rabbitstew

Ive got a draper one ive had for years and a norbar one, both are good although I seem to prefer the norbar one atm. I now need one which can do lower torque settings, so am eyeing up the halfords professional ones....

I was reading a thread on pistonheads the other day where some poor lad was test driving a traders zed and the trader (who closed the bonnet last) hadnt shut it correctly. They get down the road and the bonnet flys open, mashing the roof up and causing quite a bit of damage. There was a massive dispute then with the trader saying it was the lads fault as he was driving and the lad saying it was the traders fault as the trader hadnt closed the bonnet properly. Either way, this would be ideal to repair that car! I expect it would cost a fair amount though to chop off a roof, weld the new panel in, refit all the headlining, paint etc etc. etc.

It is a tough one. Zed`s in particular seem very prone to stone chips. The main dealer resprayed the bumper on my (4 year old at the time) zed just before i bought it and yet within 12 months of me carefully making sure i never tailgated anyone, loads of stone chips were back. You can get some touch up paint and ive seen threads where people have made quite amazing results by touching up the stone chips then sanding / polishing down etc - but it is a lot of work and i found it hard to get a good result. Only real solution is to have the bumper etc properly resprayed, knowing that in a year or so`s time they might be back. Depending upon if you can live with them or not, it might be worth just leaving it, then having it painted before you come to sell the car in the future.

Thats exactly what I did for my mate who had lost his locking wheel nut key. I used an impact socket and a couple of hits with a lump hammer easily got it on the alloy wheel nut. Then a breaker bar unscrewed it nicely. Had to clamp socket in vice and drive the butchered locking wheel nut out of it after each one, but if you take your time you wont cause any damage to the wheels.

I couldnt bring myself to watch it to be honest. In general you get good & bad drivers, regardless of whether they are bikers or lorry drivers so you cant really tar everyone with same brush. From the sounds of it, it was a combination of the biker overtaking without thinking about the junction & the car driver pulling out without looking. As a biker myself, i automatically assume everyone on the road when im out is trying to kill me and so I ride accordingly. I think ive seen it all over the years, including once when a driver who was about to pull out of a junction in front of me, spotted me, stopped her car, had eye contact with me, waited until I got closer to her, then promptly pulled straight out in front of me so I had no choice but to hit the side of her car & superman over the top of it. Then claimed that she didnt see me in my bright red power rangers outfit.

Escort cossy eh! Ive always wanted one of them. Last time I looked at buying one they were about £12k but that was a very long time ago . I dont see them ever coming down in value. All sorts of cars are going up in price, cars i never ever expected to be worth any money. Stuff like old XR3i`s, old RS Turbos. Cars which at one point id see advertised for a few hundred quid now being up for thousands. It depends on how desperately you want the cash really.. You mention you bought it as an investment, so you could either keep it as such, or take the cash you have in it now and invest it elsewhere. Depends on what return you see happening on that amount of money over the next few years. If its a toy you bought because you love driving it, then id keep it. Thats what i do with all my favourite cars/bikes. I only sell the ones i dont like any more!

Yep, they were all a dark pearl blue with colour coded wheels. They also had "raider" written on the back screen and had blue flecks on the seats instead of the stock red ones. Appart from that, they were the same as "ordinary" gt turbos, same power etc. Basically renault knocked them out at the end of the 5 gt turbos lifecycle as a "special" to use up old stock. Same as what they did with the clio williams etc. Looks like that might be a dimma kit or something similar on that 5 Raider.

+1

^^^^^^^ What he said ^^^^^^^ except id still love a 1M and think they look awesome. (I am a bit bias though as I drive a 123d coupe)

No brainer really on this one, sort it out outside of insurance. If you make a claim, your premium will go up regardless of whether its your fault or not. Get a few quotes from bodyshops, you may find one who is confident they can get away with just painting the bonnet and matching the paint up.

That is mental and very strange! Surely its up to the registered keeper (i.e. guy who crashed the bike) to ensure its insured and the buck stops with him. If he doesnt have insurance then the courts persue him and penalise him accordingly. Its absolutely nothing to do with previous owners. I doubt anyone cancels their insurance once they sell a bike or car, as very often you sell one, then shop about and buy another, then let your insurance company know so they can change over the reg number/vehicle details. The only time ive ever cancelled my insurance after selling the vehicle, I ended up getting penalised by the insurance company to the tune of about twice what the actual insurance cost me in the first place due to "early cancellation" penalties etc..

I actually did come across an Audi TTRS a few years ago when I was driving my zed. Id never really heard of the TTRS. We came off a roundabout on a dual carriageway, I was in 2nd gear and we were both flooring it from about 25mph up to a "reasonable" speed when we both backed off. From where I was sitting, it was neck and neck. He was definitely booting it, not just out for a gentle drive. We did the same thing off the next roundabout to make sure it wasnt just a one off with me getting the drop on him or anything. It wasnt until I got home that I googled the TTRS and found out more about them. Im sure on a 1/4 mile or from a standing start he would have killed me, but on that day, on that occasion, in that situation, he didnt. They are mental cars and have huge tuning potential. My zed was an HR, so had 309bhp. I actually remember posting on here at the time and got slated as people said the TTRS would have destroyed me or the guy wasnt trying or I was imagining things etc etc. As a comparison, I did come up against an C63 AMG a few weeks later and my god, he totally blew me off the road as if Id put the car in reverse gear. Unbelievably quick acceleration from what I thought was a boring looking Merc family car in my rear view mirror. Not to mention that Corsa VXR.....

I have only ever parked like the OP once, and that was outside the local chemists whilst I quickly popped in. The car park was half empty, so I didnt think it would be an issue. However, id barely got out of my car before some passerby started having a go at me for parking in 2 spaces. So ive never done it since. As a parent with a 10 month old baby, ive only just started using the parent & child spaces and I soon realised that about 60% of people parking in them do not have any children with them and just use them because usually closer to the store. Its infuriating trying to get a baby, pram and all the gear out in an ordinary space just because some selfish so & so has parked in a parent & child space.

You havent seen the state of my £1600 leather sofa which my cats been using as a scratching post!!

I just use Waze on my phone, its free!

My missus has a flat she rents out and you do get good/bad tennants. Her current ones have been lovely, and have been in there for a good few years. They have redecorated and stuff and looked after the place. In turn we have kept the rent low and done stuff like buy them a new cooker & fridge etc to keep them happy. Unfortunately we have heard on the grapevine that they are looking to buy a house now so we arnt looking forward to finding new tennants. The previous tennents we had were a nightmare, always late on rent and when they moved out we had to spend a week redecorating and cleaning. Funnyist thing was when we moved a bedroom wardrobe to paint behind it and found a couple of ann summers vibrators they had left behind.

Im thinking of getting some CCTV installed anyway, so might be a good idea - i could make money of her antics by uploading them to youtube...

She is probably deaf. My parents neighbour does similar, he seems to rev the living day lights out of his fiesta, then proceeds up the road in 1st until its banging off the limiter for 30 seconds before changing gear. At last count he was on clutch number 4 and the cars only done about 15k. He apparently got through one in just 500 miles. Ive mentioned before, but my neighbours are also pretty inconsiderate. Im the only house in the cul-de-sac with a nice big double drive so I can park both my car & wifes car side by side. The neighbour has a single drive. Rather than use some of her front garden to create a 2nd parking space for her husbands car, he parks his car behind hers on the drive. No problem there, but when his car is blocking hers in, rather than her move his car out on to the road, she just shunts back and forth, over the flowers which separate our drives in some bizarre 100 point turn until she is sideways between my car and her house. Eventually she manages to turn her car completely around on my drive, then drives across my drive and onto the road. I only realised this when I saw tyre marks going horizontally across my drive in front of my garage and wondered how the hell they got there. Then several times since ive stood there in the hall way of my house, my heart in my mouth and watched her shunting her car about cm`s away from my shiny car. I want to put up a nice fence between us to stop unwanted trespassing by her, but my missus says "oh shes not hurting anything" and I should let them be.

I actually saw a Ford Orion the other morning! First one ive seen on the road in about 14 years!!! I had to do a double take!

Hmmm..I learnt this same mistake years back. I took my hot hatch to a national clutch chain for a new clutch and they made a right mess of it. Car caught fire as i drove it away as they had left sound proofing touching the exhaust downpipes, they hadnt reconnected a boost pipe on the turbo so the car was dangerously over boosting and I actually found 2 bolts from the gearbox housing left in the rain gutter under the bonnet rather than being put back in the gearbox. This was after the job actually already took them 4 days to do (they initially said 1 days work) after they told me that had cross threaded some of the gearbox bolts and had to tap them out. Next time i needed a clutch I went to someone who specialised in my make/model of car and they did the job in a few hours!

Im in the fortunate position that ive managed to keep my very favourite cars/motorbikes over the years, so the only ones ive ever sold are those I wouldnt miss. So I still have my very first car (a 1972 850cc Mini) and my favourite car ive ever owned which is my 1988 Renault 5 GT Turbo. Bike wise, ive held onto my 1994 ZXR750L2, my 1999 R1 and my 2000 Ducati 996.

Yep, MOT & insurance needed, unless bike is less than 3 years old in which case you just need the insurance.

The online tax thing is updated mega quick usually. I MOT`d my bike last year and within 15minutes it had updated online so I could get my road tax. Same with insurance. My bike & car insurance companies do email only docs now. Mine often end up in my spam folder! Just go to dvla websitre and apply for your tax online,

Im all for sensible people owning & using guns responsibly, but it really makes you wonder what they were thinking off letting a 9 year old kid have a go with an UZI like that. Its hardly wonder she wouldnt be able to handle the recoil & control it properly.

Id be looking at something like a 5 door TDI Golf if he wants VAG. Ive had 2 mk5`s and a mk4. I did 110,000 miles in my mk4, selling it when it finally reached 192k on the clock and it still ran like new. I used to get 65mpg out of it on a daily basis. However, im not sure why he is dismissing French cars. After I sold my Golf, my wife ran a Peugeot 307HDI and over the 18 months we had it, it was by far easily the cheapest car we have ever owned for running costs. I was getting 57mpg out of it on my daily commute, the boot was miles bigger than the golf and the only things I had to do on it was new brake pads (£25 in total for complete front & back sets!), new top mounts (£20) and one suspension spring which broke (£25). The only thing I didnt like with the 307 was the interior did feel a bit more plasticy than the Golf but it was massive inside, like a tardis so ideal for familys.