rwtomkins

Here is my experience of changing the plug. I was getting billows of white/grey smoke for the first 10-15 minutes after starting up. It would settle down after a while but it was getting too embarrassing in that first 10-15 mins so I decided to try changing the plug. I bought a new one without wires from here: http://www.vwspares.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=54 This is the Beru GH001 aka 0 100 226 340 and it is the new-style replacement for the older 0 100 226 228. However it does NOT have wires attached. (I didn't want the wires because I have an older Gal, a Mk II from December 2002.) It shows up at

Yes, I think the Ford guy said the Cougar thing only happened with the engine running and the curious thing about mine is that it happens with the engine switched on or off. If it starts while the engine is on, it usually stops when you turn the engine off, and if it starts while the engine is off, it often stops when you turn the engine on! I'll try that radio thing and thanks for that. Also, is there a single fuse that serves all the lighting circuits, interior and exterior? If there were, it might be worth having a poke around that. I'm looking for something that affects all the lighting circuits simultaneously.

I just phoned Ford Technical Services - at

My Galaxy Mk II has had this problem from new and I even raised a thread about it many years ago with no results. What I find is that, quite often but most noticeably at the beginning and end of journeys, ALL the lights - all over the dashboard, all the passenger cabin lights, the side lights, the headlights, the lot - will flicker. Not on and off but just very, very rapidly flickering between bright and dim. Bizarrely, this happens independently of whether the engine is running or not. But it's completely unpredictable. Sometimes it happens when the engine's running and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it happens when the engine's switched off and sometimes it doesn't. It seems to happen most often when you actually DO something - either switching on the engine or switching it off. Usually the effect disappears after a while all by itself. It's more an irritation than a problem. Today, after only about a decade of being irritated by this, I at last got around to taking the car to an auto electrician. He couldn't find anything wrong. But on returning just now I tried Googling it and did in fact find someone else talking about this on another forum. He suggested it was a notorious Ford problem and said there was a technical services bulletin about it. Here's what he said, with apologies for the lack of punctuation: I just wondered if anyone else had had this problem or indeed whether anyone else had tried this modification? I'm certainly planning to give it a go.

When my 1.9TDI was a year old the dealer overfilled it by at least as much as that and I was just as concerned as you, probably even more so. I phoned Ford technical services and they told me to relax and stop worrying - though I did buy a length of tubing and siphon a bit out just for my own peace of mind. I don't doubt for one moment that overfilling with oil can cause problems, even serious ones. But on a practical note you have to consider that overfilling is going to happen very frequently indeed and therefore that the margin for error will probably be enormous. I've no idea what that margin is but I suspect it's a great deal more than the amount you've mentioned.

At last I got around to checking the handbook and the sticker. Neither really tells you what tyres to fit to your car - all they do is tell you the correct tyre pressure for your tyres, whatever they may happen to be. So for example in the handbook there is a section on p238 headed "Tyre pressure" which gives the correct pressures for many different tyres. On the next page, p239, there is a section headed "Renewing tyres". All this says is: "Refer to your vehicle documents (where applicable) for the correct authorised tyre/wheel combinations for your vehicle or ask your Ford dealer." Needless to say there are no applicable vehicle documents. Having said that, the tyre pressure table on p238 includes mention of only one 215 tyre and that is the 215/55 R16 95 rf so I suppose the 95 is probably a reference to the load rating. But there is no mention of load rating anywhere in the text and there is no advice at all on what minimum load rating is required. Similarly on the door pillar sticker there is reference to only one 215 tyre which is listed as the 215/55 R16 rf 95 or 97 so again there is an implication there that you should have a tyre with a load rating of 95 or 97. But how many drivers have ever heard of a load rating or have any idea what it means? Bearing in mind also that even KwikFit had no hesitation at all in recommending and fitting the wrong tyres! I do think it's a minefield for the unwary. Having followed this forum for a few years I think it's not very widely known even here what tyres you need to fit to the 1.9TDI and I think the manufacturer should have spelled it out a bit more clearly. Anyway, I am much the wiser now so than you very much indeed for your advice!

Yes and I'm STILL only "advanced" while a young whippersnapper like yourself is "eternally ultimate". Where is the justice??? :lol:

One and the same :lol: Phew! Sparky Paul, out of interest, I'll check the handbook and sticker tomorrow to see what info they give about tyre requirements. The extra load tyres I have now aren't the ones I talked about in the OP. Somewhere later in the thread, I took your advice and changed the tyres for extra load versions! That's what I have on now. So as long as extra load and reinforced mean the same thing, all is well.

IIRC the handbook just says the correct tyre for this model is 215/55H16rf and there is no mention of load factor. Good lord, Ivor E Tower, are you still here??? I remember your first post on this forum when you were just a wee lad. I think I am officially the father of the forum, pre-dating you by all of four days... Back on topic, your post above takes me right back to square one - have I bought the right tyres? Because the ones I now have are extra load but they are not reinforced. So unless someone wants to tell me they mean exactly the same thing, it's back to KwikFit again.

Sorry for the delayed reaction. 23,572 on the Dunlop 2020s and the front ones were nearly down to the tyre wear blocks.I don't know if that's good, bad or middling.

Fair enough - makes sense to me! I had a friendly chat with KwikFit today and they readily agreed to swap the tyres with just a small

I like my local KwikFit a lot: they are very friendly and helpful and offer very good value for money in my opinion. But although they are very good at fitting tyres, they seem to know nothing about them and haven't a clue when it comes to offering advice on tyre selection. Again, there seems to be an astonishing amount of ignorance about this very important safety component and it's very difficult to find a reliable source of information about what sort of tyres you should fit. To Phil's point, that's probably why the taxi wasn't failed at its MoT - not many people know what sort of tyres should be fitted. I never noticed a sticker on the inside of the fuel filler flap. Please bear in mind that I'm having the first new tyres since buying this car in 2002 so it's plain that I don't open the fuel filler flap very often! I'll have a look later on and see if I've got a sticker. BTW do reinforced tyres actually have stronger sidewalls? I have a vague memory of reading something here to the effect that "reinforced" is slightly misleading - it simply means they can safely be inflated to a higher pressure so they can bear a heavier load and it's not specifically to do with sidewall support. However it's just a vague recollection and may well be wrong.

You're right, guys, I hadn't considered the weight distribution thing and the effect of braking etc. I'm going to do as you recommend and get right back to KwikFit. It's amazing how difficult it is to get reliable information about what tyres you need. I can't find anything anywhere that tells me what minimum specification I need for my car - not even the handbook, which simply describes the tyres already fitted. Thank you, sparkyPaul and Mirez. Now I'm going to bed to dream of Dynamic Load Transfer! :rolleyes:

My Galaxy is a Mk II, bought in late 2002. It's a 1.9TDI, 115bhp. Incredibly I have just reached the stage where I need to change the front tyres for the first time. Based on a search by my vehicle registration number on the KwikFit website, I ordered online from KwikFit a pair of Dunlop FastResponse 215/55H16 tyres. These have a load rating of 93 and are not described as reinforced or extra load. However, they are rated to carry a load of 650kg each - making a total load rating of 2600kg - and can be inflated to a maximum pressure of 52psi. I have had these tyres fitted but I'm not sure whether I should have. The OE tyres were Dunlop Sport 2020 215/55H16rf and I know reinforced tyres are recommended for this vehicle. But do I really need them? The maximum gross vehicle weight of this vehicle is 2450kg, well within the rating of the tyres - and I hardly ever load the vehicle up anyway. The maximum air pressure when fully laden is 48psi so here again I'm well within the tyre spec. So where's the problem? I assume a big safety margin is built into these tyres and I'm nowhere near exceeding the specifications. But I still have that niggling concern about the reinforced thing. Any thoughts?

Brilliant! Thanks so much, Insider. I thought that little hole might be something to do with it...