Be Excellent To Each Other

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.

If I was in the market for a big ol' bruiser, I'd get a V8 Mustang (then trick it up further).
I accept that's a vastly less sophisticated beast (but is less than half the price when new), but that's all part of the appeal for me. A bit like a four-wheeled Harley.

All a matter of personal taste of course, but the M5 and M6 are to my eyes just so damn fugly.

I'd love a Mustang.

My next car mate, I'm finished with Porsche and all their bullshit. Plus, £60k with options, for the new Cayman with some 4cyl putt putt? See ya!

That's a better example of capitalism at work. Who needs a Mustang?

You should buy this.

http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C750979

Wants and needs I said, bellend

Then you said something about cleaning toilets for dinner.

If you're talking about the 2015 RHD model, you want to put your name down for that ASAP, there's one hell of a waiting list.

Yep, when I went on my aborted visit to lease the Fiesta the salesman said someone who ordered on day 1 got his 9 months after the initial delivery date. I can't even imagine what the waiting list is like now.

Drool. Even though I know I shouldn't love those and what pieces of rattly horrid saggy things they are I still do. I blame Burt Reynolds !

Judging by the number of supercars I have seen so far today, it must be Eid. The soft top Maserati looked lovely.

Ecotricity (the company that install, maintain and provide rapid chargers for EVs at motorway services around the UK) have made the decision to start charging people to use their rapid chargers.

£5 for a 20 minute charge.

That's going to kill the EV adoption rate in this country stone dead. It doesn't matter how many kWh you get out of the charger in that 20 minutes, you still get charged £5. Doesn't matter if you only need a quick top up so stop charging after 5-10 minutes, you still get charged £5.

20 minutes on one of their chargers gets me about 40-50 miles in my LEAF (less during winter when the battery is colder) which suddenly makes everything a lot more expensive.

I don't really use my LEAF for longer trips any more, so it won't affect me too much, but lots of people rely on them. I doubt any of them would be bothered about having to pay something, but that's a terrible way of doing it.

Why were they previously offering it for free though? Presumably it costs them money to install and maintain the things.

£5 for 50 miles is 10p a mile. That's pretty much a decent diesel car, isn't it?

It was free previously to encourage uptake of EV ownership, and by all accounts it worked.

No-one expected it to stay free forever of course, but I imagine most people hoped that any charges that were eventually levied would still keep EVs an attractive prospect rather than, as MaliA points out, bringing it back in line with diesel and fuel-efficient petrols.

They're also saying that if you use them for your home energy supply, you can use the rapid chargers for free. This raises interesting questions, as the installation of the chargers was heavily subsidised by the Government and EU (and Nissan/Renault)...

So they've stuffed their pockets with subsidies to install the chargers, and have now decided to start stuffing their pockets with more cash for people to use them?

This is the kind of thing I'd expect to be subject to contracts and user service agreements.

After getting all the stuff for 4 people for 5 days into the Subarururururhbarb's 339 litre boot, and covering it with the luggage cover (might buy a dog guard to get it to roof) MrsA has said that a bigger boot isn't really needed. Thus no new second hand car for a while.

So, I am stuck with the Rover. Which, after an overnight 0.6 amp charge has worked fine (save exhaust) albeit with my pulling fuse out of stereo circuit when parked and replacing once engine is running. I am getting to quite like it.

I suppose the upside is money not spent.

Just looked at Subaru Legacy estates.

They've made it onto my possible next car list. The 2009 model 2.0 diesels are 146bhp, 0-60mph 8.5seconds, £180 tax 48.7mpg and 4x4.

Just get another 100k out of my Leon and save up for one.

This was one of the more entertaining cars at the Chateau Impney hill climb today.
A 42 litre engine from a PT boat, doing 1.5 Gallons per mile.

This was one of the more entertaining cars at the Chateau Impney hill climb today.
A 42 litre engine from a PT boat, doing 1.5 Gallons per mile.

I was wondering where my Eco car had got to

Got a call from the dealer earlier today, the Merc is now booked in with the local German car specialist for next Tuesday for proper German style Parktronic interrogation and fault-finding, which I'm guessing will generate a reasonable bill for labour alone.

I have about 5 weeks of the warranty left to run, although I guess (hope!) that as the Parktronic problems are a pre-existing fault he won't just wash his hands of it at that point if it isn't fixed by then.

Hopefully the car will be allowed to stay in the country post-BREXIT.

Let's be honest, no chance of a BREXIT U-turn if we're relying on your swivel-eyed parking sensors.

They seem to indicate that everything is safe to the left, but warn of constant and imminent danger to the right, for some reason.

"YIELD THE CENTRE"

Yay Merc fix! No, really this time.

So it went up to the Merc specialist today and he did some proper specialist diagnostic stuff on it, the details of which I am not privy to, but he located a wiring fault on the Parktronic system and has a 'high degree of confidence' that the problems are now totally resolved.

This is better than previously where the dealer has just been repeatedly replacing parking sensors only for another one
to apparently go duff, which concluded last time with the Parktronic reporting that the sensor they'd just replaced had gone faulty, which was clearly wrong.

I am informed that all communications to the Parktronic Control Module are now normal, and they gave the car an extended test drive during which it behaved itself impeccably. Previous experience suggests I'll know within a day if it is indeed now working properly or not, but it was fine on the way home.

I stopped to take a few pics, because despite all the problems I've had with it, I do really rather like this car, and I think it's rather handsome. For a German.

Gorgeous !