Is it possible to turn off the passenger side airbag? I'd like to fold my rear seats down to transport some furniture but still be able to put a rear facing baby seat in the front. Can't do that with an active airbag for obvious reasons!
Can't do it- even with Nano.
I suppose you could pull the connector to the airbag, but then (as you'd get an SRS Fault) you'd be wondering whether the other bags would actually fire if you needed them.
Ah well...that's that out the window then.
I'll have to strap the little one to the roof - no air bags up there!
You can pull the connector, you need cable with a 3.3 ohms resistor, it will fool system into thinking it's still got a bag connected.. not that I've ever done that 😉
I've just realised another issue with moving the furniture - the air suspension.
It's a sofa thatt will need to hang out the back of the car a little bit and the suspension won't go up or down if there's a door open.
Will it be OK if I set the suspension and hit the inhibit switch before opening the boot and loading the car?
Been there, done it. Open the upper tailgate, open the lower tailgate then with a screwdriver, flick the latch over in the top of the lower tailgate that the upper would normally latch into. That will make it think that the tailgate is closed so the suspension will still work and it will also stop the dash from beeping at you and displaying Tailgate Open every time you start to move off.
It sounds so obvious once someone else points it out. Thanks!
You'll also fumigate your new sofa, and yourself nicely. Airflow around the back of the car circulates the exhaust nicely back into the interior.
Which is another advantage with running on LPG, the fumes that fill the car smell quite pleasant and don't make your eyes sting like petrol exhaust does.
Need to play around with windows, and sunroof, opening to kill the low pressure area inside car that sucks the exhaust in and establish airflow through the vehicle and out the back. Was told that back windows down an inch or two increases airflow through car without making lots of noise. Maybe something similar will do the deed here. Windows wide open probably won't work as, despite the "mocked up with Lego bricks" appearance, the P38 does have some aerodynamic subtleties to ensure that opening a widow whilst driving isn't instant hurricane inside so airflow is limited.
Clive
I'll open the sunroof, that should draw some air through the car and out the boot. I've been in cars with the boot open in the past and lived to tell the tale :)
Knowing my luck, it'll piss down with rain all day and everything will get soaked :P
Open the sunroof? Are you sure?
Make sure you've got your emergency T key with you...
When are you doing the furniture shifting Dave? I've got some to do on Saturday and have hired a 8'x5'x6' box trailer for the job. As the hire place isn't open on Sunday I can't take it back until first thing Monday morning and will have finished the job by Sunday lunchtime at the latest. So if it does piss down, I'll have a means of shifting stuff and keeping it dry on Sunday afternoon/evening.
Picking up the sofa from Coventry today and taking it to Huncote. At the weekend I need to take the sofa from my house, swap it with the one in Huncote and then pick up two matching arm chairs from Coventry and take them to Huncote.
It's all a bit convoluted but my driving license doesn't include permission to drive with a trailer rated for morr than, I think, 750kg (
Use of a trailer on the Sunday would definitely cut down on the number of trips needed if you could also spare the time to drive as well. My car has a tow bar if your insurance covers you to drive other cars?
I can provide manual labour to assist you on Saturday and a financial contribution towards the trailer hire cost :)
RutlandRover wrote:
Picking up the sofa from Coventry today and taking it to Huncote. At the weekend I need to take the sofa from my house, swap it with the one in Huncote and then pick up two matching arm chairs from Coventry and take them to Huncote.
It's all a bit convoluted but my driving license doesn't include permission to drive with a trailer rated for morr than, I think, 750kg (
Use of a trailer on the Sunday would definitely cut down on the number of trips needed if you could also spare the time to drive as well. My car has a tow bar if your insurance covers you to drive other cars?
I can provide manual labour to assist you on Saturday and a financial contribution towards the trailer hire cost :)
Its not quite as simple on the trailer rules as you state above - its 750kg or a combination of 3.5t in total, with the trailer weighing less than the towing vehicle. Quote from the dvla share driving license below (this would be assuming a Category B license is held, depends when you passed your driving test). - you can check your own license on the share driving license page and goto the vehicles you can drive tab to see what each category covers.
"You can drive vehicles up to 3,500kg Maximum Authorised Mass (MAM) and up to 8 passenger seats, and a driver, with trailer up to 750kg; trailers over 750kg if combined weight of vehicle and trailer isn’t over 3,500kg and the fully-loaded trailer doesn’t weigh more than the unladen vehicle"
If you took your test before 1st Jan 1997 then the rules are different (less restrictive) - See > https://www.gov.uk/towing-with-car
In either case 750kg is a heavy trailer, and you should be fine with somewhat heavier than that given you'd be using a heavy vehicle to tow it with anyway.
Ah yes, forgot about the restrictions on younger drivers. I passed my test long before 1997 (about 20 years before) so I've got BE and C1+E on my licence so am OK for a vehicle up to 7.5 tonnes with a 750 kg trailer or a lesser vehicle with a trailer up to the maximum plated towing weight of the vehicle. So with the P38 I can tow a braked trailer up to 3500 kg. The one I've hired is a twin axle braked box with a MAM of 1700 kgs so while I can drive it, someone with a newer licence can't.
As an observation, the P38 (and the Disco too I think) are one of the few vehicles certified to tow a trailer that weighs more than the car.
Depending on how Saturday goes, I may still need to unload the trailer on Sunday morning but me, the car and the trailer will be available on Sunday afternoon if needed. Probably better to use my car anyway, I'm on half price fuel remember.......
BrianH wrote:
In either case 750kg is a heavy trailer,
No it isn't, a P38 doesn't even know it's there! I regularly tow around 2.5 tonnes and my car will cruise at 75 mph (on the continent where they don't have this stupid reduced speed limit if you are towing) with that on the back, it just takes a little longer to get there. Heaviest I've towed was a boat on a trailer with a combined weight of around 4.5 tonnes. Other than it being over the maximum weight for the car it was made worse by the trailer not having any brakes. I had to remember to only apply the brakes when pointing in a straight line.......
Gilbertd wrote:
BrianH wrote:
In either case 750kg is a heavy trailer,
No it isn't, a P38 doesn't even know it's there! I regularly tow around 2.5 tonnes and my car will cruise at 75 mph (on the continent where they don't have this stupid reduced speed limit if you are towing) with that on the back, it just takes a little longer to get there. Heaviest I've towed was a boat on a trailer with a combined weight of around 4.5 tonnes. Other than it being over the maximum weight for the car it was made worse by the trailer not having any brakes. I had to remember to only apply the brakes when pointing in a straight line.......
I'll rephrase what I meant - An empty trailer is unlikely to be 750kg by itself, though yours probably is, but the MAM it appears comes into play as well - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/towing-a-trailer-with-a-car-or-van/towing-a-trailer-with-a-car-or-van-the-basics for anyone looking for further info, but put as simply as possible its down to what the trailer can be loaded to. That would be the convoluted bit as its not as simple as it could be or you might expect it to be to understand.
And yes, the P38/Disco 2 etc do tow like there isn't a trailer on the back, biggest problem I find with the smaller trailer I've got is seeing it behind mine. The Focus I've got on the other hand your reminded its there all the time your driving it.
Gilbertd wrote:
As an observation, the P38 (and the Disco too I think) are one of the few vehicles certified to tow a trailer that weighs more than the car.
With this point i think the same applies to the defender and some other vehicles as well as the Disco (the towbar on mine is rated for 3.5t even though it only weighs 2, but I couldn't drive it in that situation whereas you could). Something to do with having a second driven axle if my mate is correct.
Yes, I suspect that the fact that both axles are driven on our cars is the reason why they are plated to tow a greater weight than the car. As far as trailers go, it's the MAM, or Gross Vehicle Weight as it used to be called, that is relevant. So even a little box trailer that may weight about 100 kgs when empty, will have a MAM of up to 750 kgs so doesn't need to be braked (and can be towed by these youngsters). It also means that every trailer must now go through an IVA test so it can be plated and certified to show it's MAM. Technically, gone are the days when you could just weld together a few bits of angle iron, stick a pair of wheels and a tow hitch on it and use it (even though lots of people still do).
There was a big fuss a few years ago within the motorhome fraternity who are in the habit of towing a small car behind their mobile 3 bed detached. Even though quite a few smaller cars weigh less than 750 kgs unladen, it's that MAM that is important and with all other than the Smart car, their maximum loaded design weight is over 750 kgs. The law states that a trailer with a MAM of over 750 kgs must have brakes on all wheels so a simple A frame isn't good enough, they have to have a mechanism that applies the brakes on the car being towed. That also means that a braked two wheel dolly that lifts two of the towed cars wheels off the ground still isn't good enough as the other two wheels aren't braked.
The rules are completely different for recovery as opposed to transport, where a dolly or spectacle lift are good enough. The emphasis being on getting the dead or damaged car off the road as quickly as possible. So when you see one of these transporters loaded with scrap cars off to the crusher with an extra one on a spec lift on the back, that is actually illegal as the car on the spec lift is being transported rather than recovered.
My Jeep Cherokee is plated at 3250Kg but weighs a WHOLE lot less than a P38 at 1500Kg!
I've never towed anything like that weight behind it, but I suspect the rear drums might be a weak spot :)