To be fair my first run in was my own fault, I'd forgotten that you can turn right on a red light. But the clown in his lifted truck that shined more than the sun didn't need to start pushing me forwards with his truck. Getting out and walking towards him defused the situation as it turned out to be a skinny kid in daddies truck.
But I mostly came across guys who had trucks just because they wanted one as it is "the American way". There were plenty of traders but I'd say for every 2 traders, I saw 4 trucks that were being used as cars.
I will never get the American attitude to driving, it was bloody scary though.
Don't get me started on white van men. They are massive dicks as is anyone who drives a van.
What you want is an Estate (Tourer, Station Wagon). They make great party wagons, enjoy healthy economy and if you buy a good one, are a bast to drive when the time comes to hoon it.
Because the guys I came across in the states who drove trucks all drove like cocks. I won't say you only get cock headed drivers in the states, just they were louder and more obvious over there as my rental was a Toyota Camry I some how didn't deserve to be on the road.
Get good snow tyres, get a snow shovel and if you really need four wheel drive get a Mitsubishi Galant. Much more fun than a truck on the road or at the track. Plus more practical.
Insurance brokers will like trucks more than anything else because they are so simple and cheap to build as they are just a ladder chassis with a cab and box bolted on.
That means trucks have no crumple zones. You'd die in a crash (or at least break a lot of bones), but your truck would only cost a couple of grand to fix. To insurance companies this is a good thing.
You got in a crash in a 3-Series, chances are you'll walk away with a few cuts and bruises, but a car that'll cost a kings ransom to fix. To insurance companies this is a bad thing.
Now I don't know about you, but I know what I'd rather be in. There is a common misconception that big means better/safer. Which is why big vehicle owners (namely those in trucks) drive like cocks and glue massive bullbars/winch bumpers to their trucks and rise them so high the bumper is the perfect hight to go through someones windscreen.
Then when driving through a red light and T-Boning someone shouts "HOLYSHIT I TOTALLY OWNED THAT CAR I JUST HIT AND ONLY SCRATCHED MY BUMPER! AWESOME!" Which helps perpetuate the myth that bigger is better, because some kid in a Civic got T-Boned by a cock in a truck with a winch bumper on (even though the most off roading it does is the car park at Wal-Mart), the bumper went through the side of the Civic and caved in the kids face.
And before long some zealot comes by and says "a'yup, that's what happens when you buy foreign, always by domestic, we make the safest vehicles, them there japs or euros make shit ya hear."
So then trucks get bigger and bigger, so the winch bumpers get bigger and bigger which leads to more and more pricks jumping red lights and T-Boning kids in Civics.
That means trucks have no crumple zones. You'd die in a crash (or at least break a lot of bones), but your truck would only cost a couple of grand to fix. To insurance companies this is a good thing.
You got in a crash in a 3-Series, chances are you'll walk away with a few cuts and bruises, but a car that'll cost a kings ransom to fix. To insurance companies this is a bad thing.
Now I don't know about you, but I know what I'd rather be in. There is a common misconception that big means better/safer. Which is why big vehicle owners (namely those in trucks) drive like cocks and glue massive bullbars/winch bumpers to their trucks and rise them so high the bumper is the perfect hight to go through someones windscreen.
Then when driving through a red light and T-Boning someone shouts "HOLYSHIT I TOTALLY OWNED THAT CAR I JUST HIT AND ONLY SCRATCHED MY BUMPER! AWESOME!" Which helps perpetuate the myth that bigger is better, because some kid in a Civic got T-Boned by a cock in a truck with a winch bumper on (even though the most off roading it does is the car park at Wal-Mart), the bumper went through the side of the Civic and caved in the kids face.
And before long some zealot comes by and says "a'yup, that's what happens when you buy foreign, always by domestic, we make the safest vehicles, them there japs or euros make shit ya hear."
So then trucks get bigger and bigger, so the winch bumpers get bigger and bigger which leads to more and more pricks jumping red lights and T-Boning kids in Civics.
That is why finance is a silly idea if you don't plan on keeping what you buy. You either have to pay the buyer to take on your finance, or keep on paying for something you no longer have.
I read a study about bikes not too long ago, the upshot was unless you enter high ranks of cycling (Olympic hopeful), expensive bikes are a waste as you'll never get anywhere faster or gain any benefits health wise. The study actually had a slower average time for the expensive bike but it was only a few seconds attributed to one journey on the cheap bike being much faster than normal due to light traffic and without that trip they would have been a few thousands of a second in it.
You just look like a cock in Lycra with too much disposable income. And if you don't have insurance on it (which few do for road use, only when it is stored at home), if you get taken out by an even bigger cock in a white van you end up with nothing but a handful of carbon fibre confetti.
Excess (voluntary being £500 and compuslery being £200) was the same for FC and TPFT when I got quotes. FC still came out cheaper. I think it is because insurance brokers realised that a lot of yoofs will choose TPFT without even looking at FC because "I can't afford that" so they ramped up the prices just to squeeze on the younger driver even more.
So rather than getting a decent sized sedan that will be easy to drive, cheap to fill up and run for a life time. You're going to get a massive truck for people with tiny dicks and spend your life stopping in at every petrol station you go past?
Great thinking...
I found that out a while back. I got a quote of £2,000 TPFT for a Defender 110 2.5TD. Chose full comp and it went down to £900. Which was quite amusing.
Although I could not argue to the opposite, a lot of miss information is spouted as the gospel truth because enough people say it.
Oh of course, but life is all about luck. You can push the odds in your favour as much as possible, which is what ped safety is all about, but then I've known someone die from a appendectomy and that has something like 99% survival rate. In the end it all boils down to luck.
You see I have been hit by a car and what did damage to me was the push-bike I was on. All the car did was sent one of my shoes flying and give me slight concussion.
It was the modern design of the car, this was back in the 90's but even then things had come a long way in terms of pedestrian safety, which prevented me suffering any other injury. This was a 30MPH impact too.
So I am glad it didn't have a protruding tow hook as I would have suffered a shattered shin bone.
I would never say being hit by a car is totally safe, but they can limit the injury.
It was the modern design of the car, this was back in the 90's but even then things had come a long way in terms of pedestrian safety, which prevented me suffering any other injury. This was a 30MPH impact too.
So I am glad it didn't have a protruding tow hook as I would have suffered a shattered shin bone.
I would never say being hit by a car is totally safe, but they can limit the injury.
Actually the shape of modern cars (smooth and round) is due to a lot of legislation that demands a car should be soft when a pedestrian impacts it. Because they had to do away with the sharp angular designs (that is why pop-ups were first stopped) the best way to get a good aero package and still meet the legislation was to make the cars rounded almost balloon in nature.
Even the bonnet and all of the components under it are carefully designed so should someone find themselves using it as a landing pad the bonnet will disipate the energy and there will be nothing hard (like a cylinder head) under the more likely areas of impact that'll do damage to the ped. It is also why deploying bonnets are taking off with the big marquees, it is essentially a ped airbag. Very useful if you can't get the right amount of space between deformable panels in the bonnet and solid items.
Even the bonnet and all of the components under it are carefully designed so should someone find themselves using it as a landing pad the bonnet will disipate the energy and there will be nothing hard (like a cylinder head) under the more likely areas of impact that'll do damage to the ped. It is also why deploying bonnets are taking off with the big marquees, it is essentially a ped airbag. Very useful if you can't get the right amount of space between deformable panels in the bonnet and solid items.
That never makes sense as it was the US market that stopped the use of chrome bumpers so we all switched to tacky plastic ones (ruined a lot of 70's vehicles) as they were safer for pedestrians. If you buy an Evo X in Europe/Asia it has a exposed cross beam in front of the rad, but to buy the same vehicle in the US/Canada it has to be wrapped in rubber.
Unless it is one rule for them (imports) and one rule for us (domestic), which wouldn't surprise me. I do find it comical that the US regulations put cost of repairing a vehicle before the cost of someone's legs.
Right, might be a regional thing still. I know in Aus plastic bullbars are becoming more popular and in the EU OEM has to be of the plastic verity, although you can still buy metal bullbars if you want one. Just car makers aren't allowed to sell them.
Unless you get one of the new Vauxhall diesels cars (well made in the last 5 or so years), which enter limp home mode every time the EGR gets clogged. But then around 30 minutes of hard driving down the motorway will unclog it and you will get full power back.
They are all the range with most SUVs. Generally come as factory options.
It is a common mod on a lot of cars. There are also many for and against arguments. The upshot is, you do not break the law by blanking it. But if the extra pollution fails the MoT Test you'll have to put it back, but I am yet to know of anyone who has had this problem.
The ECU is a smart bit of kit, it'll know the EGR isn't there and adjust timing to suit. If your car ran a distributor, then for sure it'd knock the timing out so you'd need it altered.
Solid metal ones were made illegal, you can buy the plastic type still, the kind you find on Discos and such. They have some give in them that protects the ped, in some cases they are safer than barless SUVs, but also designed in a way that the impact causes minimal damage to the body of the vehicle. You'll need a new bull bar however.
The argument wasn't it is safer than the OEM one, which was ludicrous, it is that a solid chunk of metal will not give any when you hit someone. The plastic will give so the ped doesn't get broken shins, the bonnet gives so they have a soft landing. That chunk of steel will snap their shin.
That all said, personally, I am fine with that one as it is no different to the standard tow hook on my van. Both will snap a shin bone on impact. But the OEM one was never designed to be left in place so became a massive hazard. It might be "following the trend" but I am going to paint my tow hooks red and get some "TOW ->" stickers.
That is a really cool service. Bit costly, but still really cool.
This. When I got stuck in ice (dropped my front wheels into a ditch in the road going slightly uphill) I couldn't go forwards, so slightly rolled back and gave 'er a boot full. YEEHAW!
Which means when S3 does arrive, it'll be airborne, going much faster than it wanted to be and screaming all of the way. Just hope it doesn't have the same bumpy landing.
I have noticed some wishful thinking on there. A kid with a Focus RS500. Too bad the RS500 (and the whole RS range) was an EU only deal. But a boy can dream.
Also, just be clicking on a few random cars, a white 'teg has you beat with 40 likes.
Didn't you do maths in School? S1+S2=2S3
Today, I mostly did some rust eradication. The finish needs work, but my priority was removing rust and getting more paint on to stop any more forming. The fibreglass which has been slapped where the wheel arch was needs a good sand down to smooth it off, but it'll do for now. The fuel filler also needs work.
Even if I say so myself, I think I did quite well considering I was rained off once so had to start again and I am working outside in the cold.
I am now toying with putting on the Mk5 front end, because it looks quite good, or does on the black 3dr I've seen it done to.
Even if I say so myself, I think I did quite well considering I was rained off once so had to start again and I am working outside in the cold.
I am now toying with putting on the Mk5 front end, because it looks quite good, or does on the black 3dr I've seen it done to.
Can you add JMBush to the white list please?
Though I might not be on much until I get a better wireless router as this one drops all of the time. >.<
Though I might not be on much until I get a better wireless router as this one drops all of the time. >.<
Symphony X are awesome. You lucky bastard.
I suppose a lot of it is the "well very few people under 25 have crashed one of these, it must be a low risk vehicle" angle insurance take. I was told by a guy from Adrian Flux once to buy the sort of car your dad would drive, as chances are it is cheap to insure. But I doubt I'd get a 3 litre Jag insured for under grand an half.
When you part with that much money for a car, it is normally a safe bet that you won't wrap it around a tree 10 yards from the lot, regardless of how old you are. Car insurance is just ageism, but it also makes me laugh because there are people demanding old people/women, even though they cost more to run over a life time, shouldn't have to pay more for health insurance as young people/men because it is unfair, yet they are cool with car insurance being unfair to young people/men.
I was the same when I got my licence, was so fearful of losing it I'd try and be a Christian motorist. Now I am developing a lead foot, which in a N/A diesel is an interesting concept, and the slightest bit of shitty driving will have me frothing at the mouth in rage.
Blimey, how'd you get your premiums so low? You live in Newcastle for starters, your car would be safer on an American shooting range. I got a quote of £800 for a 1.8 Volvo S40. If I went for anything as exotic as that they'd probably want my first born and I live in such a low crime area that there actually isn't any.
FGED GREDG RDFGDR GSFDG