rabbitstew

As ive said before on here, when I first got my zed the cheapest insurance I couldnt find was about £1100. I was 40 and had 21 years NCB. I was staggered as at the time I was paying £190 for a Golf Gti and had been getting quotes of airound £460 for an E46 M3 and around £500 for a Porsche Boxter. Even a Lambo Gallardo was coming up at £600. I was also only paying £60 to insure my Yamaha R1 !!! The only "excuses" insurance companies could say to me was that it was because it was a high powered (300+bhp) RWD car and dispite me having so many clean years of motoring both in various high performance cars & high performance motorbikes they felt the zed was a high risk. Year 2 (if I recall) the premium dropped to £800. So still a hefty wedge. These days Im paying less than £500 for my 997 Turbo. So it all seemed to be the RWD thing according to the insurance companines. So in my eyes. anyone who is 22 and only paying £1000 to insure a zed is doing really well. As for adding people to your insurance. Its the same as anything, have a play with confused .com and see what difference it makes. One year, me adding my 80 year old grannie did drop the premium. However, last time around the same insurance company actually REDUCED my premium when I took her off.

Depends on the cat from my experience. I see some using the flower bed and then happily digging a hole to Australia as they attempt to hide it, others just take a dump in the middle of the lawn then leave the scene as quickly as possible. One cat in particular is so keen to distance himself from his poo, that before its even hit the floor he`s half way over the fence. Ive never seen anything like it, its like a greyhound out of the starting blocks. We (unfortunately against my wishes) have 3 cats. All were house cats for many years until we decided to let them roam outside. All 3 will happily play outside, then come in and use their litter tray to take care of business before then going outside again. I (again, against my wishes) am the person who has to sort their trays out and they actually fill 2 builders buckets full a week. So not an insignificant amount. My neighbour on the other hand has 2 cats and I watch them happily leave his house, take a massive dump in my garden, then go straight back into his house. I had a conversation with him once about cat litter and he says that they dont have any litter trays and he happily lets their cats do their business outside. He seemed to think that was perfectly acceptable. So I think a lot of it is down to the owners who have this sort of attitude. Its a bit petty, but usually if I find any of their cat poo on my lawn I chuck it back over their fence.

Hahaha!!! Reminds me of a webex I had with one of our Developers in the States. He works from home and was showing the rest of the company some code changes he had made so was sharing his screen - nobody had our webcams on. I dont know what he did, but he accidentally turned his webcam on and the entire company saw him sitting there in just his underwear. To say he was embarrassed was an understatement. Whole company literally fell of their seats laughing. Luckily everyone saw the funny side of it. To be fair, it was a really hot summer where he lives and he had no air con in his house.

"Sorry, what? No, can't hear you, line is terrible! You're breaking up... can't hear you..." *click* brrrrrrr Thats what I said to the sofa sales man who was trying to flog me the sofa in one ear whilst I had the conference call going on in the other ear. Mad times!

Lie and just tell them you thought it went well, you really feel that you can do the job and are more than happy to answer any other questions they have etc. Its all about coming across confident (but not arrogant) and making them feel that you are the man for the job. One of my mates had a phone interview last year. The recruitment agency warned him that the company tended to ask a lot of questions and drag the interview out so he was nervous and worried. The phone interview lasted about 10minutes and they barely asked him anything. He phoned me up asking me what I thought as he thought he`d blown it. I said it can be one of either 2 things. They thought you were rubbish and just wanted to get you off the phone, or they thought you were sh!t hot. Anyhow, 2 days later they call him back and offered him the job as apparently they thought he was awesome. Needless to say my mate was very surprised. I got my current job via a phone interview with the company President whose based in the US. They were supposed to call me at 5pm but didnt. It got to 6pm and no call so I thought "f**k this" and went down the pub. Anyhow, a couple of hours and 6 pints later the company phone me up saying sorry they are late but am I okay to do the interview with their President now. The job was an incredible opportunity for me and I really wanted it, so I said (whilst trying to pretend to be sober) "sure". Needless to say I was very relaxed on the call. I cant remember much about the call at all, but it must have gone very well as it ended up with me being offered the job. The work culture in the States is very different to here. Its all about work, work and more work. They get 2 weeks holidays and little benefits. If they are not happy with you then they can fire you on the spot without any of the pussy footing around you have to do here with HR. Its all about results. They tend to start work early, happily work late as well as work over weekends. My boss starts his day at about 5am as thats when he starts emailing me. I have conference calls with them at 10 pm some nights as well as at the weekends - they seem to forget about the 8 hour time difference between them and me. I remember one Sunday afternoon I was in a sofa shop buying a sofa and I ended up sitting on the sofa having a conference call between our US office, our Indian office and some of our developers who were based in Edinburgh and Cambridge. Also, maybe its just my company but they also tend to be a bit tight on the salaries. Ive had 1 pay rise in 6 years and ive struggled to get the guys on my teams any increases either. But on the plus side I do get to fly to the US once a year.

Cant beat a sporty diesel. I had 4 years of great fun in my 123d coupe.

Not to mention getting a discount of a porsche.

The HR engine is also mounted lower in the chasis to improve centre of gravity. Theres loads of differences, so I suspect that it would be miles easier just to swap current engine for the same. However, 129k miles is nothing really. No reason why it shouldnt last forever if its looked after.

And there's 40 years of trade, environemnt, & safety regulation to scrap and rewrite not to mention employment and employer rights, crininal and civil statutes., What an almighty mess. Probably be a good time to be a contractor specialising in that sort of area. You`d have 2 years (or more) of work lined up at £2000 a day or whatever day rate you could command.

Mines 10.7% Fortunately not as low as ^^^^^^^^^ phew!!!

With regards to the wedding gifts, personally I dont like it when someone has (for example) a John Lewis gift list full of mega expensive items, its as if they are expecting you to fork out a fortune. You end up looking through it and buying them 1 cup or 3 knifes or something stupid as everything is so expensive or anything under £400 has already been snapped up by other guests. The way I see it, is what would I have paid for the meal etc if I had gone out to a restaurant etc. Maybe 30 or 40quid, so maybe give them £100 or something if theres two of you. You know the couple have forked out a fortune for the day, so id rather give them cash towards that than some voucher for something they may never use or end up selling on ebay. But everyone is different. We had some people come for the entire day & night and only give us a tenner. We had one Italian couple who we barely knew come for just the evening disco and they gave us £250! Mental.

When I got married the wife said she was perfectly happy with a basic wedding with just a few guests. She was even up for the idea of buying a 2nd hand wedding dress off ebay. I was very surprised. But it wasnt long before the costs went through the roof. The wedding dress ended up being £1600 and imported from the USA. She didnt loose enough weight to fit into it and so then had to fork out for alterations. The guest list went from having a few people there in the day for a meal and everyone else arriving for the evening do, to having everyone there for both, with a really good chef laying on beef wellington made with fillet beef. That alone was 60quid a head or something. Still, even now, years later everyone reckons it was the best wedding meal they have ever had, even better than their own. She had to have everything at the wedding and everything was cash cash cash. We even forked out for a lot of friends and familys hotel rooms for the night in a trendy hotel. We didnt have a free bar, but spent an absolute fortune on wine & bubbly, plus all the entertainment throughout the day & evening singer/disco. Then the honeymoon.... I forget what it was now but something like £5k for 2 weeks. Mental. I remember working out I could have had 14 all inclusive 2 week breaks in Spain for the same price! TBH whilst it was 5 star, I thought the honeymoon was rubbish compared to some holidays ive had, total waste of decent cash. Spent most of the time laying by a pool drinking cocktails. I took 10 books to read, read them all and ended up borrowing books of other guests. Not what you expect for a "honeymoon". when I was hoping to spend most of the time holed up in the hotel room having fun. Still we did have a few trips out sight seeing and met some lovely couples who we are still friends with now. As always with weddings, if its your wedding the day flys by and you dont really have chance to enjoy it. Its all about the guests rather than the "happy" couple. Still it was fun opening all the gifts afterwards. We asked for cash as like most people you already have a house & all the stuff. It was surprising to see how generous some friends were and how tight others were. Still we ended up clearing a good 3 or 4 grand in wedding pressies. Sort of off-set the £17k or whatever the wedding ended up costing us.

Sounds about right to me. When I fitted my Japspeed K1 to my 4 year old zed I figured it would be a 1hr job. Nice easy bolt off/on as the car had only done 22k miles and was nearly new. How wrong I was. The underside of the car was so rusty I was shocked. My 10 year old VW Golf with 195k on the clock still looked brand new underneath, but my zed looked like someone had dragged it out of a lake. No matter how much penetrating oil & slowly tweeking the nuts which went from the Y pipe to the exhaust, sure enough one snapped off. It then took hours lying under the car on my stomach praying that the axle stands would hold the weight of the car whilst I drilled out the snapped stud. It took ages. Then, the bolts holding the mid section to the baxk box wouldnt undo as they were also rusted solid. In the end I had to get the angle grinder out and cut the pipe off. Next mission was trying to get the back box off the rubber mounts. The box weighed a ton and the rubbers were so hard it was a nightmare. Lots of swearing later and I got it off. All in all, it took me nearly the whole day. Saying that though, I would have expected a garage to give you a call and warn you that they are having problems. However, if they had already started the job you wouldnt really have much choice other than have them finish the work, so it would have cost you the same anyway.

One problem I had when I bought my last house is that any house which hasnt changed hands before a certain year, the land registry struggles to locate the deeds. They are all on computers these days, but my old house hadnt changed hands since 1969 when it was first built and so I too had a big struggle with that side of things. Fortunately all the properties which surround my boundaries had changed hands, so land registry knew what the borders of my plot was, but even so, when we obtained the original building plans & maps there was a difference in about 8 inches between the boundry the land registry expected and what our plans showed. This caused great problems as it would meant sending people out with tape measures etc. etc. so in the end I said that I couldnt care less over such a small difference, just go with what you have already.

When I last moved, I knew there was no way I could possibly load all my stuff, motorbikes, cars etc. in one go. I had a 3 bedroom house full of stuff plus a triple garage/workshop full. I would have to either hire an industrial unit or something and move them into there first, or just buy my next house first, move my stuff over the course of several week before selling my original house. Option 2 had the advantage that I could then turn my old house into a nice looking show house & stage it nicely without having lots of clutter. So, thats what I ended up doing. It also meant there would be no chains involved from my side. However, it did mean somehow finding enough money for a deposit on the new house and being able to afford 2 mortgages for a few months. Even then, the process wasnt smooth. We found a house we wanted, put an offer in which was accepted. I get mortgage all arranged and pay for surveys etc. I stuck my house on the market and accepted an offer on my house in the October. All going great. Then we are told the owner of the house we are buying has accepted a higher offer. I counter offer but cant match the other offer so thats that. We view another dozen houses and find somewhere else, put offer in which is accepted. Then the mortgage company starts kicking off about me having 2 mortgages - even though the joint monthly repayments were well within their "allowance". Apparently they just didnt like people having 2 mortgages. So I then had to get a financial adviser in to find me a bank who would. Then the buyer of my house changes his mind and backs out. Fortunately the house I was buying went through fine within 4 weeks which was quick. Having both houses meant I could renovate and decorate the new one whilst living in my other house and slowly move my stuff in bit by bit. I completely redecorated my old house, added new floorng & carpets throughout and it looked awesome. However, at the time the housing market started to drop (and it was also over Christmas when people dont like moving) so in the end it took 6 months before my old house sold. So I had 6 months of 2 mortgages, plus all the costs of renovating house 2 up, and the costs of getting house 1 looking mint. Then when my old house finally sold it annoyingly it went for 40k less than the one next door (which needed completely refurbishing) a couple of years earlier. Now 5 years later the wife is on about moving again........ aaaarrrggghhhh!!!!!!

Mental.

That seems a good price to me.

Sounds like a plan. Ive just come back from a 7 day holiday and not been able to workout at all. Now really struggling with motivation completely. Caught a look at a beach photo of me on holiday and feel really disappointed with how I am looking now, and yet 2 weeks back I was full of confidence and really happy at the progress I was making. Mad how your mindset can switch so quickly.

Personally I wouldnt have a problem buying a high mileage car as long as the history was there and I trusted the owner. Some people like myself, use their cars as a daily runner and can soon add on 20k a year of motorway miles which puts hardly any strain on car. However, my biggest concern would be reselling the car when I finally was finished with it, as 100k still is that psychological barrer to some buyers who would rather buy a 60 or 70k miles car and face potential bills than a 100k+ car which has more than likely already had all the work done to it.

The 370 is shorter & wider than the 350, although in the flesh it actually looks totally the opposite due to the styling. The bloke who I left standing from 20mph upto err.. a reasonable speed, coming off a roundabout onto a dual carriageway last year when I was in my daily diesel did not look at all happy. He looked positively gutted. It did look though like he had spent a fortune modding his GT86 though, it was all kitted out, had very loud exhausts on it (esp when he was wringing its neck trying to catch up) and it was lowered etc. Looked like it had came straight from fast & furious. Still, my neighbour has one and he`s very happy with it. Although he is 75 years old and only uses it to nip to Asda and back. (Seriously, i kid you not! And fair play to the old boy).

Not the best worded advert. He mentions 3 different prices for it. £4000, £4990 and £4750 and had p/x next to all of them. I presume he`s trying to say its one price if you have no part ex and another if you do have a part ex. November 2003 car so quite old now, MOT runs out in Dec 2017. Owners done 4k in last 6 months, so not very heavy use. Although did around 15k>20k average every year before that, so its been used as a daily driver. Which, whilst high mileage, the car must be reasonably reliable for someone to have happily used it like that. I did about 20k in 12 months in my zed as a daily, entirely motorway miles nearly, so I wouldnt be overly worried by the mileage alone. See what you mean about the MOT history although in fairness its basically the anti roll bar ball joints which have been flagged as an advisory for the last god knows how many years. Other than that and having both rear wheel bearings now replaced the other bits its had are fairly minor. Does make you wonder though why the owner hasnt replaced those anti roll bar ball joints if they keep getting flagged up each year and if they cant be bothered to do them, what else have they skimped on.... As long as the service history all looked okay and everything added up then I wouldnt be too worried.

Agree, thats when I used to tune in religiously every week and watch Top Gear. Once it became the "Jeremy Clarkson" show I switched off. Ive seen various episodes since and just couldnt get on with the staged "challenges" and stuff. It just made me want to smash my TV up. I guess im hoping that the new Top Gear will be a step away from the previous version, however from the reviews ive read it sounds like they are trying to do all the same stuff still. Ive recorded it on sky plus so will have to watch it later in the week/year when I get some spare time.

Have to say I have never been a fan of convertibles or ever wanted one. That was until the wife got a 206CC many years back. Whilst very much a girlie car, it was incredible fun driving around with the roof down. That was why when I got my zed I got the zed roadster. As for those people who say, well you can only have the roof down twice a year in the UK, I actually pretty much had the roof down every time I drove it unless it was tipping it down. Even when it was freezing weather - you just stick the blowers on hot and you drive along in a nice bubble of warm air. Was amazing. Only thing I didnt like was in summer when you were driving around and you could smell everyones BBQ`s.... used to make my tummy rumble!

Besides checking the roof seams, check the metal support which is above the drivers head. On my roadster due to the force of the roof pulling back to open, it was pealing the metal away from the support beam. The dealer ended up riveting it back on. You also say its a few years newer than an 05 plate, so im guessing probably an 07/08 in which case the car may well be an HR model, although it could still be a late registered older model. To check, the car should have a big bonnet bulge, and when you open the bonnet the engine has 2 air intakes - one each side. Also, at that age, the car should have probably had its spark plugs changed, so see if the service history mentions anything about that. Finally, if it is an HR model, check the condition of the aux drive belt at the front of the engine. Mine used to shred itself every 20k for some unknown reason (Nissan had no idea why but said it wasnt normal). Cracking cars though, I loved my roadster, was great fun.

Interesting one really. I dont believe in getting car loans, so ive paid for all my cars in cash. That way I dont end up paying a fortune in interest. My first 4 cars were fairly cheap old bangers and I actually sold for the same or more than they cost me which gave me probably about 8 years of relatively free motoring. It wasnt until I started buying more expensive cars that the depreciation costs started adding up. Last few cars: Golf GT TDI - "lost" £2300 over 4 years (although did nearly 100k miles in it, so thats only 2.3p a mile) 350Z HR Roadster - lost £6250 in 18 months. (28p a mile) BMW 123d Coupe - lost £12250 over 4 years (20p a mile) Current car is a Porsche 997 Turbo, which over the last year has gone up by around £500 a month in value (unfortunately that was before I bought it), so I will see how much I loose on it when I come to eventually selling it.