Happy Bloody 2013

[RogerS]

January 3rd 2013

Dear Diary

The nice garage man told me today that the rear diff in the '04 Discovery I bought is shot and needs replacing.

Later in the afternoon I found out that it looks as if the main audio amplifier in the wife's car has blown (and it had to happen while I was driving it so it's my fault). An ex-write-off on eBay only costs £50. That is the good news. The bad news is that you need to dismantle the car to get to the f*cker. I kid you not.

Hey Ho.....roll on 2014.

 

[Timberfreak]

January 3rd 2013

Dear Diary . . . . . . .

. . . . . . Hey Ho.....roll on 2014.

Only another 362 days to go !

 

[Eric The Viking]

How do you manage to destroy a rear diff? Did he say why it failed?

E.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

The end of 2012, inside a week just before Xmas, I had the heater on the car pack up, the central heating boiler pack up, and the dishwasher pack up.
Deep joy!

 

[Eric The Viking]

FWIW, I've still got a kitchen full of landrover heater box bits. I'm hoping it'll all go in tomorrow... grrr.

 

[RogerM]

With the kids home for Xmas our washing machine wouldn't empty or spin on Xmas Eve. After draining the water out and dismantling I found a hairgrip jamming the pump which in turn stopped the water level float allowing the spin cycle to kick in. Removed the hairgrip and hey presto. Those who have seen my photo will know that I have no need of a hair grip ....... :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

A few years back our dishwasher also packed up on Xmas Eve, and we got a shock off the door. After taking the back off the door I found that there had been a leak of rinse-aid behind the door which had rotted the insulation off the cables allowing them to come in contact with each other. About 3 hours later I had completely rewired the door and it lasted another 5 years before it finally packed up after 20 years daily use.

Why is it always b***** Xmas Eve.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Funny enough, our washing machine stopped on new years day - a cotton bud was the culprit.

 

[Dusty]

I know how you feel , Day after boxing day , my 6 year old daughter was playing in the bath , after the water had drained off and managed to snap both her two front teeth , one badly chipped and the other off at the gum , wouldnt be so bad but it was her new adult teeth that had come through last september , ruined chrimbo for us , never felt liek crying so much ! , .......she was only concerned that she would miss her xmas treat of going out on a christmas horse ride as she had to see the dentist on a emergency appointment ! ....childrens priorities eh !

Dusty

 

[DIY Stew]

Funny enough, our washing machine stopped on new years day - a cotton bud was the culprit.

Phil

Please tell me it was an accident and you don't re-use cotton buds!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Stew

 

[AndyT]

There can be a bright side.

On new year's eve our ten years old built in gas double oven refused to light at all.
A quick web search found complaints of similar ones failing in the same way.

But I then found one post that said the problem was a blocked air intake. Sure enough, when I slid it out of its housing, the fan inlet at the back was blocked so much that airflow was starved, so the gas would not light. After a good going over with the workshop vac it is now good for another ten years, saving £100 or so for a call out or £500 for a replacement! And we could eat!

 

[Racers]

I noticed a stain on the ceiling one Xmas eve, it turned out to be the seals on valves on each side of the central heating pump where shot, tightening it up made it worse.

So there I stood in the garage with the offending bits in front of me wondering where on xmas eve afternoon I could get some seals, when I spied the wife's welleys, a quick bit of work with the scissors and spanners and we had heating, then after a couple of years I replaced them with proper ones.

Pete

 

[Lons]

when I spied the wife's welleys, a quick bit of work with the scissors and spanners and we had heating, Pete

Now if I'd done that, I'd have been in trouble for not cutting up my own wellies :roll:

Bob

 

[RogerS]

How do you manage to destroy a rear diff? Did he say why it failed?

E.

I think it was general wear...hidden maybe. 130k miles.

 

[Eric The Viking]

Sorry to hear that.

You'd probably get a pretty OK one from a breakers, and the actual swap out shouldn't be all that expensive - you can, after all, get at it fairly easily.

The donor engine for my Defender came from an earlier Disco (200TDi). Even allowing for the mods to the crossmember and the bulkhead the swap wasn't all that pricey. It's a great engine, BTW.

Hope it's cheaply and quickly sorted.

E.

 

[Anima]

3 weeks ago my turbo went on my BMW 320d at 88k. £1600 to fix. Now I'm told the clutch and flywheel need replacing. Both mine and the partners laptops broke two weeks ago, both need replacing for work. last week the tv packed up.

Christmas didn't happen this year in our house.

 

[gregmcateer]

I can't complain too much - I did finally give in to the kid's pressure for iPods - so it's my own stupid fault, apparently - Now that b'stard Steve Jobs may have been a clever (and very rich) bloke, but he and his secretive controlling elves sure as hell treat customers with contempt;

Great hardware, nice to look at and use, but I am yet to meet a single person who has had a stress-free time setting up the synchronising with iTunes.

If I hadn't paid £300 for the bloody things, I'd walk away and never communicate with the infernal fruit again. Grrrrrrr

Rant over

 

[RogerS]

I can't complain too much - I did finally give in to the kid's pressure for iPods - so it's my own stupid fault, apparently - Now that b'stard Steve Jobs may have been a clever (and very rich) bloke, but he and his secretive controlling elves sure as hell treat customers with contempt;

Great hardware, nice to look at and use, but I am yet to meet a single person who has had a stress-free time setting up the synchronising with iTunes.

If I hadn't paid £300 for the bloody things, I'd walk away and never communicate with the infernal fruit again. Grrrrrrr

Rant over

What's the problem?

 

[graduate_owner]

Some of you guys have certainly had bad luck, but spare a thought for those unfortunates who have been flooded out of their homes, and have had to spend Christmas in temporary accommodation as a result of the extreme rainfall. I have never been so unlucky so I can only imagine what it must be like.

But why does everything like that seem to happen around Christmas time?

K

 

[andersonec]

Not this Christmas but the last,,, we had son and daughter plus their five kids , on Christmas eve 'er indoors switched on the hob to start some pre-cooking for Christmas dinner, hob would not come on, tried everything, panic, went to Curry's and bought a new one, went to the isolating switch in the top of the cupboard to switch it off and change the hob,,,,,,friggin' isolating switch had been knocked off by son when he 'helped' by putting away a cooking dish for mum cos it was too high for her to reach!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Andy

 

[gregmcateer]

I can't complain too much - I did finally give in to the kid's pressure for iPods - so it's my own stupid fault, apparently - Now that b'stard Steve Jobs may have been a clever (and very rich) bloke, but he and his secretive controlling elves sure as hell treat customers with contempt;

Great hardware, nice to look at and use, but I am yet to meet a single person who has had a stress-free time setting up the synchronising with iTunes.

If I hadn't paid £300 for the bloody things, I'd walk away and never communicate with the infernal fruit again. Grrrrrrr

Rant over

What's the problem?

Hi Roger,

We couldn't get them to talk to iTunes, even though units registered with Apple as instructed. My son went to a friends and whilst there he apparently managed to get it to talk to iTunes and sync the music. Now however at our house, his machine, though recognised and showing in the bar on the left of iTunes, and saying 'syncing', nothing gets transferred.

I did wonder if his friend has to 'release' his unit from his laptop first - what do you think?

Cheers and thanks in advance,

Greg