Scott

Good guide that J. Should request a move to tech so that it doesn't get lost in the chat of doom I'm using the heated seat switch body with a couple of alterations in order to use it for line lock and rear fog lights. Heckler was on hand to sort me out as ever though

3067 is 3.1L though...... or is that not how it works anymore? Thicker headgasket would up the volume too, not by much but every little helps I guess

I spotted that too. I think the torque is ATW though as it was quoted after the RWHP figure which would put it about right

Curious to how the painted manifold worked out

Haven't heard anything from him for ages. Did he sell up?

I went with Optical Express. I believe it was the Lasik surgery and I also had the "wavefront" option too. Total cost IIRC was around £3k. The original quote was £4k but they can be VERY easily brought down in price. I found out after that I could have held on and perhaps even got it down to not much more than £2k but you learn these things

I had it done last year. I was only slightly short sighted (I was still road legal) but I wanted perfect vision as it had been annoying me for years that I couldn't read things at fairly short distances etc. Went through the more expensive laser option and it was definitely worthwhile. My vision is now WAY better than 20/20 (I can read the smallest letters on the chart with confidence) and the recovery time was minimal. Going through the surgery itself is OK. It's not a nice experience by any means, you feel claustrophobic and it's never nice having something prodding about your eyes.... but the proceedure is pretty much pain free, just uncomfortable. After the surgery my eyes watered lots and I could barely see a thing thanks to the drops they put in (your pupils no longer work lol). I went home, popped into bed and woke up a couple of hours later feeling absolutely spot on. My eyes watered for a day but that was it, no pain at all. Total recovery time until everything was 100% again was around 3 months for me IIRC. By that time I could full on rub my eyes at will without feeling anything at all. Previously stuff felt "loose" Most people will need glasses once into their 40s due to the deteriation of the muscles for short distance reading. I believe this can be corrected with lens replacement but this is not something I would go for unless I REALLY needed it. I'm happy to wear reading glasses when the time comes, as long as my distance vision is OK I'll be happy.

Definitely not low on oil?

Lemmy

Stuck 80s radio on last night as they were playing a wee tribute hour to him. Brilliant listen, guy was a genius song writer.

The irony is strong with this one. The reason for the don't buy what you can't afford comments is that you aren't actually buying the car...... because you can't afford it. You are hiring it for a set period..... because you can't afford to buy it. People who buy new cars CAN afford them for the most part. People who hire them generally can't afford to buy them, but they still want the new car smell. I could afford to buy a new car but it would never be the sort of car that I would want to buy. I could only dream of being able to afford a new 535D MSport. However, even if I could I would never buy one due to the immediate 20% drop in value just driving it off the forecourt and the ridiculous annual drop in value every 6 months. It doesn't make economic sense to me at all, and I'm decent at maths. I would MUCH rather pay a comfortable monthly sum to have something that I own rather than having to hand it back after 3 years (or sooner if the worst happens). I would HATE worrying about mileage, I would HATE worrying about dings/dents, how much a crash would cost me, etc. I'm willing to buy a car a year or 2 old if that's what it takes, or in some cases many years old (not a daily though). Dealerships aren't pushing their PCP/etc deals because they make less money on them than selling 2nd hand..... or are they full of waffle too?

535D is doing OK. Only dropped £1k per year since I've had it which I'm OK with

Fortunately BMWs do hold their value, after the 4-5 year falling like a stone stint I've never taken the finance option from a car sales person, I always get a personal loan as I feel it gives more options.

I can understand how it makes sense to them, I genuinely do. You get a new car and there are a lot of "just add fuel" options. To non petrol heads it's the ideal option to take. It can't be seen as good value though surely? My work brought in a scheme last year. How it got through is beyond me. A just add fuel decent Mondeo was going to cost £400 per month. At the end of the 3 year lease I would have paid 14.5k and had absolutely NOTHING to show for it. The deals down at the £200 mark don't seem to exist for me. Not in a just add fuel capacity anyway, otherwise I would consider such an option for at least one of our cars. We generally pay around £200-£250 per month for our third car which generally cycles every 3 years with a newer model replacing the old one. The only difference is that I wouldn't have £6k of car available to pull me out of a hole should something happen.

That's a pretty stupid way to buy a car though and clearly an example of buying something outwith his reach. Noone in their right mind should buy a second hand car with such a high value that it takes more than 4 years to pay off. Especially where a high interest rate is involved. My general rule of thumb is 3 years to pay it off. Previously my car purchases have been less than a year old (the 20% VAT hit has already been taken). I moved away from that recently in order to buy the Supra though. We need 2 daily drivers so having 3 cars was going to be expensive regardless of the original outlay. To that end we bought a 3 year old Mondeo (at the time of purchase) and a 4 year old BMW (at the time of purchase). Both fairly high mileage to keep the costs down and other than tyres we've had no real issues. Bloody tyre god hates me though

You effectively pigeon-holed people into 2 categories. One where they hire a new car for a few years and the other where they simply buy a banger to get them around. If you can't see that as a bias then you can't be very good at your job. You show a VERY clear bias towards your own opinion.

Yeah and you're clearly not being bias are you I reckon my Dad's car will get him through the winter just fine, as will ours. Over 80% are leased because people can't afford them. The way of the world nowadays is to get ticked up to the eyeballs buying things that we can't afford. Throwing caution to the wind and absolutely rooking ourselves should anything happen. I'll stick to the old fashioned way of buying.

Complete false economy to think that a lease deal is good. You're effectively paying interest on paying the depreciation of the car that you need to hand back. Basically the dealership that you hire the car from gets the car back worth market value with you having already paid the difference... plus interest & fees/expenses etc. Here's a for instance.... Person 1 - Buys a car using a small personal loan. Person 2 - Buys a lease car. Deposit paid & monthly instalments in place. Both people lose their job. Person 1 can sell the car, pay off the loan and depending on the value of the car vs the outstanding balance may actually have some money available to buy a runaround. Person 2 is completely shafted as they will have to pay fees etc to terminate the contract. They will end up MUCH further out of pocket than person 1. The danger is that due to the recurring nature of the lease game, this can happen at ANY point and you will have absolutely nothing to show for the years of monthly payments that you have put in. My Dad currently owns a nearly new Focus. He bought it at 4 months old with 2k miles on it. It's mint, has all the toys (parks itself, rear camera, etc) and had a new value of 22k. He paid 16k for it, 11k of which was his tradein from his previous car. If he needed to, he could have taken the finance or a small loan to pay the 5k difference. At ANY point he was in any trouble he could EASILY sell the car for 15k, pay off the 5k loan and still have 10k to show for it. If he took out a lease deal he would have nothing to show for it at all other than extremely low monthly payments.

The only reason most people kick around in new cars is because they are either ticked up to the eyeballs or they don't actually own the car and are only hiring it. I doubt I would ever purchase a car in such a way. If I can't afford to own it then I don't want it.

I think we need to give some of the pioneers and boundary pushers a lot of credit too. The fact that the EKanoo Racing Supra is the fastest import in the world goes a LONG way, as well as loads of others that keep pushing these cars to new heights.

Don't agree with that at all. Most top modded Supra's (nowhere near stock) are north of 20k with some north of 30k (and selling too).

Wear and tear. As the carpet is succumbing to the stretch the fibres are rotating and showing up the cleaner surface (original colour). Try back combing the carpet to see the colour under the pile to see if it matches.

Not sure to be honest. I'd just install kodi and go from there. It's a good thing to learn how to install the addons etc yourself anyway

BPU jspec will still hit 10AFRs so there's definitely headroom.... not sure how much though as you don't want them running at 100% if you can avoid it. It really depends on how you drive the car though.

Not really sure what you mean. Are you running XBMC? What are you running it on? IIRC you simply install it, job done.