Passionate about Cars Andy White and Steve Kennard

It's a car cast today as I ride with Steve back from the Brighton and Hove Breakfast Club - we discuss:


Coil springs verses leaf springs
The poor conditions of roads in the UK
Not having to go back to the main dealer for repairs to your vehicle
Wearing of valve seats and how this happens
What causes pinking, what does it sound like and how to fix it


Photo: maxmborge

As Steve gets back into the throws of work after a bank holiday packed few weeks - we discuss:


Growing hops in Steve's workshop
Steve and Andy's new Bank Holiday regime
Peaceful protests and Steve's annoyance at the council's welcoming attitude
Volkswagen Campers
Triumph Stag steering bushes
Rovers and head gaskets
A VW Beetle with a broken window mechanism
A long journey for Andy's Volvo with a slipping clutch
Clutch bandages
Observing traffic wardens and their need for tea and coffee
Steve gets his roof fixed - but the insurance company DID NOT PAY


Photo: johnrobertshepherd

Steve is thrown into the hot seat as Kathleen is off today - so I chatted to him in his 'Alan Sugar' office. We discuss:


The idea of using incontinence pads while at the front desk
An update on the roof insurance story - insurance claims and how to write letters of complaint
The art of complaining
The slipping clutch on my Volvo 940SE and Volvo drivers in general
Autodata
When Haynes Manuals go bad
Austin Maxi exhausts and carburetor balancing
Built-in redundancy conspiracy theories
How Steve interacts with the competing garage next door - yes they DO come around to borrow spanners!
Traffic wardens and the garage


Photo: Elsie esq.

In today's show Steve communicates the sad news that insurance companies prefer to use innaccurate methods to determine the severity of a weather event resulting in a claim.


Andy: Hello everyone Irsquo;m with Steve Kennard on a very crisp November morning. Morning Steve.

Steve: Yeh. Morning, Andrew.

Andy: When I first arrived Steve was on the phone - he was having a very long phone call. Do you want to tell us what it was all about?

Steve: Um. Yeh. Insurance companies. Almost an hour, talking to an insurance company regarding the storm force winds we had at the beginning of November. We had a little bit of damage done to the garage roofhellip;

Andy: Irsquo;m just looking now therersquo;s some broken panes and stuff arenrsquo;t there.

Steve: Yeh. The garage roof has got some large glass panes in it - therersquo;s quite a number of them. It is a large roof. In previous lives this was a bus garage.

Andy: Ah. OK.

Steve: It dates back probably to the early part of the last century - it was Tillings bus garage actually where they had the first electric busses in Brighton - and this was one of the depots. The busses used to pull in here - change over the batteries - these huge sort of 1 or 3 tons - these huge battery packs - change them over on the busses and then theyrsquo;d be back out on the street again. So these were the very early electric vehicles that used to run around Brighton back at the beginning of the nineteen hundreds.

Andy: And thatrsquo;s a topic for another show - electric vehicles - we must talk about that - but lets back to your roof.

Steve: Yeh - OK. Anyway this roof structure. There are dozens - close to hundreds of glass panels in the roof - large roof structure. Itrsquo;s a very tall building, an open building, and Montague Place here is very windy.

Andy: Because of the flats.

Steve: The block of flats opposite are 16 - 18 floors or something. So we get this vortex - I think wersquo;ve mentioned it before in previous shows - this vortex effect runs up the center of the street. Back in the early part of November - everybody will remember - we had strong winds for about a week. One particular day the wind speeds were extremely strong - I donrsquo;t know what they were because wersquo;ve got no way of recording them. They were strong enough to knock me off my feet, I got out of a car and the wind actually knocked me over - quite strong. Insurance companies say, nowadays, in order for it to be classed as a storm force or a storm event, it has to be a memorable event - and as a pointed out to them anyone who sustained damage - thatrsquo;s memorable. Yoursquo;ll remember if yoursquo;ve had damage caused by the weather - thatrsquo;s a memorable event.

Andy: And you got blown off your feet which was memorable as well.

Steve: I got blown off my feet, I did. But we also sustained damage in the garage here, we had a couple of the roof panels got lifted up, because theyrsquo;re glass it actually broke. A section of one of the panels fell out. Fortunately itrsquo;s in a corner of the building, nobody underneath it - had there been anyone underneath it, I hate to think what would have happened.

Andy: Did it happen during the day or night, Steve?

Steve: During the day. We were in here working at the time. We had to have the - again itrsquo;s a large entrance to the garage - every time we were opening the doors it was allowing the wind to come in, the garage was rattling - real strong, storm force winds. I would say they were almost hurricane force - but of course, ask Michael Fish and we donrsquo;t get hurricanes in this country. Anyway we had to open the doors to let cars in and out - as soon as cars were in or out, close the doors back up again - try and reduce the amount of wind that we get into the building. As we opened the doors to let a car in, a gust of wind came in, lifted these roof panels, broke the glass, and we had the damage. I thought another job for the ins...

In today's show, Steve has become Alan Sugar and showed me his new board room! Also - some great news on a new community venture Steve has piloted - all coming up in Passionate About Cars...



Andy: Irsquo;m with Steve from 1st Class garage. Today Steve is looking like Alan Sugar because hersquo;s in his manager clothes, hersquo;s not in his normal shop floor clothes and hersquo;s got a new office havenrsquo;t you, Steve.

Steve: Yeh. Irsquo;ve got the new office now sorted and yes, I have a collar on - Irsquo;ve stopped short of putting a tie on yet. Irsquo;ve gothellip;

Andy: You can tell from the rustle of his shirt

Steve: Yes. Itrsquo;s well starched. Thatrsquo;s the old ex-army training.

Andy: Hersquo;s already pointed his finger and fired me. Your fired!

Steve: Well I did think, because this office is on a couple of levels I did think about moving the desk to the edge of that upper level, and have the other chair below that so that people have got to look up - but no, no, no. Some people might say Irsquo;m a bit of a control freak at times anyway.

But this is the new office which is quite nice because where I had a desk in one of the front offices there, that was all well and good but it doesnrsquo;t allow you much in the way of privacy. So wersquo;re expanding a little bit, Irsquo;ve now taken this office. Wersquo;ve got a yard there which can get about 15 vehicles in which will go quite a way towards our parking issues which wersquo;ve constantly ranted about in the pasthellip;

Andy: Wersquo;ve spoken about this so many times havenrsquo;t we, the parking issues.

Steve: Yeh, anyone with a business in Brighton would know the problems faced with trying to park vehicles. Itrsquo;s extremely difficult. Because we are a garage and we work with vehicles, thatrsquo;s what our business is, we need to have somewhere to put vehicles. Particularly when theyrsquo;re waiting for parts - wersquo;ve got a vehicle in there at the moment thatrsquo;s waiting for a part from America, I think we spoke about it before, itrsquo;s waiting for the part. So the vehicles get sidelined but you need somewhere to put them. The yard will certainly help in that aspect. Itrsquo;s something wersquo;ve been looking at for some time and itrsquo;s very convenient because it adjoins the main garage - so thatrsquo;s perfect.

The other thing of course, it gets me a nice little warm office so this time of year when itrsquo;s quite chilly in the garage I can come in and have a little warm up in the office and the boys can freeze their rocks off in the workshop.

Andy: Talking of the workshop, shall we go and see whatrsquo;s going on? Are you still in touch with whatrsquo;s going on, Steve? Can you remember whatrsquo;s going on?

Steve: Well Irsquo;ve got a bit of a clue whatrsquo;s going on round there - we can have a look and see what sort of jobs wersquo;ve got in today. I guess wersquo;d better have a wonder round to the workshop and see whatrsquo;s going on.

Andy: Is there a shortcut through from here, Steve or do we have to go back round the front again?

Steve: No, wersquo;ve got to wonder out through the front door and then up the street.

Andy: So wersquo;re walking out Steversquo;s specially heated and humidified office - Irsquo;ll leave my bag there.

Through the front office - past Kathleen - hello Kathleen.

She was on the phone. Oooo, wind, horrible wind - hang on a second.

Steve: Montague Place is renowned for itrsquo;s windiness because of the block of flats.

Andy: Oh yes because yoursquo;re right next to a block of flats, thatrsquo;s where all that wind was coming from. Apologies to our listeners for that horrible noise of the wind.

So whatrsquo;s going on, Steve, here on the shop floor?

Steve: Well wersquo;ve got the taxi van here, itrsquo;s been with us now about 3 or 4 weeks waiting for various parts. This is one of the vehicles where it never got much in the way of maintenance, it...

Today Steve shows me what can happen when an engine seizes up due to lack of maintenance nbsp;and then comes up with an interesting solution to unemployment...

Photo: RobotSkirts

Andy: So here I am at 1st Class Garage. Hello Steve how are you?

Steve: Yeh. Fine Andy.

Andy: So what's been happening on the shop floor then?

Steve: We've had a run of engine changes. Probably over the last three weeks we've had about ten vehicles in for engine changes which is quite a high proportion really...

Andy: Didn't we have a run of these a few episodes ago I seem to remember, and I was blaming the ash cloud?

Steve: Yeh, probably. The majority of these engines is down to lack of maintenance and I think this is what's happening now. People are just either afraid to lift the bonnet or don't know how to lift the bonnet to check the levels. Too many people are relying on the lights and the gauges inside the car. And I've said before that the lights themselves are what I'd call too late lights, when the light comes on it's too late, the damage is done. And of course with the current economic situation a lot of people have been holding back on servicings or missing servicings out. Put that lot together and it's a recipe for one or two disasters and that's what's been happening. As you can see here there's engines sat here waiting to be fitted...

Andy: Oooo nice shiny new engines, yeh.

Steve: Yeh, there's one there, and one of the guys just changing all the bits over on a Mitsubishi L200 and that's one of two that we've got in at the moment. Both of them have done around 50,000 miles. That particular one there has had a serious blow, and believe it or not, it was still actually running. It's got a hole in the side of the block, conrod...

Andy: Can we go and have a look?

Steve: Yeh of course we can. Conrod sitting in the sump, and it came in still running. It was spewing oil everywhere of course, that that was left in it, but...

Andy: So this was basically due to oil running out?

Steve: This was really down to maintenance issues really, with the diesels if it's not regular oil changing, oil pick up pipes tend to get a little bit gummed up, take it up the motor way and consequently lack of oil feed to everywhere and something's got to give, it needs lubrication.

Andy: I can see the spoils of war here, Steve. This is a sort of mangled, err, is that called a big-end, that bit there?

Steve: No. That's a conrod. It should be straight.

Andy: It's actually concertinered in the middle like in a cartoon.

Steve: Yeh, it is. It's a shame you haven't got pictures of it you can transmit.

Andy: Well I've always said, Steve, this should be a video podcast you know.

Steve: Well yes, maybe that's the way to go. But this is just totally destroyed. If you think about the amount of power it would take to destroy that.

Andy: It literally looks like on a cartoon when a cat gets splattered, and the thing falls away and you get a concertina cat, it's a concertina conrod.

Steve: Yeh. And this was laying in the sump when we took it apart but the engine was still actually running.

Andy: That's amazing.

Steve: It is really, um...

Andy: Was it a bit noisy, Steve?

Steve: Yeh, you could say that.

Andy: Oooo. I'm walking under a huge 4 by 4 here. Well Steve's doing it so it must be safe.

Steve: That's the hole in the side of the block...

Andy: There is a massive hole...

Steve: ...where that conrod has decided to part company and it's shot out of the side of the engine. And the whole thing is totally useless and once the engine gets to that stage... A lot of the companies you by replacement engines from there's surcharges involved. And the surcharge means that the old unit, we're supposed to return to the company that supply the engine for them to rebuild, but that particular one there is no good for rebuild so a surcharge is going to apply, so you've got the cost of the engine plus...

Andy:...