Be Excellent To Each Other

Congratulations!

Don't forget to kick every tyre!

Even the spare?

Infact every tyre on the street..

What Mali said and:
Check the wingmirrors fold in and all the electrics (if any) work.
Test all windows and sunroof if it has one.
Dont look too keen. Be cheeky, offer them 35% less than on the window, then work up if needs be.

Let it run, make sure the temperature guage works.

Check the heaters once it's warm, too.

Stick and move kid, hit the guy in the middle.

I tested one car and everything was going well until the rear view mirror fell off. Check for blutack.

Check that all the fault lights light then go out when you put it in accessories, except the engine one that goes off when you actually start it.

Check if the parking sensors work

General, hypothetical question. If you had a regular car - a boring, mid range, 4 door whatever - and drove it boringly, and always did the service and checked the oil and did everything you were meant to, and had good luck and never hit a stationary car on a motorway slip road, how many miles would you expect it to be able to do before it fell to bits ( or would cost more than it's worth to fix )? I've had cars that were rattly pieces of shit at about 100k miles, but i get the impression you can expect some to last much much longer.

A lot of it depends on what sort of miles they are, 100K up and down motorways is a bit easier on a car than 100k weaving around town, more gear changes more braking and bouncing over speed bumps etc.

Also for example, Peugeot engines are brilliant, but the electrics and chassis will fail around it long before it stops working.

My BMW 320 has done 115K now and it doesn't rattle at all, but there are some expensive to change parts on cars that just can't be expected to last forever. So no matter how well engineered a car is once the mileage gets up you'll end up needing to change a clutch or something and depending on the value of the car you might just think that it's time to get rid before that happens.

e.g. I've got an oil leak right now that I'm hoping is *just* the valve cover gasket or the oil filter housing gasket. If it's either of those then I'll probably try and fix it myself because I'd get my old man to help out, I like working with him on things so it would almost be fun. But if I didn't have that option and had to pay a garage then I might think twice.

I thought you had a Honda Jazz?

You get an idea of cars with good longevity by what you see on the roads and mileage on cars you see about on eBay / Parkers etc.

I'm on 120,000 in my Seat Leon TDi *touches wood* nothing major I've had to pay for so far. I try and do as much as I can, maintenance wise.

He bought a BMW kit for it.

I have won the rental car lottery. I think it’s a 6.2 litre V8, 455 horsepower, although I’m not sure.

That's my wife's car, I just couldn't be bothered pointing that out to captain toryporsche.

Where is Cavey?

Did the winter cold snap get him?

Gaywood! Don't forget your case on the roof!

Also the timing chain.

This made me laugh, a lot

Yup, that's the 455bhp jobber. Noice.

It has an eight speed box. Thankfully an auto, because I don’t think my tiny brain could figure out cornering gears with eight to pick from.

Also it’s an NA V8. It’s got power band for days. You could cruise around town and never use anything other than third. Why does it need eight gears?!

5 forwards
3 reverse

It’s not Italian

Not to rain on the Doc's parade, but *barges Doc out of the way*

ahem, someone was trying to persuade me of the benefits of remapping my Skoda Yeti. I dimly recalled people like Z and Hearthly talking about getting it done on here.

Does it actually work to the degrees that are claimed, or is it often marginal gains.

A company that performs the service for my car spat these figures back at me. Is it reasonable to expect such performance* after a remap? And would one really feel the benefit of that kind of increase anyway?

*I know, fear me.

The manual would probably be a 6-speed. Autos have loads of gears these days to help with fuel economy.

I suspect that's so you don't get comedy fuel usage. Even with 8 gears it's probably amusingly bad, and most of that amusement likely comes from the fact you're not paying $8 a gallon

@FindusFop

There's more gains to be had remapping turbo diesels than with petrol engines but looking at the stats there you'd certainly feel the difference.

You need to declare this sort of work to your insurance company too so premiums will rise.

I never got mine remapped due to the garage telling me a few jobs needed doing to mine before it was safe to do. Currently getting the jobs done (and paying for house stuff) so it keeps getting pushed back.

You're probably right. We're doing a 400 mile road trip on the weekend. I'll zero the counters first.

Cheerz Z. Will consider it in a few months or so when the christmas aftershocks have subsided. May also have to make a casual call to my insurer to ask them the hypothetical what if.

MPG doesn't fall off a cliff, does it? I know many claim to enhance MPG, though I remain unconvinced. The Yeti already averages a pretty cruddy 33 mpg.

Remaps are fully amazing, don't hurt your car and make it better in every way. For additional savings don't tell your insurance company, they'll never find out any way.

Not even sarcasm

Controversial!

I'd remain quiet too

MPG should improve too, Findus. Should be stats for that too on the place you looked.

So you're in the "No" camp? We should have a remapperendum.

Those remap figures are entirely plausible. Wander over to briskoda.net for more first hand experience.

What about one of those very worst case scenarios where someone is killed or something? I don't know what sort of checks the police routinely do on vehicles in those circumstances.

No really, I really mean it, fully in favour.

Honestly not sure, they'd need to compare the afr map to a standard one I'd imagine. Not convinced they'd think to check or claim it was of consequence even if they did find out.

That's what would make me a bit uneasy. There's also the insurers, would they still have to pay out the third party damages if you killed or maimed someone in a car that had been modified without telling them or would they pay out but then come after you for it? Obviously that's very unlikely but those unlikely scenarios are the whole reason insurance is mandatory in the first place.

If the insurers ask "is your car modified in any way?" and then say "your insurance is invalid if you lied" then to my mind it's very clear cut what happens if you get caught. You can debate the likelihood of that, but nothing about any contact with an insurance company makes me think they're running a charity that would pay out on stuff they're not obliged to.

Good point.

You may as well spend your insurance premium on modding the fuck out of your car then if it's going to be invalid anyway.

They'll find a way to weasel out of it any way.
I drove a 1.6 Capri for a couple years, it was a heavily modified 2.9 V6 and got stopped by the cops a lot, they never checked so therefore everyone's safe and my experience guarantees that somehow.

In my life I've been involved in (I think) four collisions that required the insurance to be notified, and they paid out correctly 100% of the time.

Only cos you followed the stupid rules. Like an idiot.

One of my pet peeves is people that modify cars and then don't notify their insurance/DVLA as appropriate. Every time I see a car on eBay that has had an engine upgrade and says in the listing "still registered as a 1.2 so cheap insurance!" I report it and get it removed.

It's irresponsible, obviously illegal, and I wish the police and insurance companies cracked down on people doing it.