zDan

Do you mean the mirrors fold themselves when you lock/unlock the doors? In that case it may have been modified - the standard car only folds the mirrors when you use the button. There are some threads around here about this - it's not an easy mod to make, and it may be that whoever did this had to disable the button to get it to work. Here's a thread about it viewtopic.php?f=9&t=17453&hilit=folding+mirrors

Great idea.... ...but... ...Budweiser? Really?

Funny enough I did looked into renting a 350z for a holiday before we bought ours and I can certify that there is no company anywhere central that would have one... Porches, AMs, TTs, R8s, Ferarri, anything else you want you can find and rent. But not a Zed. Not sure if it's a good or a bad thing.

I think you made a good call there mate, most importantly no point buying something that you didn't like. I drove half a day once to see a zed only to come back empty handed. This was a face-lift Nissan approved GT, nice car, everything looked good on the net, but in reality it turned out to be a serious dissapointment. The previous owner must have used to cook fryups in the car or something, the leather was just filthy and smelly you could peel the grime off... The dash and console were scratched just like you said... But the worst thing of all was the salesman who kept poking at us like he had the best sale going... After not even bothering to do a proper valet on the car (and it was a big Nissan dealer FFsake), he came back to suggest they could replace some of the interior trim to fix the scratches, at a cost, of course... I didn't even bother to haggle, went out the door flying. Just keep looking and you'll find plenty of nice and well-cared Zeds around.

.... to me that statement proves, the rex drinks oil. maybe not to the scaremongering levels that alot of other people talk of but for me that make it an oil drinker. So the Zed drinks a shocking amount of washer fluid... It went through five liters in a week! Imagine that .... Let's put things in perspective here, like the cost of two litres of oil vs a tank of petrol? And how much does the car or a service cost? It's not the oil drinking that would keep me away from an RX8. For me it was the test drive in the Zed, after a couple of country roads that was it really. And yes, I am biased now.

Great work - that zed in the last pic looks

My favourite bit of road is the one that's empty...

I think another problem is that your new router is also a wireless, which means you have two wireless stations (livebox and new router) which would confuse things even more. My step to step guide at this point: - disconnect your new router - reconnect your PC to the livebox as it was originally - reboot the livebox Now check that both pc and laptop can connect to the the internet. Now, I suggest you follow this link on both your PCs (assuming you use Windows XP?) http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/usin ... fault.mspx and also read about here http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/usin ... fault.mspx on a few more advanced topics. Hope this helps Cheers.

Not very familar with the livebox, but doesn't that need a router... The guy at PC World is having you, the livebox should have a router built in. Perhaps the reasons why you don't see your computers in your local network are your firewall settings on computer/laptop? Usually they are set to block most stuff, if you are using the livebox you probably don't need a firewall on either computers (the livebox is a firewall). Does this make sense? I'm looking for some more helpful links... Take your router back to PC world in any case and give them a few words

Well, you can always go 55-65-55-65-55-65.... in third.... to get a more appropriate mpg... and decrease boredom factor

Just to let everyone know, I did call Direct Line and explained the GT issue again - they said that the everything that comes in the GT pack needs to be added as optional extras to the insurance (that is the cruise control, Bose and heated seats, plus, in my case, the RAYS). Luckily, the premium remained the same - but they did issue a new certificate. So I'd say, for your peace of mind, it may be worth checking with your provider that your GT pack is properly insured.

35-ish year old + wife 6 years NCB all clean and protected, I pay abouts £550 fully comp with Direct Line... seems like I'm getting a raw deal?

Great writeup Tomm, sounds like a you had a real blast! Really enjoyed the read - and I do envy you for getting to drive the Zed over those great passes. We drove to Switzerland two weeks ago too (reading your post was like reliving it again) but we didn't do the mountain driving bit, we left the zed in the car park to do some hiking instead... But overall experience was very similar: - zed is great for driving on the long road, drove 10-12 hours a day, no problems whatsoever (just add lots of caffeine) - the Dover-Calais ferries aren't that bad to get into, just watch the french parking the car really close to you. However, the Boulogne-Dover catamaran was a different story, it's like a multi-storey inside, and they double-park you inside too! Mad! Great views from the top deck though. - was also the first right-hand drive trip for us too, but it was far, far easier than I expected. Used one of those small stick-on convex mirrors for the left-side blind spot, worked a treat! - +1 on the french motorway stations. Also, driving in France is expensive - not only they have motorway tolls (spent like 100 Euros ) but the petrol's dear too! - why did you went via Lyon? We drove via Basel and Bern. I can say though that there's a very busy stretch of motorway there (busier than UK) and navigating through Basel is a bit of a nightmare - also caught really heavy rain when driving back through France - that can really slow you down Got similar MPG to yours - but without mountain driving. I thought cruise control was supposed to improve the fuel economy? Anyway, great to read your story again. What did you listen to in the car?

Why, o why, do I have to read forums and find more things to get worried about.... Of course both on the registration and insurance documents there is no mention of a GT pack - which we do have. So I call Direct Line to check this - and naturally a discussion with no end follows, me trying to explain what the GT pack is (they've never heard of it) and the customer support girl insisting that "I'm fine as long as what's written on the reg is the same as on the insurance" but she's also asking me if I declared any "optional extras"? So we kind of left it at "I'm fine" but I'm not convinced now and I'll probably call again - and boy I hope they don't increase the premium. Why am I doing this again?

That reminds me of the last time I drove over one of these, was in someone else's car... The smart bulb in charge allowed the cars to get onto the fresh gravel too early while the tar was still sticking... So all cars were ending up with about a ton of stones stuck all over the undersides, including wheels, brakes, joints, coilovers, the lot. It got really scary, you could hear all kinds of strange noises when braking and turning, didn't thought the car would make it out of that to be honest... The bad thing was that we already drove a good deal on that disaster and we just didn't have the courage to drive back to express our feelings about it... car did clean up in the end, but next time I'll try to stay as far as I can from this kind of "surfacing"...

If not Five, I'm sure we'll get the chance to see the repeats on E4, more4, or whatnot It'll be classic TV in a few years... NOT!

I've also read somewhere that petrol loses octane rating over time, so if you pay to get your V-Power, make sure you do it in a station that's getting a lot of customers, you wouldn't want to buy something that's been sitting in the tank for months. Shouldn't be a problem with Shell or Tesco stations me thinks.

I'm interested in this too. I bought a pack of deflectors from Halfrauds yesterday that claim to work with Halogens and to have instructions for fitting inside, but I haven't opened the pack yet so can't comment on how good they are. Other's people experience may want to share their experience?.

There's no scam directed to the selling of the car itself - he's just phishing for information. Having a full name and address together with the licence plate of the car may be enough to get some things (like from DVLA, sorry I lost my V5, or I changed my address, etc). They can also make up fake utility bills and then impersonate you and try as much as they can get away with. It's the wording of the letter that's the giveaway - like the over-polite pompous c**p, saying the same thing twice to make you think he's thick, etc.

That sounds great, you lucky .... How old is your zed?

+2 - typical symptoms of a wheel balancing problem. Check it at a tyre garage, should be a 5 minute job

Drive around Europe in the Zed? (I'm going in a few weeks, only 7 days thou...) Otherwise, it's a budget question... Three weeks in Madagascar is always an option in October

I think it's been a month since I've seen another zed... Ok, I've only been doing the work commute, but still.... Where are you guys!

If it had been anything other than the R8 then I probably would find it ... but the R8... it just begs for it IMHO Just my oppinion of course. Ad is spot on otherwise.

Seriously, have her learn on the instructor's car. You don't want her learning on the Zed. It's like learning to swim in the Niagara falls. She won't get to see the fun in it while she's gasping for her life. Get her the cheap car so she can build her driving confidence. Show her that you're not afraid to drive with her in the small car - but also how much more comfortable the Zed is. She won't be able to appreciate the zed until she has the confidence to drive it - and that's going to take time. When my wife first saw the zed (a while ago) she hated it - she thought it was too big for her and wouldn't even consider driving one. She well changed her mind now!