The Croydon College website is crap but afaict they don't have anything suitable. Though I can probably get my dad & brother to help me with getting started over the holidays anyway.
Top tip: oil goes in the car, not on it!
You're welcome.
> are you sure this is something you want to get into?
If I didn't rely on my car, it'd be a curiosity, and lower priority than a bunch of other stuff I want to learn, but since I expect it to work when I need it, not understanding isn't really acceptable for me.
> what do you mean by your spark plugs being faulty?
Just a theory so far, someone mentioned it a while back of being a possible cause of sometimes taking a few tries to start, and since the battery has been replaced it has twice failed until I left it 5-10mins with the heating on. It might also be cold/damp, but one of those times was about 90 minutes after having been driven, and I read something suggesting that in those conditions it can cause an issue with the sparkplugs being confused about temperatures or something (I'm not describing that very well, and I didn't bookmark the page. :()
I've also recently been getting judderyness when driving, which I've also seen suggested as a spark plug issue, though that's got a variety of other possible causes too.
And that's the thing, I'd like to be able to accurately diagnose an issue - I don't need to be able to fix everything, so long as I can at least have an idea about it.
> are you sure this is something you want to get into?
If I didn't rely on my car, it'd be a curiosity, and lower priority than a bunch of other stuff I want to learn, but since I expect it to work when I need it, not understanding isn't really acceptable for me.
If you rely on your car and you're not naturally mechanically inclined, all the more reason to get someone who knows what they're doing to look at it.
Driving. I haven't narrowed it down more than that (it doesn't happen in the same places/scenarios; or at least I'm not noticing if it does). It didn't happen on my drive to/from Tesco just now (~4 miles total), though it has happened before on that route - I wasn't (consciously) driving differently.
I don't think I feel it through the wheel/pedals/gear stick - rather it's the whole car... It could be like switching between having too much / not enough power, or that might be imagination bias. It doesn't last long - maybe judders a handful or half dozen times - generally enough to think "it's doing it again, yep definitely not my imagination, I don't think I'm doing anything wrong, oh it's gone."
It's not being in too high/low a gear, or bad clutch use (I'm plenty familiar with jerkiness caused by bad gear changing).
I think that's where you're reaching the wrong conclusion - I'm not not naturally mechanically inclined.
I like fiddling with things, I just don't presently know how (and am a little apprehensive when it comes to fiddling with large heavy fast moving things).
> to get someone who knows what they're doing to look at it.
And when I'm in the middle of nowhere at midnight with a broken mobile... how do you propose getting in touch with the RAC and letting them know where I am? :/
I'd rather make use of the things that make me human and be the one that knows what they're doing.