and today i have mostly been...

[steve_earwig]

"Jap cars are reliable"

I reckon CJ would have something to say about that... I guess it'd be as scary as a prospective 406 owner reading this ear forum but after spending a couple of hours trawling through the RAV site they're beginning to sound like a bit of a disaster waiting to happen (most common seems to be these oxygen sensors, but there are DMF issues galore, EGR cleaning threads aplenty, broken road springs, broken drive shafts, leaking seals, duff dashes, gearbox ecu issues out the yin yan, quite a few blown engines )

This starts out interesting (and then descends into handbags at 20 paces ) http://www.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/ ... try1118931

Modem spotted a Hi and die Tucson in the supermarket car park earlier, so now I'm investermigatering these. The trouble is my mate's more-or-less told me not to buy anything LPG (I can't argue 'cos they'll be servicing it) and all the Tucson petrols are running on it. As well as half the petrol RAVs I know if it's set up right it shouldn't give any problems but I gather that's not been the mechanic's experience. I'm also looking at Shogun Pinin (designed by...) but there only seems to be SWB ones here (as pointless as a 2wd SUV). Oh, and Shoguns, sports and Pinins are all just "Pajero" here, which my mrs still finds quite amusing because in many Spanish-speaking parts of the world it means a man with a very small willy

[lozz]

Well yes, and no - smaller ears, fuller face, but he probably has some in him.





I guess we'll see how much when he gets a bit bigger.

Clue: Some people have been known to have planted these in there Garden. oftenly confused with Dafodils,

I didn't know they're meant to be poisonous, sometimes when I'm making some food the retrievers try to cadge food off me and I chuck them whatever I've got in my hand, a slice of onion occasionally disappears

My wife has students now, I'm trying to persuade her to pop him in on of their bags Mad for yogurt, he came out of the bowl with it all over his head And he chased one of the retrievers away from her food - she's about 100 times his size and terrified of him?

Onions wont harm him,
not good letting them have too many raw ones tho,
spag-bol is a good combo for dogs, onions meat pasta and garlic is a good diet for them,
mines been eating Garlic and onions in his diet, hes never had fleas or worms so it must be good for em,

[lozz]

"Jap cars are reliable"

I reckon CJ would have something to say about that... I guess it'd be as scary as a prospective 406 owner reading this ear forum but after spending a couple of hours trawling through the RAV site they're beginning to sound like a bit of a disaster waiting to happen (most common seems to be these oxygen sensors, but there are DMF issues galore, EGR cleaning threads aplenty, broken road springs, broken drive shafts, leaking seals, duff dashes, gearbox ecu issues out the yin yan, quite a few blown engines )

This starts out interesting (and then descends into handbags at 20 paces ) http://www.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/ ... try1118931

Modem spotted a Hi and die Tucson in the supermarket car park earlier, so now I'm investermigatering these. The trouble is my mate's more-or-less told me not to buy anything LPG (I can't argue 'cos they'll be servicing it) and all the Tucson petrols are running on it. As well as half the petrol RAVs I know if it's set up right it shouldn't give any problems but I gather that's not been the mechanic's experience. I'm also looking at Shogun Pinin (designed by...) but there only seems to be SWB ones here (as pointless as a 2wd SUV). Oh, and Shoguns, sports and Pinins are all just "Pajero" here, which my mrs still finds quite amusing because in many Spanish-speaking parts of the world it means a man with a very small willy

We had a short wheel base shogun, imho theyre awaste of time,
the lwb is alot better,
was looking at pajero exceed the otherday, was tempted to buy it but it was as rotten as a pair underneath,

[steve_earwig]

There's always a pair underneath, no matter how small the willy is...

Off to see this on Saturday: http://www.njuskalo.hr/auti/toyota-rav4 ... as-3867693

It doesn't say much in the ad but my mate rang the seller yesterday, he bought it at the start of the year from a stewardess but hasn't used it much since. It had full Toy otter service history up until then. He's desperately in need of the money (he said this 3 times) so my mate reckons I'll get it if I waive 7k€ under his hooter. That is if it doesn't go before Saturday of course, but it's a way off, my mate's working until 4 this week and it's not a good idea to view cars in the dark. I could just go see it myself but I'm not confident I can spot faults particularly as I'll need a mirror on a stick to look under it...



BOING! Hello, I have arrived.


Hold on, what's this in my place - some sort of rat? Hmm, smells ok


Well, I guess it's ok here.


Love little rat (if you insist)


Love mummy.


Love Mary Dog


All happy!


Right, now can I eat him?

[Welly]

Awww

[steve_earwig]

Off to see this on Saturday: http://www.njuskalo.hr/auti/toyota-rav4 ... as-3867693

Mechanically sound, body, well it's had a ding on the l/h front wing (the side that doesn't appear in the ad), beaten out roughly with a hammer & the bumper resprayed with the wrong colour, with overspray 1" onto the wing. Bits of trim missing, rear parcel shelf bent like it's been sat on and scuff marks all over the headlining (presumably from the stewardess's high heels...). No goodies apart from air con (not climate) and lecky windows. He wanted 8k€, we offered him 7, he declined.

Next: http://www.njuskalo.hr/auti/toyota-rav4 ... as-2608126 a bit more cash but it's fairly clear an 11 year old car here is too old. Shame it's in Split buy hey, I've never been there before

Edit: and suddenly my fuel consumption is 49.5mpg

[puggy]

All makes sense now steve as regards bad back + quite low 406 = agony i have gammy
knee's ( motorbike accidents ) and i struggle . Plus i'm a fat bastard .
Anything that helps to relieve the pain has got to be worth a try .

[steve_earwig]

I have a gamy knee too, for similar reasons.

And the latest obstacle to harmonious existence is.... my wife doesn't want to drive anything worth more than 10,000€ I suppose she has a point, a car that's worth a stack of cash is a worrying proposition and my original plan was to buy an old Vitara because it wouldn't matter if she drove it into a tree. Of course, then my family intervened with the worry that something that old would probably damage her too if she hit a tree, hence this escalator of stupidity. I'm not sure what to do now, perhaps I need to get the car and devalue it with a hammer first.

Meanwhile this just appeared: http://www.njuskalo.hr/auti/toyota-rav4 ... as-3909740 although after my experience with the car in Slunge I'm wondering why there is no picture of the r/h side

[steve_earwig]

Off to Varaždin tomorrow to look at that last RAV. The prospect of replacing my beloved D9 with one of these soppy little 4x4s is not filling me with joy I must admit. I wouldn't call them a quality car by any stretch of the imagination, the fact that a 10 year old one is worth as much as my Pug is just stupid.

I've just been looking at their hints and tips bit, after noting the front calipers look rather familiar I moved onto the back - holy smokes!



I wonder if they work...

They do have a radically different pad wear detector on the fronts: there's a piece of metal sticking out from one pad each side and when the pad gets low enough the metal rubs on the disk making a screaming noise None of that warning light nonsense for these guys. This does of course assume that the pads both wear at the same rate of course.

[Doggy]

Their next step along the evolutionary trail will be to have a pad warning light like my Montenegro - 4 pads, 1 sensor. Guess which pad wears out last?

[Welly]

Well Volvo have simplified the pad wear indicator even further ............... there isn't any

[steve_earwig]

Even less to go wrong!

The story behind this RAV is the guy bought it of an elderly neighbour two years ago when it had only done 50,000km, now he wants to trade up for something German For some reason we've been dealing with the guy's son but my mate insisted we deal with the car's actual owner (ffs ) Good stuff: no obvious repairs, no oil leaks, looks and drives 100 times better than the other cars we've looked at. Downside: dent in the back door (not highly obvious and done by previous owner reversing in to a goal post or something), tyres past their best but the possibility of better on another set of wheels he'd not bothered bringing with him. Solid on the price.

Hmm, I'd decided it if was as good as the pics then I'd have it with no messing about but that dent, those tyres So me and my mate had a little chat: One dent that doesn't really notice and my wife will probably add more anyway and he's also been investigating the tyres, he says to buy them in Slovenia because they make their money on balancing & disposing of the old tyres, so if I'm willing to drive 20 miles to Slovenia, get them fitted without balancing and come back with my old tyres, he can balance them himself and shove the old tyres on his big heap for free. This would make them about half price

So I'm thinking that maybe this is the best it'll get under 10k when he says he still needs the car for 2 weeks - "didn't my son tell you this?" So I suppose if I still didn't find a better car within my allowed budget and he still has it then I'll be buying it.

By the by, we set out at 6:30 because my mate starts work at 12 and it's quite a long process to buy a car. -5 on the motorway and a fair old bit of fog. We got to Varaždin about 8 o'clock. On the way back it came on the news that there'd been a pile up on the other side of the motorway we were on. First we saw two cars looking fairly mangled and I thought that was it. Then we saw the rest of it. I took a picture out of the window but it's on the news now and their pictures are much more gruesome than mine: http://www.index.hr/vijesti/clanak/dese ... 83132.aspx

Witness of chain crash at Ivanja Reka: the whole scene reminds me of a disaster movie. Damn, the translator's bust Anyway, this happened about 7:25, the cops reckon it was casused by thick fog and speed (and my mate reckons idiots still running on summer tyres). 10s (they don't do dozens here) of vehicles badly damaged, complaints about the emergency service taking too long to turn up, no mention of injuries or death.

After seeing the first crushed van I didn't look any more but my mate reckons people must be dead.

The thing is, 7:25 is about when we came through there - we must have missed being in it by a couple of minutes. Scary huh?

[Doggy]

You were lucky not to get caught up in that mess - they don't mess about do they? If you're gonna have a crash, make a job of it.

[highlander]

OK, I have to admit, the first thing I thought of when I looked at those photos was "how many of those cars will go on sale on Croatian Gumtree for 22,000 Euros and will appear on Steve's 'Bargain' thread"...

Then I thought that there's got to have been some significantly-ruined lives involved in a crash that bad, so the part of my brain that thought of the first thing is now hanging its head in shame and looking awfully embarrassed.

[Welly]

Don't like the look of that City Ex van

Hope the car buying goes ok, I don't think you can do any more than you are doing really and 'living with dents' might be something you have to accept not the English way but......

At the end of the day if it serves the purpose you need then all's good and it will be something else you can tick off the list.