rabbitstew

Nice!!!!!

This time of year roadsters in general seem to go up in price. You only have to look at junction21 or whatever they are called in Peterborough and some of the prices they are asking for old roadsters are just staggering imo. You will find trade in prices are always really low, especially on cars like the zed. When I was trying to decide what to do with my 2007 HR Roadster which was fully loaded, the trade in against a new BMW was coming in at about £9k, when privately they were selling for £12k and would be about £13k on a dealers forecourt. The problem I had at the time was that not many people like the costs of running a 3.5 V6 nor had £12k or so spare, so rather than try to sell privately I just went for the part ex option. I also got a good price on the car I was buying so it kind of off-set it a little. The problem with that idea is that you then have 2 lots of MOT, TAX, Insurance and running costs. Plus you can only use your NCB on one car, so you`ll end up paying full wack on the cheapie diesels insurance unless you can insure the car in the other persons name and use some of their NCB.(assuming they have some) Including the fuel costs of my daily commute, I worked out when I had my 350z that it was costing me £1250 a month all in. Thats not incl any finance as I always pay cash for my cars. My wife had (at the time) an old banger Peugeot 307HDI diesel, and assuming I used her NCB to insure it, I worked out that if I was to use that instead it would cost me something like £400 a month. If I used both cars at the same time - splitting the week between them, then the combined costs came to about £800 or something, so id make a nice "saving" over using the zed exclusively. So, I decided to run both at once for about 6 months which worked out well. I found I enjoyed the zed more as I was driving it for "fun" a lot more, rather than just boring daily commuting. However, what i did in the end though was just to sell both off and buy a BMW 123d coupe which kinda gave me the best of both worlds, its got a 6.something 0-60, bags of torque, its still front engined & RWD, handles better than my HR did and returns 50mpg. Running costs come to slightly less than it was costing me to run both the old cars. So you really have to sit down and work it all out, lots of things to think about!

I guess they sit there quietly on the other end, then when you key in your visa`s phone number they listen to the beeps, then probably go "ring ring ring ring, hello, visa here can i have your secret password etc"

Had a lovely black HR Roadster follow me all the way from Peterborough up to the A14 at Thrapston on Sunday after I over took it in the wifes Nissan Juke. Had alezan orange seats, a Nismo boot spoiler and the couple in it looked like they were having a great time cruising along. Really made me miss my HR roadster. Private plate on it P*NSA (or something similar)

lol im the same, every time i walk buy a window or door which looks out on the drive I take a peak at my car!

I think redundancy is counted the same regardless of whether it was voluntary or not. If you just quit your job for the sake of it, then I think in that case there is a time period you have to wait before you can claim. Either way, you need to call up the JSA people ASAP after you finish as your claim will only go from the date you call them and they dont back date it. Its been a while since I was last made redundant but I seem to recall they wanted to know how many weeks my notice period was, and as it was 1 month, I could only claim JSA after that 1 month was up - i.e. work is effectively giving me a months pay arnt they after I leave. IVe been made redundant 2 or 3 times in my career and it can be a bit scary, but ive nearly always been able to find some sort of work quickly. Redundancy pay isnt taxed, so you effectively get more cash than normal and if you can find some sort of other work, you can end up with a nice bit of money in the bank. It really depends on how fussy you are. Last time I was made redundant, I went from a £50k a year job in IT to working on a building site as a labourer for £50 a day all summer until I could find another IT job. Have to say I loved it. Allowed me to destress from what had previously been a job I hated, I got really in shape and got a cracking sun tan too. I also learnt new skills which helped me around home when it came to DIY. It also meant I didnt need to sell off any of my toys and my redundancy pay sat in the bank and actually went towards more toys when I got another better paying job. The one thing I will say is that I went down my local job centre and the people who worked there were the rudest most horrible people ever. They treated me like I was something they had stepped in. Having worked all my life and never claimed any JSA before I was amazed at their attitude. It was like they thought I was some dossing scumbag who didnt deserve a penny. After about 2 or 3 visits to the job centre I gave up and signed off as it just wasnt worth the hassle. Good luck.

Yeah they are pretty mental cars. They weigh next to nothing and its pretty easy to get 200bhp out of them. I remember back in about 2000 I test drove a S1 Elise and was staggered at how slow and sluggish it was. I then realised my 5 GTT had about twice the power to weight ratio to it so no wonder the Elise felt slow! Ive just started getting mine back on the road, as its been sitting in my garage for about 10 years as ive not had the time to work on it due to being distracted with my other projects. Ive set up a blog on it if you want to check it out.. http://www.turbonutter.co.uk I dunno, I think its all down to how you ride really. I shudder when I think of the ridiculous stuff me & my mates would do on the roads. Now when we go out we are much more sensible and take a lot less risks. I still see some right idiots though thinking they are rossi and every now and then i`ll have a play with them and show them up, but in the main I try to stay away from people like that. Very interesting read, I'll be keenly following this for updates Cheers. Unfortunately I dont get much spare time these days, so I expect it will take quite a while before its back on the road. And, as with most old cars, what you think will be a simple quick job turns into one thing after another as you start poking about under the car. For example, whilst doing the wishbones I realised the jacking points were shot, then whilst doing the jacking points I realised the sills were rotted, then after doing them I now can see that the brake lines need doing...and so on... Ive actually now ordered so many bits that it will end up being a new car I think by the time im finished!

Yeah they are pretty mental cars. They weigh next to nothing and its pretty easy to get 200bhp out of them. I remember back in about 2000 I test drove a S1 Elise and was staggered at how slow and sluggish it was. I then realised my 5 GTT had about twice the power to weight ratio to it so no wonder the Elise felt slow! Ive just started getting mine back on the road, as its been sitting in my garage for about 10 years as ive not had the time to work on it due to being distracted with my other projects. Ive set up a blog on it if you want to check it out.. http://www.turbonutter.co.uk I dunno, I think its all down to how you ride really. I shudder when I think of the ridiculous stuff me & my mates would do on the roads. Now when we go out we are much more sensible and take a lot less risks. I still see some right idiots though thinking they are rossi and every now and then i`ll have a play with them and show them up, but in the main I try to stay away from people like that.

Cars 1972 850cc Mini - still got it. 1984 1000cc Mini 1988 Renault 5 GT Turbo 1987 Renault 5 GT Turbo (mega modified) - still got it. 1990 Mini Cooper - still got it. 1996 Peugeot 106 Diesel 2001 Golf GT TDI 2007 Nissan 350Z HR Roadster 2011 BMW 123d Coupe - still got it. Bikes 1993 RD350R (Crashed & sold) 1994 ZXR750L2 (Crashed many times, many times repaired) - still got it 1998 ZX6R (Crashed & sold) 2000 Ducati 748S (Didnt crash! yey!) 2001 Yamaha R1 (Crashed, then repaired) - still got it 1996 VFR750FT (Crashed, then repaired) - still got it 2000 Ducati 996 (Not crashed...) - still got it

Any garage can do it really, its nothing difficult. The 350z uses same oil filter as a Nissan Micra! Personally id just do it all myself, its pretty easy. The problem I have with garages is finding one you can trust and who wont decide to take your car for a 2 hour test drive after the £2.99 an hour YTS lad has changed the oil on it.

Im in 2 minds as to whether they will ever start to go up in value or not. This has been talked about on her many times before. Some cars like old fords, even though they were mass produced seem to be going up in value like mad, other cars, even if rare, just arnt. Only time will tell I guess. In the short term though, I think the price of zeds seem to have have found a bottom level. I dont see any for less than £4k->£4.5k. Looking at my old HR Roadster, that was £34k new I think, and I bought it when it was 4 years old for £16k, so it had dropped £18k in just 4 years which is 4.5k a year. I had it 18 months and sold it for £9k, so again it dropped about £4.5k a year in the time I had it. In general, the older the car gets, it seems the less it drops in value each year, so id expect the depreciation for the current owner & future owners to reduce each year until it hits about £5k, (maybe more as the HR Roadster holds a premium over basic ones). I cant see it getting below that. But then again, look at Porsche Boxsters 3.2s. The other year when Wheeler Dealers bought one for £1000, you could pick them up for about £1500 on ebay. Now the cheapest ones are £2500 upwards. Maybe they have hit the bottom and are on the way back up, but on the other hand, if you can get a boxster for £2500, maybe zeds will also end up dropping to similar prices at some point. Who knows really!!!

Sounds like midnight blue with the frost grey interior. That interior is really rare as at the time noone liked them and either went with the GT pack black or forked out the £650 on top of the GT pack for the Alezan Orange (Tan) leather.

Seller sounds like some sort of weirdo to be honest. Doesnt want anyone to view the car before buying, wont take cash. Very strange. If he`s worried about dodgy notes, surely he can use one of those pens, or just go down the bank with the buyer and pay the cash straight in.

Nope. Id been lusting after a BMW M3 E46 for as long as I could remember, and went to a garage to look at one. Spotted a 350z Roadster in the corner of the garage, had a look around it and went out the very next day and bought an HR Roadster instead of an M3. Kind of an impulse buy really. I remember when they first came out thinking that they were pretty awesome cars but certainly didnt lust after one or dream of them. It was kinda very satisfying being able to buy one though and for me, current car aside, it was the most expensive car ive ever bought.

Im guessing their`s quite a few people who were touched in a Ford at one point or another.....

Hang on.... XR3i`s and RS Turbos collector cars? I remember when you could pick up an XR3i for about 250quid as noone wanted them, likewise Saph Cossies were about £2500 at one point. I guess the only reason why they might be classics now is that 99.9% of them all rusted and rotted away, and those left were thrashed within an inch of their lives by barry boys. The escort cossie and the rs500 style sierra cossie seemed to hold their value a bit more but then again I think they were a lot rarer.

I used to break up old mini`s and the problem is, it takes quite a while to strip the car down, catalogue everything, photograph and list on ebay. Then you`ll find some bits will fly off the shelf (engine, interior, wheels, brakes etc.) and others will take for ever to sell. Then you have endless visits to the local post office, after you have packaged bits up etc etc... ive still got no end of bits sitting around in my shed/garage which i`ll probably end up just chucking in the wheelie bin.

First yellow 350z ive seen on the road, heading South on the A45 near Raunds in Northamptonshire this morning at about 9.45am. Bloke driving. Car looked much cleaner than mine did! **05 WMF

Maybe he was hoping for a different kind of action? I reckon the whole thing was about as staged as that lizzard lick repo show is.

Agree with the above, go pro or similar. I went for a contour HD as i prefered the sleek bullet like design rather than having something the size of a fag packet bolted to my motorbike helmet.

What i did on my 123d was just to use a nexus 7 tablet. Fits nicely in the dash and looks oem. Out of the box you have gps, sat nav, facebook & all the usual apps. I can stream video/music straight to the display, even watch tvcatchup if i fancy watching telly on the way to work (only joking). The 3.5mm output plugs straight into the input of my bmw`s head unit. (on the zed you could do the ipod hack like i did to give you an aux in on it and plug it into there. Saves a lot of messing about building a pi or pc then getting a screen etc. Nexus 7`s seem very cheap now 2nd hand.

Guess it depends on the miles you will be doing, but another vote for a VW diesel from me. I had a completely standard mk4 Golf GT TDI and did 180k in it. It was cheap and easy to maintain, performance wise they are as quick as the petrol GTI version and I used to get 60mph on my 90 mile daily commute. Best mpg I ever saw was 74mpg on a 30mile drive from my house a a mates, that incl starting engine from cold, stop/starting at junctions etc... The cabin was a lovely place to be, really comfortable, mine had quite a high spec so had all the extras like climate, cruise, cd etc. They did a 115, a 130 and 150bhp version depending on how new you buy. Some people dont like the mk4 shape. Ive also had 2 mk 5 golfs and found that they seemed to change the interior so it didnt feel as comfortable, it looks more plastic and cheap. The ride also seemed harder, but then the mk4`s did have a bit of a soft suspension it seemed - i swapped mine out for koni shocks/springs which improved things no end. Outside of the golf, the BMW 320d was an immensely popular car, millions of people had them as company cars so the 2nd hand hand market is full of them. Id also personally consider the 1 series M-Sport diesel. You probably wont be able to afford a 123d coupe like mine, they are still about 20k for one like mine, but the hatch back version has been out longer and can be picked up cheap now. The 123d is staggering. Over 200bhp, 0-60 in 6.5 seconds, awesome handling, RWD and 50mpg. My coupe can fit 2 6ft+ adults in the back in perfect comfort with loads of head & leg room. The hatch might be slightly smaller although my mate has one as his family car for his wife + 2 kids without any issues. Actually the 1 series is the same size as the 3 series used to be back in the early 90`s as cars these days seem to grow! If the 123d is out of budget then the more common 120d might be, they have 170bhp as stock and you can remap them to over 200bhp without breaking a sweat. In fact BMW offer a "performance package" themselves where they will fit a bigger intercooler, inproved cooling fan (i think) and a remap to get you up to 200bhp. Again, the 1 series was a very popular company car with executives thinking it made them look more important than driving a vectra or golf, so there are a lot of 118d`s and 120d`s about.

true, ive just been looking at the engine covers and realised the older ones are differnt to the HR. I notice though that it has what looks like some small strut brace thing bolted to the tops of the air filter housings. My HR didnt have that and looking online it seems some of the Nismo ones did have that. What is it?!

You sure its actually an HR one? Its hard to tell from that engine bay pic, but should have 2 air intakes, one each side of the radiator. Looks like a very low spec car, no leather, no cruise, no bose, basically just a normal spec version which someone has had the seats redone. Bodykit is very marmite, you either like it or hate it. I think , that back bumper looks shocking! It's definately a HR. Cool, in that engine shot I could see the LH air intake but due to the bad quality of the picture I couldnt see the RH one clearly.

You sure its actually an HR one? Its hard to tell from that engine bay pic, but should have 2 air intakes, one each side of the radiator. Looks like a very low spec car, no leather, no cruise, no bose, basically just a normal spec version which someone has had the seats redone. Bodykit is very marmite, you either like it or hate it. I think , that back bumper looks shocking!