Be Excellent To Each Other

Can I take this opportunity to ask you, Dr Gaywood, why the hell you need a Picasso to convey only one child and two dogs when another estate would do that just as well and also be infinitely more pleasant to drive when you're NOT carrying the brood?

An estate? A Corsa with the back seat down would do equally well

In fact, go by bike and get the dogs to tow you.

Let's not have the Corsa discussion again.

But we must.

If it does what it says on the tin then that's not a bad price really.

However don't fuel companies have to meddle with fuel between Summer and Winter to keep it within UK spec. With that in mind I wonder how track regulations come into force if you use it.

The serious answer to this is too long and tedious to type here. Ask me over lunch one day. I have no comedy answers.

Ain't that the fucking truth.

You wound me, sir!

I had a little read of that link and it actually says on that site that motor sport mentalists should check the regulations for whatever it is that they're taking part in before filling up with the stuff.

How old and knackered is the V6 if they'll do it for that little?

Shall we see if they want to buy my 150k miles oil-leaking Omega?

Or my 100k miles non-leaking Rover V8?

According to my MR2 owning colleague, Wood does good work for a good price.

Yeah, but you'd struggle to get a good engine for that price...

Maybe they get them from Japania?

On cars, I have a 55 reg Mazda 6 TS. It's a great car, but I've come to the conclusion that there is no way I need a car that size, and given the cost of petrol etc, it may be time to downsize, as it starts needing an MOT as of October and the warranty runs out.

I paid 10K for the Mazda, and reckon I can get £7000 for it now. I'm thinking about dropping to a Focus or something (I still want a 5d of some description), but I'm wondering if it's worthwhile - am I just going to lose out on the deal?

Is the £2.5k if you provide the engine? Because depending on what's involved it might not be an unreasonable price at that.

I have the same car and was wondering the same thing. I came to the conclusion that unless I drop right down to some tiny 1.4 diesel or something any savings would probably be outweighed by the hassle of selling a faultlessly reliable car and buying another second hand one that I can't be so sure of. But then I work from home and don't actually do all that many miles anyway so your sums will probably be a bit different.

RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Yeah, that's what I was worried about. I don't do many miles either - it's only got 22k on the clock.

Also - Hahahaha at Grim...

Yeah you'd have to use a lot of fuel to catch up.

Mine Grim...

You bought the sporty one and probably thrashed it to within and inch of it's life. Actually you thrashed it until it was dead didn't you?

Anyway the normal, boring ones like mine and Craster's have an excellent reputation.

So does the MPS
It's no the car I'm angry with, TBH - no model is without it's "unlucky" cars, it was Mazda UK's handling of the whole thing.

Still, it's going soon. Mondeo Titanium X Sport for the win!

Ah I thought it had gone ages ago.

Is the Mondeo 4WD or just front?

We got it repaired ages ago. The Mondeo is FWD, so I'm looking forward to lots of understeer.

[edit]Amusingly, the gearbox has an "Economy" setting, which I bet is just a "sport" button in "off" mode.

Indeed. Hardcore Lotus Elise owners often like shoving a Honda Civic Type-R engine in their cars, and engine + fitting on one of those bad boys is upwards of £10k.

Everything Lotus related is expensive though as you're paying specialist main dealer prices to get the work and an new Civic Type R engine is about £6-7k without the work.

Also, the MR-2 is a more a mainstream car than the Elise which probably needs a complete geometry tweak with a new more powerful engine in it.

I have a soft spot for most modern Fords due to the whizz that was the recently retire Richard Parry Jones who was the engineer genius responsible for the chassis development/sign off. They handle remarkably well and you can get just as much understeer out of AWD as you can FWD as you undoubtedly know.

Why don't you go the whole hog and get a ST220 - they can't give those fuckers away due to the size of the engine and the repmobile reputation of the Mondeo model - that is a good car.

I suggested this as a good compromise, but he didn't seem keen.

make your dogs sick

I'd quite like one, TBH, but you can't buy them new.

The Tit XS is the same engine (I think, the 2.5 220PSI boost one) though, just with a silly 'dualshift' (or something) gearbox.

FTFY

I thought the ST220 is an NA 3l V6?

It is.

So it is - quite wrong there, then. The performance figures are almost identical, though.

I'm still not certain I like the new redesign - it seems to be suffering from the usual malaise of modern safety features dictating aesthetics in a "all cars must be slab sided and will only look good with 20" wheels on them" mantra.
It does look nice as an estate, however.

OK people, throw cars at me. I'm after a smallish 5-door car, 1.4 or 1.6, diesel if it's a decent engine, low tax, good mileage, and not dull as fuck.

Lets have your recommendations, anyone but Dudley.

Ford Focus or Golf. There really isn't any other option, really. Also, depending on your mileage, petrol may make more sense. Diesel is more expensive to run, the engines need servicing more often and the fuel itself is about 60p a gallon more expensive overlooking the fact that up until recently they were more expensive to buy - I say that as I suspect with the cost of Diesel being what it is at the moment, they're not holding they're value as well.

Bottom line is, unless you do >20k pa It would probably be cheaper to buy petrol.

A 1.4/1.6 diesel that's not dull as fuck? You don't want much.

And all small 5 door cars look shit, they're all pillars and panel lines.

Don't buy Toyota, I have it on good authority that their dealers are a bunch of fucking cunts.

My main interest in diesel is purely the fact that having a diesel engine tends to automatically drop you a couple of car tax bands, which could be around £100pa. Not much, but still.

I realise it looked like I said I wanted diesel - what I meant was that I would consider diesel.

I have been considering a Corolla/Auris :0)

Corollas are a good buy, but they're boring. The Auris and the Yaris are awesome cars.

Toyota dealers might be cunts, but Toyota cars are stupidly good. Obviously there's the odd lemon (like my previous Celica) but they're generally due more to the previous owners mistreating them than any inherent fault in the car.

My Toyota Carina was the best car I ever had. It was 20 years old and cost me £250.

Might I recommend the 5-door version of the car I've got, the current Honda Civic? Mine's got the 1.8 L i-VTEC engine and I reckon it's pretty saucy myself. Some people say that the ride is a bit too hard on it, doesn't bother me personally, but you might want a test drive first. The 5-door is a very practical car, absolutely miles of storage space and it's fairly economical too. I tend to utterly blitz down the motorway on my way to and from work, and I usually get 39 mpg with the aircon running. A slightly lighter right foot and not using the aircon all the time should very easily get you 42 mpg, possibly slightly more.

Also, the car comes in a 2.2 L i-CTDi Turbo Diesel variant, which a mate of mine was test driving for a company car. That's even more economical, and the turbocharger makes it a very fun car to drive, though it does cost more to service. Generally I reckon you're better off going with petrol unless you do an awful lot of driving.

I will echo CG's view of Toyota dealers. Three fucking times I went into our local dealership for an Auris test drive before buying the Civic and on each occasion I got left waiting for 30 mins before someone came to provide me with yet another reason why no-one there could be bothered to take me out for a test drive. This being despite the fact that I had pre-booked on each occasion. I eventually told them to get fucked. I'm rather glad I did in the end, since I much prefer the car I have now.

I test drove an Aygo the other week and had no problems with the dealer, no pressure selling or anything. They even let me go out in the car by myself.

I'm really surprised how you still can't just buy a car fully online. There are brokers (the best I found was http://www.drivethedeal.com, 7329.39 OTR for a 3-door Aygo blue, a saving of £715) but I want a one-stop shop god damn it.