Be Excellent To Each Other

Insurance is weird. With the Harley, I've found that Harley's 'own brand' insurance is much better than the usual confused.com type suspects - these come out initially a bit cheaper, but as soon as you start adding Stage 1 tuning and loud exhausts etc., most won't cover you at all, and those that do put the price up by multiples! Harley doesn't even charge a penny extra for these, plus I get an agreed bike value, breakdown cover chucked in, am insured *comprehensively* on any other Harley that's not mine (and third party for any non-Harley).

I mean, who honestly has a 100% standard, unmodified Harley? No-one.

I'm fine unmodified, but I may be interested in a remap with DPF delete, see...

Just got off the phone to Privilege, decided I'd check upfront how much a DPF removal + remap would add to my premium.

The lass took a little while to find the options in their system but when we were done it came out at an extra £48 plus the admin fee, so total cost to change the policy would be an entirely reasonable £64.

I suppose being an old bastard in an even older bastard's car does have its upsides.

For the first time ever, the renewal quote on my Vespa was cheaper than anything I could find elsewhere (£72 FC). The car still came out £35 cheaper at £217 with a free Meerkat though, so I won't be with Direct Line again this year.

In other deathly dull motoring news, I got 56mpg on the last full tank of fuel.

I really need to buy a more interesting car.

Oh I dunno mate, sounds pretty good to me - nice car, great economy, stylish little bike for the weekend and all cheap as chips to run and insure. Good effort mate

Yep, I'd actually be daft to change anything now.
The Vespa GTS cost me £2500 two and a half years ago and I could sell it for £2k tomorrow.
The car is a top spec Fiat Bravo which I bought new for £12.5k instead of £17.5k and after an initial DPF problem it's only needed standard servicing in 4 and a bit years and 64000 miles. It costs £30 a year to tax and has averaged 53mpg since new.

It's not a mid life crisis thing, but I'm very close to 40 now, have never treated myself to a frivolous car and can afford it so I'm thinking "why not?". Fortunately I'm quite fussy and haven't seen anything that's tempted me yet, and it won't be long before I'm distracted by a new console.

Ill probably just end up paying another chunk off the mortgage.

Are you saying that you are going to declare it to your insurance that you have had a DPF delete? Going to declare it to VOSA as well? After all, having a DPF reduces your emissions and therefore your car tax.

Reality from the Audi forums is that people don't declare a DPF delete. Indeed the trend with the Audi's is rather than fit custom pipes, they keep all the original hardware but just remove the internal parts from the DPF. That way from the outside everything looks perfectly normal. Also ensures come MOT time you pass (they only visually inspect it's there).

You may want to declare a remap though, or get one that you can quickly remove if needed.

yes, if I get stuff done I will declare it. never done it before and my current insurer flat out doesn't insure modified cars (except to add alarms), if i want to do it i need to find out how much (it must be 'not much') it'll cost. DPF doesn't actually effect emissions for dvla purposes does it, since it collects soot rather than CO2? DPF isn't an MOT item is it? Hollowing it out rather than deleting looks more stock but doesn't the MOT, I thought.

Very sensible mate, I wish I could be more like you.
I'm not even going to post my next car purchase; it's too ridiculous for words and I can't even remotely afford it; only Grim... knows what it is lol. I'll rue the day when I have feck all pension but hey. 'Live for now' is my (stupid) motto.

That said though, mid-life crises rock. I've been enjoying mine for a good 5-10 years now, I'm not chucking the towel in just yet.

Mixed messages on forums. General feeling is that it's better not to advertise the fact you have modded your car in this way.

There is a visual inspection of your exhaust and emissions system. If the system is in place (but the internals have been gutted) then no questions will be asked.

You'll still have the smoke test to contend with and that's laughingly easy. If worried just run a tank of V Power through it, give it a Italian tune up and then take it in for the test. All the crap will be gone out the system and the cleaner burning fuel will mean less smoke.

There's no legal requirement to have a DPF on a car and it doesn't affect your CO2 emissions, (it's a Euro directive thing), so nothing to declare to anyone except your insurance company and it doesn't affect road tax. (And chinny's idea to just try and do it on the sly is completely fucking insane because it effectively renders your insurance null and void, and if that came to light after some sort of horrible fatal accident you'd be in a whole world of pain.)

Based on my call to Privilege it's not going to add a huge amount onto your insurance premium.

It gets an Italian tune up every day. The rumbly idle came back briefly, mildly - part of me wonders if maybe it's 100k of grot being dislodged by my driving style!

I think chubby was talking about hiding it from the mot tester rather than insurers, and I wasn't really reading it as suggestion or advocation, more 'if you're going to do that, do it this way'.

Chubby. Heh. Autocorrect that I'm not fixing.

That is horrible 'advice'.

Modifying a car in this way without declaring it to your insurance company effectively invalidates your insurance (based on my call to Privilege a DPF delete/removal is classed as a 'performance modification' and absolutely must be declared (and paid for!) for the insurance to be valid), it's all very well if you're trying to sneak through an MOT or suchlike (but since the DPF isn't required for an MOT anyway what does it matter?), but in the wake of some kind of horrible fatal accident, if an accident investigator finds an undeclared performance modification to a car that hasn't been covered by the insurance - well, you don't need to be a genius to work that one out.

Hmmm I'm not sure how else you could interpret this apart from 'don't tell anyone you've done it'?

Indeed AE mate. If you're going to dish out 'advice', especially on stuff that's potentially really important, at least have the good grace to know what the fuck you're talking about first.

Groundless diesel 'brand' snobbery is one thing; it may well be ridiculous, but it's ultimately pretty harmless. Worst thing that could happen is for someone to needlessly spend a bit more on their fuel (or Audi-branded oil... lol). Totally (and needlessly) invalidating someone's car insurance, on the other hand, is quite another matter.

As an aside, if I have to suffer just one more ridiculous item of 'advice', allegedly off some glakey nerd or other on 'Audi forums' (and seemingly in answer to just about every motoring query this discussion thread manages to come up with), I truly think I'm going to scream. Perhaps that's just me.

While DPF removal isn't currently an MOT issue, there's no guarantee it won't be in the future, so you could end up paying twice to have one put back in.

It's thought to be unlikely according to "experts". Most of the MOT stuff is visual checks. Hence why people seem to prefer removing the DPF in such a way that leaves the outer casing intact. If you go and remove it and put a new pipe in (as you can do) that is almost certainly asking for trouble because it's going to be very obvious it isn't there.

Well not over here, since we don't have an MOT

(I'm not sure this is an entirely good thing to be honest, there are a handful of truly shocking wrecks on the road over here. They can still be done by the police for driving a vehicle in a dangerous condition and suchlike, but in reality an MOT would get the horrors off the road far more efficiently.)

FUCKING COCKFUCKS.

I know, first class First World Problem, but even so.

Arse biscuits mate.

Looks like its M3 o'clock then?

Twelve months minimum until I can change I would say. The Accord is on finance so at the moment I'm in horrendous negative equity as of course the interest is added onto the loan amount as soon as you take it out.

TBH I'm starting to get settled in with the Accord now, it's lacking the turn of speed I'd ideally like in a car, but on a nuts and bolts level it's a seriously solid piece of engineering, as you'd expect from a Jap car - very nice to drive and impeccably screwed together, just a touch on the slow side.

MR2 update.

Exhaust is made, just awaiting lambda sensors so I can weld in the bungs and get them wired up. nothing plugged in at the minute but I dont run it long enough to get off the warmup cycle so it hasnt noticed yet! it sounds great though, really deep rumble at idle and only rasps under load, just what I was hoping for. front brakes have been done for a while but need bedded in, rears are half done. went to do them tonight and broke a bolt in the caliper carrier, burnt it out, tapped it to the next size up and made up a bolt for it. Then just as I was getting back on track, disc on, putting it back together, and bam - wrong pads. bloody buying things off the bloody internet. so ill get the right set tomorrow and then its time to make a set of sills, something iv beed putting off for a good while now

Sounds cool. Get it polished and send pics!

Mysterious Audi Noise: this is an odd rumble / rubbing noise, seems to be from the back of the car. I jacked the wheels up and spun them. Immediately noticed a little wobble in the offside tyre! And a small area on the tread where it's completely bald, the rest of the tyre having a good 6mm or so. Michelin tyres are SO SHIT!

Anyway, it wasn't that, the noise is still there

Tow from the side of the A515 where I left the car* and new clutch is less than £450. Which is good.

*I called the police about it who later assessed it as 'unsafe' so towed it.

Will it be fixed in time for getting to the airport?

No. We've borrowed a car from mrsA's father to use to get us there.

Hang on, you drove yourself to your wedding? Isn't that the best mans job?

Pulled a bit of trim under the bumper on a high kerb. 'twat!' thought I and inspected. A scratch, a small tear, nothing to worry about, carried on with my life. Today I noticed two bits of the front grill had popped out, one completely missing.

And the brake ducts are disconnected. Fuck you, BMW, that's still a problem?!

Well at least it all just clipped back in, and my guy says that its pretty much a spotless example. Which is nice.

I still expect something catastrophic to go wrong. Stupid me.

Before and after of the (filthy) E-Type. A bit picture heavy (and filthy) so spoilered.

Aaaand to lower the tone somewhat, my boy racery stainless exhaust. sounds luuuurvely.

Is that your E-type, or a job you took on?

It's my mates project. its actually a replica called a Challenger but its hard to notice from the outside. He built most of it but I helped him out with a lot of the mechanical stuff and wired it. It's got some really cool leccy features that set it apart like shift-cut rev limiter, hidden away led interior lights that glow up the footwells and we did a lovely red led conversion on the dials that makes them much brighter (you know how old dials can be!) and... well, red.

The derv missile now feels in D like it did in DS before.

DS feels worse, because the traction control goes AAAAAARRRRRGGGHHHHHFUCKOOOOFFFFFF as soon as i touch the pedal.

A much bigger difference than expected, especially looking at how gunked the flaps weren't. more suspicion it was mapped - but then, they'd have done the flaps wouldn't they?

I've found a new quirk in the electrics that leaves the tail lights on permanently, so at least i won't find the battery dead now.

My guy took me out in his current beater. A 1.9tdi Leon with upgraded turbo, fmic, injectors and map. He claims 260bhp and i can believe ot but Christ what a horrible car.

So turns out that I'm now the proud owner of a mental car.

Picked up an 07 plate Audi S6 this morning. A tiny 5.2L V10 Q car.


Spent the entire drive to work going from slow to warp speed enjoying the wall of noise. Should probably just go an turn my driving license in now.

Pics to follow.

Oooh awesome! Saloon or estate?

I'd recommend getting the gearbox serviced if there isn't proof of that in the history. They are the only real problem points on those, so some preventative work is better than any problems down the line
Oh, and make sure you live near a petrol station, you'll need it

Nice one. DRIVE IT TO THE COTTAGE.

YES. THIS IS A MUST. If that road leading up to the cottage isn't suitable for a V10 Audi vs. BMW drag race, I don't know what is.

(your car will almost certainly shit all over mine)

If there is a drag race going on, then 370BHP of fine British waft will join in

Just looked at figures, and the S6 has a mere 429hp compared to my 507hp. Weight is broadly the same, but the Audi's AWD should help it get the power down much more effectively, and the M5's woeful lack of torque at the low-end of the revs would likely be it's undoing.

Filth mate, FILTH.
Man, what a fab car that is - still looks *SO* good after all these years.

EDIT: Loving that stainless (316?) exhaust too; that looks a very fine piece of bespoke work mate.

Fantastic! I'm not normally an Audi man, but I *do* have a big soft spot for these. I mean, a really nice, smart motor, dead comfy..... with a Lambo engine? Sounds superb too; I briefly drove one on a Audi day (the Audi geezer threatened to "press the override button" as I booted it to c.140mph on a bypass lol)

Glorious sound. Can't think of a better Q-car offhand?

Sounds like you're calling him out.

Y
Eah. For deffo

What does that mean? I'm not hip with da kids.

It means you want to touch his weiner.

Thanks guys, am well chuffed. It's a saloon in (I think) Phantom Black.

One owner, full Audi main dealer history, Will definitely check the gearbox servicing though thanks Troop.

There are only two things that let it down - thankfully both cosmetic - the body work needs a blody good polish and the alloys could really do with a refurb. Neither of which are show stoppers. Has anyone ever had wheels refurb'd?

I originally fancied a B7 RS4 but their prices have rocketted over the last 6 months completely smashing my budget. Then I considered a C6C5 RS6 which has always been a dream car of mine but I was put off by the fact that they are fairly dated now.

So the S6 was a bit of a left field choice but one I am very happy with.

As for mpg - well . Drove home from work fairly gently last night and averaged (according to the trip computer) 23mpg over 45 miles - it was all motorway almost door to door. Been out driving like a hooligan for the last hour averaged 15mpg over 25 miles. I can live with those figures for a while and I live fairly close to a couple of petrol stations (just think of the Nectar points!)

Thoroughly enjoyed blasting through two local tunnels today (the long one in Cardiff Bay and the Brynglas Tunnel in Newport). Mrs The Egg doesn't like the speed. Or the noise. She's dead to me now.

I will come to the cottage although the only drag will be APoD's ropey get up as I throroughly intend to start drinking the second I get there.

I'm off to the Cottaging thread.

edit - got me models mixed up

Good luck with that

Oh my. The temptation is strong with this one.

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/ ... ?logcode=p