Be Excellent To Each Other

I don't mind you coming here

ObvTitle

Talk about guzzling other stuff if you like.

You must have been waiting years to work that joke in somewhere! Excellent work my friend.

Does he mean the home brew thread?

Pale ale.

The lump passed its first MOT away from the friendly garage in Manchester, including what isn't just the visual I thought the smoke test is, and while full of Morrison's finest. Huh.

Advisory on front pads, which is fine because it's only had rear pads in the four years/30k I've had it. Discs needed too for corrosion, they say.

They reckon the alignment was all over the place, which is also fine because it didn't quite go straight, understeered badly and ruined the inner shoulders of the last set of rears in no time.

I've got an old Clio as a courtesy car and it's simultaneously ropey as fuck and great fun. My experience says it's a good garage based on that. Ridiculously fast too, I'm wondering if they've replaced the gearbox with a shorter set.

No, the Clio's have insanely short boxes.

They really do

What's a short box (in this context)?

Does it mean that it doesn't feel as far between where the head of the gearstick rests when changing gears?

No, it means the gear ratio is low. Better acceleration, less top speed.

If you're talking about the gear stick movement you'd say "short throw".

That.

I'm pretty sure it's faster than my Renault sport twingo was, with similar gearing (3krpm at 60mph in 5th). That only weighed a ton and had 133ps so fuck knows how little this weighs!

Thank you. I used to own a Clio (before a tree maliciously took the front two wheels and engine off) and wondered if it would be something I would have been able to notice.

I have insanely short boxers.

Weird, the box in my Type R feels shorter than my Clio was. I'm cruising in 6th at 40mph at just over 2000 revs.

The GT4 has absurdly long legged 'box ratios; it'll almost do a ton in second FFS. It's my chief bugbear with the car (and everyone else's by all accounts). Probably emissions and/or noise regs related.... on a race track car made in tiny numbers....

It's such a shame because the gearbox action is beautiful; you'd want to using it more (and enjoying the enhanced acceleration). Who needs to cruise in a race car FFS

Ended up with it for the weekend because their supplier gave them the wrong brake pads.

It's ace, and doesn't appear to use petrol, and I'll enjoy twatting it back down to Malvern on Monday, but it'll be nice to get the sofa back.

But also the sofa needs a transmission rebuild and suspension and turbo upgrades now.

Maybe we should pop over to the Jag dealer this weekend instead.

Took the Clio Sport to Cardiff a few weeks ago to get the belts done. Took it for a 50 mile blast around the Vale of Glamorgan afterwards which was a lot of fun. I think this is the perfect London car; it's small and agile with plenty enough grunt yet is surprisingly comfortable which I put down to the softly cushioned but well bolstered seats and also the small diameter wheels and quite high profile tyres.

Liking this pocket rocket a lot.

Mine was great. Not so fun on long journeys but that's to be expected. My Civic is good but it doesn't put a smile on my face in the way the Clio did.

I worked out I'm getting 52mpg at the moment. Which is nice.

Very proud of myself for getting 35mpg out of this tank. Roadworks on large stretches of the M1 and M6 last weekend surely helped.

32mpg in the EXCITING ROVER!

Gained an extra 30miles per tank since the I had the exhaust and fuel filter replaced. I'm presuming that's from the fuel filter alone. So if it's right that a remap will get me an extra 10% fuel economy then I could be getting over 600miles per tank.

#EcoWarrior

Is that around town though? I only get 25-28mpg urban. 35 is the absolute upper limit on a long run and then I have to gently caress the gas pedal like there's an egg underneath it.

Yeah, that's rush hour 13mph average for an hour commute.

60mpg on this tank full so far which is a new record. Hooray for roadworks on the M5 I guess.

2002 1.8l Volvo V40 estate gets an average of 32mpg, which is mostly speed up/ slow down in loads of small country lanes.

You all disgust me.

126 mpg(e) for me.

How much is a gallon of electricity?

The same price as a gallon of petrol, I think.

But it weighs less.

Durham to Truro in Subaru was 26.6mpg.

But the whale tail gets cool points.

I have an important car-related post!

We've traded in the family car for one of these.

Seatbelt on!

Driving is ace!


Outta my way, moron!!

Topping up with half a pint of premium unleaded with turbo stuff in.



Don't spill it on the paintwork, little petrol attendant dude!

Awesome. So much fun there.

Russell is going to drive it to work tomorrow.

That's not great. My Civic would probably do 30+ on the same journey.

Probably wise to do that - I did enjoy it when our eldest managed to roll his cosy coupe in the hallway (no idea how - there are no tight bends there) and got himself so, so stuck as the door was jammed up against the wall and he was kinda wedged in

I tried to fit in one of those a month or so back...

It didn't end well.

Did you step in and it became a minibus?

The shape doesn't help. Knocking speed to below 68mph off might help.

please let there be photos...

Subaru in for running repairs. 2 new tyres and 2 new exhaust sections. Hurrah!

Been wanting a code reader for a while, just seen this and took the plunge:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blusmart-Diagn ... op?ie=UTF8

Mx-5 handling, frankly, terrifyingly on the way to work. Decide that, if I had to guess, whatever is wrong is in the front left. Ring garage, "sounds like brake binding, they do that". Drive it home, hover my hand near the wheels. Front left giving off very, very warm feels, the others cool.

So it's good that the car communicates that well, right?

This appeared in my Facebook news feed because Facebook knows I fucking love cars. It shows me cars ALL THE TIME.

Couldn't resist popping in for a proper look and a sit in it since it's only a slight detour to the dealership on my normal walk back to my car after work.

As a result I am dropping the S4 off tomorrow morning and leaving it there for the day to get a proper valuation on its part-ex value, and then we will talk numbers. (I am told it'll get a wash and mini-valet whilst it's there, which is nice. This is the place I took the Merc back to three million times, I'm still on first name terms with them all.)

I want to get the switch done for £10K or less so it's going to need to be a juicy part-ex value on the S4, or something off the sticker price on the Type-R.

IDGI.

You're going to pay £24k for the old model Type R when a new one costing £30k before discounts has just come out (not to the greatest fanfare of motoring press praise to be fair, Car put it 3rd out of 4 in their group test, the relatively ancient, old-tech 1-series Beemer and RS Focus both kicked its ass, only some old woffer of a Seat saved it from the wooden spoon).

If this was my bag, which tbh it isn't, I'd be saying £21k less a damn good p/x or walk away. An S4 is much easier to sell than this, especially since those few likely to be interested in it will like it as not be lusting after the new shinier one for bragging rights etc.?

I suppose it's not worth mentioning the very nice, rock solid residuals Mk 7 Golf R for similar secondhand money..........

Still, a better bet than an Astra 1.6L I'll grant you.