I've got a mix of black, blue, green and red, while the later (2001) Vogue I'm half owner of has white, so maybe the white ones were used on later cars? They don't seem to be as prone to breaking as the others.

Rear wings are part of the shell but the others can be swapped.

Or the other way round, yes, you are looking for continuity between the switch wire and ground with your meter on the Ohms scale so it doesn't matter which way round you connect the leads. Be aware that the diagram in the ETM, the one above, is opposite to normal convention which would be 1 for closed and 0 for open, and you are looking for 1 being open and 0 being closed. So with it in Park, X switch would show closed, a complete circuit, while Y and Z would both show infinity.

If it has been filled with water, that would explain it, you wouldn't see infinity on the open switches but a high resistance. When in limp mode, the display on the dash will go off and not show what gear you are in. The breather was once a U shaped piece of tube so the open end of it pointed downwards to stop water getting in. Mine was missing so it was replaced with a bit of washer hose.

The part number you have quoted is for 98 onwards, it is STC2944 for earlier cars which should have a black plug, the later one has a grey plug.

Heating oil is kerosene. I found out about it a few years ago when on a multi-Agency vehicle stop. The C&E diesel dippers turned up and I said to one of them that I didn't think they would be there as we were in the centre of a city so I wouldn't expect there to be any red in use there. That was when he told me they would be checking for kerosene. I told him I thought kerosene was paraffin and that is when he said heating oil is kerosene and explained how it could be used in a diesel engine and couldn't be seen just by looking at it like red could. Apparently, the only difference is gas oil (aka red diesel) has a viscosity of 35 compared with kerosene which has a viscosity of 28. Probably why it doesn't lubricate as well.

It's a bit odd though. H gate, BeCM (which drives the display on the dash) and gearbox ECU are all in parallel so if one is seeing the wrong signal from the XYZ switch, they all will. So the LED on the H gate will show the wrong gear but the dash will too.

Next step up from red, which is easily spotted, is heating oil. Apparently, it's much the same as diesel but without a lubricant so wears out the fuel injection pump. According to a Customs diesel dipper I was talking to one day, the only way they can spot it is with a spectrometer and if mixed 50/50 with pump diesel there's enough lubricant so it doesn't do any damage. As there's no duty on heating oil (and only 5% VAT) at between 30 and 40p a litre it's commonly used in urban areas instead of red diesel.

What does the display actually show when you move the gearlever through the gears? If it jumps around all over the place so showing the correct gear sometimes but not at others, it is one of the 3 internal switches in the XYZ switch. If it is just one gear out, then it could have moved on it's adjuster although I doubt it. There should be a short breather on the top of the switch but it often falls off and as it is directly below the LH condensate drain from the AC, it gets water inside it which rots through the thin connecting strips between the socket and the switches themselves. As long as P or N are showing correctly, you can at least still start the car......

+1, faulty XYZ switch on the side of the gearbox. It sends it's signals to the BeCM, the H gate display, the dash and the gearbox ECU. If the gearbox ECU sees a signal from the switch showing a different gear to what it is actually in, that gives the gearbox fault message. It will also put it into limp mode so will only use 3rd or 4th.

A 98 model would have had two wheel TC whereas a 95 could have had 2 wheel TC or may not have had TC at all, so that may be the problem. Is it the recirculate motors or the actual blowers that have the problem? The blowers get their power from relays 6 and 7 with control signals from the HEVAC. The recirculate flaps, as you rightly say, are powered from the HEVAC but it doesn't use a transistor it uses an L272M dual op amp to drive the motors one way or the other. The same system is used for all the blend motors so if you look inside a HEVAC, you will see the 5 op amps, one for each blend motor. They are blend motors the same as the others but without the feedback pot. So I'm not sure how you can get a loss of permanent power as there isn't any, they are only powered when they are commanded to move which would suggest the fault is the permanent power to the blowers. Do they work?

Those limits are for items sent by post, the same as here if buying something from an EU country. If I am visiting an EU country and bringing stuff back I have personal allowance limits. That is 200 fags, so no more bringing 1000 or so back at €3.70 a pack, 18 litres of wine rather than the boot full I used to bring back (which wouldn't e so bad if I could do my usual trip every few weeks but with the Covid restrictions on travel I'm having to pay twice the price for inferior wine over here) and up to £390 worth of other goods. If going the other way, it is €430 worth, which, oddly enough, is almost exactly £390. But, the point is, these higher limits are if you travel over the invisible line, buy something the other side of the line and bring it back with you, not if you order it and have it sent over, then the lower limits apply.

I suspect the Customs patrolling the border areas are looking for people who cross from North to South or vice versa, and don't stop to declare what they have bought. If you were to travel out of the EU into the North, buy something up to the value of £390/€430 and declare it when you travel back into the EU, then you would be OK. Although as there is no hard border with Customs posts, quite how you are supposed to do that is anyone's guess.

Last year I can confirm that the French, Germans, Polish and Latvians could request keeper details from DVLA and be given it. At least they could with speeding tickets but at only €20 and no points each, who cares? One thing that has been flagged since January is that the UK no longer has access to many of the EU criminal databases as the data protection laws are different, so it is quite possible it is the same the other way round.

It is perfectly OK in the UK to fill an LPG car from a domestic tank although you are supposed to keep a log and notify HMRC and pay the road fuel duty on what you use in the car. Very few people do it though as the cost of bulk gas for heating, without the road fuel duty paid on it, is often more expensive than buying from a filling station at the road fuel duty inclusive price. It's easy to spot though as the tank needs to have a liquid take off on the bottom rather than the vapour take off at the top that would be used for heating and cooking.

If you finish it off flush on the sides you can refit the little springy things or fold it over and don't bother with them. It needs to be folded over at the front or the edge will be visible when it is open.

I wouldn't call 51% to 49% overwhelming personally and I think a lot of people that voted for it didn't think through the consequences. However, it's done now and we have to put up with it (or find ways around it....).

What you didn't mention Pierre is whether Rimmers charged UK VAT on your purchase because they shouldn't have. Previously, VAT was paid on a sale within the EU but not if something was being exported out of the EU. So someone in the US buying parts from a UK supplier wouldn't pay the VAT on the purchase price, that, or their equivalent taxes, would have to be paid when the items arrived in the US. Now, the same should apply to a purchase made by someone outside the UK. No VAT charged on the purchase price by the supplier, but charged, at the rate applicable in the recipient's country. The import duty will vary depending on what the item is but VAT is always charged on the total, the cost, the carriage cost and the import duty. A tax on a tax if you like.

In future, your best bet is to stock up on parts when you are next over here as you are allowed €430 worth of other goods (or £390 if charged in Sterling) as a personal import free of any duty.

Glasgow is the only city in Scotland that has anything operating at the moment but there are others planned, including in Edinburgh, see https://www.carwow.co.uk/blog/uk-low-emissions-zones.

I would suspect the situation with foreign registered cars is the same as it is with speeding and parking tickets. If they can get the registered keepers details from the foreign equivalent to DVLA, then you'll get a bill in the post. ROI may now have stopped talking to any UK authorities since Brexit though.

Or just go to V8Developments and get one of their 5.4 litre motors, straight swap with no messing. Going for a different motor if you live in Oz, as the guy that did that does, and there's very little support for the LRV8 makes sense but not here. You're adding complication for the sake of it.

Makes sense but it doesn't explain why improving the lubriction to the oil control rings so they no longer stick in their grooves, without any other changes, particularly to the cats, prevents the problem. Or at least it does on the Toyota engine that suffered the same problem.

What amuses me is that when I used to drive into London in my 15 plate diesel Renault Kangoo van, I had to pay (or my employers had to pay) the £12.50 for the privilege of polluting the atmosphere. But a number of local authorities then charged me more to park it. So because I was driving a diesel I had to pay more when the engine wasn't running as well.....

I bet it does, open a window part way and see the difference between looking through the glass and not looking through the glass. It'll have a light green tint.

All the windows are lightly tinted as standard (unless it's a base model), I don't think gangsta style tints were ever offered

Have you got the correct ABS ECU? Early cars had the Wabco C system with either no TC or two wheel TC, whereas later ones had the Wabco D with 4 wheel TC. Not sure how interchangeable they are though.