Be Excellent To Each Other

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?

Also, congrats. I do t know one car from anaother but if that's lovely and makes you happy, big yay

History suggests this is unlikely.

12 months, at least......

Quoting for posterity

You can buy an app for your phone for a couple of quid to show g forces.

Seriously though, I think the short production life of this generation of Type R might lead to them being sought after in a few years.

Congrats mate, I'll be totally honest and say it ain't my bag at all but I seriously doubt you'll lose so much as half a wink's sleep in an entire night over that one.
Seriously, hope it's everything you want it to be, fill yer boots!!

Cavey

I bought the GT4 because the sales guy called my bluff and my planet-sized ego won't let me lose face, so £90k later etc. (not that I regret it for one millisecond, but I hadn't even consulted *myself* over this near six figure sum ludicrous racing car purchase, let alone my long suffering spouse). Anyway, I put the phone down, having sealed the deal, with a mixture of elation and incredulous realisation of the "what the fuck have I just done" variety... I rang Mrs C straight away, and, not even knowing what to say, just blurted out "b-babe, I've done a bad thing"

About 3 seconds of interminable silence, followed by "you bought a fucking car, haven't you". Gaz would have been so proud.

Got home that night to two glasses of champagne and a hug. My word, they broke the mould with that one.

I too, have just bought a car. To Jem's eternal astonishment.

What flavour?

I bet he's gone retro and got one of those internal combustion engine models, the big hipster.

Obviously the only thing I was astonished about was how long it took you.

Spill the beans Gaz

Nice! I like it.

Only thing I'm not keen on is the black interior, but the options list was otherwise my perfect example of one so I was prepared to overlook it.

Hah! I was right.

Amazing.

Yay Hearthly!

Have you sold it yet Hearthly?

I'm very very tempted to chop in my Type R for an immaculate black Subaru Impreza which is for sale up the road from me.

I should probably wait to see if I get a job miles away first though, as the fuel bill would kill me.