car's knackered

[neal]

a few questions here:

i want to get alloys and low profile tyres on my car (t-reg ford focus) which currently has ugly steel radials and chunky tyres. my brother in law (who's a mechanic) says that getting alloys won't work as the car will suddenly show engine and abs faults, even if i get an alloy/tyre combo which has the same diameter as the current setup. my argument is that the circumference will still be the same and thus the torque required to turn the wheel and thus move / stop the car will be the same. he's adamant it'll knacker it up, although he doesn't know exactly why it would (just that i'll get abs warnings). can anyone settle this for me before i go out spending on alloys and spacers (as the wheels will have to be horizontally adjusted to move them out from the bodywork, considering alloys have a deeper recess behind them)

also, the interior light's gone. i took the bulb out and the filament seems fine. so i had a look in the fusebox and all the fuses seem to be intact. any suggestions?

finally, a fair few of the fuses seem to be missing (judging by the diagram on the fusebox). should i buy a bumper pack of fuses and replace them all? some things like the foglamps and the headlight angle adjuster don't seem to be working, so i'm guessing this is possibly why..? the headlamps aren't the original ones the car came with - a previous owner somewhere at some time put some expensive 'angelfire' (or whatever they're called) lamps on the front of it.

i don't want to annoy my brother in law too much, and i'm doubting the integrity of his knowledge after the whole tyre issue...

EDIT: ah, angel eye headlamps.

[Jeep Stone]

Not sure about the tyres.

With regards to the interior light, is it when the door is operated or when you actually turn it on? Sometimes the door mechanism can stick/break.

I wouldn't replace fuses. If you're wanting to check, go get a Haynes manual and see what you need. I've got a 51 plate focus so could take a pic of the fusebox, but you could be comparing apples and bananas.

[sickpuppy]

I wouldn't worry about missing fuses. Some car components are the same across all type of the model in the range. The fusebox will be designed to hold the fuses for the top of the range model and maybe a few extra slots to take up the space.

If your model doesn't have the electric windows, tracker, towbar, cd changer or whatever then that fuse will be missing.

It's the same with dashboards, they just put blanking plates behind the holes for the feature you don't have.

I can't help with the wheels as any car I've had with alloys came with them. Try a car mod forum, that might be your best best. I'm assuming your aren't going for the manufacturers own brand.

Also modifying your car may invalidate your insurance so it might be worth checking with them first and yes, fitting alloys can count as a modification.

[neal]

With regards to the interior light, is it when the door is operated or when you actually turn it on?

it's both when the door is opened and when i turn it on via the switch.

i bought a haynes manual and a box of fuses this morning. i'll go check the manual about which i need (as i'm sure i should have working foglamps and i'm certain half the lamp fuses were missing), and having a bumper box of fuses in the car is probably a good idea anyway.

gonna go check a car modding forum now then. or text 118118...

cheers guys.

[sarahA]

Yes, you'll need a working fog lamp else you could get done by the police.

[neal]

yeah, and driving round kent sometimes you need them. i bought it from a trader who'd done an mot on it the previous day (at his own garage). it seems that maybe it wasn't necessarily a 'full' mot he'd carried out. that reminds me, i need to fix one of the rear seatbelts: it doesn't click in.

[neal]

oh, and i found this: http://www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible_pg4.html

at first glance it seems that i was correct about the wheel / tyre thing

EDIT: after reading a bit more, it seems that there's a fair amount of consideration that needs to go into it. i've seen a few t-reg focuses around my area with alloys on them though, so i might go stalking my hometown with a wheel wrench and some bricks later on...

[Matt]

oh, and i found this: http://www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible_pg4.html

at first glance it seems that i was correct about the wheel / tyre thing

EDIT: after reading a bit more, it seems that there's a fair amount of consideration that needs to go into it. i've seen a few t-reg focuses around my area with alloys on them though, so i might go stalking my hometown with a wheel wrench and some bricks later on...

Search ebay, I got someone local for £91 quid off a focus they were dismantling - came with 1 allow and a tyre for exactly the right model.

[neal]

awesome, sounds like a good idea

i changed the front and rear wheels round on friday night (before a 240 mile drive on sat morning) as the front tyres were somewhat worn and don't give enough grip in the wet. you're supposed to do it every so often anyway so all tyres wear evenly. front left becomes rear right, rear right becomes front left, and the same for the other two tyres. in doing this i came across a few tips:

1) make sure the car is on a COMPLETELY EVEN surface, not something that you think is 'even-ish'. the car WILL fall off the jacks and you WILL fill your pants with fluid wondering if you've broken something. luckily cars seem to be quite tough.

2) once you have a wheel off, put it underneath the axle from where you just removed it and let the jack down slightly so the wheel takes some of the strain. this will help prevent it falling off the jacks while you have more than one wheel off. you could also employ the spare wheel to help you at this point.

3) if you're unable to get a wheel off because it's rusted to the axle, DON'T try to force it; the car WILL fall off the jacks (again). instead, merely spray where the wheel meets the axle with WD40 and also the locating nut in the centre of the wheel. put the nuts back on - without tightening them - and drive the car 20 or 30 yards up the road. turn a corner or two to put lateral force on the connection. i left it until the next morning to re-attempt removal (as it was getting late by that point and i was considering taking it to the tyre place down the road once daybreak befell us) but the wheel came straight off without any fuss whatsoever.


oh, and it turns out the fusebox with the missing fuses is just an auxiliary fusebox, the main one's behind the glovebox. so i'll have to check in there for a burned-out interior light fuse.

[yawner]

For the sake of 5p change the bulb anyway - just because the filament "seems" fine doesn`t mean its not fuxx0red.

As for the general principal of alloys, if you're getting some el cheapo S/H ones, then I'd say why not. But don`t go buying a whole set of brand spanking new ones for a T reg car - they might look nice but won`t add *anything* to the value of the car. 

[neal]

For the sake of 5p change the bulb anyway - just because the filament "seems" fine doesn`t mean its not fuxx0red.

good point. i guess i'm just getting used to poking about inside the car.

the alloys i get will need to be pretty specific, but hopefully will be mainstream enough that i'll get a set easily. i wish i'd taken the alloys off my old fiesta when the scrap man came to take it. that was a great car but my brother's missus hit the back of it and wrote it off.

i should have been f*cking about with this modification crap when i was 17. but i didn't take driving lessons until i was 25 so i'm now about a decade behind in being a boy racer (which is good, because the insurance is much cheaper and i'm sure the birds are still just as impressed by handbrake turns and wheelspins)