December 2005
Probably going to be changing role soon to go be work in the field, and so will get car allowance of £5k p/a
Rules as follows:
No Mondeo, Laguna's, Seat's, Skoda's, or any other typical repmobile.
Must have an element of prestige or style.
Fuel consumption must be above 24mpg as i dont mind paying for some of this myself.
Must be comfy, have pace, lots of kit and not too boy racerish (i.e Subaru's and Mitsi's out).
My shortlist so far is:
Volvo C70 T5 GT
Jag X Type 2.5 or 3.0 V6
BMW M3 E36 EVO
BMW 330D
Alfa Romeo 156 V6
Audi S3.
The purchase cost isnt so much of an issue, more a loan under £350 per month up to 5 years. however resale in comparison to original purchase price must be decent. Will be doing c.20k miles per annum
As you can see quite broad and a little bit of difference required.
What would you guys get?
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average 32 mpg from my manual 05 Tourer 2.5SE - mixed motorway & back roads. 35+ on a long steady run, 25-28 round town.
BBC London TV and ITV reporting this lunchtime.
The widening of the western section of the M25 J12-J15, M3 to M4 has now been completed. The bill was £148 million
Next job is widening the M1 from the M25 to Luton which will include a high occupancy lane. Read more
>>> But why do they insist on treating me as if I am stupid <<<
Because HJ readers are the minority. The Govt doesn't go far wrong assuming the rest of the public is pretty dense. Give them Eastenders and chips and they couldn't care less.
They tell me that there is no problem because there are more police now than there have ever been. Don't they think I'm going to question, therefore, why you never see any <<
They don't care about you -- only the 99%. In Soviet Russia the people who believed footwear production stats.
The Megane has started flashing a message saying 'Change oil soon'. It's on 14500 miles, the service is not due until 18K but the oil was changed at 9K. So I assume that the service message is just a counter down to the 18K point? Or does the car assess the quality of the oil like some of the VW's do? Read more
Well these chances are few and far between... ;-)
Always happy to help with specific Renault and VW queries.
Thread on the technical got me thinking.
The perpetual advance (?) from hex driver to hex with a hole, then torx, then as torx but with 3 or 5 points.
Why do they do it?
My guess is that the industries involved are in cahoots with each other on this one to keep on generating business as ultimately for whatever bolt head someone comes up with, someone else will sell a driver for it.
What next?? Wire-locking and security seals? Read more
ditto it snaps out very cleanly
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TourVanMan < yes its RF reborn >
Hi guys, not sure if this is the right forum but im in a bit of a panic over a situation regarding my Car tax!
I moved flats just over a month ago and have been in the process of changing addresses with banks car insurance etc and realised that yesterday that my tax on my car runs out this month and I havent had the chance to update my car registration to my new address!!
So what im wodering is- can I still get tax for my car if the adresses are different on my insurance certificate and my logbook?
If not how long does it take for the adress change documant take to go through and is there anything I can do to speed up the proces so I can pay my car tax on time?
im a bit panicky right now so your advice is most welcome!! Read more
"So don't stress, just go and pay as usual."
Agreed.
I doubt you'd have any problems here.
I had an incident on Sunday evening with a minibus which belongs to a youth organisation.
We had just dropped 10 kids off, having completed a 100 mile round trip, most of which was on the M56, when 1 mile from where the vehicle is garaged there was a sudden and violent vibration from the rear end. The guy driving, who is a coach driver by day, stopped immediately, even though the vehicle was across an access road to an apartment complex. Good job he did. We got out to discover that the rear nearside wheel was no longer attached to the vehicle. 4 of the 5 bolts had sheered away, and although the 5th was still in place, along with nut, the steel rim of the wheel had torn around it. The drum of the axle was resting on the bottom of the wheel. 1 metre further on and things might have been worse.
The bolt holes in the wheel were elongated into rounded rectangles 3 times the diameter of the bolts.
The AA hadn't a clue how to get us onto the back of the low loader. We gingerly jacked the vehicle up and secured the wheel back to the axle using the one surviving nut and bolt, which was enough to get the vehicle onto the recovery truck.
What's playing on my mind is that I changed the wheel that came away 4 months ago, as the result of a puncture. I had assumed that the person who took it to be repaired had the professionals put the repaired wheel back onto the vehicle, and had restowed the spare. It turns out not, and that the tightness of the wheel nuts had not been checked. I can only assume that the wheel came off as a result of the nuts not being tight enough, and of course that would have been my fault. We had actually checked the tyre pressures and the oil and water levels before commencing the journey, but as it was dark when we set off, we didn't notice anything untoward with the wheel nuts. It's not something I would have even considered checking in any case. I will always check from now on.
I actually felt physically sick to think of what the consecquences would have been had the wheel come away 10 minutes earlier, when we were on the motorway, with 10 kids in the back. My mind was cast back to an incident with a minibus on the M56 near Manchester airport last year, when I was less than sympathetic in my postings on this forum. Experience is everything I guess.
Luck was definately on my side on Sunday.
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Ah, a PB. Funny looking thing. BT had loads of the
things
Not that funny at the time, still a fantastic vehicle now
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Temporarily not a student, where did the time go???
My 1995 Laguna has a curious water loss problem, every couple of weeks (sometimes longer) it will go from the maximum mark to the minimum in a couple of days, yet at other times it will stay at the max mark for two weeks or more. I can find no visable leakage, it seems to be running ok, apart from a bit of rough running that I think is down to it needing new dist. cap and rotor arm (which me being lazy I have a new set in the boot, just need to get round to fitting them) Any ides on the water problem???? Read more
I have heard of Laguna MK1's suffering from heater matrix failure but I've not come across failing radiators over and above the rate one would expect.
When my VW developed a blown head gasket, the water loss was not constant, some weeks I would need to put about a pint in, other weeks nothing. In this case the oil was definitely getting contaminated with water, the evidence was clear on the oil filler cap.
I would check the heater matrix (is there any damp in the cabin?) and then get the head gasket looked at. A gas analysis of the coolant should indicate if anything's wrong.
Went to fill up with unleaded this morning and all but one of the pumps were empty. Apparently, all the local BP stations are the same. Seems that some ploker saw the fire on the TV (ignoring the fact that the place doesn't just store gasoline but diesel, kerosene and aviation fuel) and paniced. Sheep mentality set in and others started doing the same.
Why?
Andy Read more
£20 minimum per fill (unless you could prove your tank is smaller) would do it - then those of us who fill up when we need to would have no problem and the panic-buying morons would suffer.
I've been Reading-Plymouth-Blackburn-Reading yesterday and to-day - no problems filling up. Great advantage of a 70-litre tank and 45 mpg - the whole trip can be done on one fill-up.
Similar to Torx, but not a Torx as they have 6 points.
Tried two different Halfords, Machine Mart, Maplins, a "specialist" tool stockist and a couple different local motor factors. Neither of them have or even know about 5 point bits.
Any clue where I can get these?. Read more
Went back to the local Franklin dealer, one of the shops that earlier stated they only do 6 point, insisted on looking through a catalog, pointed out what I wanted and got to listen to the salesman mumble something about them being a new item or some such nonsense, despite the catalog looking rather old and dog-eared. Maybe the Franklin fairy popped em in the old catalog without him knowing?.
Anyway, ordered a set, only £7.99 so jobs a good 'un.
Thanks again, everyone.
Browse
Jaguar must be doing really well. They've just offered me £10K discount on an outgoing model XK.
Kevin...