Be Excellent To Each Other

Don't disable it, keep it on. Every time it beeps or flashes, everyone in the car drinks three.

Is there a cliff nearby where you can park it with the handbrake off?

A Jeep Patriot would be utterly ludicrous, right?

Parts are pretty expensive in the UK, and they're a bit underpowered (and look a bit silly, IMO), but they're a good, pretty basic 4x4.

I think it looks awesome - like something from GI Joe.

The V40 is dying and I need a new car, and fancy a 4x4. Probably looking to spend up to about 5k. There are a couple of Discos nearby that I'll look at, but there aren't many sub 100k mileage ones around in that price range.

If you want something bullet-proof and really, really useful, I can't recommend the Mitsubishi L200 Warrior enough. They're superb.

Wait, you can get an L200 Trojan for that money - they've got more room in the back (although less in the "back" back).

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/ ... =p&adPos=6

Vroom vroom vroom!

nice! But on the other hand, at 110 on the clock how much trouble is it going to be?

You've got about another 100,000 to go before you need to start worrying. They're just made from huge chunks of steel, so nothing tends to break. There was a known gearbox fault with third gear, but they'll have all had that sorted by now (but if you test one shift down hard from fourth into third, and if you can it's fine).

Awesome! Thanks fella. Funnily enough, our neighbour has one I think...

last question - does the Warrior or Trojan have more space in the back seats, or about the same?

Seems an odd choice I mean I know a few people with those but they're mostly builders, rather than lawyers.

I do a lot of stuff that involves buying large quantities of timber, sand, stone etc, and even on holidays we've found that the amount of shit we take with us (including kayaks and such) has grown, and even an estate car with a roof box has not been quite sufficient sometimes. I also live somewhere that would benefit from a 4x4.

I had always had my heart set on a Land Rover Discovery (no idea why really), but anything with a lot of carrying capacity would do.

Plus the L200s look cool, man. A Ford F150 would be awesome if you could buy them for less than a bazillion pounds.

Once the garage has been built the next purchase is a Ferret armoured car...

Fair dos, I couldn't be doing with one of them as a daily driver though.

Manly names.

F150s are ludicrously big for the UK (and make anyone driving them look like a bellend). I found the driving position in the Warrior to be bizarre. You'd expect to be sat up high, like in a van, but it has low seats and shallow footwells, so it feels more like a sportscar. Very odd.

Was there enough headroom?

I think my next car will be an estate car.

Still happy with mine for now. Mate at work just gifted me 2 Toyo tyres that he had fitted last month as yesterday he had a set of 4 matched Goodyears fitted. Which is nice. It played on his OCD having mismatched pairs, well that and he span his BMW 720º down a country lane on Monday evening. (His rear tyres being the culprits rather than the Toyos on the front).

For some reason this decision is struggling to get through committee :-/

I'm sure you'll get the kids vote in your campaign.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that he was the main culprit.

Ooooh, good idea. We can gang up on her.

He also blamed tree sap.

FREE TYRES!

As daft as it might sound I really rather like the car. On paper the stats are awful ('returned to dealer fifteen times in four months') but in reality the only serious issue I've had with the car is the limp mode problem, which required the valve body control unit being ordered from Germany and being fitted by the island's Merc specialist, and would have cost me comfortably north of £1000 to get sorted if I'd have had to pay for it. (And led to the car being off the road for a couple of weeks, but I was given a Jazz-tastic courtesy car for the duration.)

Other than that it's just been niggles really, principally with the Parktronic which is stubbornly refusing to let itself be fixed, and the Dension aftermarket audio gizmo which it turned out in the end had just been wired in wrong and was corrected at no extra expense to myself.

Important to remember though that the car hasn't cost me anything beyond the original purchase price and the extra on top I paid for the Dension plus installation.

I think I'll be in it for at least another year yet, not least because I've just put £375 of tax on it, and I'm determined to see this ongoing issue with the Parktronic seen out to completion.

For the money I paid it's an awful lot of really nice car, and it emphatically ticks one of major boxes for me which is really good speakers for maximum music enjoyment, add in the 250GB hard drive plugged into the Dension and that alone would be irritating to replicate in a different car.

I suppose the one thing I would like is a CLS that had the Harmon Kardon speaker upgrade, but the factory-fit amp and speakers in mine are still pretty damn good.

How many days has it been off the road though? Surely that's annoying and more than a niggle.

I'm finding it very hard to approach anything resembling actual annoyance with it though. Admittedly the limp mode problem was a genuine worry early on and I wasn't sure which side of the fence the dealer would fall on with being prepared to do what it took to get the car sorted, but (a) He got the fault diagnosed and fixed professionally and (b) Gave me a courtesy car for all the time the Merc was off the road.

Once that was out of the way (and the dealer had shown he wasn't going to try and fob me off), it's not been an issue really. As the guy owns two dealerships on the island for everything else I've just dropped the car off at his dealership in the morning that's close to my place of work, and they've then done whatever needs to be done and taken it to wherever it needs to go, and they have it back there for me to collect after work - it's no hassle. The people themselves are all perfectly nice too, there have been no cross words or anything like that, it's all been done in a friendly and amicable manner.

On top of all that of course, in terms of first world problems this must be right up there, 'Oh no the daft big ten year old Merc I bought isn't quite right, woe is me!' - the fact I even have such a 'problem' at all makes me realise I'm in really a rather fortunate and privileged position to start with, and I'm sure it'll get there in the end. It's kind of like a mission in a videogame - 'QUEST - Take this ten year old Mercedes CLS 320 and make it 100% operational within six months of taking ownership - REWARD Get to pay £375 per year road tax for it.'

Oops

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/tesla-driver- ... 58879.html

Ooohh yes I meant to put that in the driverless cars thread, I'll stick a link in there now.

Interesting that they've stated the car was unable to differentiate between the trailer and the bright sky, but not cited anything at all that states that as a cause.

Exciting Rover Update!

Battery flat after sitting for 10 days!

Accidentally paid for someone else fuel yesterday.

Saving me approximately £6!

But did someone else pay for yours?

I'M ON THE RUN!!!

Someone drove into my car overnight while it was parked. Doesn't appear too bad, but have dented the door, broken the light cover in the wing mirror and gouged the area under the fuel cap. Bastards.

Anyway, can I claim on insurance for this? I have fully comp and protected no claims, but I have no evidence that this wasn't just me driving badly.

Yeah you can claim no probs Bobby, but sadly will likely affect you no claims & you'll need to pay any excess.

Bastards, had this done to me in the past, too. Infuriating.

What is annoying is I parked in a place and was about two inches further from the kerb than I usually park, but thought, nah it'll be fine. Bugger.

Car or bike?

I've got just over a year to go on the Leaf lease, and I've started looking longingly at V10 M6s...

If it was a car, it wasn't moving very quickly.

Can't same I'm surprised, Gaz. Good for you.

@Bobby - bike I'd hazard a guess, but it looks well weird. I can't fathom what actually happened here.

Gah, that's a pisser, Bobby

Very strange mark... maybe a bike thats hit then gone over against your car?

Eco warrior!

Not exactly a like-for-like change. Does your Celica not give you the thrills you need?

Hardly drive it these days, it's so low down that it hurts my back getting in and out of it a lot of the time, and the suspension is more designed for track use which is a shame.

And, you know, inline-4 versus howling V10...

I almost certainly won't actually get an M6 though, I'm just looking longingly at them. I'm well aware of what the last V10s did to my financial stability

Not tempted by the new M2?

Nah. Maybe in a few years when they've depreciated a bit more.