rabbitstew

I found 3 points increased my policy with admiral by 30%.

I dont allow people to testdrive unless they can prove they have fully comp insurance. Even then I would go with them. Normally however, with most cars ive sold recently ive just taken the person for a spin in it myself and thats been enough for them to decide to buy the car.

All depends on the garage. I test drove 2 zeds when I bought mine and in both occasions the salesman would not let me out on my own. Earlier in the year we bought a new Nissan Juke and that was the same, last year we bought a crappy old £2500 shed from a garage and that was the same. However a couple of years before that when we were looking at new cars, Seat, VW and Renault all let us out in their demo cars on our own. In the end we bought a brand new Renault Clio Dynamique S. I also remember back in 2001 i think, i test drove a Lotus Elise and the guy gave me the keys and said come back in an hour. I was back within about 20minutes I think as I was so disappointed in it. It was so slow and sluggish I wondered if it was broken. Around the same year I looked at a M3 Evolution which was up for 26grand at a BMW dealer and they joined me on the test drive and even then only let me drive it for about 10 minutes. Audi were the same.

Nice to see a 220 turbo! Havent seen one of them in a very long time, most have long since rotted away. Most turbo cars will leave the older zeds like yours behind of the line.

You will find you will spend a fortune on tools initially. But its something you can grow over the years. I started off with a big socket set and some ring spanners... now ive a huge tool chest / cabinet full of stuff. Everytime ive needed a tool ive just gone out & bought it as I know its already paid for itself with the garage labour costs im saving. Last tool I bought was a wheel bearing puller... id always wanted one and have changed dozens of wheel bearings without it. In the end I thought sod it, and bought one. Much easier without having to take the hub off the car. Id steer away from air tools if you can... you end up spending loads on them as you get carried away. I bought every air tool I could think off, then realised halfords actually do a set which includes pretty much all of them for a fraction of what I paid. doh!

Hmmm... only problem ive found in the rain is water seems to rest around the seals, so when you open the door you get loads of water dripping in on the side of the seat as well as on the front of the inside of the door near the wing mirror. Its all fine until you open the door.

I did this with a Mini that I bought for £50 and stripped down every part and re-built it but I spent a totally disproportionate amount of time dealing with rust related issues rather than the mechanical bits. I would be +1 re Ekona's MX-5 idea. Mini`s are both easy and a pain to work on. Ive totally rebuilt 2 of them in the past and scraped 3 or 4 of them. As Neil says, rust is the biggest problem on them. Back when I was a lad, you could buy a mini very cheap. My first mini when I was 19 cost me £20. Any scrap yard would be full of mini bits so it would cost you hardly anything to keep it on the road. Now adays, even an old crappy shed of a mini could cost you upwards of £600. And forget about finding bits in scrap yards.... you have to pay top money for any bits these days. The MX5 is a good fun idea. You used to be able to pick up 1989 /1990 MX5`s for around £1000 when I looked many years back, so they must be really cheap now. Loads of bits around to tune them up and play around with them. +1 Halfords Pro range are excellent. And also MachineMart often have deals on there & VAT days on their products. I must be one of their best customers with the amount ive spent on tools there over the years!

If it goes anything like the TTRS I had some fun with the other week, this will stand no chance against a 313 350z. I agree, looks terrible. Maybe if it was in grey rather than red it would look better. I wouldnt touch it with a barge pole.

Welcome! Im very often around warwickshire, so i`ll keep an eye out for you! Although wouldnt want to see any of your snakes. They scare me silly!!!

Didnt notice that on any I saw, but have seen that on plenty of other makes of cars - usual thing is people opening door with keys in their hand. On zeds, you will find the drivers side internal door handle tends to get chipped easily for a similar reason. My car had only done 20k miles and it was chipped really bad already. I dont think anyone mentioned servicing to you. Theres plenty of info on this forum if you look under servicing - incl guides. As a rule though, its a minor service, followed by a major and repeat. DIY servicing is cheap. I did a minor service last year for around £50 for the parts. Outside of servicing, check when the plugs were changed... they are due around 50k ish, and also check when brake fluid was changed etc..... as long as its got a full history (either stamped up, or the owner is an enthusiast and has serviced it himself) then you`ll be ok. If your looking at newer cars, remember the road tax doubles after 2006. But, some people incl myself feel thats worth it for the facelift car and the extra power you get if you get the 313 model with the HR engine. They came out mid 2007 and you can check as these had a bonnet bulge. Not all 2007 cars are HR.

Same here. No garage or cover for mine. Had to brush the snow off the soft top a few months back. Use it all year around.

Owning a 313 roadster, I have to say I love it. I wasnt too sure about the backside on it initially when I saw them, but the rest of the car is just stunning, and looks ace with the roof down. I went for the roadster as I like to be different. The main other choices I had was a porsche boxster, the bmw z or the z4m. I even was looking at bmw m3 convertibles. For me, the 350z was definitely the more "manly" car, and also by far the rarest. When I got mine, it was one of the only 2 for sale within 100 miles of my house, and since owning the roadster ive only ever seen 3 on the road, and none of those have been the 313 version. The reviews I read said that Nissan had done such a good job of strengthening the roadster that there was no difference in the handling between the coupe and the roadsters. With regards to this affecting performance, for the 313 model it was something negligible like 0.2 seconds on the 0-60! I guess they saved weight with no roof & big back screen. As others have said the experience of driving a 350z roadster is great - the engine noise is awesome and apparently Nissan specially tuned the exhaust note and engine characteristics to make the car sound better which is really noticeable with the roof down. Ive not driven a 350z coupe, but one downer with the roadster is that you really can not see much at all when you reverse, due to the small back window. With roof down, this isnt a problem. Apart from that, smaller boot and the higher insurance cost there isnt much else I can fault. The feedback I get from Joe Public is generally fantastic. I can pop down to my local shop to buy some milk and come out to find people drooling over my car. Complete strangers telling me how nice my car is, or how they have never seen one. Its quite a good feeling. The other week as I was driving through a town, I was behind a porsche boxster, and a group of kids on the side of the road totally ignored the porsche and nearly fell over when they saw mine, they actually shouted out "nice car mister" to me.

26mpg for my normal daily commute - which is pretty much just cruising at 70mph, then about 4 miles at 30mph.

Nice!! Welcome!

I too had a clean license, but had exactly the same thing as above happen to me a few years back. I was cruising at 70mph on a dual carriage way. Pulled out to overtake 2 lorries. There was a long queue of cars behind me tailgating me, desperate to get past me, so I accelerated as I overtook the lorries. Get past and see copper with radar gun parked up on the chevrons on a slip road. Turned out I was doing 81 in a 70 and I got 3 points and fine through the post and my car insurance went up by 30% as a result. Annoyingly, my missus got caught the same week doing 40 in a 30 (which personally i regard as more dangerous than 81 in a 70) and the police offered her the "awareness course" and no points. I wrote to Cambridgeshire police, but unfortunately they "do not offer the awareness course for your offence". I really dont understand Cambridgeshire police. The only other 2 dealings ive had with them was when I was stationary on the road, behind a parked car, waiting for an oncoming car to pass so I could continue my journey, and a lad piled into the back of my car at 60mph (in a 30mph zone). He was braking so hard, the bonnet of his car went under my back bumper. So god knows what speed he was doing initially. My car was written off. The drivers seat was ripped out of the floor mountings due to the force of me being thrown back as a result of the impact. What did the police do about it? Nothing. They turned up and breathalysed everyone etc. Then a few weeks later I get a letter saying they were not going to prosecute the other driver as "not enough evidence" WTF?! And the other incident was when my brother was rammed off the road by another car - he ended upside down in one of the big drains we have in the fens, and the other driver didnt stop. The other driver then must have felt guilty, so he came back after 30mins and confessed to the police. What did the police do? No points, no fine, but sent him on the awareness course! Just seems no consistency with them.

Over £600? Im 40, have 21 years NCB and years of experience of fast cars & motorbikes. My premium this year came in at nearly a grand on the zed. I live about 40miles from Cambridge. Through haggling and trying different job titles etc... I managed to get mine down to about £700. My missus`s old shed worth £1500 is costing me £250 3rd party atm. Makes me wish i didnt live in a quiet cul-de-sac full of old pensioners and lived somewhere else.

Ive built 2 similar to that. Worked out i needed about 100 bricks to get it the right height and size, and bought the bbq kit from B&Q for about 20quid. Comes with trays, metal supports etc... Lasted me 10 years and still going strong.

Thats mad. Ive had problems with the auto renewal before, but not in that way. Ive had it twice now where ive cancelled my policy because ive got the renewal half price elsewhere and the relevant insurance company has STILL taken my money. Its been pure luck ive had the money in the account to cover it, but then when ive asked for my money back, they have ummed and arred and in both cases said it would take2 weeks to "process" and it would be a cheque in the post. Clearly they get interest on my money for the month or so they have stolen it. Neither companies i had problems with were Admiral though.

A lot of people find that, especially if your going for the lower powered earlier models. But, once you get used to where the power is you`ll love it. I find 2nd gear upwards for me just throws me back in the seat.

Nope. Sat Nav doesnt have any inputs on it, so it can be only used as a sat nav. Some sellers get confused as the sat nav disc runs from a dvd player unit (behind drivers seat in my car), and they see the DVD logo on it then start listing "dvd player" in the for sale ads... In all fairness its not a bad sat nav system. I updated mine to the 2011 maps and it has every new road i know of on it. It gets traffic updates automatically as your driving along and is integrated with the stereo. Its also a nice big clear display. Only initial bugbear is that it doesnt accept postcodes, you have to do city/street/number. But, its known of all the places ive ever needed, incl loads which my tomtom didnt know about. The satnav was a £1200 extra on the car when new, but personally i wouldnt worry if you find a nice zed without it. You can fix up an android tablet or many other aftermarket sat navs in the cubby hole easy enough.

So what we are saying here, is that your husband has had company cars insured through companies for the last 15 years and not insured any cars of his own in that time? In which case, what NCB is he putting down and proving for insuring the zed atm? It might be that he is using the NCB built up on the motorbike down to the zed as its very doubtful any NCB he had prior to company cars would count. Some insurance companies will let you use years of company car experience count towards some NCB if you are moving from company cars to your own private car, but not if you have both. I think you need to discuss it all with your husband and clarify exactly what the situation is, then you can workout the way forward as theres so many options depending up on the exact circumstances. Id be interested to hear the answer though and hear how you previously had it all insured.

Congratulations! Must be the year for babies, 8 of my mates have had or are having kids this year.

Welcome!!! I think you find that most owners on here rarely sell their cars, and when they do, they end up buying another one within 6 months!!! There are a few for sale on here though and as you`d expect from an enthusiasts forum, they are totally minter cars. The members on here cover a wide area though, so you may not find one for sale locally to you - but most people on here have had to travel a long way to get the right car.

Hmmm... I think the first point of call will be to check with your husbands company with regards to ncb, as i thought ncb only goes on your own insurance policy and presumably the bmw would be under his companys policy and not his. The main problem you have here though is that both the fiat and zed are in your names, and some insurance companies do not like people insuring cars which are not in their name. So, if your husband went to insure the zed, this could present a problem as the zed is in your name. In addition, if you tried to insure both in your name, that too would cause problems as you can only use ncb against one car, and so effectively you`d have your fiat with ncb on it, and then no ncb on the zed which would give a very high premium. I am in a similar boat. How it works for me is... My missus has a company car - her company pays insurance. My missus`s is the named owner of our family "shed", and as such she insures that with her ncb and im down as a named driver. Im the owner of the zed and i insure that with my ncb.

Not sure I understand this right. You have a FIAT - your the main driver and the insurance is in your name. He has the zed - he`s down as the main driver and the insurance in his name. So where is the insurance company saying he cant have ncb on 2 cars? He`s only getting NCB on the zed and your getting NCB on the FIAT. Unless there is something weird going on with the company car.. in my experience of company cars is that the company pays the insurance and thats it. I dont know if they get any kind of NCB on it, but its nothing to do with your husband`s insurance. Unless for some reason he is insuring the company car in his own name, thus getting NCB on it?!