I would totally ignore mileage as a guide to the condition of a car, lack of use is often far worse than high mileage, if a car isn't reguarly warmed up and run everything will soon start to seize up and prolonged cold through winter doesn't do wonders for anything. It is also probably fair to say that drivers who don't drive a lot probably aren't as good drivers and probably aren't just cruising up and down motorways, which is about as light work as cars can get.
The first thing I would check is tyres, they can tell you everything about a car. If they're underinflated it is a pretty sure sign that the car has been owned by a moron who simply doesn't care or have a clue how to look after his car, walk away unless you are into £100 territory.
If the tyres are boardering on illegal it tells you the previous owner was almost certainly on a tight budget, and may well have made cut backs elsewhere.
If the tyres aren't a matching set you know you're probably dealing in £15 a tyre part worn land, nothing wrong with that on cheapish cars. I do it all the time and so long as you insist on getting premium brands it is an effective, cheap way of getting decent rubber on your motor. If you're buying a 911 or M3, however, walk away from part worn/budget tyres because the previous owner obviously couldn't afford to run it.
Then there are the cars with their original set of tyres on, if the tyres look prehistoric then they really need to be binned. Also a sure sign of either a very low mileage car, which is going to have lack of use problems.
If it has got a matching set of decent tyres you know you're probably dealing with a well looked after car.
I would also avoid dirty cars, if the seller can't be bothered to clean it when they're trying to sell it then they obviously don't care for it.
The first thing I would check is tyres, they can tell you everything about a car. If they're underinflated it is a pretty sure sign that the car has been owned by a moron who simply doesn't care or have a clue how to look after his car, walk away unless you are into £100 territory.
If the tyres are boardering on illegal it tells you the previous owner was almost certainly on a tight budget, and may well have made cut backs elsewhere.
If the tyres aren't a matching set you know you're probably dealing in £15 a tyre part worn land, nothing wrong with that on cheapish cars. I do it all the time and so long as you insist on getting premium brands it is an effective, cheap way of getting decent rubber on your motor. If you're buying a 911 or M3, however, walk away from part worn/budget tyres because the previous owner obviously couldn't afford to run it.
Then there are the cars with their original set of tyres on, if the tyres look prehistoric then they really need to be binned. Also a sure sign of either a very low mileage car, which is going to have lack of use problems.
If it has got a matching set of decent tyres you know you're probably dealing with a well looked after car.
I would also avoid dirty cars, if the seller can't be bothered to clean it when they're trying to sell it then they obviously don't care for it.
The Puma/Fiesta has the Zetec SE engine, which rather bizarrely has no relationship to the mainstream Zetec/Duratec engine!
Have to say the 1.6 we had was great fun, and I think plenty fast enough. Will still happily cruise motorways and with the smaller engine you could just about drive it flat out down lanes, without getting to silly speeds. They handle and stop very well and even the 1.6 didn't feel out of place on a track. In a completely different league to your Proton.
Get yourself insured on a parents car and do as much driving as you can. 10 lessons should be enough so long as you pace them out, maybe one every week or every other week and put in lots of hours in between. There's no point in paying a driving instructor to take you on your first nervous exploration of your residential streets, get your first driving lesson after you've got to the stage that feeling the clutch and changing gear are just second nature, and ideally if you don't find it too difficult/nerve racking get used to pulling away at junctions and driving on roads with light traffic.
Use your driving lessons to correct the inevitable bad habbits/non-test acceptable driving that anybody who isn't a driving instructor won't pick up on because they are so everyday. Lots of people seem to think that it is cheaper to not practice in another car between lessons, this is madness and such people tend to end up taking a lot more lessons, fail their test more often and are even less experienced when first let loose on the public highway. Driving is all about practice and making it become second nature. If you have to concentrate and think hard about what you're doing you aren't ready.
Are you sure there is no age restriction? It is normally hidden well within the small print of the insurance policy and doesn't feature on policy summaries, either the ones provided with your insurance or the ones that are easy to find before you take a policy out.
Yeap, I made exactly the same mistake as I did last year by paying for parking when I went in, thinking I'd avoid the queues on the way out and then leaving the show so late there was no attendant taking tickets/payment :doh:
The Pistonheads hall was pretty much just a car park full of the usual badly modified highly polished cars.
I went on Thursday, didn't bother going back today. Some big names were missing from the show this year, notably Prodrive. The trade hall was a lot smaller than it has been in previous years, from what people were saying it seems that they didn't offer stands at reduced rates to try and fill it at the last minute like they did last year. The main public stands were rather pitiful with none of the F1 teams and very few other major teams having their usual large promotional stands. The F1 and WRC cars were parked up like they were on a parking lot.
Sadly I think Autosport has shot itself in the foot charging too much for stands I can't see many members of the public coming back next year and the trade shows integrity must be hurt by some of the big engineering companies choosing not to have stands, even on the trade days.
Sadly I think Autosport has shot itself in the foot charging too much for stands I can't see many members of the public coming back next year and the trade shows integrity must be hurt by some of the big engineering companies choosing not to have stands, even on the trade days.
Will be going Thursday maybe Friday as well.
Edit: ticket taken
Edit: ticket taken
Last edited by ajp71, .
Most series that allow a choice of tyre compounds don't stipulate that you can't mix and match, it certainly is common practice in Britcar.
Here's what I was talking about earlier, go and get a small petrol one, will be more fun to drive, more reliable and cheaper to purchase. Don't get hung up on fuel economy and performance figures.
There is money to be made from buying damaged cars, in this example you'd probably be looking at £50 for a wing, £70 for paint/underseal/filler to do the job properly and maybe £20 for a new track rod end. If you do it yourself then you still can't avoid the cost of raw materials if you're going to do it properly. If you get someone else to do it you probably could still make a profit with a £300+ bill. Spraying a new panel with £10 worth of Halfords paint will devalue the car, it's worth more with a dent in it than a bad repair. Dodgey body repairs can quickly make a car worthless, I know this seeing as the Cougar I race was a perfectly good road car with a few scuffs and scrapes until some muppet decided to smoother filler all over it and then leave it to rust, every single panel was ruined in this way and the car needed a full respray, which no doubt the owner soon found out wouldn't be viable even if you owned a bodyshop.
More like £300 for a quick job, £50 for the panel, labour required to gap it (more if a cheap panel is used), preparation including masking and removing storage paint (more labour if a cheap panel with paint that has to be sanded off is used), at least £20 of chassis black to do the inside of the wing, £50 worth of paint to do the body side. The cost would be much greater if you wanted a decent job and repainted more than just the panel to get the colour blended in better. If you wanted decent underbody protection to manufacturer spec then add some more to the bill. If the front wing has been damaged it is a fair assumption that the car took a knock on that corner and you'll probably need to do more than just bodywork.
This may sound like a silly question but after crashing my car my wheels are now wobbly, nothing in the suspension seems to be damaged more than about 70% and I can't afford to replace it all. What parts do I need to replace?
It's not going to be terribly fun or characterful. I wouldn't bother spending this much time worrying about fuel economy given the insurance and purchase prices you are looking at. Assuming fuel cost is £1.10/litre and you do 15000 miles a year a car that does 40mpg rather than 30 is only going to save you about £600 a year. You could easily go and buy something more interesting thats cheaper to buy/insure and put the money towards the fuel instead.
Currently I'm driving round in a 1.4 Volvo 340, set me back all of £300 with 12 months MOT on it. Insurance would have been £640 with Tesco, I'm paying £470 on a competition car policy for it though (love the fact I get a £200 discount for modifying it and going rallying!). Great fun lively RWD car, with the 360/2.0 engine option it would be quick and cruise happily at 85mph (I got a 1.4 so it is eligible for endruance rallying). It's not going to deliver more than 30mpg but given how much you'd save on purchase cost and insurance it is somewhat offset. The other great thing about the 340 is it is so well built and tough compared to modern cars, particuarly useful given the abuse it gets!
Very quick car for the money and well built good interior quality and all, though you'll find a lot of them (and all the cheap ones) will have been thrashed and had very little maintenance done on them.
Very quick car for the money and well built good interior quality and all, though you'll find a lot of them (and all the cheap ones) will have been thrashed and had very little maintenance done on them.
Steam has never wiped any of the custom physics scripts I've downloaded for GTA4 when I use it to do updates.
I would be interested but it is just too far/inaccessible stuck the wrong side of London for me. Maybe an event in London could work? Obviously there is a premium added to everything and getting there isn't cheap, but the right parts of London might be easily reached by public transport by those in the South East and those further afield?
Just done some googling and found there is a loop hole, just go to https://www.spotify.com/en/get-started/ and you can register without an invite.
Soak it in WD40 and tap the heads with a mallet, then give it a try. With cheap old screws you must not put too much force on them and strip the head, each time you strip it slightly your chances of a neat removal diminish quickly. Keep repeating the soaking it in WD40, tapping with a mallet and giving it a try and virtually any fixing will eventually come free. Sometimes you will need to repeat this for a few days before it will free off. Use the best fitting screw driver you can find and push it in very firmly.
If you can't be bothered with the time consuming process of soaking it in WD40 then the neatest way will be to drill it out, simply drill the head off with a bit ideally slightly larger than the thread but smaller than the hole which it goes through. Once the head pops off the remainder of the screw will probably turn out freely it was simply under tension, if it is seized in still then a small easy out style bolt extractor will do wonders. The last thing you want to be doing with a seat is trying to grind or weld near it if you can avoid it, welding won't necessarily be very strong in such a difficult compromised place and would still need to use lots of WD40 and tapping if it is tight or you'll just shear it off.
If you can't be bothered with the time consuming process of soaking it in WD40 then the neatest way will be to drill it out, simply drill the head off with a bit ideally slightly larger than the thread but smaller than the hole which it goes through. Once the head pops off the remainder of the screw will probably turn out freely it was simply under tension, if it is seized in still then a small easy out style bolt extractor will do wonders. The last thing you want to be doing with a seat is trying to grind or weld near it if you can avoid it, welding won't necessarily be very strong in such a difficult compromised place and would still need to use lots of WD40 and tapping if it is tight or you'll just shear it off.
Saw it the other day and it made me want to get RBR out again 
I've got the 09 version installed and I can't really see what major changes there are? Downloading all that for the Renault 5 seems a bit too much hassle.
I've got the 09 version installed and I can't really see what major changes there are? Downloading all that for the Renault 5 seems a bit too much hassle.It is the first airliner to use a composite fuselage, which saves the weight and cost of fasteners used in conventional aluminium framed planes.
Had a good chat with the supervising sergeant last night. As I suspected the officer was not a trained traffic officer and for because of this had no cameras in the car, either forward facing or recording the conversation once I was pulled over. It was also confirmed that they were waiting in a side road with their lights off, so I had no way of seeing them as I went round the roundabout.
The explanation given for the tailgating was trying to read my number plate, though the officer admitted the majority of the time he was waiting for the PNC check to come back, not actually trying to read it. I mentioned alternative reasons to why I felt I may be being tailgated but did not push the issue. In the end I got a call back later saying that following discussion with the officer they had agreed that in the future he should either drop back once they had the plate for the check or overtake and to show that they are a marked police car. He also said they agreed that the blue lights should have come on as soon as the car being followed started showing signals of being unhappy at being followed, regardless of whether the check had been completed at that stage.
I think it is pretty poor practice that a car with no method of recording evidence and without the correct training was lying in wait, if they were just stopping suspicious drivers and breathalysing them I wouldn't have a problem, but once I blew zero and they had a poke at my car and realised it was a prepared rally car, as opposed to an old banger with illegal tyres and covered the issue of modifications being declared they should have just let me go, not try and make up nonsense about me failing to indicate on an empty roundabout or driving anti-socially for driving round it twice. The sergeant did say that bringing up the issue of indicating was probably something he would not have done in the same situation.
Overall I am very happy with the way the complaint has been dealt with quickly and satisfactorily, although I'm still not impressed by the driving in the first place and am livid at the guy trying to obstruct me making a complaint.
The explanation given for the tailgating was trying to read my number plate, though the officer admitted the majority of the time he was waiting for the PNC check to come back, not actually trying to read it. I mentioned alternative reasons to why I felt I may be being tailgated but did not push the issue. In the end I got a call back later saying that following discussion with the officer they had agreed that in the future he should either drop back once they had the plate for the check or overtake and to show that they are a marked police car. He also said they agreed that the blue lights should have come on as soon as the car being followed started showing signals of being unhappy at being followed, regardless of whether the check had been completed at that stage.
I think it is pretty poor practice that a car with no method of recording evidence and without the correct training was lying in wait, if they were just stopping suspicious drivers and breathalysing them I wouldn't have a problem, but once I blew zero and they had a poke at my car and realised it was a prepared rally car, as opposed to an old banger with illegal tyres and covered the issue of modifications being declared they should have just let me go, not try and make up nonsense about me failing to indicate on an empty roundabout or driving anti-socially for driving round it twice. The sergeant did say that bringing up the issue of indicating was probably something he would not have done in the same situation.
Overall I am very happy with the way the complaint has been dealt with quickly and satisfactorily, although I'm still not impressed by the driving in the first place and am livid at the guy trying to obstruct me making a complaint.
Have gone and arranged a meeting, was very disapointed in the duty counter secetary trying to tell me I had no grounds for making a complaint about a traffic stop.
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