Ekona

Hence the cheap hotels! That's not a bad shout, if I get the time I think I might well do that, ta.

You ain't kidding, really needs an early start! Got the Eurotunnel booked for 6:50am, so should be out of Calais by 7:30am and on my way. Am probably going to order a GoPro3 and a shedload of SD cards, along with my D90 for more general shots.

God, that car is a bit of a mess! Well spotted on all the naff bits, and the fact you've already said you're binning those horrible heavy wheels makes you a hero in my book!

For Zed specialists I'd go to DMS or Abbey as mentioned, I've used them both in the past and they're both great.

A little while ago I kinda hijacked Wasso's thread regarding my own Euro adventure, so decided that I should probably start my own thread and let him hijcak mine! The premise of the trip is very simple: One man, one car, two countries, ten days. This is the route I'm taking Having seen so many threads on PH that start "I got up this morning and drive to X country for no reason", I decided I wanted a bit of that. I used to live in the Canaries for a while ten years ago so Spain has always been a little bit in my heart since then, but I've never done the mainland. This needed remedying, and so the basic plan was born. My OCD wouldn't really let me just rock up one morning and go for the drive with no plans, and plus that would cost me a fortune, so instead I've planned the route down to pretty much the smallest detail but at least that means I won't waste time or miss bits. The first couple of days are spent in France, travelling down in one loooooong hit and getting some sleep before attacking the Pyrenees over two days. I'll then head into Spain, taking in the coastal route and passing right past the Nou Camp (be rude not to!) on the way to the very southern tip of Spain. From there I'll head back up, following the Portuguese border. I'll then drive the northern coast, coming inland to make the most of the wonderful-looking roads there before diverting once again through the Pyrenees and back up through France. I've tried to compromise between some serious blats and the more dull motorways just to get places, but there should be more than enough fun roads to keep me entertained. Hotels are very much at the lower end of the scale, and I've no idea if they'll be any good or not. I'm not planning on eating like a king, so even if I live out of service stations for the ten days I can stomach that if the roads are good. That said, the odd gourmet feast would be appreciated. I've booked the trip for the end of May/start of June, so a little over 5 months from now. I've a lot to plan between now and then, not least what I'm going to take with me in terms of preparing for any mechanical failure but also snacks in case the service station food is awful! Truth be told I'm a little nervous too, as I've never driven abroad by myself much less round a country I've never been to, but I'm hoping it'll be good fun nevertheless.

Could've been much worse, glad you're okay. The biggest worry isn't the cost of the repairs to the Ring if something goes wrong, more or less you can mitigate that with your own driving. It's when the unexpected mechanical breakdown happens and you punt a motorcyclist off and cripple him for life in your own car. Then you're looking at a bill in the hundreds of thousands for his medical care possibly for the rest of his life. That's the big worry, and that's why if I was doing a TF day I'd suck the cost up and rent something from RSR. Drive there, hire car, drive home. Safest and best way to do it outside of a proper trackday, I reckon.

That would rule an MX-5 out by some margin. Just use a different insurer.

Still own 3x SNES (one for each region), 2x DC (one UK and one JAP), 4x 360 (only one of which works), 1x Saturn, 1x N64, 1x GC, 1x Lynx, 1x PS2, 1x PS3, 1x DS and 1x Wii. Have had pretty much everything else, numerous original Gameboys and then the colour + SP ones, MS, MD, GG, PS1, A500 and CPC6128 if we're including computers. Never quite got around to a NG or even a 3DO. At the height of the grey import I think I paid over £100 for a JAP copy of SSFII on the SNES the week it came out and nearly that on Secret Of Mana, both immense games. I only ever play the 360 these days, and very rarely the Wii for the VC which saves me digging one of my SNESes out to play SMK or SMW again. Did dig out the N64 the other month to play Goldeneye, that was quite good fun.

M cars don't come with runflats. Tells you all you need to know I reckon

Couldn't have put it better myself, perfectly summed up

Nice one, handy little thing that I take it it's from the manual? Shows how often I read that then!

We're English, hence fibre. Bloody Yanks...!

You don't, basically. If it fails then you need to get it working, else you'll be pulling against all sorts of fancy mechanicals and that's when stuff really starts going wrong. At least, I've never seen any manual guide for it in case of failure.

As above. If it's not been reported you're stuffed. This is why I always report any pothole I see near me, just in case! Braintree council even let you do it online, with a map and everything.

Tax difference isn't remotely worth worrying about, it's the cost of three tanks of fuel or an extra beer a week.

That's what I've always used, it was just that the OP said he was using MAF cleaning spray and I wondered if there was a new product out there specifically for this.

You spray the diode, yes. Just be very very very very careful with it, they're not the hardest things in the world to break if you start poking them. What spray are you using out of interest?

Probably a toe issue with the tracking. Get that sorted first, preferably by an expert rather than Generic Tyre Place R Us or similar. Let us know where you are in the country and I'm sure someone can recommend a place near you

But there's always an initial sign indicating the change, very very rarely are they ever obscured by trees or similar as then the police would have a nightmare enforcing the limit.

My post would've been quicker, but I had to google the spelling of philistine!

Dark Side Of The Moon. Philistine!

Ah, I see. This is true, however I need around 16TB of space so I'd fill up the ports quite quickly. I do have a 2TB drive running some music connected straight in at the moment (well, it's via an always-on PC) and it does work but I'm looking for something a little better and with increased safety in case something goes pop.

Just that day You have no idea, you should've seen some of the bodges I did on my old MR2! I cringe at some of the things I used to do on that...

That's exactly what I did with my old one, I just used a dremel to trim a bit of the cubby out without removing the console. In retrospect it would've been a darn sight easier if I had removed it, I was just feeling lazy that day

By the time you buy a case, ram & HDs why not just buy a NAS HD In what sense? A proper RAID NAS box (like the QNAP or Synergy stuff) is going to be a lot more expensive and has no option for adding extra drives: Once you're done, you're done. With something like this I can always add drives of differing sizes whenever I like and they don't have to match, although there is a clear performance hit on that. A £1500 solution becomes a lot more palatable if I can start with a £200 box and add stuff on rather than get hit with the full whack in one go Case I already have along with PSU, RAM I might be able to steal out of my old PC as well if it's compatible, and then it's just the drives themselves. Oh, and the £80 or so for UnRAID.