Richmond

Aux heater?

I can't afford to worry about petrol consumption; 25 mpg on a 360 mile round trip, about 30 miles not on motorway, av speed 62 mph. My mirrors are the same colour as the car anyway.

Spookily, when I retuned home on Sunday night there was a letter waiting for me offering me a personalied plate, P9 XXX, my initials being XXX (not really, but you get the idea). They wanted

Just the point I was trying to make, much better put.

But their knowledge of the code belongs to them, and any software developed to generate the code belongs to whoever developed it. If they know the code and you don't ... Ford (or the dealer from whom you bought the car) might be under an obligation to allow you to use the radio you've paid for by giving you the code (a legal obligation, I mean - they're obviously under a moral one). They'd be entitled to charge you a 'reasonable' amount for doing so; their idea of 'reasonable' and ours might differ a bit, I suspect. On the other hand, they're not obliged to give you a free (or cheap, or even any) key for the car if you lose yours, are they? Ford and the dealers presumably regard radio codes like spare parts; something which they're entitled to supply to customers at a profit. FWIW, I obtained the code for the radios in my Volvo and Peugeot from the workshops I use(d) for them, instantly, no cost (although a bit of a moan from the Volvo guy 'Not another one, I'm fed up with spending all my time on the bloody computer looking up radio codes for prats ...'). I don't think anyone in the thread (or anywhere else on the forum) has suggested that they like being ripped off. Since this whole discussion is about how to avoid paying Ford prices for the code, the opposite seems to be true.

Creation of a bit of software automatically gives rise to copyright. No one's consent is required. Of course, if in creating it the writer infringes someone else's copyright, they might have a problem. Unauthorised use of the software under discussion could (in principle but not necessarily in practice) infringe the writer's copyright and Ford's copyright, depending on the circumstances. BTW, it's possible that a simple algorithm of the type used to generate a radio code from eg the serial no. would not enjoy copyright protection. A bit of software embodying the algorithm would.

I don't believe you. I think that you're taking the piss out of people with personalised plates. How unkind. BTW, I have a beach towel with my initials on it. I've no idea why.

The kits look exactly the same as they did 40 years (bloody hell) ago. My main memory is of everything within 10 feet being more or less covered in ink.

Understand. It's cheaper again not to care, though.

If you sold it on the basis that it had been properly serviced, whatever that means, and it hadn't, that would be naughty and misrepresentation, but just incorrectly stamping up a service history book is, I'm sure, not illegal even if you subsequently sell the car. It's ony naughty if the prospective buyer asks 'Has it been regularly serviced?' and you say, incorrectly 'Yes.'; incorrect stamps in the book compounds the 'offence'. Many prospective buyers would rate servicing by Michael Mouse as preferable to servicing by Ford.

So far as the age is concerned, surely if you're flogging it the potential buyer is going to see the logbook (or whatever it's called these days) or just ask you, and so will know how old it is. Am I missing something?

Ho, ho. There seems to be a theme developing here; people with personalised no. plates might be a bit silly. This morning I saw a couple of identical BMWs one behind the other, I don't know the model, the flash one (aren't they all?) with the very narrow grill, looks as if it's been sat on (6 or 7 series coupe?), both with personalised no. plates. For some reason the words 'pair of tossers' flashed through my mind, quite unfairly, as they were driving in an exemplary fashion, doing no particular harm to anyone. The only person I have known at all well who deliberately acquired a personalised no. plate was an otherwise very sensible and pleasant woman. Perhaps a contributor with a personalised no. plate can tell us what the attraction is. Are they a decent investment? I suppose it depends on your initials.

A nanometre or two off topic, but I wonder why the paper regarded the woman's ethnic origin as important? Because it was the Daily Mail, I suppose. House prices plunge as immigrants' handbrakes fail up and down the country! 'It's political correctness gone mad' says [insert practically any politician's name here].

Exactly the symptoms I had with a duff coil pack, but my engine warning light was flashing almost all the time (I drove from Tignes to London), presumably because unburnt fuel was getting into the cat. Doesn't each plug have its own coil or something absurd like that ? Why? It's a miracle that they're ever all working at the same time.

It is EAK, Ivor, Elk Avoidance Kinetics; in other words, the movement required not to hit an elk. From the fact that my Galaxy has never hit an elk, I assume that EAK is standard on the V6.

Did you missus come with a handbook? I wish mine had.

Is a 'miles to go' figure any practical use? I suppose on a long m'way journey it might be, but otherwise fuel con will vary so much that the figure will be pretty random.

Nobody in their right minds buys a V6 if they're bothered about fuel consumption, so this is a pointless discussion. Fredt, stop teasing them. They'll bite you one day.

I can't make a comparison, but I can say that I occasionally put the back warmer than the front, if the kids want to sleep. I wouldn't pay extra for it, 'though, and it's just another thing to go wrong with the air con.

I don't know if I have them, and I don't care. I know I'm gorgeous, especially in the dark.

I agree completely that the dealer's behaviour is reprehensible, but I doubt that the lie which the dealer told (that a service rather than a pre sale check had been carried out) is closely enough linked to any money paid by turnip for it to be fraud or deception (although of course the dealers have been deceptive). I may well be completely wrong, but either way I can't see the cops getting very excited about whether a service or ar a pre sale check has been carried out prior to the sale of a car, and of course it would have to be proven that the sale was on the basis that the service had been carried out to a certain spec. I imagine that the reason that the dealer has admitted that the service was not done is because he knows that it will be impossible for turnip to link it to the sale of the car. I'm sure that wrongly stamping a service history book is not in itself an offence. As a practical matter, I think fraud or deception are complete non starters, and that trading standards and complaints to VW and the dealer's top brass would be a better way to go if turnip wants to get at them

... taking you with him, I hope, to recoup some of your

If they sold you the car on the basis that specific work had recently been carried out and that was not the case, they may be guilty of some kind of trades descriptions type offence. I doubt that it is fraud - we're talking about a stamp in a service history book, an informal document, and a few quid's worth of work - but you never know. I'd ask them to carry out the service properly now (you could ask them to pay for someone else to carry it out, but fat chance). You'll then be back to where you should have been, but of course a sadder and wiser man. You should not be shocked by the dealer's conduct. Many commercial organisations cheat their customers, and a dealer's link to the car manufacturer just makes this easier and more profitable. It's hard to see what their incentive for not doing what they did would be, other than professionalism and common decency, neither of which one associates with the motor trade.

bhp.gallons/mile. Like it. You could always convert it to kilogram litre metres per cubic second, of course. I'm getting about 8 bhp.gallons/mile (about 17 tonne.m.l/cubic second), I think.