Very strange, I've downloaded 9GB of it now and still going 600kb/s! I have the L package, so not sure why I'm still going at that speed, not that I'm complaining! Also according to that I should be getting 512kbps upload, mine is currently 1022kbps upload.

The only thing I don't get is the 10meg speeds, due to me being in a block of flats in Nottingham city centre the best I can hope for is 6meg

Quote from adamlfs :

I've just bought it on Steam, was going to wait to hear more reviews once it came out on friday before buying it. But hey getting it early is worth it haha.

Suck that Virgin media throttle the bloody internet. Was going to be 2hours at 1.2mps but now is 256kbs and 5-6 hours. YEY!

My VM line (ADSL) is running at 600kb/s constant which is about right for my connection. So not sure why you're being throttled.

Steam appear to have messed up - EU release date is on Friday, US is today, yet I'm downloading it right now. 14GB download though, 3 hours left.

Right, pre-ordered on Steam, £24.99

None of my friends like games like this What's the general consensus of people on this forum between PC and PS3?

So, should I get this on PC or on PS3? (Xbox RROD'd last week), which is better bet?

I have a pad for PC as well as wheel, so if it's crap with a wheel that's no problem.

I have a 1.6 petrol Focus (2003), and I'm glad I don't have a diesel. Petrol is more fun, more noise, more revs, no turbo to wait for. The Focus in general is really comfortable - I do long motorway journeys quite often without any discomfort.

Great fun when roads get twisty too (independent rear suspension). I tend to get 38-40mpg with unleaded which isn't bad as i do rag it around a bit sometimes. Had it coming up to 4 years now, it's been reliable (apart from an alternator pully that broke and your general wear and tear stuff like track rod ends). Just touching 65,000 miles and still runs very smoothly.

However if you really want diesel there's plenty people around who have a TDCI Focus who wouldn't have anything different - my personal preference is petrol though, so maybe I'm biased.

Go do some test drives - I tested a Focus, Astra and Fiesta and the Focus was way out on top. I also attempted to test drive a Citroen C3 but my feet were too big for the pedals!

Don't worry about it mate, my 2003 Focus with drum brakes on the back does the same thing for first couple of presses of the pedal, had the car nearly 3 years and they still work fine, had them checked over a couple of years ago and all fine then too. It's usually worse when it's a damp or cold day, on warm days it doesn't do it as often.

Quote from P5YcHoM4N :

It is possible that someone in the flats is behind the break ins. We had secure parking when I was at uni (to be secure it needs to have a fence and lockable gates), and there was a spate of break ins one semester, the guy behind them was a student, after he was kicked out of uni the break ins stopped.

The police are pretty certain it's homeless people looking for something to nick for a quick sell - like sat navs. It's a pretty big problem for the whole of Nottingham at the minute (apparently there was an item on the local news about it), and flats with underground car parks are being targeted the most as they can do their 'business' without being seen from flat windows.

Quote from imthebestracerthereis :

Make sure you take everything out of sight: GPS, phone holsters, anything in the backseat, plugged into the cigarette lighter etc. If a thief sees nothing they want, it's not a target. Do you have an alarm on your car? If you're willing to spend some extra cash on it, I'd go for an alarm kit. It would deter the thief away.

Yeah the car has a factory fitted alarm. The thing is there's another Ford Focus within sight of my flat with an alarm that goes off at will pretty much whenever it wants to, so when I heard the alarm go I thought nothing of it and went back to sleep.

I do usually keep everything out of sight, the only thing that was in sight was a mobile phone charger which was on the floor after use earlier in the day, which was moved from the floor to the drivers seat.

Quote from theirishnoob :

sounds like this place has been falsely advertised.

it needs: big gates + walls + cctv + gaurds to be concidered safe let alone secure.

Frankly the fact you haven't demanded your car repaired + money back seeing as the car park isn't as described is beyond me...

That's what I plan on doing once I get an 'official' definition of a secure car park, so they can't claim it's secure already. Scoured the internet looking for such a definition and I just get a list of secure public car parks.

I very much doubt I'd get any money back from them, I just want to hear what they're going to do to remedy the situation. The only reason I left it until now was because I've been up and down the country over Christmas and new year, I'd completely forgotten about it until the notice in the lift yesterday.

My contract here ends at the end of June - I've already said I'm not renewing it because of what's gone on.

Quote from pb32000 :

I guess the problem is as soon as someone has got it it's pretty difficult to see what's going on from the outside so no one's going to notice a thief breaking in. You'd probably have better luck parking on the road under a streetlight.

Problem with that is I'm in Nottingham City Centre, so it's heavily restricted parking on meter for maximum 3 hours. Only Sundays and evenings are unrestricted free parking - so will be a pain in the arse moving the car out of the car park every night and back in in the morning.

I'm in need of some help here - Googling hasn't helped.

I rent a flat in Nottingham which has been advertised with a secure car park.

My car was broken in to before Christmas along with two others on the same night in this 'secure' car park, then coming back from university yesterday there was a sign in the lift saying "3 cars were broken into on the night 9th january..." One of those cars was parked next to mine and again last night I heard what sounded like somebody's car window being broken - although it could equally be the pub next door.

The worrying thing is, if they can get into the car park, they can get into any flats as there is no extra locks/fobs needed to get from car park to flats - just a single lock on the flat doors, which if I'm honest, aren't great either!

I'm paying £3-5 per WEEK extra on rent (compared to flats without parking spaces) for this secure car parking space which turns out it isn't at all along with £70 insurance excess whenever my car gets broken in to. I'm currently writing a letter to the group that manages these flats complaining about lack of security.

So, what is the definition of a secure car park? - All the car park here has is some large metal gates operated by a fob which stay open so long it's easy for someone to walk straight in behind a car without being seen, there is also no CCTV.

I'd rather get a Fanatec wheel for that price! :o

Quote from mr_x :

Another of my friends has an Alfa 146 he got about a year ago - 102,000 miles on the clock and so far it's not let him down - maybe he's lucky though!

scrap that bit, was actually the 147 he got.

My mate has a Peugeot 206 which his parents had new from 2001 (he inherited it 2 years ago) and now has 90,000 miles on the clock, it's forever in the garage with loads of problems, I told him he should probably replace it the first time it went wrong but he didn't and has probably now spent nearly £1k repairing it.

Another of my friends has an Alfa 146 he got about a year ago - 102,000 miles on the clock and so far it's not let him down - maybe he's lucky though!

Some of this

@ 121.9p per litre - £32 for HALF a tank of petrol in an 03 Ford Focus!

and one of these (not same one, but a shovel none the less) for my 130 mile trip from a small town in the pennines in County Durham to Nottinghamshire!

I have a 2nd b-spec driver called M.Schuhmacher!

My main b-spec driver is called R.Fuchs, he's now stopped wrecking my cars as much at level 9.

My B-spec driver destroyed my Honda Civic Type R doing a street race around London. I think 301bhp FWD is a bit too much for B-spec drivers to handle!

How about both?

I'm all in for a different combo every week too though. (I was meant to say that in my last post but forgot!)

Quote from danowat :

How about we run, just for fun obviously, because there is no way of policing it, a weekly time trial competition?.

We could use a randomly selected car and track, run them stock, with comfort hard tyres and no assists.

Any interest?

How about an LFS Reasonably Priced Car on Top Gear Test Track?

I'm organising it with Syncro-Gaming so have rules outlined already that can be used here if need be - I can't officiate it though as I have a RACE07 championship to run over there too!

The way I've done it over there is to roll onto a standing start, do the lap (make sure it's not a red time) and take a photo with camera/mobile phone and upload it.

Quote from Boris Lozac :

Why bullshots, like you don't have the game yourself Have you raced against Premium cars, they look this good besides you.. reflections and all, offcourse photo mode makes it prettier, but not that much.. some AA and stuff.

I agree with Sinbad... Bullshots... And yes, I have GT5 and am addicted to it - I'm at level 22 A-spec so I have plenty racing to know about it, I've also used photomode a fair bit. Especially in replays when you take 'photos' the quality of the car model is considerably better when you hit the 'shoot' button to take the photo than it is in the replay. The difference between in-game and photomode details is the same as Forza in my opinion.

Quote from jibber :

Bought a new one. The old one was still running, but refused to read any discs. Found out there was a data transfer option in the menu, copied everything to the new one... works fine again!

You didn't really need to buy a new one - I bought a broken fat PS3 from ebay for £60 - not reading disks. All it needs is a new blu-ray laser which cost around £40, then you pull it apart using youtube tutorials and fix it yourself. Much cheaper!

Here's all 17 cars that can be race modified in image format:

http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/6994/redbullhangar71w.jpg
http://img97.imageshack.us/img97/6514/redbullhangar72m.jpg
http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/606/redbullhangar73.jpg
http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/6795/redbullhangar74c.jpg
http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/4082/redbullhangar75.jpg
http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/4338/redbullhangar76.jpg
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/8786/redbullhangar77.jpg
http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/1165/redbullhangar78.jpg
http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/695/redbullhangar79.jpg
http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/3847/redbullhangar710.jpg
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/1148/redbullhangar711.jpg
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/40/redbullhangar712.jpg
http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/5756/redbullhangar713.jpg
http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/8011/redbullhangar714.jpg
http://img815.imageshack.us/img815/8248/redbullhangar715.jpg
http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/8440/redbullhangar716.jpg
http://img602.imageshack.us/img602/7100/redbullhangar717.jpg

17 is a pathetic number if you ask me -what have PD been doing for 5 years?

Quote from RMZ125 :

get a dfgt what are made for the game

But it's a toy compared to the G25.

Does anyone find the force feedback to be far too heavy on the gravel rally stages?

I'm using the G25 - feels fine on tarmac, but gravel is too strong for my liking, almost too strong for me to hold onto! I've tried turning it down to its lowest setting but doesn't seem to make any difference.