brillomaster

if the temps drop and theres snow/ice/salt around, i'm taking my wife's Peugeot 206 into work. Doesn't have the power to pull the skin off a rice pudding, but is like a mountain goat when it comes to snow! The beemer will be staying safely tucked up at home - although with 265 section rear tyres, I doubt it would even be able to reverse out my parking space anyways if it snows.

Most track tyres are also road legal, but obviously have poor resistance to aquaplaning. we run federals on our beemer and are very impressed for the price, even in lashing rain they still perform well. if you've got a bit more budget to spend then yokohama track tyres (cant remember the ones, AD08s?) have a good rep. Probably wouldn't go for full slicks unless you're running a fully set up car. And don't forget decent brake fluid - boiling fluid is not fun. in terms of necessity, i'd say the order should be brake pads, brake fluid, decent tyres as a bare minimum. then brake discs and braided lines. most important thing to check and keep checking is that the car is in general good condition, all fluids are topped up and stay topped up during the course of the day. You wont destroy a set of tyres unless you're sliding around a lot - and if you are sliding around a lot on a dry day, get some driving tuition!

only the one for me, which is the tube of yoo. used to watch vimeo, but nowadays if it isn't on youtube, it doesn't get watched.

the zed does have a very high clutch, can take a while to get used to it and it might sound like the clutch is slipping when actually you haven't brought the clutch all the way out again. That said, its not unheard of for a clutch to go at 49k - best way to test it is 5th gear on a DC, and floor the throttle - if the revs shoot up you know you have a problem.

Another quick one, are you running it on super unleaded petrol? it doesn't get on well with the standard stuff...

it does indeed take a while to get a decent reading with the dipstick, but it can be done. If you suspect a leak i'd be checking it every day, i'm sure you'll get used to the dipstick! Also I would hazard a guess that the second reading is incorrect, im sure it takes more than 500ml to to up from low level to high level.

oil light flashing on an off is a definite sign that something is amiss... yep best to check the oil when the engine is stone cold on a nice level surface. if it needs topping up it should have some decent fully synth 5w-30 oil. Although that said, any fully synth oil is better than no oil.

never accept the first offer! when someone crashed into my old Honda civic I was offered a cool £1000 payout, which I declined saying the car was worth £2000. they then offered £2000, which I then declined again, saying I wanted £2200. eventually settled on £2100, which was only £300 less than I paid for the car 6 months previous. As said above, start getting evidence of prices of similar cars - and preferably from dealers, rather than private sellers, as these will obviously be more. best of luck!

quick obvious question, does it definitely have the correct amount of oil it in? did you need to top it up at all, and if so how much?

upgrade dude! no point going for a oem system, it'll just rust through again. Get a nice stainless steel, resonated cobra exhaust, very reasonably priced, sounds frigging awesome just as it is and has a lifetime guarantee. Job done

indeed, seeing the side view of the red one next to your side view in your signature shows how closely related they are.

seems our googling took us to exactly the same page, lol. but don't forget centre bore! which is the reason why we had one bmw 3 series wheel that didn't fit our bmw 3 series car properly!

http://www.wheel-size.com/size/ford/s-max/2013/ that should help you out, important measurements are wheel diameter and width, PCD, CB (centre bore) and offset (ET)

This is the solution. and for added cost saving, pay off the finance and buy a slightly older Golf outright. And make it a GTD rather than a GTi.

you might unfriend me when you hear my favourite christmas song is Mariah Carey 'All I Want For Christmas Is You'...

P.S. sorry to hear about the impending sprog

surprised this hasnt been emphasised more strongly - DO NOT put rear seats in a zed! get a 350GT instead, then do all the same mods to that. and on the plus side a 350GT is a lot rarer than a zed, so will stand out a lot more at shows.

i would also say that 55 in a 30 should be punished a lot more harshly than 130 in a 70 zone, although i actually think its the exact opposite. anyone know what kind of sentence you'd be looking at for doing 55 in a 30? EDIT: http://www.speed-trap.co.uk/Accused_Home/SpeedVSFines/SpeedVSFines.htm#speedvsfine seems small bans for 50-60 in a 30, first big ban is for 82 in a 40 zone. At the other end of the spectrum, 120-130 in a 70 zone is indeed 2 month ban territory.

fair point, wildlife and policeman can jump out of anywhere at any time, but i was comparing the frequency and severity of the impact - in a built up area, its children who will be killed - on motorways its foxywoxy, rabbity wabbity or policeyweecy, all of which are a lot more expendable having a deer jump out on you was very unlucky, but again, i probably would slow down when i saw the wildlife warning signs. in the same way welsh roads are self policing, always have to be hesitant when passing sheep! of course it is a willful and blatant disregard of the speed limit, but if someone was inclined to do nearly twice the speed limit, i'd personally much rather they did 130 in a 70 zone than 55 in a 30 zone.

lol, someones got to be first! my local Tesco have started the Christmas songs on repeat... god I hate that Fairytale of New York song

Ooohh that looks tidy, congrats!

so, could you perfectly and legitimately swap cars with a mate for a few months (all above board, fill in V5cs and get new tax etc) in the hope of getting a reduced sentence, and then when the dust settles, swap back into your fast car again?

Definitely write to the DM. Hopefully the publicity will help pay for the fine I won't judge as I can't say I am squeaky clean too but it does help if you sell the car. A friends dad got caught doing 115 whilst overtaking an unmarked cop car and he got off when he purchased a Micra and sold the scooby. does this really make a difference? seems strange that a person's continued desire to own a nice car should have an effect on the sentence. after all, being banned from driving a scooby is the same as being banned from driving a micra? plus, even if you do get let off, whats to then stop you selling the micra and buying a faster Scooby? was he let off on the proviso that he drives a crap car for a year?

gonna stick my neck out here... 129mph is not a crazy speed, its just well over the legal limit. Germany get by just fine with those kind of speeds on roads when conditions allow, and there are many tracks where a powerful car will get up to that speed without any problems. 36 in a 30 zone IS dangerous - the reason its a 30 is because anything could step from between two parked cars at any moment, but on an empty bit of well sighted dual carriageway, things don't jump out at you. I really don't see a big difference between 70mph and 129mph - if you hit something at either speed the consequences are the same, and the stopping distance grows from a very long way to a very very long way. As long as normal good driving rules apply, ie being able to stop in the distance you can see and not doing 120mph over a blind crest, I really don't see any more danger than doing 70mph - indeed doing 70mph in L3 of a congested motorway at rush hour would be considerably more dangerous than 129 on an empty bit of well sighted DC. flame suit on etc...