rabbitstew

Well, ive just got back from 3 1/2 weeks travelling around Oz and for some of it I had the horrible of experience of driving around in a 1.2 Hyundai Getz which quite possibly has to be the worst car ive ever driven. I meet up with some Oz friends near the end of my trip and all the guys are drooling over this Monaro v8 which is sitting in the car park. Ive not really heard of them, of course they are Holden over there, but Vauxhall do it in the UK. The guys proceed to give me the low down on it. 5.7litre V8, 350+ horsepower, pure muscle car... blah blah blah. Anyone would think it was a brand new lambo or ferrari from what they were saying. Anyway after most of the guys had left, all still dreaming of this Monaro v8 I discover that one of my mates knows the bird who turned up in the car. So, we get chatting and find out its not actually her car, its her boyfriends. She then asks me if I want to drive it, throws me the keys and wanders off! I'm not really too fussed to be honest as its not my cup of tea, but given that all the guys had been drooling over it I figured it would be rude not to, so off I go. First impressions, interior was awesome, nice deep black leather, electric everything. Accelerator was seriously heavy, like pushing a heavy spring. Horrible. Physically it felt much bigger than the zed and didnt handle as good. Performance wise, well, the noise was incredible... that v8 induction roar, and theres no 2 ways about it, it was quick, but I just couldn't get used to the low rpm shifting and torque, compared to my zed which screams up to 7500rpm. At one point (after redlining it in 2nd) the car started beeping at me like mad which gave me a small heart attack. I had visions of this birds boyfriend being some 7ft 25stone nutter and ive just broken his car. Turned out the beeping was down to the car having a built in warning on the dash which beeps and shows you a message telling you if you exceed 120km/h! doh! As we were up in the hills near the sunshine coast and there were some seriously scary drops on the mountain roads I figured id better take the car back before I ended up trashing it. All in all, a good fun car, and it was great to get out of the crappy hirecar and back into a decent car. I wouldnt buy one tho, I definitely prefer the zed. Made my zed feel a lot lighter and miles quicker which is saying something!

My thoughts exactly. Ive had 3 golfs in the past as company. 2 were brand new and im pretty sure the list price came in at less than 20k. In fact 16k seems to ring a bell and then I spec`d it up with extra bits which took it up to 20k. I had the 1.6FSI first which was a bit sluggish, but then had the 1.9TDI and that was awesome. Loads of torque, very smooth, relaxing, comfortable drive and was averaging 63mpg on long trips and 54mpg on a more typical 50% town, 50% motorway driving. Didnt have any major expenses or problems in the 4 years and 90k miles I had it. Tyres lasted 40k a set, brake discs & pads also lasted 80k a set, I got around 600miles on a tank full of diesel and the boot space was awesome - moved house using the car without any problems.

pmsl! excellent!!!!!!! lol

As the guy said, on the left of the speedo / rev counter dash there are 2 silver buttons. The top one alternates the trip computer in the pod through its various options. Mine has 8 different screens on it, incl temp, average mpg, distance to empty, the rpm you want the shift light to come on, and even a lap timer if i remember rightly! The lower silver button on the side of the dash resets the average mpg. You also have a trip counter at the bottom of the speedo, which you reset via the black button near it. Welcome to the forum!

I never knew that. You learn something new each day. Thats one for me to boast to my mates about now!

Welcome! Good choice of car, you`ll have loads of fun!!!

In my experience ive yet to find any insurer who will offer reduced insurance due to low usage. They may claim they do, but in practice their quote is not any different to the majority. I went through several years of hardly using one of my motorbikes. Id put maybe 100miles a year on it and so went through the same searches to try and find some insurance company who would reflect this exceptionally low risk in their premiums. Without any luck!

The zed is a fast car, but certainly not as quick as many other cars out there, a lot of which cost loads less than the zed does. One of my mates has a scooby wrx which cost him around £2000 and would seriously leave my zed for dead in a race. Likewise, my track car which is a 30 year old renault 5 gt turbo would also leave my zed standing. But, i didnt buy my zed for out and out performance. I wanted a fun roadster which was fun to drive, and thats what ive got!

sh!t the bed... thats some mental driving. Awesome video.

nice!!!! welcome!

Well done! Bet you cant wait.!!!

Good luck with your search. Remember to try a few out and not by the first one you see!!! Plenty of good examples out there!

Now THAT would be good as ive got a wedding to pay for next year and need some cash somehow!

Yeah thats pretty good. Ive a convertible too, 18 years ncb and 3pnts. Me to drive only and mine was coming in at around 800quid. I live in middle of nowhere too.

I wouldnt have thought you would need to replace the entire calipers. Ive had them sieze or stick on in the past on other vehicles and it was just a case of buying new piston seals, taking the caliper off, freeing the pistons off, cleaning them up with sandpaper / wire brush on a drill and fitting new piston seals.

I dont envy you. My missus had an accident the other year and I had to send her car back to the repair shop 5 times and we still were not happy with the finished result. The quality of the repair work was really shocking when the car first came back - even down to them respraying it in the wrong colour! In the end the insurance company refused to do any more work to the car even though there was still a list of around 5 faults we had, incl the air conditioning no longer working, all the engine warning lights coming on and the car mysteriously loosing a litre of water a week. After many headed arguments on the phone with the insurance company we ended up selling it for a cheap price to a dealer and bought another car instead.

nice guide! i`ll be doing this on mine soon and am thinking about the same choice of rotars / pads.

+1 on the Passat estate from me. My whole family have VW`s and if you get one with the PD engine they are mega economical and sporty. You can get 150bhp upwards on them and still get nearly 60mpg. Loads of space inside and nice solid build quality. They are also easy to work on mechanically and replacement parts are very cheap. They will easily do 500k miles. I sold my golf tdi a few months back which had 173k on it and it was still like new.

21st birthday pressie eh? I got a 998cc mini which cost £450 for my 21st birthday! Welcome to the forum!

ah but what will it rise too? Its up 7% from when i looked yesterday, but still has a long long way to go to get up to where it was a few weeks back.

Running costs of a zed will be more. Mpg wise your looking at about 20->30mpg as a daily drive. I do about 90miles a day which is a mixture of city and motorways and average about 25mpg. Another factor will be the insurance, make sure you get a quote before you buy!! Welcome to the forum! This is certainly the best place to learn all about the zed!

Hi I was in a similar boat a few months back. I was looking at m3`s, then saw a 350z roadster sitting in the corner at one garage i went to. I test drove it and it was so much fun I scrapped the idea of getting an m3 and started looking at 350z`s instead. Money wise, 350z`s are cheaper, so you can get a newer car for your money. They are a bit slower than an m3, but are cheaper to service. You cant really compare them directly as the 350z is an out and out sportscar whereas the m3 is more practical. The biggest supprise for me was the insurance. The 350z came in at around 200quid more to insure than the m3. Id do some googling and searching on here and familiarise yourself with the different models of 350z, the roadtax (high after 2006 on big engined cars), get insurance quotes and check out a few in the flesh. Have fun!

My thoughts exactly. Bonnet looked well over the top and so did the front bumper, but rest of car was stock, stock exhaust even from what i could see. I liked the wheels tho. Mind you, even the old sheds in the gold coast had chrome wheels and lowered suspension!

Spotted this parked up at Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast in Oz last week. Not sure I like the styling personally but thought you guys might be interested. Only saw 2 roadsters over there in 3 1/2 weeks of travelling about. Saw a handful of coupes, mainly in Sydney area tho.

Welcome!!! Gunmetal rules!!!