Be Excellent To Each Other

A golf estate is nearly a foot longer than a normal golf, not sure how that is going to make it easier to swing round in a tight car park. But whatevs.

I like them on some cars, but others look dire, you're quite right. The Focus Estate, Jesus Christ.

The only Audi I'd ever consider buying if somehow money became no object:

I don't think the Skoda is bad at all. Wheels look a little small, perhaps.



Turns out it's the Focus Saloon that's ugly and I got confused. The estate isn't too bad.

Yeah I was going to say I like the Focus. That Fabia isn't too bad. Maybe I was thinking of the previous one.

Not sure about the Civic Tourer.

Bradford is swimming with these.

Huh. £800 and vat a month.

Good god man, think of the planes! THE PLANES!

You should totally get an estate car next.

The Volvo estates used to regularly win the BTCC. Just saying.

Ash Sutton's Subaru Levorg is pretty quick this year.

That is an abomination unto Nuggan.

For some mysterious reason, Mrs Fop is obsessed with getting a Forester. She has zero interest in cars, but really wants a Forester and is always excited when we see them on the road. I think it's because she thinks they're like the car the mum drives in Ponyo.

Our next two cars (when we get back from S'pore) will be a LR Disco and a Daimler Benz Ferret Mk2.

Briefly, on the one we have:

Good: Visibility due to ride height. Cup holders. Flat boot floor. AWD. If you are in it, you don't have to look at it. Rear seats fold flat. Almost everything is labelled.

Bad: 27mpg. Not a turbo one. New clutch was £600. 2 tyres and exhaust £500. Small boot. Stick a pushchair in and that is half space gone. We bought a dog guard to pile stuff up to roof. About 300 mile range between fill ups. Not a turbo one. No leg room in rear. Body roll hilarious. Speed sensitive steering feels disconnected from road.

Better than the Rover though.

I will probably get an Octavia vRS estate "eventually".

Nothing is better than a Rover. Up to and including a very cheap MB CLS320. You can't beat brummie engineering.

That one?

As before: it gets me to and from work with the odd run to Buxton. It does this very cheaply. Aside from the battery draining stereo, since sorted, it hasn't stopped me from getting to and from work.

The bits that aren't right haven't yet stopped forward motion, and mainly amuse me enough for me to not fix them. I'm not defined my the car I drive, and, in a factory car park where staff were made redundant, I don't want them to think I'm driving around in luxury at the expense of their mate's job.

I didn't buy the car with my £660 as it was a Rover 25, I bought a 12 month MoT*. And it passed again, only needing £140 work, most of which was a tyre, buying another 12 months.

I'm not sure why you hate it so much, apart from the fact it hasn't yet dieD, proving all wrong.

*checked it prior to purchase by bouncing on each corner, lock to lock on steering, over speedbumps then bounce it off the limiter a few times to see what rattles.

I don't hate it, I'm just laughing

ha, yep! Well, I thought it was that one. Might have been the car they drive in Totoro (not the cat bus, natch)

That's the badger!

That's fine, I drive a Celica GT-Four these days

Well said.

He doesn't get to choose. He's either the one with the Rover or the George Osborne-looking one.

Head gasket! They go at 75k, calling it now!

You called 70k last year! You can't move it when I am 2.5k away from 70001!

That's what I meant! Pretty close though

Oh........................................................................................................... mate.

Thanks one of the best sounds I have ever, ever heard, and not just any old M3, but **THE** M3 - the peerless E46 (like, of course).
Nasty thoughts like 'nose heavy' and 'upset weight distribution' enter my head, but really, that's just bloody superb. Looks ace as well, hella car.

Cheers Gaz, you just made my day.

The only issue is that this is a somewhat meanly specced example. (Not that any of the Rs are 'low spec' as it's the top of the range Golf.)

However, it doesn't have nav which is no biggy except the upgraded audio package comes with the nav, doesn't have the reversing camera, doesn't have keyless (I can live with that..... ), and doesn't have DCC, which are the adjustable dampers, although in fairness DCC isn't a common option.

I'll see what he can do with the numbers and take it from there, and see how it fares on a proper test drive, of course.

The only things I’d miss there are the upgraded stereo (the standard one sucks balls and wouldn’t be out of place in a £12k Polo, cheers VW), and if being very picky, the variable damping. Who uses car satnavs these days? They’re dogshit; Waze/Spotify all the way.

Why do you need a satnav on IoM?

I'n not fussed about the satnav, as I indicated above (and as Cavey notes), it's the upgraded audio that comes with the nav I'd like to have.

Even the 'base' Golf R gets a touchscreen (+USB, Bluetooth, media etc) but there are three levels:

BASE - Touchscreen, no nav, standard audio <<< That's what this one has
MID - Touchscreen, nav, upgraded audio
HIGH - Bigger touchscreen, nav, upgraded audio and a couple of other toys

I'd at least want the MID spec one, really.

Here's a picture of the inside of the one I'm looking at, as you can see it's not 'basic' but I fucking love my music and I want the upgraded speaker package.

On Wednesday I noticed that one of our sofa cushions was mysteriously missing.

I found out, some hours later, that Darwin had pimped his ride.

Sorry, this has come over slightly snippy.

You should get worried if your under-cupboard lighting goes missing.

On this:

My parents took delivery of the new motability wagon to replace the Fiesta. They now have a Peugeot 2008 because the boot is apparently large enough to swallow a mobility scooter (if Mummy Afterthought ever actually admits she does need it). Because "reasons", they somehow have the base (similar to golf it seems)spec model which doesn't appear to even have DAB. The sat nav doesn't exist, but you can 'tooth a phone into it. If you have the right phone. They seem pleased enough with it for the small amount of tooling about they do, though, even if the stop/start engine thing is causing amusement.

Looks like it took four months.

https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/17/tes ... e-in-2020/



That's nearly a second faster.

Bloody hell, that's quick. Ductai 748 is 3.4 seconds to 60.

An F1 car with a perfect launch and sticky tyres can get from 0-60 in 1.5 seconds. That's not much of a difference :/

Think how fast it could go with a robot driving!

Could have done with this upgrade in my old honda jazz

I don't care if it goes back in time - I autohate all electric cars, by absolute default.
Petrol or bust.

You probably hate those Talkies, too.

Eh, Granddad? Eh? EH?

(Are you a granddad?)

Cavey, what about Audi's diesel TT?

He'll be driving electric soon enough.

I think grandad is a state of mind.

Grandad four times over!

You're .... 250 years old?

Yip, that's me. Still hate milkfloats though!

Awesome mate, and true!