sasha@lazytrips

I think one of the issues is that people get too deep into the discussion without actually thinking or talking about the basics. I am yet to hear a single so-called union "leader" propose a viable alternative to the current scheme which does not lead to inevitable bankrupcy. This is pretty much exactly the same line of thinking as those "Occupy" protesting idiots. I actually went up to some of them sitting in tents in Nottingham one evening as they were having a cup of tea and asked them if they could succinctly explain to me what they were protesting about. A bunch of them threw incoherent gibberish at me after which I asked whether they had a firm plan of action with concrete steps, dates and numbers which the government could take and they all had absolutely nothing to say. I might be stupid, but I really don't get what the point of protesting is if you have no suggestion whatsoever as to what you want to happen as a result of your protest. Having said the above, I do think the government could have been more subtle and smart in how they introduced these cuts. I don't think they have worded the changes clearly or transparently enough which meant that most of the people affected still don't really understand what the impact on them would be. What they really should have done is put a lot of simple numbers in front of people to make them understand the "why" as most of them just don't get it. e.g. (all numbers fictitious) We have a £10Bn pot for pensions sitting in a bank (now I know that it doesn't work like that as there is no actual national pension fund, but ignore that for the purpose of the exercise). Every year without any change, this pot goes down by £2Bn. We have thought through a number of scenarios and our tax and National Insurance changes are the optimal solution at the present time and they will pay for £0.7Bn of the above gap. All people on public sector pension schemes now have a choice: Option 1: You pay an extra 3.2% in pension contributions. Your pension benefits remain unchanged. Option 2: You continue paying your old contributions. All contributions to-date will remain at the previous arrangement, but your pension accrual from now on will be lower - please refer to some document which will explain how much lower it will be. Option 3: You choose to opt-out of the Public Sector Pension Programme. All contributions to-date will be honoured and you will make your own private arrangements through a private pension scheme. You will get half the standard employer contributions (in monetary terms) added to any of your own contributions. If you put it forward as a straight-forward explanation that there simply is no other way as you can't just magically make up money that doesn't exist, then maybe a few more people would wake up and smell the coffee.

Pricing looks on par with the Audi TT range (£28k for the basic one). Audi TT RS is £45k and I certainly know what I'd pick if one of those is the same price as the Subaru.

I'm guessing you mean 5-6psi a week. If it bar then is say you had a puncture. That sounds more like a seating problem on the rim and not being sealed correctly. I wouldn't say it was the tyres losing air. Did you not get them checked for punctures and leaks? Tyres were checked, rechecked, moved around and whatever else. >10 visits to tyre shops. I think I just got extremely unlucky with a set of rubbish tyre compound (maybe same batch). And yes, I did mean PSI That is extremely unlucky bud. What model of maxxis was it, if you can remember? No idea to be honest, but for 3 weeks, all 4 corners lost air week on week. I couldn't believe it myself. I thought 1 tyre, maybe 2... So the basis of my 2 cents is: Falken 452s, Toyo Proxes & Ultrac Sessantas are the only mid-range cheapo tyre I'd go for.

Here's the wife's choice (she's a fan of those Brera rounded wheels too): O.Z. Racing Wave. I've heard some good things about O.Z. Racing in general. Am I right in thinking that they're a decent brand? Here's the wheel: Anyone know anywhere where I can get this wheel at a good price? All internet prices seem to be identical.

I'm guessing you mean 5-6psi a week. If it bar then is say you had a puncture. That sounds more like a seating problem on the rim and not being sealed correctly. I wouldn't say it was the tyres losing air. Did you not get them checked for punctures and leaks? Tyres were checked, rechecked, moved around and whatever else. >10 visits to tyre shops. I think I just got extremely unlucky with a set of rubbish tyre compound (maybe same batch). And yes, I did mean PSI

At the moment it's got some aftermarket no-name wheels. The car was bought with them on and I guess that's the reason for them getting buckled. They're just a 5-way twin spoke type of thing with polished/diamond cut/metally colour/whatever on the surface and black on the sides and everywhere else (don't have pics). I haven't seen any wheels like them on sale, so no idea what they are.

I know they're not the same tyre, but I recently got rid of 4x Maxxis tyres on a different car as ALL FOUR were losing air (about 5-6 bar per week). I know I must be incredibly unlucky and this sort of thing can't happen to many people, but the tyres were not very old and I would have expected better even from a budget tyre. I personally wouldn't touch them again.

Apologies - I guess I was just trying to figure out what makes are good and which aren't. I had a look at ebay, but the problem is that you rarely know what the real reasons for sale are, etc and a lot of them cost similar to/more than brand new alternatives. Budget is a little flexible, but at the lower end of the scale - from an initial look, probably looking at around £750 for four corners give or take (without tyres). I basically don't want duff halfords own brand wheels and want something that I know will last, etc, but don't want to be paying Audi prices (£450 per standard wheel) for it. With even the cheapest second-hand ones being at least £400ish (most are >£1k) including the collection/postage, it probably makes sense to get good aftermarket ones from a reputable brand for say £750ish and not worry about the potential issues the second-hand ones might have.

Hi guys, To cut a very long story short, I have an Audi TT wifemobile that needs new wheels after I finally found a competent garage who could show that I've got a buckled one (and possibly even two). It needs wheels that will fit some brand new Sessanta 245/40 18 inch tyres that will clear pretty large calipers (standard on the 3.2 Mk2 car). I am not 100% sure, but I think the bore is 57.1 and there are 5x 112 studs - if someone knows a way to confirm this, I would be delighted. Phoned 2 Audi garages and they can't tell me! I would really prefer to not have to use spigot rings if possible, but basically just need some suggestions as to what wheels to get. Looking at the online shops, there is a million different wheels, most of them either way too expensive or cheap rubbish. What brands are good and not expensive and will be reliable?

holy threat revival! Incidentally, am I the only one who finds the 225/40 tyres on the front of that 350z a little odd?

The standard Audi wheels are £1,800 without tyres. Isch don't think so. Plus they look horrid too. Gonna try & get the spigot rings swapped first. Will measure them and order the right ones from CS.

Thanks for the replies & pm's. Gonna try to swap the spigot rings first and if that don't fix it, will think about wheels/tyres. Don't know what the issue is with main dealers which means they can't actually think for themselves.

Here's an update: It's been to an Audi shop for an entire week and they are none the wiser. They took off the non-standard wheels, put on standard wheels and say that "90%-95%" of the problem has gone away. They then put on the wheels from our Audi onto one of their cars and it was also vibrating at speed, so I guess it's got to be the wheels. Trouble is that their proposed solution was to replace all 4 corners at around £2,500 which I obviously won't be doing. A couple of questions: 1. The non-standard wheels have slightly larger hub holes and have plastic bits on the inside. Could a faulty one of these cause the car to shake at speed? 2. The tyres and wheels have been looked at a lot and no defects have been spotted. The tyres themselves are budget ones, but have a lot of tread. Should I splash out and buy a set of tyres and see if that fixes it? Basically I am at a loss as I don't have the cash to just go and replace all 4 wheels, especially at the quoted prices, but need to fix the car. The Audi has been from post to pillar and nobody seems to have a clue. I have seriously lost faith in mechanics. What would you guys do if you were me?

That's the going rate. Early jap import despite the UK bumper and no GT pack stuff albeit with relatively low miles for its age.

How much are these without a GB and how much does a pre-facelift bonnet go for?

I think if you're honest with yourself, those looks in a lightweight car with rear seats & 200 ponies for £20k list price is pretty awesome.

That's pretty shameful, but if she did not get into the papers, I would hedge a hefty bet that she would easily win the money back through the courts.

z burger badges which erode before you've finished sticking them on.

If Carlsberg did crash landings...

you haven't been doing any donuts recently by any chance?

If I were you, the simplest thing to do is this: pull out machine as far as you can and dismantle any pieces that you can off it. Then break it up without flooding the house carefully and get to the water supply and block that off eventually. Get all the bits of metal & plastic and stick them in the bin. Then go buy a slim depth washing machine (these can be around 40cm deep) and from the pictures should fit back down between the two worktops. That'll be the most effective way of sorting the problem without breaking your whole kitchen up.

You will not notice any difference between Momentum and V Power. It is debatable whether the possibly marginally better additives outweigh the higher octane rating.

As pointed out before, tablets are great, but not for your purposes. If you want to do any kind of web design, you will need a laptop. From having owned a range of different things, netbooks are a waste of money and space. They do not last at all and become frustratingly slow quickly. Get yourself a laptop and think carefully about the specs - you won't need a dedicated graphics card or a high end multi-core processor for your needs, so save money on that and get yourself a decent size screen and a good chipset so that your laptop won't slow down to a grind. This would be a great bet: http://www.ebuyer.com/279398-asus-k53u- ... 53u-sx072v . Asus motherboard & chipset at that price will serve you very well. Edit: These have gone out of stock since I put this link up! Can find other K53 variants around at very decent prices.

I think the stereotyping of "all lads" wanting to go out doing doughnuts in a Macdonalds car park is a little too general. I know that I and a number of other young male drivers have never really had the urge to do that primarily due to the fact that once you spend a little longer than half a second thinking about it and if you aren't the type who wears his trousers around the knees, you never really want to appear to be a clueless teenage idiot and actually might have better things to do at the weekend/evening.

Whatever people think of doing doghnuts in a car park at night, I would hedge my bets that those people who do them have a much higher statistical risk of having an insurance claim than those who don't. I've been young and never wanted to impress my chav buddies by burning my tyres for no particular reason whatsoever. The downside is that the insurance companies have no easy way of distinguishing the doughnuts from other young drivers, hence everybody gets stung by high insurance.