eyepea

All car radios (at least the ones I have seen these days), allow you to tune into and store radio stations which you can later retrieve via a touch of a button - with one button (or button combination) per station - or some similar way. The convenience is that you store your favourite radio stations under 'pre-set' buttons, and when you want to listen to a station, without having to re-tune and locate the station, you simply access it straight away. I need not say more, everyone knows But when in comes to radios used in the home, except for a few walkman type small radios and top end music center type 'big' radios, most use the old tuning knob method which is difficult to tune (alas no digital tuning), with the bands crammed with stations so close together and no support for pre-set stations at all! Anyone knows where I can find a normal radio for home use with pre-set station support ? (I checked out some shops - so far no luck). So to solve above issue ..... Anyone ever thought of rigging up a low cost car radio for home use ? Am wondering how practical it is to hook up a set of speakers, a 12V battery and a telescopic aerial to a car radio and use it at home. Anyone has already put this seemingly crazy idea to practise, I would appreciate your comments very much. thanks

It may be useful to check the features of the alarm type you intend buying in detail, perhaps compare to what is already fitted on your friends cars. I was using a basic alarm of say type A. If the car is already locked and I press lock button in the remote, the signal lights blink. Good. I know car is locked or if it were not, at least now it is locked I started using another car fitted with a basic alarm of another type B. In that, if the car is already locked and I press the lock button in the remote, the signal lights don't blink. This is very annoying specially when you are at a distance. Now I don't know whether the car is actually locked or the remote was too far away for the signal to be picked up by the receiver in the car. So to make sure, I have to unlock it once and then lock again. The find car feature only makes car beep and if you are at a distance and in rain not much use as you will not hear the beep. In type A, find car, also flashes the lights. Asked the people who handle that type of alarm whether this behaviour could be changed, and the answer was negative. (either the alarm cannot be made to work like type A, or those guys have no idea how to ) A small point, but can be *very* annoying at times.

update after 4 months: Dettol applied without dilution worked. Also now I make it a point to sun and air vehicle if not run for about a week. So far (about 4 months) no recurrence. thanks!

Thanks very much for the info and advice. (Sorry to bring up old topic now. could not log in to AL for quite some time) update: Break washers were replaced to solve the leak. But the occasional pedal going in a bit on slow breaking is still there. Got a couple of places to check it out, but the mechanics who test drove could not feel it. So was advised to bring car if problem gets more.

thanks guys. yep can bring in oil.

thanks guys. uh this is scary. wishfully thinking it perhaps be ABS explanation If master pump washers give way, I guess then breaks will not work Hope this is a gradual thingy and doesn't happen suddenly ?. long time back dad's car master clutch cylinder washers gave way and clutch went in fully while driving. Of course a little going-in of the pedal was noticed earlier. Well that happening to clutch is no major issue. But I wouldn't want that for the break pedal!.

Thanks guys. Sorry I did not know correct term. Bass called it shock bumper and it is as Elvis_Pil describes and similar to pic shown in link he put

Can parking in the sun with all shutters up cause the windscreen to shatter due to build up of air pressure inside a car ? (I think effects of parking under the sun, w.r.t paint, damage to plastic interior parts etc was discussed in a previous post. But I don't recall the above concern being discussed. Any links, pls give). Someone mentioned that when a car was parked all day long under the hot sun, suddenly the windscreen had shattered. No hard object falling on the windscreen had been noticed. At the garage it has been told that this is due to parking under the sun with all shutters up and the air pressure building inside the car. I cannot ascertain the truth of this as the person who told me had heard it from another. 1) Is something like this possible or it may be just B.S ? 2) If all shutters are up, and supposing the cabin air intake is set to recycle, does it effectively seal the cabin or restrict air flow to such an extent such that there can be a pressure build up as claimed? 3) Long time back, I got the windscreen replaced in a car. After the new windscreen was put, and the glue or what ever was left to dry, the bass kept the shutters down saying if shutters are up, the hot air pressure inside will push the windscreen out before the glue hardens. Is there any truth in this ? 4) Supposing there was a small crack or something on the windscreen, is it possible for sufficient air pressure build up to shatter a windscreen ? Thanks!

When I take the car for an oil change, I get a 4 litre engine oil can. Car takes 3.5 litres. Well 0.5 litres left over. Next service it is the same way. 0.5 litres left over. I don't run the car excessively, so the next oil change is in about 6 months. Some said don't use oil left over several months. But even if I did use it, anyway if I buy a 4 litre can, then I will be left with 1 litre of oil Hmm may be several times later I can save enough oil and then buy a smaller can to get an exact amount of 3.5 litres of oil and nothing left over or I can go to a service station that sells oil loose from a barrel, which 'may' have questionable qualities but then get the exact amount of 3.5 litres with nothing left over What do you all do ? Do you buy a 4L can and just forget about the left overs if your car needs less than 4L or buy loose from a barrel or some other way ? What can I do with left over unused engine oil ? Yes I can use it to top up if necessary (guess good to keep some at hand) and for lubrication purposes in the car and say use it for door hinges in the house etc too. A friend said I could apply some on me self or collect the left overs and have a bath. Yet to try it. Hee hee Of course this is not a big issue to worry about a little left over engine oil. Can forget it or leave it at the garage though bass chap always pretends he has a halo on top side and doesn't want it when asked and dumps it in my boot. But just wondered what others do ? Thanks!

How critical is it to replace broken front shock bumpers ? Of course I plan to get them replaced. What I want to know is, has this repair got to be done urgently ? What damage can happen when running with broken shock bumpers? Thanks!

Hi, In my car, one of the rear brake cylinders is leaking a little bit of oil. No noticeable drop in level of oil in brake oil reservoir. (rear - drum. front - disk) Bass said brake washer needs to be replaced. Am yet to take it for repair. 1). If replacing brake washers, have all brake washers (i.e. rear both sides + front both sides + master cylinder) got to be replaced or only washers in leaking cylinder need be replaced ? 2). Has the brake system got to be bled after replacing washers ? 3). In slow breaking (for e.g. applying brake very lightly to gradually slow down for a traffic light some distance away, in a clear road), occasionally, I feel that the brake pedal goes in a little bit. Let me try to clearly explain it a bit more: I press the brake pedal lightly, then I feel some resistance / pressure from the pedal. I am not pressing any more because there is no need to slow down the car more. The resistance / pressure felt from the pedal is the same. Then suddenly I feel the resistance from the pedal drop a little and since I was pressing the pedal, the pedal goes in just a little bit. Then I push down my foot a little bit and I feel the same resistance / pressure from the pedal again. This happens quickly and as an automatic reaction of the foot and I don't feel as if the car looses any breaking power or the slowing down rate changes at that moment. Of course when there is a car in front it is a teeny weeny bit hair tingling The actual down movement felt is very little. I did not find it convenient to observe it. Also this issue happens only occasionally. I cannot create the problem at will. Another thing, in hard breaking (well not necessarily breaking hard to tilt the car forward , but pressing the break more than I described above) did not notice above behaviour yet. Can this be due to the leaking break cylinder or something else? Thanks!

Has the earlier blah blah of needing defence ministry approval etc. etc. for using a GPS device, officially cancelled now ? All this time I pocketed my gps receiver from the dash mount if stopped at a check point

milindu thanks very much for the info. I will try out and see. (sorry couldnt respond sooner. I was away)

How to get rid of white mold in the rubber mats and side panels (side panels made of material like Rexine) in a car? Google has a heap of solutions for all kinds of mold. But please look at the pictures of the mold I have given below: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eyepea/4651444323/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/eyepea/4651444179/ (sorry uploading pics as instructed to imageshack didn't work ) I would appreciate answers from people who have practically experienced similar kind of mold and solved the problem (advice on both prevention and cure would be great!). Thanks!

Do you guys think it would be useful to have a thread that lists out most common places in roads that get flooded ? If there is such a thread pls excuse me for doing an inefficient search and send me a pointer instead of a punch With the recent (and still ?) flooded roads this experience would be fresh with most Auto Lanka members. Well everyone who is driving about will know the flooded places in their daily routes and other experience. But what if you want to 'go where you have not gone before' in your precious wheeled earth ship in flooded conditions ? Can ask others, may be can call the cops and ask. I dunno. Does places like auto-mobile association or any web site have updated info on things like this ? Any advice please ? I searched the forums for such info and found that there is lot of info even from past years, but they are mixed and buried with lot of other discussions (quite useful technical stuff btw). Learnt quite some useful tips from threads like: http://forum.autolanka.com/index.php?showtopic=8371 http://forum.autolanka.com/index.php?s...=flood&st=0 http://forum.autolanka.com/index.php?s...=flood&st=0 etc What am looking for is something as follows only discussing the roads: Horten place - roundabout to borella traffic lights. Generally ok. Except Wijerama Junc - may be impassable for cars. Dehiwala hospital road - from nugegoda junc to williams junc galle road, generally ok (at least when I passed last week. But others experience may be different). Galle rd - from mount lavaniya supermarket to bamba junc was ok. Reid Avenue - from about prof stanly.... mw junc and well past colombo campus entrance - best avoided, may be impassable for cars. Jawatta rd - from bullers rd end to thibirigasyaya rd, generally ok, except in somewhere in the center (I could not mark out exactly) may be bad and impassable for cars. or what ever etc. Cant be too specific as different people will have different ways of putting things and having too many rules may discourage people to post useful info. pls suggest what is more suitable. If there is a dedicated thread for this, can look it up easily and get some guidance. Well I guess some of you may be using phones that can access AL forum on the move or at least can check on a computer before hand. Well as flood condition may change depending on the whether, it may be just a guideline. And will have to be updated too as roads change over months and years. (not hour by hour updates as that kind of thing will not be practical). Of course the specific location or stretch of road to avoid is a must rather than the name of the road by itself (unless the entire road is best avoided). Also it will be a general guideline. One might experience light flooding while another on the same spot at a different time can experience very bad flooding. But if all your experience is shared more useful it would be. Am dreaming of the day I can look up google maps or something similar and can see the flooding places. Lets hope all roads will not get marked as such . Someone told me there are people in SL contributing to google maps to mark road names and land marks etc. I dunno if anyone can contribute things like flooding place too. Must check up. but until then... What do you think? Good to have this info in autolanka forum in one place? (if not, sorry for troubling )

Thanks very much guys for all the info and advice and sharing your experience. Yup it is a relief

Nope there is no Econ setting in this car . I dunno if there is much diff for the nissan k11 with AC on or off. Did'nt chk it out yet. Some years back used to move a toyota petrol van on outstation trips frequently. Tried with and without AC entire trip. Got a diff abt 5 litres per trip of well over 300 km. Not sure if this is supposed to be the case or there was something wrong with the AC system . Thanks very much for all the input. Any comments on this carbon dioxide or monoxide build up matter when running on air intake set "recycle" w.r.t SL pls ? Has anyone any experience of feeling drowsy after several hours of driving attributed to this?

When using the car AC, what action will help save fuel ? 1) If I set the air intake to "re-cycle" rather than "fresh air", I was told it will save fuel as the AC unit need not be cooling air from outside. Is this correct ? Is it good to drive long distances (more than say an hour) with air intake set to "re-cycle" due to carbon dioxide build up or what ever? Is there such a consideration ? 2) Will setting the temperature setting to a comfortable level rather than max cold, with AC on, save fuel ? Unlike in AC units fixed in buildings where the temp setting actually sets a temperature, I felt that in my car (nissan k11), the temp setting knob seems to be opening and closing some ducts. So will it save fuel or simply let in less cold air or more cold air into the cabin? 3) If the fan speed is set to a low comfortable setting rather than max speed, with AC on, will it save fuel ? Of course with fan speed max, cabin feels colder. in summery In a normal car (for e.g. Nissan K11), will the setting of the air intake, or temp knob, or fan speed, affect the fuel consumption with AC on or is it a simple case of irrespective of what ever setting of the above controls, if the AC is on, it will consume the same amount of extra fuel and only way to save that extra fuel is to have the AC off ?

Sorry duplicate post. Something wrong. browser wanted to open index.php and said null. Admins pls delete. Pls read this: http://forum.autolanka.com/index.php?showtopic=8340

Sorry duplicate post. Something wrong. browser wanted to open index.php and said null. Admins pls delete. Pls read this: http://forum.autolanka.com/index.php?showtopic=8340

thanks for the info

what we need is a tinting mechanism where the % of tint can be changed electronically you drive with what ever tint level on, and between the time the cops raise their hand and the vehicle comes to a stop, you set the tint to 0% joking apart, and sounding science fiction, I wonder if this kind of thing is available anywhere. Someone claimed his sun glasses changes the tint level according to the level of light. I took it for a joke . Hmmmmmm.

tried using one of these mp3 fm modulators ( i... something brand) as the car radio only covered upto 90MHz or something and I missed the better radio stations like 99.9 and 104.5 (well personal opinion ). At home it was ok as I tuned the car radio and the fm modulator to a frequency that was clear. But when driving around it was a BIG disappointment as all kinda stations broke in. Tried several supposedly clear frequencies but not satisfactory!. Of course had a tough time since the car radio fm range was what was used in Japan and the fm modulator range was what is used here. Also the radio came with the car - year 2000 or so and may be something cheap and not be able to tune sharply to weak transmissions. My car antenna sticks out middle of rare roof. Wonder if that has anything to do with it too. Perhaps the modulator you used is of better quality Nice if people can post the brand of modulator they use (if ok with forum rules) and the frequency they use successfully 88.1 not ok for me. 89.9 worked ok a few places in colombo. As for current consumption the packaging said a few mA, so I guess that should not be a problem.

The ex-toyo man himself seems ok and I and some others I know have got some repairs done there satisfactorily. But as in any place u may need to keep ur eye on things and beware of the actual joker who comes to fix ur car. sometime back I went to get my steering wheel straightened. (since it had air bag, alignment chap did not want to do it). I had little idea abt it at that time. The nitwit assigned to do it first tried by removing the steering rod from near the pedals and correct. As he could not, then only he removed the air bag and said the adjustment cannot be fully done. Then I told the nitwit, hold on and went to speak to the boss (ex-toyo guy) about what can be done, and during that moment this B***** F***ing nitwit had messed up my alignment from near the front wheels saying it has to be corrected from there well ex-toyo did not charge me for the mess but was of the opinion that alignment guys should re-do it free of charge while keeping steering straight rather than he pocket it out. Well could not be bothered arguing for a few 100 bucks those days and since he has done ok jobs before I let it go and got the alignment and sterering corrected some other place Well as in any place, keep an eye (or both eyes) on who does the job

If the requirement is only to use a laptop computer off the car battery, what are the pros and cons of using a DC-DC converter vs using an inverter ? The DC -DC converters I have seen (in places like Unity plaza) is plugged into the cigarette lighter socket and the other end connects to the power socket in the laptop where the mains power brick connects usually. So 12V to 18.5v or what ever the laptop needs (provided you find a dc-dc converter that gives the required voltage and power). If using an inverter I guess 12v dc to 230v ac, and then anyway the power brick of laptop will do 230v ac to 18.5v dc or what ever needed by laptop. Which is better ? (old post, but I saw a dc-dc converter recently, hence the question )