rabbitstew

Id also opt for the hornet 600. I certainly wouldnt go for a bike with fairing on around london as it will get damaged etc. Id the same thing tho, and used bikes for commuting for years. Very handy, although not so good in winter.

Tough decision really. £300 isnt much for a company car allowance. Last one I had was £600 a month and had the choice for either them to get the car for me, or me just have the allowance and do with it what i wanted. I tried it both ways. Firstly had a brand new lease car for 12 months which the allowance basically paid for. Then, I decided to buy an older golf tdi instead, use that for my business use and pocket the £600 a month. The car cost me about £5k at the time, so was paid for with just 8 or 9 months allowance, which meant the rest of the cash was just "profit" really. For me it was a toss up between how badly I wanted a "new" car, and how badly id prefer to just have the cash and run my own car. Really what you could do is get the cash and use that to pay for your ZED. If you find the zed is costing you too much, you can always then sell it and get something more "practical". Dont forget the company will be paying for your fuel, so you wont have to worry too much about that, it will be the other zed running costs like the road tax and tyres etc.

Nice looking car!!!!!!!!!!!! Welcome!

1971 850cc Mini (Cost 20quid to buy and £500 to insure) 1984 1000cc Mini 1988 Renault 5 GT Turbo 1988 Renault 5 GT Turbo (completely rebuilt it, 220bhp fast road machine, still got it now) 1988 Peugeot 205 GTi 1.9 1989 Peugeot 309 Gti 1988 Renault 5 GT Turbo (yes another one) 1990 Mini Cooper 1996 Peugeot 106 Diesel 2001 Golf GT TDi 2007 350z Bike Wise 1993 Yamaha RD350R 1994 Kawasaki ZXR750L2 (Still got it) 1998 Kawasaki ZX6R 2000 Ducati 748SPS (Bought it when it was 2 weeks old) 1999 Yamaha R1 (Still got it) 1996 Honda VFR750 (Still got it.... really must sell it) Think the cheapest car I had to run was the old Mini`s. I used to run them on bits from the scrapyard, and actually made a profit on them when I finally got rid of them. The quickest without a doubt was the 220bhp Renault 5. Twice the power to weight ratio of a lotus elise. Just incredible acceleration. Not practical at all, esp in summer tho.

Cant say what drilled discs are like on the z yet as ive not fitted any. But ive had cross drilled and groved on nearly all my previous cars and not had any problems with them cracking. Granted, ive not taken them around tracks or mega abused them. But they have had some serious braking done, as well as daily use on the roads.

There are ways and means of getting through most locks and getting into any house - even if its resorting to a brick through the window. Picking locks is a bit of a hobby of mine and when I first started many years ago, the first thing I did was to try and pick the front door lock on my old house. Took me about 5 minutes!!! And that was me being a complete novice! Needless to say, i immediately went out and bought a better lock for it. Bump keys, lock picks and such like are freely available on the net and anyone can buy them and spend some time learning how to use them. But, for the average burgler they will just be an opportunist, who if they see an open window, or know an old person lives there, or you have blatantly left stuff on show, they will just smash & grab. The key thing is really to use your common sense. It always amazes me when I go for a walk on Boxing Day how many people leave the empty boxes outside their house for the binmen to collect, showing the whole world that they got a 50inch telly for Christmas or a ps3 or an xbox360. If I was a burgler, id know exactly what stuff they had worth nicking just by looking at the boxes piled up outside on the pavement! Like someone else said, I think my dog should put them off. If someone wants to try and get in the house then good luck to them. lol!!!!

Yeah I saw that one yesterday. That kid must have more money than sense. He paid £3000 for the corsa expecting to pay £4000 to insure it. The cheapest quote he had was £5700. So he`s looking at a total outlay of about £9000 to drive a crappy Corsa for 1 year. Is he made of money?! My first car cost me £20! lol.

HPI clear means absolutely nothing. I used to buy smashed up cars and repair them and the amount of cars id get which were insurance write-offs and yet when I HPi checked them they still came up clear. As with any damaged car you have to factor in the cost of repair. Insurance repairers seriously rip insurance companies off with their costs, so the insurance company writes the car off - but any non greedy garage or private individual can repair it for cheaper. If you use 2nd hand bits, then its even cheaper still. The biggest risk is that once you start taking bits off to repair you find other bits which need doing also - and once you get that sump repaired, the engine may show all sorts of problems.... its just the risk you take. That said you can get some bargains and make a few quid out of it all if you know what you are doing.

Tell all! It's a tip club, not a "I've got some good ones" club.......... Nothing your not already onto. It was quite funny, i was researching AEX and bought some, then the next day you posted that you`d bought into them. Looks like a good bet. Also think BKY which your onto is a good one too. Fingers crossed!!!

lol @ sarnie & captain! Id be lucky if the cat even looked at me atm. Still, this thread has motivated me to get into the share thing. Been eyeing up stuff for a while, so bought a few a couple of days ago and will see how it goes. About 7% down already, but think ive got some good ones, so will see what happens over the next 12 months. Got to be better than the bank!!!

Road Tax went up by inflation, so i guess thats gone up 4% or so. Fuel gone down by 1p but then again it went up 5p or so with the VAT increase, and my local garage jacked his prices up by 2p yesterday anyway! So, 1p isnt going to make much difference to me. Will be interesting to see how this "fuel stabliser regulator" thing works if it keeps prices down or not.

Thanks, in the end I got it for 750quid from Adrian Flux. Its due for renewal in November, so i`ll phone around again and see what the companies will offer me then. The only thing I can think of is, that ive 3 points from last year on what is otherwise a clean license. Maybe being married with kids rather than me being just common-law also helped? Who knows. Cheers I will give you a bell again in Nov when my current policy expires and see what you can quote me then. In theory it should be loads cheaper as by then id have had 8 months experience of driving the zed with no claims. Although I am not sure if insurance companies actually take that into consideration?

I dont understand that. Sky came back with £1400 for me fully comp on my Z, with 18 years ncb and nearly 40. Its not as if i live in brixton or anywhere, so puzzled as to the logic these companies use!

I agree. As I said, its upto the police as to whether they check with your doc to see if you have any history which may influence their decision to grant or renew your license. You have to put doctors details down on the form, so the police have them - its entirely up to them if they do the check. I agree with you, I think they should. I also think it will do nothing at all to reduce gun crime as virtually zero gun crime is done by people who legally hold their guns. As to the de-activated gun. Im no expert, but i believe the rules as to what has to be done to a gun to "deactivate" it have changed several times over the years, so it depends when it was done. It was my impression that things like firing pins were removed, mechanisms welded and bits like that, but maybe that was only done for the more recent deactivations. From the sounds of your mates gun, he could just put a sleeve in the barrel and use .410 cartridges on it as it is!!! Which isnt good! Anyway, this is all off-topic as this is a speeding thread!

Looks like this topic is branching out into all sorts of things now! Heres my 2p`s worth... Steroids - These affect different people in different ways. Ive known people who use them in the past. Some can become raging loonies with big ego`s who think they are indestructible incredible hulk characters. Other "users" are perfectly normal quiet and calm people who wouldnt hurt a fly. I guess it depends on what sort of person you are in general. If you are the kind of person who has a bit of a temper then they maybe amplify it, but if your some timid quiet calm person then your ok. Interestingly I know people who are the same after a few pints... some get really aggressive, others are fine. Drugs - Same as Steroids. Ive known quite a few people who do drugs at one time or another. Lets take weed for an example. I know several people who smoke this every day for years and are perfectly quiet, sane, normal people who are relaxed and happy. And yet I also know 2 other people off hand who ended up having mental breakdowns and being sectioned off in a mental home after doing weed for a couple of years. They are now diagnosed bi-polar and on all sorts of pills to try and keep them "normal". Again.... It must depend on how strong you are mentally - or something in your brain, how some people are fine and yet others have psychotic issues. One thing with weed tho, is all the blokes ive known who smoked it look about 20 years older than they really are! Its really a good advert for how smoking ages your skin!! Firearms - You have to give your doctors details when you apply. Its entirely upto the police if they bother checking your medical background to see if theres any conditions which they feel mean you shouldnt get a license. Gun laws in the UK are some of the tightest in the world nearly and gun related incidents are very rare. One pet bug bear of mine with regards to speeders is those old people who sit there doing 45->50mph in a 60 or 70mph zone... then they come to a 30 or 40mph area and they still continue at 45->50mph. Its as if they only have one speed!

Looks like this topic is branching out into all sorts of things now! Heres my 2p`s worth... Steroids - These affect different people in different ways. Ive known people who use them in the past. Some can become raging loonies with big ego`s who think they are indestructible incredible hulk characters. Other "users" are perfectly normal quiet and calm people who wouldnt hurt a fly. I guess it depends on what sort of person you are in general. If you are the kind of person who has a bit of a temper then they maybe amplify it, but if your some timid quiet calm person then your ok. Interestingly I know people who are the same after a few pints... some get really aggressive, others are fine. Drugs - Same as Steroids. Ive known quite a few people who do drugs at one time or another. Lets take weed for an example. I know several people who smoke this every day for years and are perfectly quiet, sane, normal people who are relaxed and happy. And yet I also know 2 other people off hand who ended up having mental breakdowns and being sectioned off in a mental home after doing weed for a couple of years. They are now diagnosed bi-polar and on all sorts of pills to try and keep them "normal". Again.... It must depend on how strong you are mentally - or something in your brain, how some people are fine and yet others have psychotic issues. One thing with weed tho, is all the blokes ive known who smoked it look about 20 years older than they really are! Its really a good advert for how smoking ages your skin!! Firearms - You have to give your doctors details when you apply. Its entirely upto the police if they bother checking your medical background to see if theres any conditions which they feel mean you shouldnt get a license. Gun laws in the UK are some of the tightest in the world nearly and gun related incidents are very rare. One pet bug bear of mine with regards to speeders is those old people who sit there doing 45->50mph in a 60 or 70mph zone... then they come to a 30 or 40mph area and they still continue at 45->50mph. Its as if they only have one speed!

Id definitely be very careful of speedramps. My other car which is a golf diesel, i lowered that about -45mm and have to really crawl over speedramps slowly. And even then it sometimes catches them. Even getting in / out of my drive scrapes the exhaust on the road. The 350z seems to have a bit more ground clearance than my lowered golf, but not much, as it still catches something getting up my drive if i drive up it wrong. So, if i lowered the z I dread to think how id manage to get over any speed ramps! Id also have to park it in the street!

Any mods m8? Most of the young guys in their early twenties with mods on the car are getting lower rates than I am. No mods yet.

if you go to a track day thats a specific event like a jap only event then normally the people on track are people who take pride in their cars and have spent big money modding them so a bit safer! JM Yep, I think thats the only way to do it, so at least you know everyone else on the track is going to not want to crash their cars as well!

I guess it depends on how the car has been driven. Mines on 23k and the MOT guy the other week advised that the front disks only had about 3k left on them.

I got a quote from Admiral and they came in pretty reasonable for the zed... and so i thought id try a multicar quote. Which came back at about 500quid MORE than if I insured both cars separately. Which was a shame, as I was hoping they would be keen for me to drive a cheap old golf diesel rather than the higher risk zed. In the end I stayed with Adrian Flux who matched Admirals quote. £750 fully comp, im nearly 40, have 18 years NCB and 3 points from 1 year ago.

Having spent some time working at a racetrack there is no way id let my car on one. Some of the guys who turn up for trackdays are complete nutters and your more likely to get someone crash into you than you are crashing yourself! The last one I went to had people turning up in everything from lambo`s through to cars they had just hired from the local budget rent-a-car to 40quid MOT failures that were trailered to the track and run until they broke.

Its always best to tell insurance companies about any mods as they tend to look for any excuse not to pay out. Half the time they use the "mods" as an excuse to load up your premium, even if they are not performance related mods. But, where do you actually draw the line. If I need a new exhaust and went to some high street garage, the chances are they wouldnt fit a genuine nissan exhaust, they could fit one of a dozen different brands. How am I supposed to know what they have fitted and whether it improves or reduces performance? Same as air filters. What about tyres? If i fit stickier tyres should I tell the insurance company as they are non-standard and might mean im going to be cornering faster?! Then on the flip side, if I have spent loads of money modifying my car does that mean im an enthusiast and therefore will drive more carefully and take better can of my car than a non-enthusiast and therefore should get reduced insurance premiums? In the event of a write off, in my experience, the insurance company do send people out, even for sub 1000quid old bangers.

In my view yes, i do. These have started sprouting up like weeds all over the fens where I used to live. Theres one bit of road in particular which I drive along, and if i look around whilst im driving I can count over 60 wind turbines!!!! They are in every direction you look! And then they wonder why theres so many accidents on that bit of road - its probably all those people counting the wind turbines! Im all for alternative energy and that stuff, but would prefer it if these were dumped out at sea or somewhere.

Yep weather is picking up nicely. I even had the roof down on my drive into work this morning. Got some looks, probably more from people wondering what sort of idiot would have their roof down this time of year! Fuel bills are already hitting my wallet, but then ive gone from a 60mph diesel down to the 350z which is returning me about 25mpg average over 300miles. Still... should boost my tesco clubcard points a bit with all that re-fueling im doing now.