Be Excellent To Each Other

Budget of around £20k?
Garage?
Petrol head?
Use of other cars for the boring stuff?

There is only one real choice...

http://www.caterham.co.uk/assets/html/s ... ademy.html

Atom would be a fair shout if you could get them for that sort of money.

Yeah, an Atom! It's the Caterham for people who don't wear tweed.

Oh, huh. I always thought the atom was about 22K. Apparently not.

Heh, they are quite a bit more than £20k

The caterham gives you the car and a years racing in it...

http://sniffpetrol.com/2012/08/23/askto ... fromforum/

I am trying to wait for the mk7 golf now.

Really? I thought the Caterham was the Morgan for people who don't wear tweed.

I still like my car.

That is all.

Mine is in the garage today. Needs the fan belt looking at I think, it keeps making a horrible screeching sound.

Not just when you're handbreaking it into parking spaces?

Your car is excellent, that's why. I was very much considering getting the Cupra version, but they only do it in three doors.

The tensioner will need adjusting, I'd guess. That can range from a two-minute job if it's in a sensible place to an hour of swearing at a nut which it's impossible to get a fucking spanner on YES VW TOUAREG I'M FUCKING LOOKING AT YOU.

We dropped the rad to get at it in the end

Yeah I did wonder if there might be a tensioner on it somewhere but the local garage are pretty decent and if it's a two minute job then they'll charge a reasonable fee. If it's a two hour swear-a-thon then they're fucking welcome to it.

Nooo you quoted my terrible spelling!

Soz dude.

Ha! You fucking cunt

Totally non bodacious.

Mine's a three door too, and it's absolutely fine.

For me.

Yep, three door would be fine for me as well. I've been told it has to be five.

It's mostly just me and one of the kids in my car to be honest though. It helps having my Mrs's 5 door Civic if we're all out shopping.

...so tell Ange to get her own bloody 5 door car then.

HTH HAND

To be fair I think she's going to pay the deposit on it, so she should probably have some kind of say.

But where do you park?

BMW called earlier.

They believe they've fixed the problem with the M5 now. However, in order to test drive it they need to put some fuel in it as the "low fuel" light is on.

They asked me how much I'd like them to put in, so I said "will I be charged for it?"

"Yes, unfortunately."

So BMW want to charge me for petrol that they're using to test drive the car? Bastard Motor Werke indeed.

I drive it into the store, drop the windows, and get the kids to grab stuff.

That always irked me with the local Vauxhall dealers, there courtesy cars ran on empty. One they gave me had less than 3 miles in the tank. It ran out at the train station in Telford, so I rang them and told them to bring fuel or pick it up.

Piss-takers or what...??

I hope you told them to shove it up their collective arses mate. Did they provide you with a courtesy car? If so, return it with the tank running on fumes only!

I've been given a new (Type 981) Boxster S for 4 days if anyone's interested.

First impressions - much better than the 991 was; fast, nimble, huge levels of grip and fantastic handling - but dead, feedback-free electric steering.
The interior's very nice though, and the levels of comfort are incredible for a small 2-seater. PDK 'box isn't my bag, but it is very impressive nonetheless. The car looks very nice as well IMO.

I still prefer mine though, warts and all.

I'm 3 months into Evora ownership and it is still fantastic, but it is almost certain that i'll need to chop it in for something a lot cheaper this time next year due to wedding costs etc...
So i've already started to think about its replacement I think i'm going to go back to something around the £5-10k mark and my current list is as follows.

E60(62?) 7 Series
E500 Merc (Maybe an E55 AMG)
Early cheap Boxster
Citroen C6
XJR
Lexus LS430

That is the start of what I expect to be a very long list in 12 months time.

Or I could go back to the £2k bargain barge bin again. Maybe get a old 750 or S-Class, or even go proper old school with a 205 GTi or something

Choices choices...

How about a nice E60 M5?

Please?

Land Rover Discoverys appear to be in an internal competition to see if they can explode or rot quickest*.

Didn't you say "Disco is best", Grim...?

* With "Stuck accelerator and/or failed ABS" as the rank outsider.

I think you'll find that was the Bee Gees.

I've noticed that eight year old 6 and 7 series are getting amazingly cheap now, so they might be an option Trooper. Personally I'd take a 6 over a 7.

Mind you, if GazChap's experiences with his M5 are anything to go by (I'm expecting BMW to turn up at his house, steal his front door bell and invoice him for their time), maybe not......

I think the 205GTi is a total non-starter (probably literally), I had a 1989 Mark2 Golf GTI for about 18 months around 2000-2001, looking back on it now, it wasn't a great car in a lot of ways. 80s cars have had their day IMO, they're just so incredibly basic and shit compared to modern cars. Don't let the old rose-tinteds lead you astray.

Give me a shout when you make the change and I'll let you know how I'm getting on with the C6, up to now I'm loving it to pieces, but it's very early days yet.......

We just ordered a new car for my wife (Skoda Citigo); it's left me with the New Car Itch after weeks of tramping around dealers and showrooms. And the Picasso is developing a lumpy idle and finally clear of finance, so it's a good time to get rid of it. I'm thinking I might get a bargain barge. Lots of stuff on Autotrader; Jags and BMWs and Mercs.

Joke's on them if they do.

I haven't got a front door bell.

Er... I don't personally have one, but they do tend to rot, especially the boot floor. Depends which ones you mean, of course, the ones that rot are over twenty years old now.

The throttles very rarely get stuck open (to my knowledge), but they had a (quite rare, it has to be said) habit of dripping oil from the turbocharger, revving their nuts out and blowing up.



Top tip: If this happens to your car, grab your fire extinguisher and empty it into the air intake - there's no other way to stop it.

Are you looking for a 4x4, then? I have much knowledge

Dear Mr Gazchap,

We recently attended your property with the intention of stealing your front door bell. However, upon attending we were most disconcerted to discover that your house does not feature such an adornment.

As such, we left a bag of poo on your doorstep.

You now us £100 for the poo and £50 for the bag. When you pay us you can have your car back.

Best regards,

BMW.

P.S. You also owe us £20 for petrol.

That sounds magnificent.

Does any video footage exist of such an occurrence? I imagine it would be quite exciting.

Depends; we saw a house on Saturday that will require 4x4age in winter. The directions started "after driving through through Small Town to Tiny Village, turn left onto Narrow B Road" and only went down in size. The Twingo hated it (wouldn't go over the cattle grid. CATTLE GRID!) but Hel's Micra probably wouldn't even have got up there because of no space to get a run up to the inclines.

Other houses round there have personal wind turbines to go with the LPG and septic tank.

Looking around, the facelifted TD5 ones are fine for rust, but the sunroofs will still leak and the head gasket might go in a way we wouldn't notice for ages. So a £6k, 60-80k TD5 should be okay.

See psychic edit.

A £1,500 300Tdi will be okay if it's been looked after - there are lots of bad ones but there were so many of the things sold that plenty of good examples exist, and they're so cheap you can practically buy one per year.

However, you're probably better off looking at something like a Mishi-bishi Shogun or a Nissan Patrol if you only want to use it in the winter - or maybe even a Suzuki Samuri / Jimny if it's just for A-B (the Suziki's very small and no good for long distances or towing).

Crikey.

So that one finished up with it blowing up I assume, since no intervention appeared to be taking place?

I find it hard to believe that it could have carried on 'running' for much longer like that.

Yeah, sadly the money shot doesn't appear to have been filmed, but something would snap or cease after not much longer.

It would need to do a ~15mile commute when needed, so having something comfortable, 'economical' and reliable would be necessary. space would be good for 'shit look at the weather PANIC SUPPLIES' occasions. As would proper 4x4, dunno if all the alternatives you listed do that. Not diff lock proper, probably. Maybe.

Oh, and it's a 'primarily winter, unless we need two cars or space' thing.

Audi all road thingy will do all that with ease.

Would it do it for equivalent purchase and fuel cost? Skoda only did their 4x4 as petrol, annoyingly, otherwise that would be a shoe-in.

I had a mk1 Golf GTi for a while and it was a hoot, but I hear you it will be very basic.

I'm worried about any Beemers past the E39 really, as i'd be running without a BMW warranty, there is just so much shit that can go wrong, but on the other hand there is so much shit to play with which is partly why I want one

Plenty of time to think about it all though.

For sure, you can get one for as little as £2k these days, all the way up to whatever you want to spend.

http://classifieds.pistonheads.com/clas ... ple/586528

Something like this seems relevant to your needs.

Good choice, we are thoroughly impressed with the UP! Lovely little thing, just needs more power

Top tip: Don't use powder