ...

... When you put your foot to the floor and watch your engine and front wheels zoom off up the road taking half the car with it!
... When you set car alarms off as soon as your 24" sub kicks in.
... When the pistons rip themselves away from the con rod and fly through the head!
... When valves skip at idle!
...When you make babies cry when you drive past.
... When you could blow away all competition at the lights, if only your engine would idle
...When you know you could overtake that bicycle if only the road was flat! Doh!
... When you can pass everything except for a petrol station.
... When you get torque steer in fourth in a diesel car in the dry.
... When it still moves with the engine switched off because there is 7 inches travel on the sub woofers!
... When birds and small children get sucked through the radiator

These suggestions were supplied by Torquecars members who are a die hard bunch of car tuners and car modders. There are lots more posts like this one in the Torquecars tuning club

2007-04-26T14:03:00.000+01:00

I can't get over the silly lawsuits that people have got away with.

A 19 year old from LA was awarded over $70,000 and medical costs when his neighbour ran over his hand. The 19 year old was stealing the hubcars and didn't see his neighbour get into the car!

Then Mrs Grazinski from Oklahoma was pleased with her new 32 foot winnebago. She put the cruise control on and went into the back to make a cup of tea. Unsuprisingly the vehicle careered off the road. She successfully sued Winnebago because they didn't explain in the manual that the cruise control was not a replacement for the driver! She was awarded over one and a half million dollars plus got a new motorhome.

It's people like this that put up the cost of insurance for the rest of us.

Perhaps I should sue Audi for leaving the parking brake off on a hill and getting run over by the car. Or maybe I should throw a burning rag into the fuel tank to see what happens (they didn't say anything in the manual about not doing that!!

2007-04-25T17:05:00.000+01:00

I see so many cars which have been ruined by tacky or tasteless modifications. This blog will concentrate on useful tuning (for power) and tasteful styling modifications to cars and act as a guide to ensure that tacky cars are not going to fill up our streets and highways. (I hope!)

When adding styling to a car you really need to plan things out carefully in advance. When you just start bolting things on at random you are asking for a visit from the style police. The most sucessful show cars are ones which are themed. So perhaps you might go with a racing theme and cover the car with carbon fibre vents and scoops. You might go with a girly pink look and cover the interior dash in Pink furry fabric! The key is to get the theme right then buy the parts and accessories to go with it rather than just try and make a part fit in because you happen to have seeen it in the bargain bin of the shop.

When modding a cars engine or suspension, many people forget that they have to live with the car and create a fuel burning, harsh riding car which is very impractical. The car styling guide gives a wide range of practical advice and help.

2007-04-24T16:59:00.000+01:00

I cleaned my car at the weekend. That is the trouble with hot sunny days - the car gets covered with dust. Guess what I've discovered - its purple! I got fed up with the layer of dust and wasn't sure if I should plough it and sow potatoes or just go with a thorough wash.

In the end I decided to wash it and it's come up great. There is a bit of a problem with tar splats - and didn't have any idea how to remove them easily. I've tried kitched cleaner and washing up liquid. Someone suggested a bit of petrol on a rag and this has worked a treat - no tar, no stains and no birdy do do.

Its always amazing how many new dents/stone chips and imperfections you pick up on when the car is clean. So the next job is to touch up the stone chips and try to remove the dents!

(24 hours later and the birds haven't located it so I'm well happy!)

I used the information posted at Torquecars car cleaning tips to get the best result and even got my wife to help me out with it! The paint has come up really nicely and all that remains is to slap on a bit of polish and we are finished.

2007-04-20T17:24:00.000+01:00

I really should get into this blogging lark - it has been a bit of a shaky start but I am now committed. Committed in what sense is open to debate. I will endevour to blog more frequently on life the universe and cars. (I like cars!) I am into car tuning in a big way having recked my first car by overtuning it I certainly have learned by my mistakes.

2004-11-17T14:14:00.000Z

I see that the web has changed again today - why cant things remain constant I'll have to go back to aaa.com and start over.

2003-09-30T12:32:00.000+01:00

BUY CHEAP ART POSTERS or SELL ORIGINAL ART + Biographies
I must get round to photographic some of my art work so I can finally sell the stuff - its just kicking around taking up space at the moment. Oh if only I had time for everything.

Great value Eurotunnel and eurostar breaks and DVDs

2003-09-16T16:09:00.003+01:00

Cheap DVD sale

Great page for cheap dvds I only knew about one of the stores listed. Think I'll order a couple from each store and see which one delivers the quickest.

While we are on the subject of bargains check out these travel articles.

http://www.squidoo.com/eurotunnel-travel
http://www.squidoo.com/Eurostar_Ghent_Breaks
http://www.squidoo.com/Eurostar_Brussels_Breaks
http://www.squidoo.com/Eurostar_Lille_Breaks
http://www.squidoo.com/Eurostar_Bruges_Breaks
http://www.squidoo.com/Eurostar_Paris_Breaks
http://www.squidoo.com/Le_Touquet_Hotels

So how can you guarantee great prices and a trouble free break? The cheapest deals come from sourcing a hotel and travel deal separately online, but these can be a major headache should either the hotel or travel booking get cancelled and you end up without one element of your travel arrangements.

However using a Bonded to trust based tour operator with a gives extra peace of mind. In difficult situations they will advise and provide alternatives without you having to worry about phoning round yourself. Prices are actually pretty competative, as the larger tour operators bulk buying of travel and room allocations mean discounts and in times of trouble extra leverage over the transport and hotel aspexts of the booking.

Check that your tour operator hand pick only hotels that meet the highest standards rather than using a site that lists every hotel in every destination. Eurotunnel Breaks are highly recommended by for travellers that like taking a short break with their cars. It takes just a 35 minute crossing time with fast loading and unloading time. Your break, will be enjoyable if you plan in advance, get yourself an itinerary and find out what is going on in the area near to where you are staying so you can book tickets in advance and really maximise your break.

2003-09-16T16:07:00.000+01:00

Yawn another tuesday done!