rabbitstew

The private jet would be quicker. Normally these take off and land from small airfields and the customs part of things is much quicker. For example, when I go to Edinburgh, I am usually faced with a 1hr drive to the airport, hassle parking the car, then 1hr wait after checkin, all for a 45min flight to Edinburgh, then all the same hassles getting back before a 1hr drive home. However, if I wanted to I could fly from Cambridge airport, which is about 10mins from where I am right now, get a private jet straight up to Edinburgh. I cant remember how much they are now, but one of the local private jet companies was recently touting for business saying about how cheap they were when you workout how much £ per hour you`d save on your own time.

Less than the 350z in my case. When I was looking at quotes earlier in the year, the 350z came in at about 900quid and yet a 40grand GTR was coming in at 660quid. I think its because its 4wd rather than RWD and statistically less have been crashed.

97RON is fine, its when you drop to 95RON the problems in the 350z start. Far to early to know if the 370z doesnt like 95RON for any other reason but with a knock sensor up to the redline, I dont see why it shouldnt be ok, but still not ideal. Perhaps we should get a demo car on 95RON on Abbey's dyno and see what it really does to it? I thought the 370 basically had the same HR engine as the 313 had, but with slightly greater capacity? Does the 313 suffer from knocking problems on 95RON? Ive only ever put super unleaded in mine and dont really fancy testing it.

The orange seats are cool. They do look mega orange in photos, but in real life they are more of a tan colour. They were an optional extra extra on my car. You first had to forkout £3k (I think it was) for the optional GT pack to give you the heated electric leather seats (plus bose system, plus cruise control etc.), then on top of that fork out another £600 for the Alezan Orange seats. You couldnt get the seats just on their own. Of course, that may have been different with imports or earlier cars.

Id also check out the insurance, you may be surprised at how much it will cost. When I got some quotes last it was cheaper for me to insure a nearly new 40grand skyline GTR than it was to insure a 4 year old 350z.

I noticed when I had a brand new 370z Roadster as a courtesy car last year, that the salesman had been filling it up on normal unleaded. I found a pile of receipts showing this inside the car. So it looks like this may be a common thing.

Possibly, the 313 came out May 2007, and I think was only around until mid 2009 - so 2 years. And like you say, during that time there were quite a few facelift non 313`s old stock registered and sold. I know Nissan were offering extremely good deals on them during 2007 to try and shift them as they didnt want to get lumbered with them, incl offering free Rays wheels, free Sat Nav etc. etc.. as well as a huge discount over the new 313 models. Since then I expect quite a few have been written off etc.. who knows!

I agree, looking at some of the old classic zeds, even now, they are not worth much at all, so i dread to think exactly how many decades you`d have to wait for a 350z to start holding their value or even going up in price. Who knows what future generations will regard as Classic, in any case I've never subscribed to the theory that only good cars will become valuable over a long period of time....it's all down to how rare the car has become, take for example the Jowett Javelin, a car that was besieged with problems yet even a wreck fetches good money these days, or the Ford Anglia that had one of the highest production runs of any U.K car. One of these in decent nick will set you back a small fortune. Two of the worst cars I've ever driven, The Morris Minor and The VW Beetle are now regarded as Classics . But, yeah, if you are waiting for The 350Z to become a valuable Classic then you'll have anything from a 25 year upward wait. Pete Im not sure its down to how rare a car has become. Like you say, some mass produced cars are now classics, others arnt. Im a bit of a classic mini enthusiast, and i remember when you could get one easily for £200. Now, any old wreak fetches a grand upwards. Some which id have paid £500 a few years back ive seen for £2500. But, on the road, i see many more classic mini`s than I do 350z`s. Same as old VW`s, even old sheds are worth loads now, but again I see more old camper vans & beatles on the road than I do zeds. Renault 5 GT Turbos... one of the quickest and probably the best handling hot hatch of the 80`s. Described by Autocar magazine has having "super car performance and handling" when compared to all the competition. According to the howmanyleft website theres very few left on the road. In fact ive think ive only seen 2 over the last 12 months. And yet on ebay, you can pick them up for £1500. And yet, classic fords, like any old rwd ford escort seems to have gone up in price a lot over the last few years. What seem to determine whether a car is a "classic" or even "valuable" seems to not be related to rarity. Im not sure what factors seem to determine that. I had a "sit up & beg" 1948 Ford Popular which I sold a few years back for just £100. You dont exactly see many of them on the road, and its 64 years old... but not really worth anything! Speaking of rarity, looking at the sold in the uk figures someone else posted earlier in the year, theres only around 275 350z 313 roadsters out there, so they are rarer than either of the above cars ive mentioned, but i guess they will be grouped into the 350z/370z umbrella as a whole and therefore prices of those drop inline with the rest of the zeds.

He`s either a loan shark or more likely a financial advisor!!! That new house looks amazing!!!! Makes mine look like some sort of squat.

313! Good choice!!!!!!

Looks stunning from the photos!!! Good luck with the sale. Be interesting to hear how it all goes!

Looking at current prices, id say if it was between the facelift and pre facelift, then the pre facelift would make more sense. But, if you start to compare the 313 model with the pre-facelift then the difference is a lot more and depending upon your budget it may workout better to go for the 313 model. Ive seen 313 coupe`s for not much more than the silver one in your link. They have 309bhp and a whole host of performance / handling improvements over the pre facelift 276bhp models. However, they are higher road tax. You could go for the pre-facelift model, spend a couple of grand on mods and still struggle to match the power of the 313. Of course, its all swings and roundabouts and id look very carefully at the condition of the car and history either way as a minter pre-facelift may well be a better buy than a tatty 313. Good luck with your search!

I agree, looking at some of the old classic zeds, even now, they are not worth much at all, so i dread to think exactly how many decades you`d have to wait for a 350z to start holding their value or even going up in price.

I was going to ask whether your 57 plate was a 313 and how you felt the 2 cars compared. I use the 452`s on my car and find they are great, and also great value. I paid just over £500 for the set fitted, so a considerable saving over Potenzas.

Yep, mice can travel miles back to the same house. Like homing pigeons!!! I remember going on a date with a very hot blond girl once many years back and she invited me back to her house. I thought my luck was in, but we were in the kitchen making a cup of tea and her cat brings this mouse in and drops it at her feet. The problem was the mouse was still alive and ran off behind the cooker. The blond jumped screaming onto the worktop and refused to get off. And I had to spend the rest of the evening moving cooker, fridge freezer, washing machine and trying to encourage the cat to re-catch the mouse. sigh!

All sounds good! Best time of life to afford a car like this if your still living with your folks as once you get a house you`ll be skint! When I lived with my folks I had a heavily modified hot hatch and 2 motorbikes! It was great! Then when I got my house I had to run a £800 shed of a diesel instead. At least your going into the purchase with your eyes wide open, so there shouldnt be any hidden surprises! Enjoy!!!!

Its a common problem on the early R1s like mine. The 2nd gear selectors are made out of chocolate, and guess which gear most people use to wheelie them in? Yep. 2nd gear. It was quite funny looking back at it now, but not at the time. Id just taken it for its MOT, and it passed first time (with no headlamps, no indicators, race bodywork, race exhaust and a few other bits), so i came out of the test centre and thought id crack a celebratory wheelie, so up it went in 2nd gear. There was an almighty bang and it sounded like a bag of spanners rattling around in a washing machine. In all fairness the bike had done about 40k miles at that point as ive had it since 2001 and id noticed it was jumping out of 2nd occasionally. What happens is that the selectors get bent and cause the 2nd gear to fall appart, not only that 2nd is on the same shaft as 5th, so instantly thats 2 gears at £250 each gone down the pan. There is a mod you can do with new stronger gears and cutting the corners off them to make them engage easier. So after lots of swearing, I then had to push the bike back to the MOT centre and get them to trailer it home. Luckily some local hells angel heard the bang and ran out to see what had happened and gave me a hand pushing it back. It was a right pain having to wait 6 months before another engine came along, but I couldnt grumble at the price! They are quite rare engines as apparently the early R1 engines are very popular with people who stick them in kit cars, as they were the last R1 engines to use carbs rather then injection, so less hassle. With the zx6r bodywork, if no correct colour panels turn up, another option would be to buy and fit some race bodywork. I paid £150 for mine. Then use this until a correct colour panel turns up. I think it would cost a fortune to try and repaint one panel and get the correct stickers on it, and you dont want to be respraying an entire bike for the sake of one panel - as you know a few weeks later the correct colour panel will turn up... EDIT: Also, depending upon how bad the scratched panels are, it might be easier to repair them. Ive done that quite a few times when i used to buy / repair / sell smashed up bikes. Filler to fill scratches, soldering iron to fix cracks and a hot air gun to bend any plastic back into place.

Was going to say, Cougar Store is local and whilst ive not used them myself yet, I have heard good things about them.

Definately some bargains out there, but like flexib says you have to wait sometimes. I blew the gearbox up on my R1 the other year and the local garage wanted £1200 to strip the old engine / gearbox out and repair it. I kept an eye on ebay and after 6 months bought an entire very low mileage engine / gearbox for £400. Swapped them over one Sunday morning (about 4 hours work), and hey presto all working perfect. In fact the new engine / gearbox produced more power than the old one. To make things even better, I then sold the damaged engine / gearbox on ebay for £250 for spares, meaning the whole new engine / gearbox only cost me £150!

Also check out ebay, loads of bike bits on there incl bodywork. Sods law though, you`ll not get the colour you want tho when you want it!!!

I was best man at a wedding last year and the groom & myself both wore grey / silver suits with brown shoes. Not my personal taste, but its what the bride made us wear. In the photos it actually looked okay.

I run 30miles a day to work in total. 15 there and back and whatever driving inbetween, friends, shop whatever... Averagely ill spend currently on fuel about £150-180 on fuel a month. How much is a good estimate of 350 fuel a month for this sort of daily driving?? *expects this to be sky high* ...and yet if im not driving like a hooligan..(all the time ) apparently people gettin 25-30 on cruises? ...don't always have to overtake someone on the way to work lol Wonder what Tranquillbass spends (if you see this, im not being cheeky and nosey lol) cos I see him kickin about in his and i dont think it short distances he does? I knocked up a spreadsheet a while back to workout the running costs of mine. I paid outright for mine, so no loan on it. But even so, depreciation (rough estimate of 2k a year, although i wont really know until i come to sell it), insurance, tax, tyres, MOT, servicing etc. etc. All come to about £450 a month. I do 90->100 miles a day round trip commute, and get 25mpg (driving like a grand-dad). Petrol works out at another £450 a month. So, all in all its costing me at least £900 a month. Now, thats assuming nothing major needs replacing, like exhaust, clutch or anything else, which would obviously jack it up a bit more. If your getting yours on finance, then you`ll need to add that cost to it also.

I think you`d be very lucky to make this work. I used to buy, repair and sell cars and motorbikes for a time so have experience of it. Initially you could make good money out of it as the vehicles were pretty cheap. But then every man & his dog jumped on the band wagon, so the vehicles shot up in price. Last time I looked, if the car was worth £5k normally, and you saw a smashed up one needing £2k of work then you`d end up having to pay £3k for it. So it completely defeated the object. Also, 99% of cars needed bodywork, as nearly always spares / repair means its had a smash. Seldom do newer cars get sold for spare / repair unless its needs a new engine or something. Unless of course you start getting to the very bottom end of the market with MOT failures. Theres plenty of these about, usually under £500. These days the scrap man will give you £100 for any old heap (was £30 a few years back, but scraps gone up in price), so you could buy a car for around that price, see if you can repair it, if you cant you sell it on and get your money back. Id look in local free papers or even on ebay - no end on there. Thats where ive both bought & sold spares / repair cars. Good luck.

Id go for a 313 definitely, its a completely different car to the earlier ones, 80% new engine, different suspension changes, lower centre of gravity with the engine, higher rev limit, the list goes on.... but i think a roadster one would be just slightly out of your budget. You can probably just about get a 313 coupe for the top end of your budget. But, you never know, they are not flying off the shelf atm so you might get a bargain! Good luck with the search!

Most of what you mention won't affect the price, but they may sway someone towards yours rather than another one else £9k sounds a little high to me.... GLWTS I saw a 2004 one for 9k the other day! But, in general when ive been looking, 2007 313s like mine seem to be around £12k->£12.5k, someone on here just bought a non 313 2007 model for £10500 I think it was. There seems to be a 2k per year difference in the prices (in general, so based on that I think £8k->£9k ish is in the right ball park.