rabbitstew

Are tie-rods and rear shocks all torqued up? Ive had it on another car where i hadnt tightened them up quite enough and that was enough to cause a knocking.

"They are offering me £5681 (Value of the vehicle less the value of the salvage £1794.00) valuing it at £7475." Are you sure you have read that correctly? My Dad had someone reverse into the front of his car a few weeks ago - very minor damage - dented front wing and scratched bumper. The other drivers insurance immediately wrote my Dads car off and offered him 2 options. They would take the car and give him the market price for it so he can buy an identical car - which was £3,700. Or, they would give him £2,500 and let him keep the car and do whatever he wanted with it. So he could scrap it, sell it or whatever. My Dad decided to keep the car and a very reputable local body shop repaired it for £500. So he is £2000 up on the deal, but may get slightly less for the car if/when he sells it as its a cat N or whatever its flagged at now. Looking at car sales, the £3700 valuation of the car was pretty much spot on, so he didnt haggle but previously its been my experience that the first price they give you is very low and you have to provide them with evidence via adverts etc as to what it would really cost to replace your car like-for-like before they give you a correct market price. On another note, I was quite surprised how quickly the insurance company wrote off a perfectly good car with only £500 of damage, no wonder premiums keep going up. But I guess they figured transport costs to their "approved repairer", hire car costs etc etc would soon add up.

Wheels look ace! I did white wheels on one of my cars once and they look great but are a mission to keep clean! Plenty of poor boys wheel sealant on them!!!

Just seen this, I use a local garage which the local supercar indi used to use. My porsche has been MOT`d there since 2014. There shouldnt be any issues with emissions unless its modified. On mine, it does struggle with the emissions as since the remap & race clutch the car is impossible to idle at 3000rpm. So they tend to use a rpm which they can keep it at for long enough to do the emissions and thats fine.

Bought back memories for me when skimming of brake discs & drums were the norm! Now its rarely done any more. Glad you got the problem resolved!

In the past when ive needed temp insurance on a car - whilst i was selling it - i managed to get a short term insurance for a few days ffrom adrian flux. However, it cost a stupid amount as I couldnt use my main 28 years NCB on it. Id get someone to trailer it to the shop as I think that would be the easiest way.

Looking ace. I had to do a similar amount of cutting/welding on my Renault 5 GT Turbo the other year when I started on that. Was one of those situations where the you cut out, the more rust you found.

And so it begins again..... Picked this little baby up last week. I didn't really need it and am not looking forward to the inevitable "hairdresser" jokes, but it popped up on an alert I had setup and was too much of a bargain to turn down! Unlike the black one, this one doesn't really need much doing as it came with FSH, new MOT, brand new exhaust, new suspension bushes, 4 previous owners, bodywork pretty much mint with perfect panel gaps all around. New Uniroyal tyres, new DAB radio, new brake discs/pads and it looks like the wheels were refurbed not so long ago. It drives really well! Its also a mid 2006 model so its the facelifted R53. There's a few bits different to the earlier models, they came with a teflon coated super charger and a pop & bang map as standard which gave it a bit more power. Certainly a bargain for £1500! So what needs doing? Well it was sat under a tree so its covered in tree sap so I need to give it a good detailing. The reversing sensors dont work, it hasnt had its supercharger service yet and the hood has a couple of small patches so I need to see if there's a better way of repairing that. Like the black one it has the horrible 2 spoke steering wheel so I will upgrade that to the newer 3 spoke one. I did consider taking all the mods off the black one and putting on it, but its in such good condition I think I will keep it stock and just have fun throughout the summer in it. (when im not cutting hair!)

Lovely car. I've always wanted one of these but don't think I could get away with it having bought another Mini Cooper S last week.