rabbitstew

Thats how it was with my estate agents when I sold. Its a bit of a con really, as rather than charge say 1%, they worked out that 1% of their "valuation" of my house of £200k is £2000 and so thats what they would charge for their fees as a fixed price. So you agree to that. Then of course, it transpires that they have overvalued your house and you end up selling for £180k and the estate still gets his £2k which works out at a higher percentage of £180k. Mine has a cracking set of pins and wears short skirts and high heels whenever I've seen her, so I figure I also get my money's worth that way Excellent!!! May have to get a referral from you next time I move!

Thats how it was with my estate agents when I sold. Its a bit of a con really, as rather than charge say 1%, they worked out that 1% of their "valuation" of my house of £200k is £2000 and so thats what they would charge for their fees as a fixed price. So you agree to that. Then of course, it transpires that they have overvalued your house and you end up selling for £180k and the estate still gets his £2k which works out at a higher percentage of £180k. I think I would definitely do this. Only "risk" you have is prices may rocket in those few months you are renting, but in the current climate if you are only talking about a few months then you should be fine. When I moved last the house I was selling actually had the buyer pull out at the last minute. Rather than mess the seller of the house I was buying about, I took out a 2nd mortgage and carried on with the purchase. Unfortunately the house I was selling ended up taking nearly 6 months to sell, so I was paying 2 mortgages for 6 months. But on the plus side it did mean I could take all the time in the world moving all my gear over to the new house. My garage/workshop alone took about 15 trips with all my cars/motorbikes/tools/spares/gym equipment. It also meant I could seriously de-clutter my old house, redecorate it and "stage" it so it looked like a show home in order to help it sell. I really dont know how anyone can move house in just one day. Madness.

The extra weight knocked something like 0.5seconds off the 0-60 on my HR one over a coupe. But on the road wasnt noticeable. Also, whilst the roadster is heavier, that re-enforcement and strengthening is all low down, so the reviews I read said that they actually handle the same / if not better than a coupe. I never pushed it to the limit on a track back-to-back so cant say, but certainly on the road there wouldnt be anything in it. When I looked the roadsters were more expensive than the coupe`s as they are rarer. Of course, Roadsters will sell easier in the summer rather than winter, when in general prices of convertibles are stronger as demand is higher. But I enjoyed mine all year around. Nothing like getting the roof down, heaters on full blast and having a back road thrash in the middle of winter.

That would be over the full term, but what if you pay the loan off after 1 month, surely the interest you actually owed would be re-calculated on the basis of you only borrowed the cash for 1 month rather than the full term? Id expect some sort of "early repayment" penalty, but maybe not you forgo the interest paid for the full term.

There seems to be no end of different types of GAP insurance! The one BMW offered me when I bought my 6 month old 123d was that if I write it off, then I will get the difference between what the insurance pay me for the car and what a brand new one (not a 6 month old one) would cost. The salesman was quite keen to stress that. The way he worded it I could crash my 6 month old (but new to me) £25k car and drive away in a new one (£33k) for this bargain price of whatever it was a year. I didnt see why I should gamble on crashing in order to jump in a new car as my insurance premium would rocket up anyway and I was more than happy with the 6 month old car id just bought. Ive heard that before, but I have never understood that. Surely they wont know how much total interest you will owe until you have finally paid it off. I (maybe too sensibly) thought it was worked out monthly based upon what you have left to pay. I know on my mortgage it used to be £500 a month and £300 of that was interest, and £200 went off the capital. At the end of each year I had a statement showing that id cleared £x amount of the capital and £x was paid interest. I dont ever recall a statement showing that for year X id paid no interest and all it went off capital.

Thats an interesting one. Im with Admiral for the 4th year running and at no point have they asked me if my 350z or 123d has any factory extras over the base-spec version. Both were/are pretty loaded with factory optional extras so i am going to have to check my policy wording now and see what it says.

Expensive motoring. I didnt realise in the event of a total loss, that whilst the insurance company replace the car, the finance company would decide to call in the loan at that point. You`d have thought it would just transfer over to the replacement vehicle and all carry on as normal. Bit mad really, must happen to people at all the time & makes you wonder why anyone would take out finance with such a risk hanging over their head. I know at one point finance seemed to move away from being tied to an asset and more to being a personal loan, so that if someone did sell the car and pocket the cash, or be in negative equity that the finance company would still persue the loan against the individual, but as long as you kept up the monthly payments then everything was fine. EDIT: All this is one reason why ive always paid cash for my cars!

To cover negative equity. Motor insurance doesn't cover that. What negative equity? You buy a car using a loan (loan is usually on person rather than vehicle), it drops in value more than your loan is for. Thats pretty normal I would guess. You have a crash, insurance give you cash to buy an identical car. You go out & get an identical car, so you are surely in same position as you was before. Have same car, same loan? Unless I guess for some reason if its a write off and insurance give you a new car, but then the loan company suddenly demand you repay the loan back in full? Bit strange really as surely as long as the monthly loan payments continued to be paid all is well. Buy a £17k car on finance, due to interest this is now £19k for arguments sake owed. 1yr later due to depreciation the car is now worth £14k but finance is still £17k. You have an accident and the insurance company can find same spec, mileage cars available for £14k and so write you a cheque for £14k. Take a guess where the Finance company will expect that missing £3k to come from? Okay, so i guess what you are saying is that in the event of a write off, whilst the insurance company will put you back in the same spec/year/mileage car, the finance company at that point in time, for some reason, will decide to call in their loan and expect you to pay it back in full? I thought as long as the payments were continued to be made then all would be fine. I remember buying a motorbike once off a guy and he was paying for it through finance. I spoke to the finance company and they said the loan is on the person, not the car, so he can do what he wants with the bike. He sold it to me, bought a different bike with the cash and just carried on as normal paying his loan. All parties were happy. I guess if the loan is tied to the car so the finance company own the car rather than you then they can decide to call it a day should you stack it. But at any rate, if you took a loan, you know you have to pay back the full amount anyway, regardless of the value of the item you bought with the cash, so should factor that into any finance deal. EDIT: But I can see where Gap insurance is a good idea in this case. It allows you to finance a car you cant otherwise afford and reduce the risks.

I never really saw the point of gap insurance so I never bothered, although the salesmen very heavily pushed it on the last 2 cars I bought, that along with "alloy wheel & tire insurance" etc. The way I saw it, is that say, when the car was 3 years old I have an accident. The insurance company will either repair or give me money to buy an identical year/spec/mileage one, so id be in exactly the same position as I was before the accident. So why would I need any gap insurance? Thats how its worked for everyone I know who has ever made an insurance claim. I didnt see why I should take out insurance so if i do have an accident I get a brand spanking new zero mile car? My insurance would still go up in price anyway. Its like buying some lottery tickets really on the "off chance" I have an accident.

hahaha!!! love it. The Ship of the Fens as its known around my way is quite a photogenic place. Friend of mine actually got married there earlier in the year!

I changed simply down to cost. I couldnt justify forking out the £1250 a month running costs my zed was costing me when basically I was just using it as a daily commuting car. When it came to the weekend, I really didnt get any spare time to enjoy it as I wanted to. It pained me a bit as id just spent £700 on a set of tyres, £300 on new brake pads, had just given it a service and it was an absolutely mint HR Roadster. I did toy with trying to keep it as just a weekend car and for 6 months was lucky enough to be able to run my wifes old car along side the zed, but ultimately I sold them both and moved onto 1 car which could kill both birds with one stone. Performance plus economy. However, with some of my other toys, ones which ive spent a lot more time & money modifying - like my Renault 5 GT turbo, my R1 & my Ducati 996, even my old ZXR750L2, I cant ever imagine I will sell them. I find once I have spent so much time, money, care & love on something, you form that "special" relationship with it and for me to sell them would be like selling the things I love most in the world. I can imagine though that if you had spent ages modding a car and no matter what you did it just didnt connect with you or feel how you wanted, then you`d just off load it and buy something else.

This line is indeed correct. Where my parents live, it used to be open fields opposite. But, over the last 10 years house upon house have been built on this land. This has basically left a row of newish houses, then a field, then an old house which has been there since 1901. The new owners of the old house applied to see if they could build a couple of houses in the field, which from my eyes would now really be classed as "in fill". However the local council rejected these. They have a map of the village and on that map they have a line which goes around it all. Anything inside the line can be built on, anything the other side of the line is classed as brown belt (or whatever) and they refuse under any circumstance to allow it to be built on. I found it quite funny really, as basically the line goes straight through this field. So quite what difference it makes for the 3 fields one side of the line which are now built on, and the remaining field the other side of the line I really dont know. What the old house owner is doing now is trying to work with planners to make sure any new build is kept to the "allowed" side of the line, leaving the new builds garden in the "non build allowed" side of the line. Pretty mad really. Ive had limited dealings with planning people at my local council. When I first moved in a couple of years back I dropped them an email asking if id be okay to put a fence between me & neighbours out front to separate our drives. I was just expecting a simple yes or no back but actually got quite a detailed letter back from them saying yes, but certain conditions had to apply etc. Likewise one of my neighbours decided to do a loft conversion and I had quite a few letters through from planning to make sure I was happy. I actually phoned them up and the planning officer answered the phone and had a long chat wiith me about it all which I thought was good of them. I guess each area is different, but id start by dropping them a fairly informal email saying you would like to build in your garden, whats the likelyhood of anything being approved based upon previous applications in the area, and if so what likely conditions are there - i.e. any lines which cant be built over, or height/type of dwelling restrictions etc..

I think your gut feeling says a lot really. If you have doubts walk. Even if you buy the car, you will always have that niggling doubt about its history. The number of owners doesnt really mean its been driven hard. The first owner for all you know may have used it as a track car and wrung its neck for 3 years, and the other owners since then may have been little old ladies. The condition, service history and how it drives should tell you more. Finally the colour change would put me off. Unless its been done properly, you`ll always see bits of black paint around the engine, inside boot etc. A colour change is not cheap at all and I really dont see why a dealer would do this just because of a couple of *small* scrapes. It would be miles cheaper just to touch up those scrapes in the original colour. My verdict: Walk.

I used to fly loads with my previous jobs, but im proper scared now of flying. I know statistically they reckon flying is still the safest way to travel, but i think id rather be in my car than on a plane now.

One problem i found when doing this to my beemer is that you have to think where the buttons are on the side of the tablet. Some you can get apps to use volume on screen rather than on the side. I had to rewire the power button on the tablet i used to a little microswitch. Also, for charging make sure your 12v->usb socket adapter or what ever you use to wire it up to the car is chucking out enough amps to power whatever you are using on the tablet. I found when I used my sat nav app unless it had a 2amp charger it would use more power than it was getting.

http://www.halfords.com/motoring/garage-equipment/trolley-jacks-axle-stands/halfords-2-tonne-axle-stands Awesome. I bought a set of these earlier in the year when they were reduced and they are good quality items.

All depends on how fussy you are about where you live. I work in Cambridge. Houses in the street behind where are work cost £650k for a 3 bed victorian terraced house with no garden, no parking and no garage. They get snapped up in days for the full asking price. Theres no way in gods earth can I afford that, nor would I want to, when if you buy further out of Cambridge you can get a 6 bed mansion with land for similar money. So whilst I work in Cambridge, I live in a town/village about 40miles out of Cambridge and here you can buy a 2 bed terraced house or flat for £50k. Sure it means a bit of a commute in to work, but it means I can afford to buy a house. If I decided to rent instead of buy, a 3 bed house identical to mine is currently up for £500 a month rent. Even if you are on the lower end of the salary scale, getting a mortgage on a £50k house or forking out £500 a month rent is not too hard to achieve, especially if you are a couple & have 2 salaries coming in. I keep an eye on the house prices in my current town and the city where I used to live. My old house which I sold 4 years back looks like its worth roughly about the same price now. So, in that particular area house prices have remained static. In my current street, prices also seem to have remained pretty static since I bought my current house. Whereas, places like Cambridge and London have increased in value.

Its up to you really as to what they do. The company I have been speaking to are ecotune in scotland, they can get over 300bhp and 430ft/lb out of my car. They have rolling road so can map it on the dyno but they said to be honest, you would only get a couple of bhp more from an actual rolling tune as opposed to just flashing it with their current map. As im based miles from scotland, they can send their map to a tuner more local to me who can flash it for them. Is the 1.9tdi in the octavia the same "PD" engine which was in the Golf GT TDI and Leon Cupra R diesel? If so you can get an easy reliable 170bhp from that straight from the bat with a simple remap. In actual fact, Seat offered it as an option at dealers on the cupra - up from 150bhp to 170bhp for an extra cost.

Wow enough filler on that car!

Good result, only just saw this else I would have offered as I work in Cambridge and live not far from Raunds! Tell me about it, they are loonies around here. No lights, jumping red lights, swerving all over the shop. Its a miracle ive not run one over yet.

Had me worried there for a bit that you were selling Rosie! But it sounds like you got a good result there. I know the other year when I was able to use the wifes old diesel in the week and keep my zed for weekend use I really found that I enjoyed using the zed a lot lot more than when I was using it as my 100mile a day commuting car. It felt like a completely different car. Unfortunately in the end for me the cost of running 2 cars (insurance/tax/mot/servicing etc etc) was too much and I just couldnt justify it - so I sold both cars and went for my 123d coupe. I dont miss the zed as much as I expected to be honest. I do miss it in the summer sometimes when I miss not having the roof down and the noise of that HR engine through the aftermarket exhaust. That was great fun and made the commute home from work more fun. I think the reason I dont miss it as much is that the 123d coupe is such a good little car. It really gets upto 3 figures very quickly, certainly quicker than a lot of other car drivers seem to appreciate and handles really well. I feel more confident pushing it hard than I ever did in my zed. I am still debating whether to remap it or not as you can get over 300bhp & 400ft/lb torque out of it now with a simple remap which is pretty amazing from a 2litre twin turbo.

I couldnt tell any difference between playing a CD in my bose or using my phone to play mp3`s via the ipod hack. Basically you are just wiring straight into the tape audio circuit, so it should be the same. All depends on how good quality your source of the music is. Most mp3`s these days are good. What i do now is to just use google music and stream my music via 4g through my car stereo which seems to work really well. (unless i end up in middle of nowhere with no phone signal and the buffer runs out).

Although worth noting that the jawbone up24 which ive got, whilst its sweat and shower proof, its not waterproof for swimming. I got mine from amazon, was half price at the time. You get different sizes depending up on your wrist size. The sleep thing I found really interesting. Half the time I cant remember what time I went to bed or woke up. But it cleverly knows how many times you woke up in the night, did you have deep or light sleep and what time you woke up etc. You can then compare each day along with your moods and how you feel to see if theres any patterns etc. Also finding out how active/not active I am was interesting. I knew when im at home im always rushing about hoovering, cleaning, cooking, washing etc but didnt realise that if im at home for a day i may do 15,000 steps in that day, and yet on a day when im on at work I only do about 5000 steps! So that kind of motivates me to have a 3 mile lunchtime walk, or like this morning, I got up at 6am and did a 4 mile run before getting to the office.

As above, the ipod hack is nice & easy to do. I did mine. Originally i wired an iphone connector up to it so I could use my ipod, then decided to switch it for a normal 3.5mm jack plug which meant I could plug anything into it then really. I never had a problem with the bose system, sounded fine to me.

I use a jawbone up24, which ive had for a little while. I didnt really see the point of them until I got one. I use it with the software which came with it and find its pretty good at monitoring my sleep patterns & measuring how many steps I do in the day. I sync it with runkeeper which I use to keep track of all my runs & walks. You can also sync it with stuff like myfitnesspal and record calories etc. Depends on how much you want from it. It can help motivate you if you are just getting into working out, it gives you recommendations and challenges and gives a very good overview as to how active you are throughout the day. I did consider one of the smart watches, but i have quite a good watch collection so id prefer to wear those than a new watch. Also the battery on the up24 lasts a full week before needing a charge, and when you do charge it, it fully charges in an hour. I did briefly consider if id need one with a heart rate monitor built in, but figured im not likely to need that functionality and if i did I can use my phone to measure my heart rate.