rabbitstew

I thought id start a build thread on here as I do enjoy reading about peoples projects and someone might enjoy reading my current one. So, it all started off 4 weeks ago when the wife announced that she wanted to get rid of her Ford Edge (Range Rover sized car for those who haven't heard of them) as it was costing her too much money & get something cheaper such as a Nissan Juke. (Quite funny really as i'm actually the one forking out for the repayments on the Edge anyway). We had a Juke when they first came out for 4 years and got on well with it, so it seemed a good plan now they are more like £6k rather than £26k. Then i'm sitting at work and the wife sends me a message saying she has found a car.... Now I know what your thinking... that isnt a Nissan Juke and you would be right it isnt. So I know absolutely nothing about new Mini`s and now have to quickly do some online research and talk her through what to look at & check. Absolutely amazingly, looking at the MOT history on this one, its never ever ever failed an MOT or even had an advisory. Interior even looked brand new. So after some coaching the wife haggled the price down by a hefty amount and now has a Mini Cooper Convertible. Now I know what your thinking again, thats not a R53 Cooper S and your right but im coming to that... Anyway, as you do when you buy a new car your not sure off, we set off on a 500mile round trip to Wales and back to try it out. Car drove like new and whilst previously I never really liked the new Mini`s as I was a Classic Mini bloke, I started to really like it. Sure, with its 120bhp it felt slightly "sluggish" compared to my 650+bhp 997 turbo, but it was actually nice to drive. Nippy around town, easy to park and yet happily cruised at 80mph without any problems. It was quite fun! When we got back I checked it over and amazingly the service history was correct - it had new oil, new air filter etc. Quite a shock really as usually when I check these things even though it says FSH, you can clearly see it hasnt been done. With the wife not yet having sold her Edge, I decided to pinch the Mini for my daily commute. After a few days I am ashamed to say I started having thoughts about maybe I should get one. A quick search revealed you can pick up early Cooper S`s for less then £2000. That coupled with watching an episode of Wheeler Dealers US where they tackle the massive 100,000 mile service on one only served to increase my interest. The final straw was when I phoned my insurance company and they said it would only be an extra £80 a year to add a Cooper S to my policy. So then the search began.....

Looks like you put a lot more effort into repairing that mower than I did when I did mine the other year.....

I fitted a cheap & nasty japspeed K2 to my zed and it was so loud the wife refused to get in the car ever again. Quite a good result really!

Garden looks lovely!!!

Or indeed with a lot of other companies - Sky TV is a prime example. Forking out £100 a month for TV, but as soon as you threaten to leave they drop that down to £50 for 12 months as well as giving you Sky Q for free, an extra Q box, plus 4k, free internet etc. etc. etc. Then 12 months later you have to go through the same process & repeat.

Strange that!!!!! Just goes to show you how much profit they try to make. What really gets me is when you phone them up the first thing they do is to go through all your details again to make sure they are correct as if thats the reason why the renewal premium is high when 9/10 your details are probably the same as they were last year and its purely their greed which has caused the high premium.

Are MINI`s really this bad? My wife announced last night she wants a Mini Convertible and showed me some £2k ones for sale locally. I know classic mini`s inside out, but know absolutely nothing about MINI`s. I drove one once, but that was just moving a mates gf`s car around on their drive. I remember thinking it was cute/quirky and could well be fun to drive. But then again I also remember being in a mates cooper when they first came out in 2001(i think) and thinking that the ride was terrible. A quick look online, and I think for her sort of money it would be something around 2006/2007, which more than likely will have 100k+ miles on it. Probably the Cooper I guess or maybe even the ONE. Obviously at 100k+ miles stuff will need replacing, But mechanically, what sort of problems do they have, anything major which commonly goes wrong? I know a few people on here have had them in the past.

On the plus side, when you pick it up, it will feel like a rocket ship if you havent been driving it for ages!

Wish I had known this when I had my zed. It always annoyed me, as a roadster it had auto down on both windows but only auto up on the drivers. Great post!

They know that a lot of people just cant be bothered to shop around. All insurance companies do it - regardless of if its house insurance, pet insurance or car insurance. Old people especially seem to just assume that's the price & pay it. My parents were royally ripped off for years and years with their insurance`s by having a false sense of loyalty to their insurance companies, believing that as an existing customer they would be looked after. Whenever I get my insurance renewals in, it nearly always is twice the price I can get the same cover elsewhere and have to play their little game. Its a pain, but something you have to do each year.

Awesome! I always wanted a VX220 turbo. Preferably in yellow! Not sure if I will ever get one now as the prices have gone up quite a bit over the last 10 years!

Your probably right there. I saw 178mph on my ZX7R once back in around 1999 I think it was and I was about 10ft behind a Fireblade who was absolutely flat out. Didnt think anything of it at the time, was like doing nothing. Until about 20mins later at about 50mph my mate on the Fireblade overcooked a bend and went through a hedge, out the other side and started to plow a farmers field for him. He ended up in hospital with one arm broken in 2 places. I had to call 999 and get him off to hospital, but at the time the main concern for both of us was to get his bike recovered and safely home to his garage. By the time I visited him in hospital the next day, id already done a full assessment of his Fireblade and what it needed to get back on the road again and that was all either of us was worried about. I just cant imagine doing 178mph in a car though, like you and Ekona said it must be down to your brain just not being used to doing it in a car. Im sure maybe if I did those sort of speeds every time I went out in my car id soon get re-programmed. (or in jail! )

Its quite odd really. Ive fell off (well highsided) a motorbike at 120mph before and you soon loose momentum and slide to a holt. 156mph in a 911 however is a different matter. I find 120mph on a bike feels like nothing. Indeed, my R1 will hit 115mph in 2nd gear. Feels stable, solid and a quick touch of the brakes and you stop quickly. However if I hit over 120mph in my 911 it feels very fast and I start getting nervous. With the mods, my car in theory should be able to top 200mph, and people do at vmax, but I just cant get my head around doing that sort of speed in a car. Dont know if other bikers feel the same or whether I just have a strange mind set. The #speedkills thing gets me. Speed doesnt kill, its inappropriate speed which does. You can be doing 70 in a 70, but if its thick fog and ice thats inappropriate. Doing 100mph on a deserted 4 lane motorway would probably be safer. That said 156mph is quite a hefty bit over the national speed limit and I cant see any judge thinking that would be acceptable. My local newspaper is forever putting stuff up where local people have done speed traps in the local villages. One the other day said 80% of drivers were speeding..... 80% certainly didnt crash, in fact noone did!

Sad news, and very young too.

Admiral was one of the companies who didnt want to know! Maybe they have changed their minds recently.

Problem here is that you can only use your NCB on one vehicle. When I looked at buying a £500 old banger to run in the week I figured insurance companies would be over joyed as it meant the risk of me having an accident in my more expensive car would be significantly less. However, when I spoke to various companies, as I was using my NCB on my main car, it meant I would have no NCB on the old banger, which meant it would cost a fortune to insure, making the whole thing not financially viable. Even when I looked at so called "multi car" policies, the premium they wanted only applied my NCB to one car. I have heard of people where companies have happily mirrored their NCB on other vehicles, but no companies offered to do that for me. What I had to do several times in the past when I have needed to use a 2nd car for a week or so, is to take out temporary day by day insurance. I believe I used Adrian Flux last time. It wasnt cheap.

Judge owned it! Well, makes a change from the local vicar who only used it to drive to the church on Sundays! Good luck OP, seems a very good price to me for the spec etc.

When I had my 350z i would put in tesco 99 some times and v power other times. It may be psychological but i "felt" the car was more responsive with v power. I experienced the same with my 997 turbo. I actually approached the subject with my tuner when I had the turbo modified and remapped last year and he said he wouldnt touch tesco 99 with a barge pole. He said he has experienced a lot of problems trying to tune cars running it and he always uses v power as it gives better knock protection in his experience. So ive stuck with v power since. Actually filled up this morning £86. Performance cars aside, Ive always run my diesels on tesco diesel and had no problems at all. I must have covered more than 275k miles using tesco diesel, probably even more.

Glad you got it all sorted out in the end. I was with Admiral for 6 years before moving elsewhere, and based on your experience it kind of puts me off ever going back with them!

Good point about the weight on your shoulders from the missus. Fortunately i converted all my bikes to single seaters which solved that problem! The Ducati 996 is good for lazily cruising about, enjoying the v-twin torque etc, although not great around town. Never thought about it like that but your right, the ZXR is a cut & shut! I had to reweld the seat subframe to the main frame and I think after also adding a new petrol tank & bodywork, only 30% of it is now the original bike! EDIT: pic of ZXR after highside. Checkout the dent in the back wheel. Fortunately it all polished out with a bit of T-Cut....

Good point about the weight on your shoulders from the missus. Fortunately i converted all my bikes to single seaters which solved that problem! The Ducati 996 is good for lazily cruising about, enjoying the v-twin torque etc, although not great around town. Never thought about it like that but your right, the ZXR is a cut & shut! I had to reweld the seat subframe to the main frame and I think after also adding a new petrol tank & bodywork, only 30% of it is now the original bike!

Co-incidentally, the back half of my ZXR750 came from a purple/black one which someone had stacked. By back half I mean the entire back half of the bike from footpegs back - swingarm, wheel, seat chasis & bodywork etc... I had a massive highside on mine and ripped the entire back half of the bike off on a crash barrier. So I went out and bought one with front damage and made a good one out of the two! Mine is the green/blue/pink coloured one. Even had fluescent pink wheels when I first got it. Soon repainted those satin black! Never ridden a cruiser - I sat on one once and the riding position just felt so wrong I got straight back off it. Same as trials bikes.... rode an Africa Twin once and I just couldnt get around the riding position. Even my VFR750 which I had for a while felt weird with high bars, to me and that was a sports tourer.

Wow, FS1E eh?! That brings back memories! I always wanted an RD50, then a TZR250..... as it was, my first bike was actually an RD350. I've got a Yamaha R1 ive had since 2001, a Kawasaki ZXR750L2 i've had since around 1997 and a Ducati 996. All heavily modified! Unfortunately, seldom get to use them since having kids etc. just not got any spare time these days.

I did this earlier in this thread and they quoted a rough price of £10,500 for the OP`s car, which matches the trade or auction price. i.e. 25% less than forecourt price. All that blah about not being able to take advertised prices as sold prices is a load of bull really. Sure, sometimes there is some negotiation, especially with private sales, but for the last 3 or 4 cars ive bought from dealers, getting anything at all knocked off the screen price was pretty much impossible. Especially on cars like a 370z. When I bought my 350z I had to pay full screen price and after 4 hours of haggling I got 6 months tax and a tank of fuel. When I bought my 911 I didnt even get that, had to pay full screen price.

I went from a Golf GT TDi to my 350z HR Roadster. So quite a change for me! Was planning on getting an E46 M3 and went to a garage to look at one and spotted a 350z Roadster sitting in the corner and that was it. I was straight on autotrader the rest of the day and bought one the following day!