Fixing common car faults

This week I had a call about a Ford Focus mk3, asking for a price for a replacement clutch. So instead of jumping straight in quoting a price I popped over for a quick look. It was more than worthwhile for more than one reason. It was Christmas, I didn’t fancy doing a clutch and the customer obviously was feeling the strain of Christmas. So what did I find? After jumping in the drivers seat and feeling the clutch it can immediately apparent it was a hydraulic problem. But instead of saying it’s the concentric slave I investigated further. And after some research found this a common problem. There was no obvious leaks on the gearbox so I looked at the clutch pedal to find a residue of fluid on the clutch master cylinder. I fitted a premium  LUK Clutch master cylinder  these are great quality and have a modified rod in steel to prevent breakage that is also common on this particular model. Something else to check before you remove the gearbox. After replacement and road t...

If you are a vauxhall owner, regardless of model Astra, corsa, vectors and so on. The chances of you having this problem is highly likely, even more so if you are reading this article. So you pull the bonnet catch and it doesn’t open. Your in the dark you can’t check your levels, what you going to do? Really simple in most cases. Firstly, Just sharply pull the catch twice in quick succession. OK so it didn’t work!  Now you need a little help. Just get a friend or relative to pull the catch whilst you gently push repeatedly on the bonnet/hood in a repeating motion as same as your assistant. Normally the bonnet just pops giving you access. So now you have access, how can it be cured? The reason this happens is because the outer sheathing of the catch gets stretched out of its tensioned location. All you need to do is retention the outer cable. Simply loosen the cable retaining clamp pull on tension and tighten clamp. To ensure this holds longer you could wrap some insulation tap...