Leaderboard

Hello Steve, As it happens, I also have a Brilliant Red Sportback and have recently done some aerosol spray work on the car - in my case the front bumper- but I also have to do the rear bumper due to lacquer peel. Before we go on, I believe this lacquer peel is aggravated by the now very popular cheap car wash systems which use pressure washers. Cheap they may be , and they do a good job of making the car look good, but the trade off can be the adverse effect on the paintwork. If it doesn't actually lift the lacquer, it can cause it to go milky after sometime. I was surprised to learn that the undiluted cleaner used can literally take the skin off your hands, so if the dilution is worked out by the bucket and shovel method! then it's possible the paintwork is going to suffer. Not saying they are all bad, but for me it's the old bucket, good wax shampoo and hose job. Anyway Steve, back to reds and matches. Red is notoriously difficult to match and it is worth keeping in mind that small volume aerosol mixes will be very susceptible to minute (drop) differences in the tinters used in the mix. Perhaps stating the obvious, but if you are mixing say a litre then a small difference in tinter volume will not be so noticeable. Mix an egg cup full and minute differences are very much noticeable. It's down to the mixer and the accuracy of the equipment. Yes they will tell you red fades and they may admit to red being difficult to match, but.... I obtained my larger aerosol from a local paint supplier ( try googling your area for car paint suppliers) and although not perfect, is pretty good and you would not stop a galloping horse to find where the new and old meet. As it happens mine was a little darker, whereas yours is a bit lighter. Matching car paint is an art, and you will find that most body shops will spray into the next panel to take your eye off where you would expect the mis-match to be. You need (and they should be able) to get it fairly close, but if you look at any car - even brand new- you will find colour mis-matches between main bodies and bumpers, which I think is due to the bumpers being sprayed in volume, separated from the main bodywork. Not sure how much if this helps Steve. Goid lovk and kind regards, Gareth.

On the issue of my sat-nav, in response to myself (!), it is actually really easy to set a destination. I was worried that mine would only let me enter 4 characters (ie not the full postcode) but I have realised that this is fine. I know it might be a daft point to comment on but I'm sure I'm not the only person out there who was struggling!? If your postcode is LL30 2LP (Llandudno pier in case you were interested!), then you would type in LL30 and then "OK". You will then be presented with a list of all the possible end parts of the postcode - ie Llandudno 1, Llandudno 2, Llandudno 3. If, as above, the next part of the postcode starts with a 2, then you select "Llandudno 2". From here, you select the street name and the house number. I have found that it does have the majority of street names so it's actually not as tricky as I had originally thought. I'm not sure if more recent versions of the nav discs would remove the need to have to do this but at least this is the resolution for folk who have the same version as I do. Cheers

Hello Trevor, Thank you for the warm welcome. I got the car back this morning as it needs fuel, so it's mine again for 24 hours. MMI - it's staying on GPS until I have enough braincells and patience to figure it out. Have a good one. Colin

Hello Joel, Can I take it you are referring to the "bulb-out" warning light being still illuminated? If so, appreciating you may have known that one brake light wasn't working and thought that was the only bulb which had failed, it could, and is most likely to be , that you have another bulb which has actually failed as well. You really need to do a full lighting check on the car - at dusk is easiest- to make sure all bulbs are lit when they should be. Be careful with rear (tail) light bulbs and don't assume because the light is lit that all is well. Some back lights actually have two tail light bulbs as a fail safe and if one has failed and only one works ( but still lights up the back light) then the warning light will stay on. Hope some of this helps, Kind regards, Gareth.

First time back on since joining so I will take a few pics and put them up,cheers Trev.

Thanks for replying Trevor, but the plug isn't in the socket that it should be. Going to take the lower dash apart tomorrow and see where it is.

Thanks for posting the video up on here....could be useful for someone who wants to go through the agro of fitting one in. Seems like a better option with retro-fitting and to be fair, the technology is newer and therefore better as well.