Ecosse

Benji, There are a lot of snake-oil fuel/air system cleaner off the shelf, but if you are prepared to chuck around £15.00 for a bottle of Forte fuel system cleaner, in my experience it's not wasted on engines used to a lot of short fuel-rich urban runs as opposed to nice motorway CAT-cleaning (etc) runs. Basically wait until there's no more than 2 gallons left, shove it in, go for a short run, park it overnight, then the next day give it beans...serious beans....somewhere safe etc etc. Forte stuff does what it says on the tin, but frankly I hold the view that modern engines, with 21st century fuels and oils, look after themselves between services.

Hello all. Just a quick introduction. I'm in the Mazda Mx5 forums and have been for ten years, owning both a Mk2.5, and a "proper" pop-up Mk1. A bit of a petrolhead, I've owned some interesting stuff eg a Courteney Turbo Opel Monza, a Vulcan/Burton milled Capri Injection...but had to get sensible in my dotage so switched to Mazdas. If you can call that sensible, feel free! However, our son aged 27 is on the hunt for a diesel A3 with a budget up to 6k. He's Armed Forces, and although he has driven most MOD monsters you can name, this will be his first own car. He needs something to whisk him up and down from Cattrick to Stirlingshire...with loads of washing I presume. Insurance is a joke of course, it's going to be around £6/700 as he's a noob and "they" see him as a little pimple squeezer in a beat up Corsa trying to visit the nearest tree. Or so it seems. I've been boning up heavily on A3's I really "get them". I've discounted others eg Civic 2.2 oilers due to their unhealthy appetite for DSG's...as Golfs can be I'm told. I know the A3 is pretty much from the same family, together with many other VAG workhorses, so I'm not blind to no car being perfect, and have been told how to "test" these clutches prior to purchase. My lad is in and out of hot, sweaty dodgy places a lot (and I'm not referring to Milton Keynes or the London Underground!) and not really home often enough to do a proper search, so it's down to me. God help me if I screw up, he's bigger 'n me and takes no prisoners. Then there's " The Look". He kinda just looks at me in a certain way if I crock-a-poo it up. Worse than a boot in the soft bits that look. I think he gets it from me, so fair play. I need to get this right..so..... Any general comments & ad-hoc advice will be very welcome. For what it's worth to anyone, here's our two Mazdas. Green one's mine, Blue one is SWMBOs. I get the old nail, she gets the posh one...but that's life eh? Looking forward to adding an Audi to the stable in a couple of months! Cheers Robin.