Morat wrote:

A Tesla S in some forms can do 0-60 in 1.9 seconds 200mph and manage a range of over 350 miles (at motorway speeds of course) then recharge in 20 minutes while I have a piss and a pie. I can't really argue against that anymore - even if it costs £85k.

But can it tow a 3.5 tonne trailer?

That's the problem with electric, it can flow both ways. I wonder how long you could run a house for on a Nissan Leaf?

Yes, that's the loophole or oddity. If registered when new to a VAT registered company as a business asset, then VAT will be charged on it if it is sold by a VAT registered dealer. If it is bought by a company or individual that isn't VAT registered, then it no longer is VAT qualifying, it is just a used car.

Daft thing with VAT is the only person that pays it is the end buyer. A manufacturer is charged VAT on the raw materials, which he claims back, he them turns those materials into a product and charges VAT on that when he sells it and hands that VAT to HMRC so the VAT is being claimed back and refunded to HMRC all the time until it arrives with the non-VAT registered end user who simply pays it.

Pierre3 wrote:

I believe that if the UK dealer is VAT registered then you can ask for the VAT to be deducted from the invoice price, but I don't think that it is compulsory, I have read that it depends on how much business the selling company does.

That applies if you are buying parts and the likes of Island4x4, Rimmers and LRDirect who regularly supply parts to customers in the US will be well aware of this. The price you pay is the VAT free price as the VAT will be paid at the customers end. So for you to buy parts from the UK, the prices should be no different to what they were before. If they are, then it is either the courier or your Government who are profiteering. Or, more likely, they are charging on everything whether they should be or not as nobody really understands the rules as yet and are erring on the cautious side. For imports into the EU there should be no tax or VAT to be paid on anything with a value of less than £39 or €43 (think buying crap from China on eBay) so in theory, depending on the carriage charges, it should be cheaper buying your bits in smaller orders rather than one big one. A company, or individual, has to register for VAT if their annual turnover exceeds £85,000 so most will be although buying stuff privately might cause the VAT to be added to a price.

Difference with buying a car is that there is no VAT on a secondhand car. VAT is paid on a new car or a secondhand commercial vehicle, but not on a used car. So even if the supplying dealer is VAT registered (which they will be), they don't charge VAT on the price. You could always argue (as I will be doing in the very near future on a car I am buying from an EU country) that the VAT was paid into the EU pot at a time when the UK was in the EU when the car was new so shouldn't be liable to be paid again.

It is the same problem that UK buyers have when buying from EU sellers. If a company in Germany, for instance, sells goods to UK buyers then that company has to register with UK HMRC to not charge VAT [or something like that], and the problem is that if the German company is only selling a limited number of items into the UK then they won't bother registering in the UK, and they will just charge German VAT and the UK buyer will then also pay VAT again in the UK when it arrives.

EU rules are that anything supplied for export out of the EU does not have to have VAT charged on it. VAT is collected on behalf of a Government by a retailer. The retailer buy in stock, pays VAT on that stock but then claims it back from the Government. When he sells that stock, he charges the customer VAT and passes that on to the Government. Anything he sells for export does not have VAT added and he simply marks it on his VAT return as having been exported. So they don't need to register in another country as the payment and claim is within his own country. I used to import excise items from outside the EU (so had to register for VAT with HMRC irrespective of turnover). I paid no VAT or local taxes on the items, I paid no VAT on the carriage charges, even though using a UK based haulier because the journey commenced outside the EU but I then charged VAT, which had to be paid to HMRC when I sold the items, I had one customer in Poland and had to charge him VAT just the same as any other EU customer but had I sent anything outside the EU there would have been no VAT charged and any taxes were paid at the receiving end.

All in all, a complete dogs dinner. It is just the same as it was 25 years ago when exports all had to ship to a "foreign" country under customs forms T1, T2, T3 or a Carnet Passage.

It's similar but not the same as the UK will be the only place not EU so you only need the paperwork to cross between UK and EU or vice versa. Once on the other side of the Channel and back into civilisation, there's no borders or checkpoints.

Bollocks!!!! I've just spent the best part of an hour explaining how the import system should work, how Brexit is being used as an excuse to make money for couriers and how it did, does and should work with moving cars in and out of EU. Only to find a bad token error when I tried to post it as it had timed out and I've lost the lot.

I have only one further thing to add, Testiculi ad Brexitum

Resistors are 4k7 for volume up and 15k for volume down so that isn't a problem at all. If you have the leather covered steering wheel but without buttons you have plain plastic covers. Mine is the real poverty spec so doesn't even have the plain plastic covers, where they would go is all part of a moulding.

No, but you can unplug the pressure switch (the one with just two wires) and put a jumper to short the two wires together. If the compressor clutch engages then, it's either a bad connection at the switch, a bad switch or not enough refrigerant.

Most Range Rovers don't leak as long as the drain tubes are kept clear. Same goes for most other cars. None of them leaked when they were new so why should they now? It's like everything else, a bit of preventative maintenance every so often is all that is needed. I agree with Morat though, the HEVAC system on the P38 is so effective you don't need, or want, a sunroof.

My daughter reckons they'll bury me in mine when the time comes.......

I know exactly how you feel George. I've been doing some work on the Ascot (until the temperature plummeted and white stuff started falling out of the sky) so I'd been using mine on that. Had to do an 80 mile round trip on Monday and half way there I realised I didn't have it in the car, it was still in the Ascot. I don't remember the last time, if ever, I've had need to use it while out and about but I still started to worry about all the things that could stop working and I'd need it.

The Nano is telling you the fault. On a GEMS power comes from the HEVAC,through the multiway connector behind the RH kick panel to the pressure switch (which is only closed if there is pressure in the AC refrigerant circuit) and on to the compressor clutch. So it can be a poor connection in the kick panel connector, a dirty connection in the plug onto the pressure switch or you just haven't got any refrigerant in it. HEVAC detects how much current is flowing and if less that it expects to see from the clutch, flags the fault and doesn't try to operate it again until next time you restart.

Clutch air gap should be between 16 and 31 thou and can be adjusted by undoing the centre nut, taking the outer part off, removing a shim or two from behind it and putting it back together.

Looking at the face view of the plugs for the switches in the ETM, they don't appear to be the same. Same connections but different plug size.

P38 service schedule says to change the filter at every oil change but on a lot of similar vintage cars the filter was changed at every other oil change. It is on a 2007 V6 Merc too. Only problem with that is that people lose track of which oil change they are doing and is it the one that includes the filter too or not?

Probably because the black looked better and as long as it has the red triangle on it, it'll meet type approval.

Have you checked to see how much current is being drawn when it is just sitting there with the BeCM asleep? That will tell you if it is normal and the battery is buggered or if something is draining it. From the amount of current being drawn it's possible to calculate the sort of thing you should be looking for. One thing that has been found to cause battery drain is corrosion inside the main interior light, so try pulling that out and unplugging it.

Because of water dripping off the inside of the sunroof (and buggering up the window switchpack), the previous owner of the Vogue that I bought with a mate, had put a strip of gaffer tape over the sunroof edges. So no rain could get in but it still had water dripping off the inside. We put a dehumidifier inside the car and left it there for a few days. We emptied almost a gallon of water out of it.... It isn't a sunroof leak, it's water already in the car condensing on the inside of the sunroof due to the temperature differences.

StrangeRover wrote:

Mine seems to have an awful lot of condensation which drips off the sunroof on to the centre console, surely that isn't normal?

In that case you've got a lot of moisture inside the car or there would be nothing to condense. The Ascot had a bit of condensation on the inside of the sunroof but that was mainly because it was sitting around not being used. It doesn't leak in the rain though. Do your windows also steam up?

Thanks Chris but I've already got a complete wheel with all the buttons that was given to me, and the wiring is all there, but I want to keep my original, well worn, plain, non-leather wheel. That, like the big spraystopper mudflaps, are part of the cars character and history. My works Kangoo had a small rocker for volume up and down on the right side behind the wheel and I want to recreate that, index finger for up and 2nd finger for down.

No book is almost certainly down to new pots in the blend motors and giving the motors a clean and a blast of 12V in each direction, putting new brushes in the blowers and making sure everything moves nice and freely. Having a mate who is a mobile AC man helps too, as does jumpering the connections behind the RH kick panel as the feed to the AC compressor goes through that. I haven't had to have the heater box out as it seems fine but that may be because my car gets used almost ever day so the flaps are kept well exercised. I used to get the book on at odd times when I first got the car and the drivers blend motor would stick at one or other end of the travel. You could almost guarantee it would stick on full heat in the summer and full cold in the winter. After driving through France with the outside display showing -2, snow falling and sitting in a sleeping bag in an effort to keep my feet warm, I decided I really should do something about it. There's some things that seem like a minor inconvenience until one day you realise they need to move higher up the list of priorities.

I've ordered one of the interfaces so I can have a play. My Kenwood can take a remote input but my steering wheel doesn't have any buttons as the car was supplied to plod with no radio or cruise control. I'm looking for some very low profile pushbuttons that I can mount on the back of one of the spokes so I have a volume up and down on there. If the SW-RC1 can also be programmed to answer the phone, I'll add a third switch on the other side for that too. Just got to find some suitable switches now......

I had a near identical fail on an electrical socket on an engine I was working on yesterday. A speedboat came up at a price I couldn't refuse and I've been playing with that so it will be all ready to go when lockdown ends. Got a 40HP Evirude twin cylinder two stroke outboard on it which I fired up with the bottom end sitting in a dustbin full of water. Happy that it was running as it should after I'd cleaned the carbs and adjusted the throttle linkage, I switched it off and nothing happened, it carried on running. Stopped it by stuffing a rag in the air intake (you can't put an outboard into gear and stall it) and started looking at the diagram and tracing wiring. When switched off one wire to the engine is grounded so set about tracing that and found an inline connector that looked fine but I could stop the engine by wiggling it about. Cut it open and found the wire had broken inside the connector where it comes out of the terminal. Cut the connector open and attacked it with the soldering iron and heatshrink. Just glad it wasn't on the working side or I'd have spent days tracing wiring to work out why I had no sparks.