Be Excellent To Each Other

Pretty sure with PCP you're the registered keeper of the vehicle. With PCH the lease company is.

Could be, i've never had a PCH so don't know the intricacies

Are you the registered keeper of yours? Does it complicate things if you're not?

I'm not the registered keeper. The only complication comes from if I get caught by a speed camera, the lease company slap a £20 fee on it before sending me the bill.

PCH is pretty much entirely like getting a hire car, only obviously for a much longer term. The only real difference is insurance - in most cases you have to pay for your own insurance.

That right.

When you insure a PCH you have to tell the insurance company that you aren't registered keeper, but it didn't affect premiums for me (although, did mean that some insurers wouldn't cover, oddly). If you need to prove ownership for parking permits it can be a bit of a faff, but again, I had no problem.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

I don't know what's best for me, personally.

What are you after exactly, what are your main priorities in getting a car?

I've narrowed it down to a few cars based on a compromise of practicality, performance and economy. They are all at most two years old. Main priorities are reliability and no hidden costs. I am happy to pay a premium for a three year warranty - cars are dead money to me anyway. I like changing them every few years as I would get bored driving the same one for 10 years (I wish I didn't). I am happy paying a fixed amount every month for peace of mind, basically.

Pick two.

All the cars I've found are under 8 seconds 0-62, have over 40mpg combined and have about 300l of boot space. That's a decent compromise of all three in my book.

I got the quote wrong, anyway. It should be:

Reliable, Fast, Cheap - Pick two.

Oh yeah, this won't be cheap. I'm ok with that.

Also, semi-relatedly:

Mine was.

Also, I don't want to fuck about with the stress of GAP insurance and balloon payments. They're bollocks and annoying.

I think leasing is probably best - I just wanted the opinions of those who do it and what the potential pitfalls are.

Your Iberian minicab is not fast by any stretch of the imagination.

How come you need a car again, Myp? You were really happy with the extra monies each month when you got rid.

It's possibly a bit early to know how reliable it is, too.

Ok. Run in front of it then.

I was happy with the extra monies because I had mountains of debt to service - the end is in sight with that now, so I'm looking at my options. Plus with the shit weather this summer and the alarming regularity in which we seem to be borrowing Ange's Dad's car for trips away, we're getting a bit fed up with not having our own transport now.

So the last car you had was the Civic 1.6vtec? When did that go?

Yep, that went in June 2010, so I think we've done well to last over two years without!

Have you looked at something like City Car?
http://www.citycarclub.co.uk/

Interesting, but I like the idea of having a permanent car, even if I'm not necessarily the owner/registered keeper.

A friend uses Streetcar as they have a few parked nearby - they're also signed up to other clubs but haven't used them. I looked when we bought our car as comparison, but calculated that for anything other than a single day trip/supermarket run it is prohibitively expensive due to the hourly charge. Incredibly though they used it for Glastonbury last year - I can't work out how spending at least £5 per hour to leave a car parked in a field can be cost effective compared to a weeks normal hire.

Edit - I see they now have day rates at £50 a day, but thats still more expensive than Enterprise or Avis over a week period if you book a reasonable period in advance.

I also had friends that did that.

Are they the same people? One of them is called Donkey.

Is your other friend an Hispanic cat?

Doesn't sound like it. There's only one person called Donkey in my social group and it wasn't him.

It isn't the Donkey I know, either. He has a Fiesta.

BMW have just called. They want my car until the middle of next week, all sorts of parts in the fuel system need to be replaced, as does the gear-lever position sensor.

They're also going to charge me £100 to code the car to play MP3s, which is annoying as it says it can do it in the manual - although as I noticed last night, the part of the manual that says it has a * on it that apparently means "Optional extra, or may not be available in early models."

So that's a bugger.

Still, I can stomach £100 compared to what it could have cost if I didn't have the warranty.

Oh, and they're going to give me a courtesy car as well.

That's good news, all told. Does the work they're doing now extend the warranty?

I wouldn't have thought so, but then the warranty still has 354 days left on it anyway so I'm not too fussed.

The 991 is growing on me. Took Mrs C out in it last night and drove it like I stole it (at her request) on the return leg. It has a real Jekyll and Hyde character - everything changes, vastly for the better, when you really give it the beans. That steering weights up and becomes vastly more sensitive to the smallest of inputs and there is feedback (or pseudo-feedback) of sorts; the rest of the car comes alive with feedback as well. That witless gearbox suddenly snaps into action with razor-sharp, intuitive shifts, as aided by your own instantaneous manual inputs via the paddles. The over-servoed brakes suddenly start to make sense as well with their awesome, assured performance; that flat six engine wails magnificently with terrific urge and fizz all the way to the redline and even beyond. Night becomes day in the glare of those massive xenon lamps. So, it's a 911 after all.

The rest of the time, when in Dr Jekyll mode, it's just so damn refined, comfortable, economical, civilised and assured. And beautiful - so much for the 'no-one cares, or likes you, if you have a Porsche' theory as well, by the way: no fewer than three separate groups of people were photographing themselves in front of the car whilst it was parked up for an hour last night, including one young lady who draped herself across the gun metal bonnet - I know, because we were sat having a meal. And it's "only" a Carrera, not even an S... No doubting it; it is an amazing piece of engineering.

I still vastly prefer the visceral delights of the 997 GTS (I can only imagine and drool at the prospect of a 997 GT3-RS, my not ever having driven one), but at least I can see where they're coming from with this now. It's like an immaculately turned out, well behaved, urbane Dobermann to the GTS' somewhat rustic, rather ill-mannered Rottweiler, grumbling, half-growling and recalcitrant, requiring a firm hand. But a Dobermann is more than capable of delivering the goods where the need arises...

Mrs C is demanding that I buy one lol, but I think not. Perhaps if they'd lent me what I'd asked for, a fixed head "S" Coupe with only a few options ticked... probably just as well they didn't.

Save some cash and get one of these instead, I figure it's a bit more up your street
http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/4074362.htm

I don't like turbos mate; NA all the way for me.
Awesome motor though.

(Edit: I realise the Exige S is blown btw).

If I can ever afford the running costs and can get a car for just me alone, I'll probably go for a 997 Carrera S.

Nice choice mate.
The GTS is only very slightly more, but is just awesome and comes with a fuckton of extra stuff as standard, including significantly more power yet still with natural aspiration only. Man, I lurrrved that car, even though they only let me have it for a couple of days. What an absolute rip-roaring, induction-snorting, sensory-overload beast.

Simply glorious; the very essence of Porsche.

Man, I even managed to hold back the bile and dig into the Porsche section of the classifieds for you, ungrateful sod

Ok then, this Even I quite like this...
http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/4049788.htm

Sorry mate

I wouldn't pay top dollar for a 996 though, not even a GT3 (sorry again ). I reckon it really does have to be a GTS; GT3s just retain so much of their value and besides, I want to use it every day, just like my Boxster.

Isn't that a 2010 model? Probably out of my price range. I was looking at the 2004 S.

I'm using the Elise everyday at the moment, it's a right bloody arseache. No luggage capacity, noisy, extremely uncomfortable seats, comical entry and exit procedure. I'm getting old, a few years back I would have loved it because of all that!
The Evora might be based on the same platform, but it is night and day in terms of daily usability.

You realise you're old when practicality moves near the top of your list, don't you?

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/3865458.htm

612 bhp
£148,000 new
2004
63,000 miles

Yours for £24k!

Don't be doing shit like that! You know what I'm like!

I realised I was old when I started making lists...

Been looking at new cars. I think I'll get a Civic, I was always going to get one of the 2.2 diseasels after having a go of a mate's but thinking about it logically I don't do enough miles to warrant it, so Ive had a go in one of the ones with a 1.8 petrol motor in it. Still quick enoguh for a runaround and sounds better too. Hmm...

Nuh-uh. I've been making lists my whole life.

Gotta have my bed by the window.

Replacing your MX5?

Our Civic has been bulletproof. I imagine a newer 1.8vtec would be very nice.

Nowhere near as fun as the MX-5, though. Why the change of heart?

To be fair, I think the GTS was the final run-out model.
The 997 S is simply awesome IMO regardless mate, I very much doubt you'd be disappointed. Just get a nice 'un with full Porsche history, preferably with only a couple of owners, and have it inspected.