Chris A

Should I ask the administrator to delete this thread as it is totally unacceptable ? 😁 🎅

We've got mince pies, Xmas cake, chocolates & cheese biscuits in what we call the 'cave' (French pronunciation), really the 'arrière cuisine' as the French would call it. Bought via an online Brit food company. Bought early as we should have been going to Madame's art school Xmas nibble do this pm and wanted to take some 'foreign' stuff. However that plan is scrubbed as Madame was wheeled off into the ambulance 1/2 hour ago - I suspect they will diagnose Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) from what I deduce. Damn! I'll have to make my own sandwich at lunch time!

I'll leave mine unopened until the 24th December. Xmas seems to get earlier each year, I'm sure there is now only 10 months between them

I have a spare set for my 13/60 under the bonnet, in case I lose them (I tend not to lock the car most of the time - convertible with roof down = no point)

I knew someone would say that, in my case the car can still be opened with the key in the lock.

WOW! You get a message to say the key battery is getting low. Mine tells me by working intermittently, so I have to put key in lock - how old fashioned. The first time it happened I was completely stumped as the car wasn't that old I don't recall changing it for my previous car in the 10 years we owned it. I guess the fact that the new car has the feature where I just touch the door handle and it unlocks, so the key fob must be constantly active. I keep a spare battery in the car now

Don't have any red lights locally, but yes if the engine cuts out for a very short period then keeping it running is less polluting, all down to how long the engine is off for. In the back of my mind I seem to recall reading something about this very question and that after 30 seconds it was better to cut the engine. No doubt someone here will check it out. I also strongly suspect that manufacturers installed it so their test consumption/pollution figures look better than they really are in practice.

'early' is how long? My modern is 2017 and is fine, but as I said above the stop/start rarely activates so I guess the battery is let off lightly.

No, not of this stuff - a squirt of washing up liquid in a bucket of water, after all is is gentle on my hands so must be fine on the car bodywork 🤔

Maybe the stop/start system knew the battery was on its way out so decided not to risk it. A shame it didn't think to let you know a new battery would be needed soon. 🤔 Yes, moderns and their electronics. Recently mine had a failure in one of the ABS sensors on the wheels, this resulted in the dash lighting up like a Xmas tree with upto 6 lights, sometimes it reduced the number once moving. It also disabled the stop/start function (which rarely activates in daily use due to driving/road conditions) and the cruise control, which I hardly ever use but did want to during the period between identifiying the fault and getting it repaired. When it was repaired it took me a day or two to get used to not having all those pretty lights on - I sort of missed the excitment of which would come on and which would stay on.

There's urban road dirt and then there's rural road dirt. The rural version, which we have outside the house, is much dirtier than urban road dirt. 🚜

Good suggestion, how about using it to cook chips (potato, not electronic)

That's good to know, as there's a bottle in the 'cave' that was bought to be used on the sponges going into trifles, but they never got made . .

Came across this advert when I was doing my regular searches https://www.leboncoin.fr/ad/equipement_auto/2875306565

Same here, but since when did I ever take notice of good advice? anyway last night and tonight we are having Mexican day of the dead food, which means I have no choice but to drink tequila with it . . .