Barry

I have to say I've really been enjoying Ramadan in Dubai. It's been so peaceful. The usual tourist crowd who come here and get drunk and stand in the street and shout all night outside my apartment have disappeared. For Eid we're planning to head to Ras Al Khaimah. I'd be quite happy to stay at home and play Xbox but hey ho, she's the boss!

There are entire forums dedicated to this one subject. If you google 'hypermiling' you'll find lots of information. Some people make it their entire lifes work to save 5 fils on every journey.

Service your car regularly, always use high quality oil, keep your air filter clean Keep your tyres correctly inflated to the correct pressure Use the correct type of tyres. Don't drive around on all terrain tyres if you never leave the tarmac Think ahead. See whats happening in front of you on the road. Anticipate braking and acceleration so you can maintain a cruise Turn your engine off if you're parked or going to be stuck in traffic for a long time Drive a smaller car. You don't need a big V8 if you never go over 80 or leave the city Close the windows and sunroof. Creates less drag, therefore uses less fuel Plan your journey so that you aren't going to be stuck in a known traffic hotspot

There was a known fault with the timing chain tensioners in 2.0 engines built before 2012. VAG have since released an updated and improved part, not that it helps you much now. Because you have full dealer service history, Audi may offer a goodwill gesture and offer to pay some of the repair cost. Speak to the dealer and see what they say. If they're not interested, escalate your complaint to Audi HQ. After all, they sold cars with faulty parts.

Nearly all cars over read the speed on the dash by up to 10%, it's just one of those facts of life and not something I would worry about. It's inbuilt by the manufacturers to stop people unknowingly exceeding the speed limit then suing the manufacturer because they got fined for speeding. Depending on the car, there are sometimes kits that can be bought to modify the speed sensor if you're doing something like fitting a different size of wheel and tyre and the reading is going to be way out, usually just consists of changing the worm gear, if it's a mechanical sensor in the gearbox. However, a lot of new cars read the speed through the ABS sensors so I'm not sure how you would go about changing that. I guess if you were good with a computer and had the right software that would be the way forward.

Electric cars are certainly the way forward. I watched a few Formula E races over the past 6 months and found it way better than Formula 1, the quality of the racing is just so much better. Although on the other hand, if it really came down to it in the next 10-15 years and all new cars being produced were electric, I think I would reconsider my career choices. I think I would find it hard to get excited about working on electric cars.

I was lucky(?) enough to have a drive in a modified 997 turbo a few months ago. In a straight line it was an absolute animal but in corners I can only describe it as dangerous. I found it far too twitchy and unpredictable. Why Porsche are still hanging the engine out behind the rear wheels after all this time I will never understand, especially when they have built so many good mid engined cars such as the Boxter/Cayman and the fantastic Carrera GT.

Quick and cheap fix - Pour a bottle of Lucas Stop Leak into the reservoir, turn the steering wheel fully left to right and back again a couple of time and the leak will be cured. It really is miracle stuff. I've used it a few times on leaky steering pumps and leaking steering rack seals when the customer didn't want to spend the money to replace the parts.

@Cheffy Working conditions are terrible for a lot of mechanics here. Sleeping in makeshift accommodation, no kitchen, no proper washrooms, working in a boiling hot garage with no AC, working 12 hours a day. The poor guys are just constantly tired and are in no condition to think straight when it comes to fixing anything. Then the fact a lot of them are only getting paid 2,000 or less, why would they care about the job they're doing. I went to a lot of interviews in garages here and turned down a lot of job offers before I finally found a place that was good to work.

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It's the same as doing a compression test on a petrol engine but instead of screwing the tester into the spark plug holes, you remove the injectors and use those holes instead. If it's going to be a pain to remove the injectors or it's an engine where you can't remove them like a VW PD, you can also remove the glow plugs and test through there but you need to shut off the fuel supply or disconnect the injector wiring.

It's surprisingly easy to do too. A guy showed me a simple program once, he added a list of all the usernames then a list of all the most commonly used passwords then the program starts trying all combinations and before you know it, you have access to the majority of peoples accounts. There's not much you can do to protect yourself. I use different passwords for every site I use as if they get one of them, at least they don't have access to all my accounts everywhere.

El Camino in Al Quoz today. SS model too. Very cool but you need a mullet and a mustache to drive it!

Wow the big 110 Defender is seriously cool. I've seen pics of the big Jeep before but never the Land Rover.

The easiest and best thing you if you want a turbo can do is phone around the scrapyards in Sharjah and see if you can find someone with a crashed 308 GTi and ask them to sell you a front cut, complete with engine, gearbox, wiring, ECU, key and switch etc. then swap everything over onto your own car. They come with a 1.6 turbo engine and around 200 BHP. Fitting a turbo onto your own engine will be a real headache. Before I came to Dubai, I was in the process of turboing my Peugeot 205, diesel though but I'm also going for the 200 BHP mark. I spent a fortune on parts and most of them weren't easy to find as it's such an old car. Maybe I'll finish it someday.

Is it the 5.6 V8? You should be getting 14.5L/100Km. If all your mileage is spent in the city crawling through traffic it could explain it but if it's cruising miles, there could be a problem and it might be worth performing a scan on it just to see how everything is running.

There is a known problem with the throttle bodies on these engines, read this, http://www.fordproblems.com/trends/electronic-throttle-body/ Was the PCM reset after fitting the new throttle bodies?

I'm not sure how to describe the new Rolls Royce concept car other than offensive to the eyes. It's like some sort of mad Boyd Coddington on acid creation.

BMW are considering making a saloon version of the Mini. When they started building their new version of the classic Austin/Rover/BL Mini, a lot of Mini purists weren't happy because of the sheer size of it, claiming it lost the spirit of what a Mini was supposed to be, a Mini. I wonder if they will rename it the Maxi in a nod to the old Austin Maxi? What are your opinions on the new design?

Has anyone been at the Emirates National Auto Museum and what were your opinions of it? I remember watching a TV show about the Rainbow Sheikh a few years ago and I said if I was ever in the Middle East I'd go there. So now I'm here and planning to head over there with the missus in the next few weeks. Is it an all day thing or like 30 minutes and you've seen it all? Also, what other car related attractions are there here? I see plenty of Ferraris and Lamborghinis on the road every day and I'm bored looking at them so the more obscure and offbeat the better!

What were the fault codes? If you can post them we will have a better idea of what's going on. Also, you mentioned that the fuel filter was changed. Diesels are prone to airlocks in the fuel system after a filter change if the correct procedure wasn't followed during changing, i.e. filling the filter/housing with fuel before fitting, following the correct bleeding procedure. There is also a chance that there is an issue with a seal or pipe near the filter/housing which is causing the system to draw in air which could explain the problem you mentioned but again, knowing the trouble codes would be a great help.

@Ahmad Al-Azhar Good luck bro!

A few days ago I was having some work done at my local garage. A lady came in and asked for a seven-hundred-ten.We all looked at each other and another customer asked, 'What is a seven-hundred-ten?'She replied, 'You know, the little piece in the middle of the engine, I have lost it and need a new one..'She replied that she did not know exactly what it was, but this piece had always been there.The mechanic gave her a piece of paper and a pen and asked her to draw what the piece looked like.She drew a circle and in the middle of it wrote 710. He then took her over to another car which had its hood up and asked 'is there a 710 on this car?'She pointed and said, 'Of course, its right there.'

I would ask the mechanic if it's actually a problem with the sensor or is the sensor working correctly and there is something else causing an air/fuel mixture which is causing the error code to show.