AlunS

Interesting. I thought that the newly designed EGR was for the 2.0 TDCi's only?

I've just come back from a short trip along dual-carriageway / motorway. Everything seemed Ok at first, but part way through the journey, I started to lose power. Not the sudden-death kind of thing some people here have reported, but just a general lack of 'oomph'. Had to keep the throttle buried to the floor at one stage to maintain 120km/h (approx. 75mph) on one very slight uphill stretch. When I came off the motorway at the other end in slower traffic, I also noticed I just wasn't getting the acceleration I was used to either, almost as if the turbo was only working part-time. As luck would

Over here in Ireland on another forum we had someone who pointed out a similar ad, but this time it was someone in Malta with a UK registered car. He was trying to give it some sense of genuineness by using a 3rd party escrow service in the Netherlands, but when the potential buyer contacted this service they themselves told him it was scam. Repeat after me "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is".

Yes, this one appears not only to be able to spell, but also has a keyboard which contains keys for capital letters and punctuation :)

I was going to say that. If you use a carwash that does the old "hot wax" thing, that can build up on the windscreen and cause judder. I use a glass cleaner by Rain-X that gets rid of all that crud.

Have you tried asking on the Motors forum of boards.ie? There are a few recommendations on there already, albeit not in the area of Galway, but they're (generally!) a fairly helpful lot.

Yeah, I've sen the same thing where people were using the conversion factor for litres to US gallons (which unlike most things in the US are actually smaller than our gallons :) )

Yes, maybe the 2.0 is different, but there's no way I'd drive my 1.6 at 1100rpm, like Gwyn says, it gets very rattly and totally non-responsive at those revs. I rarely go above about 3500rpm either except possibly when overtaking, but then the last thing on my mind then is fuel economy. Generally if I'm just driving around I try and keep it not below about 1500-1700. At least then if I want to accelerate, then something happens.

It seems to be more obvious with the lighter metallic colours. Mines dark blue ... Ink Blue I think it's called, and the match is perfect, especially when it's coated with the same dirt layer as Gwyn :)

At least my boot lock release works now (without any bits left over, I might add!) and has survived several downpours and a visit to the car wash since then :)

Not sure whether this is relevant but this is a problem on the C-Max too. Problem was a faulty seal on the microswitch in the boot release which let in water and caused corroded contacts, and Ford have a replacement for it. There's a TSB for it. You can also fix it yourself if you're feeling a bit adventurous, which is what I did.

OT, I know, but I used to work in a hi-fi shop which sold B&O stuff. The guy who did all their repairs for them thought they were crappily designed and poorly put together. You wouldn't believe how much air there is inside those posh looking enclosures ... form above function at it's most extreme.

Wouldn't surprise me if the RDS was screwed up. I've had lots of problems in the Dublin area with RTE 1 interrupting pretty much every other station every 5 or 10 seconds with a little 0.5 second chirp (and the display switches over to the RTE 1 fequency too). I think it probably had something to do with TA or TP or something like that, and the only way I've been able to get rid of it is to remove RTE 1 from my presets altogether. I mean, it takes RTE about two weeks to realise that the clocks have gone forward / back so that the RDS time is right, so anything is possible with that shower.

OK. It's just that I had a Renault Megane Scenic as a hire car once and had a small mishap (ran over a rock and bust the sump!!!) that required the EPB to be released, so it could be towed away. I seem to remember that pulling the lever in the boot actually broke something (some kind of seal or something, and this was apparently deliberate) that needed replacing afterwards, that's all.

I don't have one on mine, so I don't know whether it's relevant for the C-Max, but be careful ... on the Renault's it's a trip to the dealer to get it reset if you use the emergency release procedure!

How come yours has got silver buttons? Mine are grey, just like the rest of the unit.

It's not just cars either .. a good friend of mine here in Ireland is an internationally known artist, and he's been targetted by these people too. Even the bank here was fooled initially by the bank draft. Luckily he never went as far as shipping one of his paintings though.

Well, intrigued by this thread, I went out and tried to remove the rear headrests on my '04 Zetec (no leather) and they weren't budging at all. The front seat headrests come out easily though. Not that I actually want, or need, to remove them, but it's puzzling nonetheless.

Oh for god's sake, Mastertech, why don't you actually read my post and others, then you'd know. a) Why I don't take it to a dealer. Because i) getting to my dealer is a pain ii) they don't know what the phrase 'courtesy car' means iii) all my dealings with them so far have left me with little confidence in them. There actually is another dealer closer to me, but I wouldn't trust them to replace a tyre on my bike, let alone touch my car. b) I don't have to buy anything (I've just done the job in about 30minutes following JackBlack's instructions). The problem is water getting into the back

Don't take it so personally :) We're not talking about rocket-science here, it's just a bloody microswitch and a badly fitting rubber seal for gods sake. Oh, and if you want you can add B.Sc. (Hons) (Electrical Engineering), M.Sc., MIEE after my name too, if you like.

I'm a firm believer in the tenet "If you want something doing properly, do it yourself", something that is particularly true here in Ireland :) And if after I have taken it apart, I decide there's nothing I can do myself, I'll take the alternative route of taking it to the grease-monkeys at my dealer. Anyway, I really don't care if it's warranty or not ... for me just getting my car to the dealers for a service is a PITA, and anything that I can do myself is an added bonus in terms of missed time involved faffing around getting to the dealers and back.

I've also noticed that there is a very small gap (maybe 1mm or so) between the top of the trim over the handle, and the bodywork. If I peer down it I can just about make out something that looks like the locking mechanism. Certainly big enough for water to seep down. The rubber seal over the switch seems pretty sound to me. I give lots of people lifts, who get out of the car and need to get stuff out of the boot. I've had several people who seem incapable of opening the boot release, and stand there tugging on the outside of the handle without sticking their fingers in far enough to trigger

Sorry for dragging this one up, but as luck (?) would have it I had this exact same problem today on my '04 1.6 TDCi Zetec. Went out to the car, unlocked it, went round to the back of the car and tried to open the boot ... nothing. Locked and unlocked the doors a few times, and eventually it opened, but then the boot lock mechanism started clicking away all to itself. Closed the boot, drove off, and every 10 seconds the bloody "Luggage compartment open" alarm went off. Arrived at destination, boot won't open. Remembered I had a boot unlock button on the remote (which I normally never use!) a

I think I've used the ones on my C-Max just twice in just over a year. Once in the Dublin Mountains and once on Dartmoor, both at night in fog so thick you almost had to open the window and peer out to follow the white line. They weren't an awful lot of use, but at least they illuminated the road, rather than just illuminating the fog, which is what the dipped beams did.

As far as I know, DRL's are just the normal dipped headlights run at reduced power and therefore have a dispersion pattern identical to your dipped headlights, i.e. downwards and to the left. Foglights have a much wider dispersion pattern and do not dip to the left which can make them dazzle more than dipped headlights in certain circumstances. They're also lower down which makes them less useful for improving daytime visibility in my opinion especially in heavy(ish) traffic. I've also heard that, again due to their different dispersal pattern, they are particularly annoying to motorcyclists w