Ivor_E_Tower

If Ford have "done it correctly" there is a DIN standard for in-car audio units so that all pins are in the same place on all units. It should make it very easy to upgrade - just unplug the old unit and plug in the replacement. Worked OK for me when I upgraded the standard unit in my Scenic for a more powerful Panasonic unit (which was actually older than the Scenic by several years). Anyone want to buy a Panasonic radio-cassette unit, little used? :(

Sport Injection But quite how an MPV is "sporty" I really don't know :(

Tee hee :( I have a few "spare" speakers from previous upgrades which got removed when I traded the cars in. I remember the days when Comet used to sell a great range of Pioneer car speakers. Trying to find car audio bits in the electrical retail multiples is now somewhat harder :angry:

If yours passed with ABS light on, you were very lucky! The rules have always been that the braking system must not be defective, and having the ABS light on means that the system is defective (inasmuch that it is not working as it should do, because the light should not be illuminated). Maybe they tested the brakes and found that the ABS system was actually working correctly, so gave you the benefit of the doubt, hoping that you would get the fault investigated.

Hah! If you think you've got problems..... Had to make a trip in the company 1996 Astra estate last week, in the rain. The driver's side wiper stopped about 6 inches (I'm not joking) from the driver's side screen pillar. Huge blindspot, worse than my Galaxy.

Welcome! The engine in question has chain-driven camshaft so no worries about belt change/breakage. At this mileage, much will depend on how the car has been treated during its life. So long as it has been driven sympathetically and the oil/water levels checked regularly, and topped up when necesssary, there is no reason why it should start to smoke - this engine IIRC was developed by Cosworth Engineering and is a good design althoughsome spares can be a bit expensive. ABS niggles, electrical woes ref central locking etc largely depend upon water/debris ingress (!) and I have my own theory that vehicles covered at night (garaged or under carport) will stand a better chance of growing old without too many niggling problems. First step would be to check the two "storage box" cubby holes, one under each front seat, and make sure they are dry. Gearbox should be robust, clutch will depend on previous use (both my last 2 cars went over 100,000 miles on their original clutches). Suspension bushes - don't know, but anti-roll bar drop links wear out at variable mileages - the ones on my car were shot when I bought it used at 26 months old and under 20,000 miles! Head gasket should be fine; wheel bearings is another "don't know" as far as I am concerned. Grease monkey stuff - make sure it is serviced at least once per year - change the oil at the very least, and if it has air con, make sure it is topped up at least once every 2 years and preferably pumped down, dried and re-filled once every 4 years max. Fingers crossed and good luck..... Don't forget to check the tyre pressures regularly - they are much higher than on most contemporary cars!

Oh well, thanks for the disappointing news! No quick speaker upgradesfor me then :(

Is the sender float stuck? Tried filling the tank and see if that moves the needle to the top?

Steve's right, but in case the cable is binding when you lowered it a bit, did you then try to pull the wheel down with your hands a bit to see if that freed the cable off?

Can you get me a job in Perth too? I like Perth Scotland, so Perth Australia should be OK for me :D :D :D

I had a go at trying to prise the covers off the rear speakers yesterday and gave up because it looked like the trim was going to break first! The grey vertical strip to the rear of the grille looks like it has to come off first, as the edge of the grille is chamfered underneath this, but it too did not want to move. Anyone done this before and can confirm whether or not the door card has to come off?

Steve - well done, at least 3 gold stars for that effort and the story that goes with it :D :D :D

Interior lights usually work by the switch providing the link to earth - the live is permanenty fed to the lamp. If there is no power at the lamp then there are 3 mian reasons to consider: a fuse has blown, the wire is broken somewhere or it only works when the exterior lights are on !

See my reply under the "ICE" section; I think you will find that the covers on the door panels and fascia are just push-on so a little persuasion with a flat screwdriver blade or equivalent should do the trick. Hopefully someone can confirm this. Any idea of the speaker fixing centres in the doors, as I'd like to have a go at upgrading mine. :lol:

Like Andrew T, my early facelift model with solid heat restraints has adjustable lumbar support on the river's seat only. I have to say that I cannot notice any real difference from one extreme of adjustment to the other, unlike the Scenic I had before and my parents' Volvo seats.

Where on earth have you got footwell speakers (other than in the footwells :lol: ) There are speakers in the door panels front and rear, in the rear trims and on the sides of the dash. Covers just prise out with a flat-bladed screwdriver IIRC.

That is the electric water pump I referred to in my earlier post :blink:

Some of us only bite in a playful way and keep our fangs covered :blink: As to depreciation, a majority (almost all) of brand-new cars are worth only half of their list price as a trade-in when 3 years old. Depreciation is by far the biggest running cost of a new, or nearly new, car even if it remains hidden most of the time. You forgot to mention exhaust costs - diesel exhausts last longer, especially on low-mileage cars as there is less water produced in the exhaust with which to rot the boxes from the inside. I have to say, though, that since petrol engines were fitted with catalysts, their exhausts seem to last longer than in years gone by. Anyone able to confirm this? :D

Couldn't have a V6 - I'd run out of fingers on one hand on which to count the number of plugs I need :blink: whereas now, I need never buy another spark plug again. (..and the diesel has more torque than the V6 :D )

There is an elctrical water pump that functions for a few minutes after the engine has been switched off, to make sure that the turbo doesn't fry its oil and to eliminate hot-spots in the cooling system. But if the noise only lasts for a few seconds, it suggests something is wrong.

Expect no more than 25mpg around town, possibly only 20mpg if you are stuck in heavy traffic most of the time (better to walk :blink: ) and low 30's maximum for an overall average if you do a lot of rural driving. High-speed motorway/dual carriageway work will also lower the consumption to nearer 20 than 30 mpg. Now do you wonder why so many of us bought a diesel.....

Of course, non-Ford garages know what they are talking about (what did you expect) :blink:

Yes, but high mileage will kill the residuals of a petrol much more than a diesel, so if you are doing 18,000 miles per year and want to go diesel, do it sooner rather than later! Otherwise just hang on to the petrol-engined car you've got and run it into the ground :blink:

Dealers, ah we could write pages about them. There is no logical reason why a dealer is good or bad. Many Ford dealers get poor write-ups on this site. The Ford dealers I have come across appear to be bad for various reasons - lack of "customer care skills" being the main one, technical incompetence not personally experienced by me, poor availability of spare parts also a factor. However - I have also had poor experiences with other makes - a Citroen dealer in early 1980's who performed a warranty repair and left my speedo not working, despite taking the car for a test-drive immediately before handing me the keys back (the cable had not been re-fitted to the head so it definitely was not working when they test-drove it; I reconnected it myself, less hassle this way), a Honda dealer who changed me for re-aligning a door that leaked (not sealing correctly on a car bought new in 1985) - money later refunded with no apology when I said I would write to Honda UK asking why a leak was a standard feature. Curently my parents have a new Volvo V70 on order - deposit paid in mid-July and delivery to be 3rd week of September. No phone call from dealer yet; my dad will wait 2 more weeks then phone and ask for his deposit back if he hears nothing before then. Perversely enough, the best service I have come across was from a Renault dealer from where I bought the Scenic that my wife now runs. This despite many posts eg on the Honest John site that criticise Renault dealers for bad service - and they are part of a large group, not a family-owned business. Strangely the Renault garage from which I bought is now a Ford franchise, so if they were not quite so far away, I might have risked using them for work on my Galaxy.