Richmond

Thanks; I'm looking for difficulties, obviously.

Every car I've owned has rattled except an Audi (and a Volvo, come to think of it). You pays your money ... The Galaxy's not too bad; in my Peugeot 306, the rattles and squeaks are noisier than the engine (in fairness, it's a soft top). Why buy a Galaxy? Why not? I doubt that it rattles any worse than any other MPV. I certainly didn't buy it for the build quality! It does the job for which it was bought well, no fuss, it's comfortable, reasonably quiet (despite the rattles!) and fast enough. It looks like a loaf of bread and has the street cred of a Zimmer (admittedly that's more than the Volvo estate which it replaced had) but, hey, you can't have everything. I'm getting to quite like it.

It's a Ford, it rattles. It's not an Audi (which is a pity).

The cruise control stalk (lhs of steering wheel) has an on/off slider switch on the face and rocker switch on the lh edge; however, the multi function steering wheel apparently includes the cruise control (as well as audio and sat nav, if fitted).

Thanks. I've used beam deflectors, but not with headlamp covers such as on the Galaxy. Presumably, the stick on deflector is stuck onto the lens, so the plastic cover has to come off; how?

How do I sort my headlights out for driving on the right (2001 V6 with standard lights)? I know that there has been some discussion of this before on the forum, but so far as I know there has not been a definitive answer. Does sticking a converter lens onto the plastic headlight cover work? Does the residual glue come off OK after the lens is removed? Presumably the dipped bulbs can be replaced with continental dipped bulbs.

I get a good price from Direct Line; they are well worth try.

I think that Dave-G is right; there could be a problem if you change which wiper is on top. If both wipers started at the same time with the same angular speed, the free end of the lower wiper would move upwards more quickly than the part of the upper wiper which overlies it (as it is further from its centre of rotation), and they would collide, unless they are some distance apart vertically when at rest, which I don't think they are. The upper wiper must start its sweep before the lower one. (Alternatively, the lower wiper moves at a lower angular speed than the upper wiper (at least for the initial and final part of each sweep), but this would be more difficult to achieve, I imagine.) If you change 'em over, the earlier starting (or faster moving) wiper will be on the bottom and they'll get tangled up :) If this is complete balls, and swapping 'em round is fine, I'd be interested to know how the the wipers avoid hitting each other at the beginning and end of each sweep.

Not a problem; my posting was perhaps in questionable taste. Anyway, think nothing of it.

Yes, I was taking the p**s, although obviously not very well. :rolleyes: seems to be the best one can do for irony, but I guess that if I have to tell everyone that I'm being ironic, I should stick to the day job.

It's a tribute to this great country of ours that people still have the freedom to make complete horses' arses of themselves by turning their boring MPVs into something Rambo's mum might drive. If the price of this freedom is a few more pedestrian deaths each year and the rest of us having our aesthetic sensibilites offended, so what? Bullbars are the thin end of the wedge. If they ban those, what next? They'll be trying to stop us from driving when we're pissed, or with bald tyres. Defend every Englishman's God given right to make a complete prat of himself! Keep death on the roads, I say! Bullbars - yay! Roof mounted twin Oerlikons - yay! Drink driving - yay! Sorry, must dash. Matron doesn't like us using the internet and anyway it's time for my medication.

The lurching from idle sounds similar to my experience (I stall it rather than lurch forward, but same difference); I think I read on this forum that others have the same problem, if it is a problem. I suspect it may be another emission control feature. There's no flat spot at 25/30 or anywhere else and the tickover is fine. Mine's a manual, by the way. If you find out anything interesting from Ford, please let us know.

My V6 (nearly 2 years old, 17000) doesn't have any flat spots although pick up from idle is not instant. The engine management system does seem to keep the revs up for a few seconds after I take my foot off, delaying engine braking, which can be a bit alarming until you get used to it. I understand that it's a characteristic, perhaps something to do with emissions(?). It has a healthy appetite for petrol; around 26mph for a mixture of around town and motorway cruising (85/90) with the aircon on almost all the time. It's difficult to drive it gently (or so my wife tells me).

My 2002 V6 has a white plastic geared wheel on the outside of each black plastic headlamp cover in the engine compartment, on the inboard side of the cover, that is, adjacent the dipped headlight. The geared wheel appears to be turned (via a worm I guess) by a hex drive introduced into a white hex section tube extending vertically down from a hole in the slam plate of the bonnet (or maybe in the top of the headlamp cover - I don't have the car in front of me at the moment). Are these gizmos anything to do with headlight adjustment for Euro driving? If so, how are they operated? If not, what are they? :unsure:

I've just paid

I had a similar rear wiper problem on a Volvo 940; it was caused by wear in the linkage between the motor and the wiper itself. I don't know if the set up on the Galaxy makes this a possibility or not.

This happened to me on Friday. Unfortunately I had reversed over a pile of bricks, in the form of a low retaining wall. The little damge done is a tribute to the Galaxy which is clearly designed to be driven by myopic halfwits (according to my wife).

There's a thread on this problem either here or on the the previous version of the site, with a very clear explanation of the likely problems and solutions from fredt (who else?).

This topic came up on the previous version of the forum. I think that the concensus was that with air con in general and Galaxy air con in particular, the incoming fresh air is made damp by the water previously removed by the air con, and so is more prone to fogging up yer windies. I'm not sure that anyone reported fogging of the rear window, mind you. Are you sure that you haven't got the dreaded water ingress, also discussed, at great length, on the previous version? I use the air con almost all the time (and have no touble with fogging).

I have a V6 with the dual air con. So far, I've had no need to set the rear to a different temp to the front, and I can't see why I'd want to. Presumably there are two independent cooling circuits, which doubles the chance of something failing. If I'd had the choice, I'd have gone for single air con. The aircon seems to work well, but I haven't experienced particularly hot weather yet (I may never!).

For what it's worth, the gearchange on my 2002 V6 is the crunchiest I've ever had. Perhaps it's the effect of squeezing 6 gears + reverse into the box.

If the supply is OK and the bulbs are OK, I suppose the only thing left is the earth. Have you tried running a reliable earth to the earth side of the bulb? What did you earth your multimeter to to register the 13V.

An outfit called Atera Linea do a 4 bike rear carrier for the Galaxy which doesn't obscure the lights. Look at http://www.roofbox.co.uk/linea.html

Mine operates at about 15 yards, I reckon.

The brake light fault bulb stays on until the brake pedal is depressed. Apparently the handbook explains this (as I was told when I enquired on this forum's predecessor), although I can't find anything about it. I presume that this is done so that the switch as well as the bulb is checked.