Be Excellent To Each Other

I tried to fit in one of those a month or so back...

It didn't end well.

Did you step in and it became a minibus?

The shape doesn't help. Knocking speed to below 68mph off might help.

please let there be photos...

Subaru in for running repairs. 2 new tyres and 2 new exhaust sections. Hurrah!

Been wanting a code reader for a while, just seen this and took the plunge:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blusmart-Diagn ... op?ie=UTF8

Mx-5 handling, frankly, terrifyingly on the way to work. Decide that, if I had to guess, whatever is wrong is in the front left. Ring garage, "sounds like brake binding, they do that". Drive it home, hover my hand near the wheels. Front left giving off very, very warm feels, the others cool.

So it's good that the car communicates that well, right?

This appeared in my Facebook news feed because Facebook knows I fucking love cars. It shows me cars ALL THE TIME.

Couldn't resist popping in for a proper look and a sit in it since it's only a slight detour to the dealership on my normal walk back to my car after work.

As a result I am dropping the S4 off tomorrow morning and leaving it there for the day to get a proper valuation on its part-ex value, and then we will talk numbers. (I am told it'll get a wash and mini-valet whilst it's there, which is nice. This is the place I took the Merc back to three million times, I'm still on first name terms with them all.)

I want to get the switch done for £10K or less so it's going to need to be a juicy part-ex value on the S4, or something off the sticker price on the Type-R.

IDGI.

You're going to pay £24k for the old model Type R when a new one costing £30k before discounts has just come out (not to the greatest fanfare of motoring press praise to be fair, Car put it 3rd out of 4 in their group test, the relatively ancient, old-tech 1-series Beemer and RS Focus both kicked its ass, only some old woffer of a Seat saved it from the wooden spoon).

If this was my bag, which tbh it isn't, I'd be saying £21k less a damn good p/x or walk away. An S4 is much easier to sell than this, especially since those few likely to be interested in it will like it as not be lusting after the new shinier one for bragging rights etc.?

I suppose it's not worth mentioning the very nice, rock solid residuals Mk 7 Golf R for similar secondhand money..........

Still, a better bet than an Astra 1.6L I'll grant you.

I just really like fast Hondas, and I whilst I know many folks hate the look of this iteration of Type-R I think it looks awesome, in a teenager's Need For Speed wet dream kind of a way.

I haven't taken it for a drive yet so there is still that of course, but I would like to get back to a manual box. As great as the DSG is in the S4 (and it has the flappy paddles of course) I think I prefer a good old gearbox.

Price wise it's a smidge on the high side, same spec and miles in the UK seems to be coming in at about £22.5-£23K, but if I decide I want to go for it we'll see what they can do with the numbers.

I had a sit in it and the seat was all lovely and snuggly, and the dashboard was all space age and stuff, and the entertainment system seemed very modern.

As it's the GT spec it gets all the extra tech too (the engine is the same 2.0 litre turbocharged unit putting out 306bhp).

Go for it. You've had that S4 for ages.

The longer you wait to do it, the more you're spending on oil for that S4

potmfgdw

Oh shit yes I've still got 10L of oil down in the utility room for the S4, and the Type-R uses a different sort of oil.

PH33R my forward-planning skills.

With the amount of money you spunk on swapping used cars around couldn't you just go out and lease a brand new fast Honda or something?

Leasing is just throwing money away though, much better to keep buying second hand every 4 months.

So buy the Honda at the start of September. Problem solved.

I think Hearthly has even me beat on the "spunking money on cars" front

It will be a cruel twist of fate indeed if this Honda turns out to have a penchant for drinking gallons of oil per sitting AND the reversing sensors are haunted.

It's a Honda, and they don't have daft shit like that go wrong with them. He said, convincingly.

Have you seen the video of the Type-R going round the Ring in 7m50s? (This is an unmodified production car.)

It was the fastest front wheel drive production car round the track until VW sent a stripped out Golf GTI Clubsport round there that they made enough of to qualify as a production car. (And it was like, 1 second faster.)

(Honda have now taken the record back with the new Type-R.)

http://newatlas.com/fastest-front-drive ... ord/49232/

Oh man, tell that to someone that owned a first-gen Accord Type R.

Lease the new Type R instead. If you've got the money you'd be daft not to. It's so much better than the previous one.

Trouble is, the lease rates are sky fucking high because of stupid depreciation - the GT model costs nearly £600 a month (yes really) on a 3+36 10,000 miles per year no maintenance deal! Fuck me.......

Hearthly, for flip's sake, lease don't buy - and lease something *decent*. That money buys you a mighty A45 AMG Merc which would devour the little Honda in one bite with its monstrous 400PS+ performance, proper AWD and 0-60 in 4 seconds dead. (Plus you won't feel and look utterly ridiculous getting in/out of it, which is a bonus). Or, more sensibly, you could go for a lovely rear drive BMW M140i Shadow for around £400/month, and with its 3-litre straight six and LSD, you know it's still gonna whup the Honda. (In fact, it did, in last month's Car mag. Type Rs ain't what they used to be, and haven't been for a long time).

You know it makes sense.

That pretty much goes against everything else that has been done with Hearthlys cars!

I say, buy it Hearthly. What's the worst that can happen? If you don't like it you know for sure that another car will catch your eye in a few weeks/months time so you can always buy that instead.

Also.. You need a spreadsheet to keep track of your cars.

Or someone whose EP3 Civic Type-R used a litre of oil every 1500miles.

Guy at work who changed his requirements after I demod my sofa is getting an M140i Shadow. The delivery date has suddenly been brought forward at least 3 weeks.

Apparently insurers weren't told early enough it's just a trim level so are raping people on premiums over a boggo one - the ones who will even quote.

Oh, and the mx-5 is hilariously good after new front calipers, discs and pads. One caliper was totally seized, the other not far off.

Hmmm doesn't look like the Type-R will happen, the offer for the S4 was £12,000 which the dealer said he'd add another £250 onto to make a trade value of £12,250. He was keen to point out I'd have three years of a Honda Care Plan left to run (it's a Dec 2015 car so has three free services left), and the car is also to get a year's tax and two new front tyres, but I'd had in my head I didn't want to pay more than £10K to switch, and that comes in at £11,750.

I could try and sell the S4 privately for £14K or maybe even £15K, but I fucking hate selling cars privately and having to put up with test pilot arseholes show up just for a joyride and even if they do want to buy there's all that haggling bollocks which is just a slightly polite form of begging really and I have no time for it.

HOWEVER, he did say he'll have a demonstrator in for the brand new new Type-R next week and I'm welcome to be one of the first to get a drive in it, and that maybe we could come to an arrangement for one of those by using the S4 as a large deposit and the help of a local finance company for the rest, which I said I'd be interested in.

Shrouds don't have pockets, and all that. Not sure how I'll manage to spin it to Mrs Hearthly though. Maybe I'll start with 'Do you want a 12.9 inch iPad Pro and one of those ace smart keyboard things and a swizzy iPad pen for your birthday? I ask for no particular reason whatsoever.'

'Tis easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.

There was a chap at work who proudly worked on that principle for years until one day his wife told him she didn't love him anymore, was moving out, and would be getting a divorce.

So I think one has to be careful with that approach.

Right. I experimented! Last night trip was 53mph and the light came on 30 miles from home. There's 396 miles on the odometer, so I am curious to see what that results in. The M5 had huge delays, so we went around Buttfuck Nowhere in convoy with all the other people using the same route finding app. Took 7 and a half hours or so.

Edit: 34.3mpg!

If you do get your missus the iPad Pro, get the separate Magic Keyboard instead of the case with inbuilt keyboard, it's much better.

Sounds perfectly normal to me.

As someone who currently owns an EP3 Civic Type R I can tell you it's not.

Manual says it is and everything. They'd revised it a couple of times to allow more consumption by the time i moved on.

You must be driving it wrong.

Yeah, put your foot down, Sunday driver!

I went on a speed awareness course and now I stick to the speed limits.

Amusingly enough I got caught in the work van. Doing 73mph on a dual carriageway but of course the national speed limit for vans is 60 there.

Define van please.

Don't worry, I've seen minibuses are allowed to do 70, which is odd as our minibus is essentially a ford transit van with three rows of seats.

Commercial or goods vehicle up to 7.5 tonnes.

When the national speed limit sign is shown, the following speed limits are enforced:

50 single carriageway
60 dual carriageway
70 motorway

A minibus isn't a van.

Does that count for a Luton? I don't think I hit dual carriageway any of the times I had one of those but, y'know, possible futures.

Oddly, I don't speed much any more, and I've never been caught. Testament to how fun my commute is now I guess - I can't maintain 60 in either car on any of the substantial derestricted sections.

Or how comfy the barge is and noisy the mx-5 is maybe. Even when I hit motorway before I moved I'd only have a couple of squirts.

Saying that, now I've had the barge aligned I do find myself going faster than I think, as it's just so much smoother now.

It can be complicated for smaller vans, depending on whether they are originally designed as a commercial vehicle or as a variant of a car, and what's put on the V5 when it's registered.

Some will have the 60mph limit on dual carriageways and others 70, even for very similar vehicles.
http://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/2005/7/ ... its/19980/

It's also complicated if your van is full of disco gear and you're late.

A minibus isn't a van, but the same speed restrictions apply

Ooops.

Took it out for a decent test drive and that was that really.

You can make one of the displays show g-force as you go round corners.

Excellent! Hope this one's a keeper.

Does it have mirrors on the front?