Two Gun Bob
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 2 Apr 2010
- Messages
- 12,458
I failed miserably in my quest to be car free, so in order to reaffirm a love for our planet I acquired a Focus Eco boost 125bhp, famed the world over for being super efficient, burning fewer greenhouse emissions than a traditional aspirated engine. Apparently the 1.0 engine emits up to 15% less carbon dioxide than conventional internal combustion engines.
However smaller footprints come at a price, as many people ITK will attest, due it's dismal past. Affectionately known as an Ecoboom it's had more than it's share of problems with wet cam belts, carboning up episodes, and bouts of spontaneous combustion. Thankfully I dodged a bullet with the Mk4 Focus as it now has a timing chain instead of a disintegrating oddity that destroy engine bays.
The carb-ing up is real enough, being direct injection, so I will be changing the oil twice yearly, driving more responsibly on the pedal, reducing short wasteful journeys, and only putting into it's innards Synergy Supreme or when available Shell V to clean up 100% of those nasty performance robbing deposits, and also reduce build up on it's critical engine parts.
The new posh fuels have many key benefits, discussed in detail on the fuel thread, such as higher octane levels known to help prevent knock related performance losses, a drop of double detergent additives compared to E10's guff, and to give the engine a deeper performance clean to better my fuel efficiency and help keep it's carbon injector build ups to a minimum.
Sadly after buying in to the dream, we broke down over Todmorden Moor near the conservatory. A desolate place to be starved of horsepower's owing to the much documented abduction of P.C Godfrey in a tractor beam back in 1980.
Thankfully, as mentioned, we secured AA cover for the "confirmed" price of £8.50 monthly, so all was well. Engine management light had lit up due to a failed lambada sensor (a regular issue apparently)
And that's it really, and nothing much else to say, save for finding it an ordeal to use buses that turn up when they wish, and deprive us me my senior years of freedom to go places where I want, when I want and for as long as I want.
So could I live without a car ..well yes I could, but I could also live without Gin and Tonic, Banana Angel Delight, and Jaffa Cakes, but it would be a miserable affair and life's for living. Plus I don't see the lovies cutting back any time soon, and as one poster mentioned our elite, constantly harping on for us to reduce footprints, then laughing their bollocks off as they trot around in their gas guzzling range rovers: Do as I say not as I do.
I will continue to monitor the issue we face by recycling, and choosing better ways to reduce greenhouse gases, dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, fluorinated gases et all that we produce to live our mundane lives.
I have recently been in abstentia so have had plenty of time to research, chancing on a group called the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project, who determined that in order to hold the global temperature rise to 2˚C or less, everyone on earth will need to average an annual carbon footprint of 1.87 tons by 2050.
We all have a way to go to get to 1.87 tons but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make every effort to improve, just not without the isolation of car loss as it's beyond the dreadful: Small baby steps .. if we work together we survive.
However smaller footprints come at a price, as many people ITK will attest, due it's dismal past. Affectionately known as an Ecoboom it's had more than it's share of problems with wet cam belts, carboning up episodes, and bouts of spontaneous combustion. Thankfully I dodged a bullet with the Mk4 Focus as it now has a timing chain instead of a disintegrating oddity that destroy engine bays.
The carb-ing up is real enough, being direct injection, so I will be changing the oil twice yearly, driving more responsibly on the pedal, reducing short wasteful journeys, and only putting into it's innards Synergy Supreme or when available Shell V to clean up 100% of those nasty performance robbing deposits, and also reduce build up on it's critical engine parts.
The new posh fuels have many key benefits, discussed in detail on the fuel thread, such as higher octane levels known to help prevent knock related performance losses, a drop of double detergent additives compared to E10's guff, and to give the engine a deeper performance clean to better my fuel efficiency and help keep it's carbon injector build ups to a minimum.
Sadly after buying in to the dream, we broke down over Todmorden Moor near the conservatory. A desolate place to be starved of horsepower's owing to the much documented abduction of P.C Godfrey in a tractor beam back in 1980.
Thankfully, as mentioned, we secured AA cover for the "confirmed" price of £8.50 monthly, so all was well. Engine management light had lit up due to a failed lambada sensor (a regular issue apparently)
And that's it really, and nothing much else to say, save for finding it an ordeal to use buses that turn up when they wish, and deprive us me my senior years of freedom to go places where I want, when I want and for as long as I want.
So could I live without a car ..well yes I could, but I could also live without Gin and Tonic, Banana Angel Delight, and Jaffa Cakes, but it would be a miserable affair and life's for living. Plus I don't see the lovies cutting back any time soon, and as one poster mentioned our elite, constantly harping on for us to reduce footprints, then laughing their bollocks off as they trot around in their gas guzzling range rovers: Do as I say not as I do.
I will continue to monitor the issue we face by recycling, and choosing better ways to reduce greenhouse gases, dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, fluorinated gases et all that we produce to live our mundane lives.
I have recently been in abstentia so have had plenty of time to research, chancing on a group called the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project, who determined that in order to hold the global temperature rise to 2˚C or less, everyone on earth will need to average an annual carbon footprint of 1.87 tons by 2050.
We all have a way to go to get to 1.87 tons but that doesn't mean we shouldn't make every effort to improve, just not without the isolation of car loss as it's beyond the dreadful: Small baby steps .. if we work together we survive.
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