Soop Dogg

The one BIG difference with the big 3 in the US is that at least they are American companies. At least the future profits that they might be rescuing are going to go into the American economy - not someone elses. I do feel for the workers though. Not a good time to lose your job - but then, when is?

So the Indian company Tata buys Jaguar/Land Rover in June of this year. 6 months down the line they're saying that they're facing "unprecedented trading conditions" and it seems that without help, they'll have to make redundancies. (Meanwhile Tata are also saying that they will be sponsoring the Ferrari F1 team for an undisclosed amount) So what do you think? Should we be expected to foot the bill to bail out what is essentially an Indian company, even if it does employ 15,000 people in the UK? I myself am sceptical - Who's to say that if we give them a few billion quid they won't shut down the UK plants within the next couple of years to make the cars more cheaply in India anyway?

I disagree. On the way into a corner, if you double de-clutch you aren't allowing the engine to slow the car down, avoiding shifting the weight too far onto the front outside wheel. I've always found it easier to balance the car this way. Simply punching it into a lower gear on the approach to a corner pushes the car a little wide and means you have to counter this with more steering input which takes some smoothness out of the corner and increases your chance of missing the apex. My main reason for doing it is because it's smoother.

Don't you mean: clutch in - take out of gear - clutch out - blip throttle - clutch in - put in next gear. Double de-clutching became somewhat less relevant to most after the introduction of synchromesh, but it is still a good idea. It simply matches engine revs to road speed on a downshift and is easier on your transmission. They teach you this to Police officers as part of the standard driving course.

CLICK OK, so this guy's talking about the American economy, but I think what he says applies equally (if not more so!) to the current situation over here. I especially like the last minute or so!

Now, I'm not averse to people expressing an opinion, but claiming that hybrids 'fail 2,000 miles later' is simply not true if they are good and the car is mapped correctly. IanC had his hybrids on his car for about 4 to 5 years before I bought them. I then used them for about a year and a half before selling them on. They were always strong and reliable. I did the conversion to hybrids for about £2k and they provided me with a good alternative to going single which would have cost me much more to do with a manifold etc. It all depends what we want from our cars. I liked the sequential system - not everyone does, but I did. I kept this while gaining a fair amount of power over BPU. Hybrids aren't for everyone and I'm not going to tell anyone that they should be the preferred route, but for some people, they can still be a viable route to getting a noticeable improvement in performance. Telling people that hybrids will require replacement after a couple of thousand miles is just untrue.

Ian's hybrids were built pre-Envy I believe. They were in his car when he bought it. (about 2001) I bought them off him when he went single and they were very, very strong. Totally transformed my car which was running 12's before fitting them. I sold them on before getting rid of my Supe. I'd recommend going with a good set of hybrids to anyone - those who say they aren't worth it can't have driven with a set of really good, strong, well set up hybrids. For a while, there were one or two companies out there promising all sorts with their hybrids, but they were selling at best a mediocre product. This really didn't do any favours to the image of hybrids and many people went completely off the idea. I can totally understand this, but to then claim that all hybrids are "just not worth the bother" is to dismiss a valid route of improving your cars performance to the 450-480bhp region (reliably if well mapped) without going single.

JC: "The Corvette is stuck in British Home Stores!" Brilliant. The rest of the show was cack, but that was brilliant.

Well done mate. Doesn't matter how you got round - fact is you kept at it and finished. Good job.

I can understand the Touran as it's not the most aerodynamic brick in the world, but the Passat surprises me. My A6 would get over 45mpg even when I was thrashing it! It was the older 115bhp engine - not the 'red-i' - and we had chipped it to somewhere around 135bhp.

What tyre manufacturer is going to make the larger tyres by 2020 if there's no new cars to put them on? Big companies like Pirelli like to use the fact that their tyre is 'the tyre of choice' for Ferrari/Porsche etc. in their marketing. Our tyres could become a 'not for profit' product!

Have a look around the Photgraphy & Video section on Pistonheads. There are lots of professional (and some very good amateur) photographers on there who do a lot of car photgraphy. They may be more approachable as they obviously share your interest in cars. You may find they'll let you use some of their images and perhaps even process them to how you want by taking out backgrounds etc if you see an image of theirs that you like. Most of the pros on Pistonheads have links to their sites via their profile.

Even the old Audi A6 1.9TDi that I got rid of earlier this year with 170,000 miles on it did 60mpg if I took it easy. Averaged high 40's with a fair bit of town driving. (And the A6 is a big car with all the toys - dual zone climate, cruise, etc etc) The same engine is in VW diesels and has got to be one of the best diesel engines available in a second hand car. (Most of the new Audis use a 2 litre lump now) You really could do a lot worse than a 1.9 diesel Passat Estate.

Woohoo! So if i now go out and spend £1150, I've saved £25 on something that, yesterday would have cost me £1175! Bargain - I'm off to do some shopping!!!

Honestly, this place is turning into a Tescos Car Park these days. And after THIS thread...

They have speaking hoovers in the Whitehouse?? And by the sounds of it, bi-lingual ones too! Whatever will they think of next?

They covered this on Mythbuseters too. It's to do with buoyancy of the human body and the density of what it's floating in. The more dense the medium in which you are floating, the less likely you are to become submerged in it. Quicksand is very dense and the human body will only sink so far into it - no matter how much you struggle. Apparently most deaths in quicksand are not because people sink right under it and drown/suffocate, but beacuse they develop hypothermia or drown when the tide comes in.

Alas, I no longer have a Supe, but on it's replacement I check the pressures every time I drive it. Unfortunately the poll doesn't include that option, so I can't vote.

I was going to say the same thing! Poor effort to say the least. IanC should put the Eve music videos that he did on YouTube - they were excellent. oh - and I don't know about the music either - sorry.

Ian, You also need to make sure you set up the right kind of sharedealing account. I know you looked at Equinity, and the main product they offer is a service where you deal on share certificates. This is fine if you're in it for at least the medium term as it takes about 2 weeks for your certificates to arrive. During that time, you obviously can't sell any of the shares you bought as you don't have possession of the certificates. This stops you reacting to fast changes in the kind of volatile market we currently have. I believe they also offer a managed account where they hold your shares in trust. This allows you to instruct them to carry out the deals there and then on your behalf. This is what I'm interested in getting at the moment as I've been using the certificate type of account for too long now. £20 fixed price per trade (+ stamp duty on purchases) isn't bad if you're buying a reasonable amount of moneys worth of shares. It only becomes expensive if you're buying a dew hundred quids worth of shares at a time because it can represent a significant percentage of your profit.

Nor should it. Branners for PM!!!

Seen him twice live in Norwich in the last couple of years. He's good - can get a bit controversial sometimes. Couldn't believe it when he started on antisemitism once and some people there reacted like he was promoting it! (He wasn't - he was actually ridiculing it) Hilarious!

The re-run is on now on BBC2...

Yep, definitely. Angie has long hair too, remember and it works fine for us. (About twice a year!)

Or one of THESE please - but it's a bit more expensive! Pratt & Millar is the company that builds the Corvette C6R Race Team cars for ALMS and Le Mans.