The Wife's New Car

[DaiRees]

I agree completely and that generation of Fords is particularly bad. The newest models seem to have gone back to a much simpler and more elegant design which is much nicer. You'll see what I mean when Sam posts pictures of his later, and the new Mondeo I looked at was very similar to the new Focus. The centre console design was a fair chunk of the Focus / Fiesta dilemma (at least for me it was ).

[benczuk]

Looks very smart. It took a while for the design to grow on me, when they first came out I thought they were a bit fussy/ over the top, especially after the little square box that went before it, but I do like the latest fiestas. those Aston Martin esq grills are brill.

[DaiRees]

Not my usual upbeat post because we've had some extremely bad news. My Father in Law passed away suddenly on the weekend.

We picked the car up on Friday afternoon and took it straight up to show the wife's parents, her Father had been unwell and getting worse for a long time and he didn't fancy coming outside, so he said he'd come out for a ride in it sometime over the weekend. He passed away early Saturday morning. Despite his ailments it was still a huge shock to the whole family that it should happen this suddenly. Of course it's the best thing for him, his mind was still very active although his body was letting him down, he would never have handled being hospitalized!

Anyway, we've had the car a few days and I have to say I really like it, it's feature packed and great to drive, and the more I look at it the better I think it looks. The colour is gawjuss in the sunlight! I haven't had much chance to mess about with it yet, but I asked the garage to replace the rear number plate because it was delaminating, which they did today. That got me to looking at the front plate and that set off my OCD radar!

The first thing I noticed was that the clear plastic top layer of the plate wasn't fitted evenly, it was overhanging one side and a bit along the bottom, so I had to take the plate off to trim that...


Then I noticed that the screw holes seemed to be completely random in their positioning (must confess I hadn't noticed before I took the plate off). Left one's way higher than the right one!!


Which got me to thinking, when the bumper clearly has defined markings for fitting the plates, why the hell would you drill the plate in random positions then screw self tappers through the bumper in an area where it's not designed to take them?


That's just lazy, shoddy work! And it drives my OCD up the bloody wall!!!

I really need to chill out a bit, don't I?

[steve_earwig]

I think they must give jobs like fitting plates to the trainee/tea lady/a passing tramp/the guard dog, I've seen loads like that. And worse, things like mild steel self-tappers into the bodywork even if there are mountings available.

Anyway, stuff the car, it's just a piece of tin. I am sorry about your father-in-law, my condolences to you and your family.

[lozz]

Its just pure laziness.
ive seen a few new cars with plates just thrown on.(no screw caps either.)

idont think they even use a drill.


best ive seen so far was on my mates brandnew squashki thing (Nissan)
they sprayed the underside with underseal. complete exhaust and undersheilds was coverd in it too,

+ white powder on the seats from a valet.. why they valeted it idont know.

[Welly]

Part of me would want the bumper replacing for drilling it like that but then that'd open up a whole world of pain dealing with the Garage, paint, fitment......

I'm guessing he put one screw in properly on the left, eye'd up for level and then just boshed a screw straight in on the right.

Sorry to hear your sad news, I send my condolences.

[Doggy]

Sorry to hear your sad news, (but good to know you're impressed with the new car).

[steve_earwig]

I'm pretty sure it's 2 on a full.mux HDi, 3 on a semi. Just booting up Sedre...

[Welly]

I'm pretty sure it's 2 on a full.mux HDi, 3 on a semi. Just booting up Sedre...

Err, wha?

[steve_earwig]

Ah, I wondered what happened to that post

...starting to really doubt my sanity now....

[Doggy]

I was going to move it for you, but thought that might've made it worse.

[steve_earwig]

Meh, you should've just deleted it before anyone else noticed and I looked stupid. Mind you, it's perhaps too late for that anyway.

[DaiRees]

Thanks folks.

I was pretty confused by that post too Wiggy, just thought I'd missed something

[DaiRees]

Aaaaaand someone's bumped it

It's very slight damage, Mrs Dai parked in Tesco on Thursday, she's still choosing her parking spaces carefully and in the quieter spots of the car park, but before she'd even got out of the car an older gentlemen swung his VW into the next space and just nipped the corner of the Fiesta. It was such a light impact that he initially denied doing it, claiming he didn't feel it, but the blue paint on his bumper told a different story and he soon became very apologetic and offered to pay for the damage.



You can't see from the pic but the corner of the metal wheelarch is pushed in a bit, together with the paintwork damage to the bumper.

It's going into Ford tomorrow to get repaired, quote sheet says remove bumper, repair and repaint 1/4 panel, repaint bumper, re-assemble. Anyone wanna have a guess how much a main dealer is charging for that?

It's an expensive trip to Tesco for the old bloke, I'm just glad that the wife was still in the car because if he genuinely hadn't noticed he would have wandered off without leaving any details and we'd be stuffed, again!

[Captain Jack]

Welsh drivers are certainly good at trashing your cars, Dai...