A friend bought a 51 plate Almera 1.6 with aircon and 34k on the clock last week. I suspect he paid over the odds for it. I'd be interested to know whether he did so because of some reason known only to himself, or whether all the cars at this particular showroom are over the odds.

To avoid any flavour of bias, I won't yet reveal what he paid, or where the car was from. Could you let me know what he ought to have paid? This is purely for my interest, and for me to know that I am right (!) - I shan't be letting him know, as he is happy with the car so far.

Thanks,

O Read more

I've used msconfig frequently on Windows XP machines, does anyone know if there is an equivalent of this on Windows 2000? Ta. Read more

In the car-by-car breakdown, HJ is pretty sparing with the cars that he is prepared to recommend (let alone highly recommend). I got to thinking about this recently as I am looking into buying a previous shape Honda Accord. It is very difficult to find much adverse comment about these (save that they are a little bland..)and perhaps like the Primera, they seem to tick almost all the boxes. HJ is positive about it, but it doesn't rate a recommended tag.

HJ highly rates the Mondeo, but I am such a huge fan of Japanese reliability (my current Nissan and two previous Mitsubishis were almost faultless)that I am tempted by the Honda. It is also perhaps more likely to have been looked after well and driven sensibly ( a more mature person's car?)

Any views anyone?

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With Mrs V's test looming and her theory to a good standard we though it best to try out the Hazard Perception Test. For those of you who don't know it's comprised of 14 video clips of assorted road scenes. 13 of the clips contain 1 developing hazard and the other contains 2. You need to click on the button when you identify a hazard which could result in you having to slow or change direction. Throughout each clip there are any number of minor potential hazards which might cause you to do this or where you'd be right to see at least the potential for danger and you can indicate these but what they're really looking for are the major hazards. You need to click to register the major hazard during a particular time slot in order to gain marks. IIRC the pass mark is 40/75. Easy eh? Well not so. It appears possible to register a hazard too early, think you've done all that's required but come away with a big fat zero! It seems that in this situation too much anticipation is just as bad as none and that can't be right can it? For example I clicked when I saw road works signs immediately ahead but didn't click again when I reached the actual location just a short distance ahead. For this I got 0. The dilemma is that if you click to early you get 0 but if you click again and it's deemed too late (even though you've aleady recognized the hazard) it's assumed that you haven't acted in sufficient time.

Also, the software has a habit of assuming cheating if you click too regularly and awarding 'nil points' too. This happened to both of us even though we weren't trying to cheat! Of course there needs to be a method of preventing people just clicking repeatedly but I can't help thinking this isn't very effective.

All in all though it's a good test and worth trying (if you dare). There are some problems which need to be better adressed however. It's true that the test software we're using isn't exactly the same as that used officially but is supposed to be a very close match. Read more

So I've got about £11k burning a hole in my pocket, am hoping to buy an ex-fleet diesel automatic car (audi a4 / passat / volvo s60 or equivalent).

I've been reading the auction news for a few months now and figure I'm ready to have a go myself. Question is - will I get more for my money now or after christmas?

Cheers

Richard Read more