Be Excellent To Each Other

Yeah about that

I don't think you're doing it right.

Sadly hacking up the 101 through traffic is never any fun. But I’m doing ~500 miles on the weekend through some very quiet stretches of Northern California. I have high hopes.

I'm sure once you get it in 9th and stick the cruise control on 55 it'll be everything you dreamed.

I feel so much better about my Merc only getting 25 average now.

Also note the tank is noticeably not full any more. I've only driven about 20 miles...

Also also: where it says "V8" in that screen it sometimes says "V4" because the engine just thinks to itself "oh hey, you're cruising and don't need power so I'll just shut half the cylinders down, nbd." You can't tell and they come back at once if you give it more throttle. It's witchcraft.

Heh. That’s been on cars for 15 years, particularly V8 and above. What’s truly astonishing is even with it how shit the fuel economy is.

The M5s that I had were programmed to not show lower than 7.0 mpg on the average - is that the same with this do you reckon or do you think you could get it lower?

I dunno, on the weekend I’ll be on some empty roads and I’ll see what I can do.

The trip computer has a lap timer! And a g-forece bubble display!

I watched Baby Driver on the plane and then this morning I tried to merge into traffic while turning right on a red light in a cherry red muscle car while listening to Bellbottom.

Car gets pretty squirmy.

This was a bit different. On the way to sledging

Fuel economy update!

Demonstration of the non-existent rear view. I think this thing was designed by someone who hates glass. The forward view is pretty narrow too.

It's like driving a Cylon helmet

Hah! Yes.

13.7 is a bit better. That's just slightly worse than the UK Mustang.

How much right-wing talk radio can you tolerate before you cause an accident? My record is 32 minutes, including adverts.

I'm not a big car nut, I do like the look of this Countach, although it looks like something from the old Screamer game.

It's still all urban traffic so far (as the averaged speed shows.) I'll get it out on the open road tomorrow.

Oh, fuck any radio that isn't NPR.

Remember the car accident my wife had the other week? Well, as suspected the car has been written off.

The insurance people called today and offered me £2400 for the car but I said that's not enough. I plucked a figure out of the air and said I was expecting around £3200.

They're going to call me back next week. Is it normal to haggle with insurers like this? I've never had a car written off before.

Have a look on autotrader for similar make model and mileage as a guide.

Not unusual, sadly. The usual response is "please direct me to a car dealership within 30 miles where I can buy another car of the exact same spec, year, and mileage for this money. Oh, you can't? Then fuck off and give me more money."

Yeah last time I had to do this we both put in the same search on autotrader and came to a fair agreement.

Yeah, get some examples of cars as close to your old spec as you can on Autotrader / Parker’s and day that’s what you expect.

The dearer ones obv.

Yes, we had this when ours was stolen and used Parkers, too. I think you can subscribe to their website for a month or just get the app which gives access forever (check, though, I may have that wrong) for about the same amount. It’s handy to have when looking for a car. Russell got a fair whack of money off our new car because he had the app on him and basically pointed it at the dealer and went ‘I want it for this much’.

Helen's insurer tried to write her mx5 off (though they never actually admitted that's what they were doing, copart had to tell us themselves they were salvage not repair) because it was worth less then the minor fill and paint it needed on the rear quarter when someone hit it while parked.

When demonstrated that autotrader averaged over 5k they changed their minds.

Y'know, I'm really weirdly annoyed that Jag won't do the petrol estate xf in AWD, but will the saloon. It's not like we can afford more than one new car. Or probably even one when it comes down to it, but if we could it's for Helen and she wants a small suv.

I remember the days when I'd be annoyed that it's the inline 6 I couldn't have, except I wouldn't even be interested because it's a V8 I want, and here I am moaning about AWD 4 cylinders

Buying a car is a right pain... I don't know how Hearthly puts up with this so often!

The one we had our heart set on was sold to someone else yesterday so we're back to square one. The sales people seemed less than interested in suggesting anything else so we left.

What was odd at jaguar land rover was that there was a really friendly guy on the jaguar side, couldn't do enough to help us out and wanted to do test drives there and then, even though we were quite up front that 'we need to buy at least one car but we don't know what yet, might fancy a Jag or disco but never sat in one,'.

Later we wandered over to the land rover side of the showroom and got the feeling we'd have to physically try and drive off in one to get someone to recognise our existence. I mean I like to be given time and space in shops but that was just weird.

Apparently the met office is in collusion by now forecasting snow and ice that never arrives.

So yesterday we saw a Ford Kuga which was a nice car and ticked a lot of boxes but had a problem in that once we put our booster seats in for this kids, it was really difficult to attach the seat belt. The plastic clip bit is recessed in the seat so it wasn't sticking out enough to easily clip together.

Bit of a deal breaker that.. The guy selling the car said you can get seat belt extenders and showed me some ebay listings of them but I'm not keen on this at all. I don't think they'll be safe.

Looks like we're back to the drawing board.

It's fun, the sense of expectation is like that tingly feeling when you know you're going to get to sleep with a lass for the first time.

Probably less so with the Leon though, come to think about it.

Holy crap that car is incredibly competent at everything it does but oh so dull. To try and inject some flavour into the ownership experience I've decided to set myself a goal of achieving the best long term MPG possible, currently at 49.0mpg after 1500 miles, and slowly climbing.

I reckon I'll be able to tip it over 50mpg long term, you can change into 6th gear at like, 1200-1300rpm in 5th. (As long as you're not going uphill.)

I'd recommend you give a Leon a try Vision, if you want a magnificently capable and well built car, that's comfortable and easy to drive, great for the family, nicely loaded with all the kit, and essentially a 'de-badged' VW/Audi for a lot less cash, along with low insurance, tax and fuel costs - it ticks all the boxes, just don't expect a stirring in your loins when you clamber aboard. (If you get the 184bbhp 2.0 litre turbo diesel engined variant, they're moderately peppy as well.)

I had a similar experience at a Mini dealership - I was quite open about not having decided what I wanted and still got given the keys with "bring it back before we close". It worked, though not for that dealer as I ended up buying one.

I had to buy a seatbelt extender for our old Civic. Completely safe.

But just get a car that you don’t have to faff about with.

seems to be the best option here. Also, it looks like Halford don't sell those seat belt extenders so that's what made me question their safety.

Bang! And the dirt is gone.

And most of the skin on my hands.

Wandered past the place I bought the Leon from because a couple of cars have appeared on my Faceballs feed that I rather like the look of. They were in the showroom so I walked in and got chatting to the chap I bought the Leon from, and asked him what the Leon would be worth on trade in. He tapped away on his computer and said he'd give me full retail for it rather than trade value, as long as I was getting something more expensive, as he wouldn't expect me to take trade since I've only had the Leon a couple of months.

So in simple terms he'll give me £17800 for the Leon, which is £17800 towards anything I fancy.

They've still got the red Golf R I posted pics of a few pages back, and also this monster. It's had a few 'things' done to it and has been dyno-ed at 353bhp....

He said I could take it out for a spin but I declined as didn't have much time. Also, I don't fully trust myself not to do something stupid like buy the bloody thing.

Or, how about another Merc, surely this'd be better than the last one?

Buy the silly Focus, but it now.

Look at the blue lights!

I agree, buy the Focus.

Or the Lime Green Beetle

Maybe don't, based on where one of its doors is in that photo.

Buy them all. Saves you going back.

Cleaning out that EGR has made a massive difference. Wish I’d done it sooner. But I was scared.

I thought it had DICE PEDDALS for a moment.

You should ask if they’ll do you a set of DICE PEDDALS.

You'll get annoyed with the Focus in the same ways you got annoyed with the Type R. But get it anyway as it'll be funny.

My neighbour has one. He loves it.