rabbitstew

The ramps are awesome. I ummed & ahhed about them initially when I bought them the other year as they arnt cheap, but having used them a lot on the mini they have certainly paid for themselves. They are really easy to use. You just slide each ramp under the side of the car, make sue the blocks are inline with the cars jacking points. Connect the ramps compressor to a car battery, hit the up button and off it goes. There are 2 height settings. One which I guess is just if you want to get the wheels off, the other is a good 2 1/2 feet or so off the ground. Certainly high enough to do anything you are likely to need to do. I dropped the exhaust manifold out from under the car easily and the car was high enough that stuff isnt "in your face". Mines the quickjack BL5000. Rated to 5000lb. So much easier & quicker then having to jack the car up and mess about with axle stands. When I was setting the suspension up, i could raise it, adjust the ride height, then drop it to see what difference it made, then raise it again to adjust some more.

Not to mention baby sick. Oh the smell of that. With our eldest lad it used to be pretty much 50/50 as to if he would chuck his entire guts up after he downed a bottle of milk and you were winding him. Needless to say this would nearly always be all over you, the sofa, the floor, the car seat, the harder to clean place the better....

Had to laugh at the "turned ignition on and nothing happened..... then the car started to go up" bit. I know that sinking feeling well, so very pleased you had a good result with it being so silent now!

I was looking through some old photos yesterday and came across one when (warning - please scroll past to another post now if you are a bit squeemish....) my youngest did a massive dump whilst strapped into his car seat. Now as you will soon have the delight of experiencing, babies poos are very often just like liquid chicken korma with various weird "bits" in. Due to having saved this up for a day, there was plenty of it and being strapped in his car seat meant it couldn't really force its way into the nappy... .... so out of the top of the back of the nappy it came, up under the back of his t-shirt and right up to his neck where it started coming out of the neck of his t-shirt. It was one of those rare moments where you stop everything, stand there in disbelief and genuinely think "how the f**k am I going to clean that up". Especially when you are in a car park somewhere in the middle of no where. Its then you realise that baby grows can be pulled down over their shoulders, rather than how you normally would pull them over their heads, and the "mop up" operation can begin. You also soon realise you should always pack industrial amounts of baby wipes in your car, spare clothing - not just for the baby, but for you also, as well as plenty of plastic carrier bags & an old towel or two. Oh I am actually chuckling now thinking you have these delightful special "moments" to experience!

I remember when you were allowed to smoke in offices! Cant even imagine that these days. You`d be sitting there and a bloke would just spark up and puff away. Didnt even hang out of the window whilst doing it.

It sure does soon add up, I was surprised a bit, but I was pleased I wasn't far off my budget. I did have to seriously watch the costs on everything I bought and shop around for the cheapest prices, see what discount offers were on etc. Even so, I paid £83 for the clutch, and now find out GSF sell the same one for £63. My main reason for the £3k budget is that a half decent R53 probably is worth £3k to £3.5k. You can get ones cheaper, but none would have as many new bits on as mine. I didnt want to end up having spent a ton on a car only worth half the amount. TBH, this is the only car where I've actually kept track of costs this accurately, mainly just to prove what it cost. Usually invoices go straight in the shredder so the wife doesn't find them! Cheers! As I was driving it to work this morning I went through all the work I've done on it and its not far off a new car really now! There's not much more I need to do really. I want to paint more bits orange which I might do this weekend, but that's cheap as I will rattle can them like I did the other bits. I need to get the suspension setup - not sure if I can easily do that myself or whether I will have to end up forking out for a hunter alignment. I am toying with fitting an uprated cam to it and bigger injectors as they aren't expensive - however then it will need a remap which means having it dyno`d etc which will cost a few quid - which sort of goes against the cheap shed idea - so i'm still not sure. I will see how I get on enjoying it over the next few weeks first I think.

I bought one which was 4 years old, had it 18 months then sold it. I lost more than I could have as I bought from a dealer, then sold back to another dealer, so there was dealer margins there unfortunately. I didnt have much choice though as I wanted an 350z HR Roadster and at the time there was only 3 for sale within 100 miles of my house - all at dealers and all wanted top dollar as its fairly rare. Then when I came to sell it, it would have been a struggle to sell privately. Fuel prices were high, it was a £11,500 car with a limited market. I knew of 2 which had been for sale for months, so in the end I part-ex` it. Lost about £7000 on it over 18months, so a bit less than £5k a year, but still a hefty amount.

Depends on the company, but usually there is. My wife has forked out about £100 in admin fees alone this year. Shes changed her car twice, changed the number plate twice and I think was charged about £25 a time.

Mini Cost Purchase price (with new MOT, new battery, new handbrake cables, cat back sports exhaust & newly refurbished wheels.) £1,000.00 Essentials Clutch slave cylinder £26.51 Flywheel bolts £15.83 New 3 piece clutch £83.04 Crankshaft seal £13.37 Exhaust gasket £9.00 Exhaust manifold gasket £12.50 2nd hand exhaust manifold incl cat converter £36.50 AP coilover suspension kit £471.99 New top mounts (adjustable) £99.00 Fuel Filter £15.16 Door check strap £13.00 Supercharger service kit £10.95 Brake Fluid £13.99 Spark Plugs £8.40 New Airfilter (K&N) £41.99 Mats £21.99 Drive belt £18.00 Coolant pipes £85.55 Radiator £41.00 Gearbox oil £23.99 Coolant expansion bottle £23.95 New key body £10.00 Sump plug £2.96 Oil Filter £6.06 Cabin Filter £9.81 Engine Oil £33.00 Total = £1,147.54 Not urgent but may as well do whilst car is in bits. Spark Plug leads £30.00 Coil Pack £25.00 New flywheel £266.34 Exhaust manifold bolts £18.90 New inner & outer ball joints & lower wishbones £173.08 Total = £513.32 Non essential mods! Newer mini 3 spoke steering wheel £99.00 airbag resistor £0.99 Poly bushes for engine £77.34 Corbeau bucket seat incl subframe £210.00 Uprated adjustable anti-roll bar £174.20 Gear Knob £9.64 Uprated intercooler £89.00 Uprated brakes R56S, bembo discs, mintex pads £340.00 HEL front braided brake lines £42.60 Brake Caliper paint £9.99 Airbox mod adapter £16.20 15% pulley £100.00 Total = £1,168.96 Overall Total = £3,844.81 Bits didn’t expect or factor in incl. in that total = £932.48 So there we have the costs. The car came with new MOT (£45), handbrake cables (£100 estimate), Sports Exhaust (£350), new battery (£100) and refurbished wheels (£200), so that lot alone saved me some money. Had I done just the bare minimum it would have only cost me £2200 for a nice car with new suspension, new coolant system, new clutch and a very major 100,000 mile service. There was some bits which made sense to do at the same time so I did them which added to the cost, plus the performance & cosmetic mods - nothing outrageous here, just the very basic items to boost appearance and performance. My budget was £3000 incl cost of car, actual cost was £3844 which included £932 of bits I was not expecting when I bought the car (i.e. clutch & suspension). Most of the bits I replaced were original 100,000 miles & 16 years old, so there's no reason to suspect the new bits wont last that long. When you workout cost per mile, that's cheap motoring. Nothing really was expensive except the flywheel, everything I could buy cheaply from high street motor factors. I haven't set foot inside BMW once since buying the car. I am also very particular, so I probably replaced a lot of bits the average Joe wouldnt have bothered with. Not bad when I think I lost £5000 a year in my 350z in depreciation alone! Now, what else can I buy for it?!

Not sure how much control you will have on the spending as my wife went mental and bought like 5 different prams - one for each day of the week, but I would strongly advise to buy everything 2nd hand - except the car seat. They grow so quickly and this stuff costs more than car modding. Facebook market place is great for bargains etc. Cots, furniture, clothes, toys, ISO easyfix bases for your car, even prams, travel cots, you name it. Get it all 2nd hand. Then when you come to sell it on, you`ll get your money back. Or if they are destroyed thru mega sick, mega poo & stuff then you dont feel as bad chucking it.

Brown trousers moment indeed!!!!!

Congratulations!!! Ah, in that case you may be okay then. To some degree I envy the guys who are no longer with the mother of their kid/s. They seem to have the best of both worlds to some degree - some weekends free to do whatever they want, time to do what they want in the week, actually get some sleep at nights, have more spare money etc. On the other hand I also feel sorry for them in that so many of the joys of watching your kid/s grow up happen during normal every day moments etc. But in this day & age with camera phones, those sorts of moments can easily be captured and sent to the Dad / Mum / in laws / family etc. Either way, as others said, your life will change more than you can possibly imagine from November. In good ways and bad. The first year I found is the hardest, with constant lack of sleep, hospital emergencies, constantly having to keeping an eye on the little one. Being unable to go anywhere without the baby, even having to totally change your house to make it baby proof! Every moment of your waking day seems to be either working or changing nappies. Your whole life seems to be put on hold for ages. But once they get older they become more fun and kinda cool. (except when they throw tantrums - It took me 30 mins of "negotiation" with my 3 year old to get him in my car, drive to nursery, then get him out of my car and into nursery. Total nightmare, but its very much like negotiating with a terrorist- you have to keep your cool, and cant loose your temper!)

The little Mini has been going well, and is even really practical for the school run. Now the kids are older (3 & 5) I can tilt the standard passengers seat forward and they can climb into their kiddie seats without any problems, then I just reach over and buckle them in. Had a couple of issues though which I had to fix this weekend.. Firstly one of the outer CV Joint rubber boots split. I noticed this as a faint ticking noise when I was driving along. The ticking was linked to road speed so I knew it was something to do with either the driveshaft or the wheel/hub. Now, when I had the drive shafts off and replaced one of these I did debate whether to replace them all at the same time, but as I was on a budget, I opted not to. Still, as the wishbones & ball joints are new, it was a 5 minute job to pop the bottom ball joint off the hub using a crow bar to force the wishbone down and hitting the wishbone near the ball joint with a lump hammer... I cut off the old rubber boot and used a stretchy one which you slip over the CV joint. The CV joint as you can see is a bit rusty etc, but again, on a budget, so wont replace it yet. New CV Boot was £10. I also noticed this... Sigh. Now id fitted a set of wheel spacers all round to improve the look of the car a bit and it came with new extended bolts. I carefully had tightened them to spec, but I suspect the bolts are just crappy ones as when I came to undo this one it sheered straight off. This is one of those moments I hate. Now I had to try and drill the remaining bit of bolt stuck in the hub out and then re-thread it etc... Usually takes forever and is a nightmare. Very often people just get a 2nd hand hub and swap them out as its easier. Anyhow, I dot punched the centre of the bit left and got the drill on it and started drilling it out. After a few seconds, much to my surprise the drill bit seemed to bite on the sheered bit of bolt and screwed it all the way through & out the other side of the hub! It was then just a case of slackening the brake disc off and letting the broken bit of bolt fall out... Needless to say the wheel spacers & bolts are now off the car and i'm using the original bolts now. The car actually now handles miles better without them, so it was a false economy getting them. The handling I am very pleased with now, I still have yet to set it up properly, but the difference compared to when I got the car is incredible. I can see why people say these Mini`s handle like go-karts now. The only other bit I have done was to fit a new coil pack (£25) and some new leads. The stock coil packs on these have a tendency to end up with heavily corroded terminals and this pack was no exception. You can just clean them up with some sandpaper, but as a new coil pack is so cheap it made more sense to just replace it. The car feel much more responsive now and seems to pull easier through the rev range. That's it for now!

Good choice, they are apparently great cars!

Depends if you need it FIA approved or not. I fitted a Corbeau Clubsport XL in my Mini the other week and am so pleased with it I am thinking of fitting one in my other car. £200 also which I felt was good value. Looks pretty much the same as that sparco and comes with side mounts & sliders so its up to you if you use them or use them & a mixture of them and other bits.

Get a MINI! Thats what i did.

If I was a "normal" 911 owner and only used the car at weekends, Im pretty sure if I sold the car today with "normal" mileage I would have had 3 years of free motoring. Compared to the £3k a year I lost in depreciation on the cars I had previous, thats pretty good going. I think your doing the right thing, especially as you still have the love for the Z.

Another plus for the Edinburgh museum, we looked around it once and its pretty interesting. I remember the technology section well. It was also free to get in if I remember correctly. (well, you give them a donation). Anyone remember Howards Way? I have the boxset of that on DVD. I remember growing up watching it, amazed at the brand spanking new 1987 Metro Turbo, mk1 golf convertable, and all those other late 80`s cars which were in it.

I managed to get some time on the mini over the weekend. I fitted the new clutch slave cylinder, literally a 5 minute job to remove from the front of the gear box and swap for the new one. But then you have to bleed it. I connected up the power bleeder. One quirk with the mini`s slave cylinder is that you have to bleed it with the piston fully compressed. BMW offer a special tool to do this which isnt cheap. So I hunted around the garage to see what I could knock up instead. After trying a few ideas I came up with this.. Bit of wood, 2 very long screws and what I think was the bump stop off the old rear shocks. Either way, it worked really well! Air all bled out and now we have a clutch pedal again. To make sure, I tried a trick id read about before - I wedged a lump of wood between the drivers seat & clutch pedal and kept it fully depressed over night. Now, much to my relief, it feels like a normal clutch pedal! Phew!!! It was then very much a case of re-assembling the car again. This took me about 4 hours in total. I had to refit the radiator, hoses, then flush, fill & bleed the coolant system, had to refit the air conditioning condenser, front crash tubes, the front crash beam, front bumper, starter heatshield, exhaust manifold, lamba sensors, coil pack, etc. etc. etc. Fortunately I remembered where all the bits went and only had 3 bolts left over Then I dropped it to the ground to see what the ride height was like as I had just set it to middle of the height adjustment range and... Yeah that's bit too low I think. I couldnt even get the ramps out from under it. So I cranked it up a bit more. Strangely the back I also set at the middle of the range and yet that was loads higher, so I had to wind that down a bit. End result is: I am pretty happy with that. Its 25mm lower all round than it was when I got it, but I am not sure how if the car already had lowered springs on it or not. I need to find a stock one and measure. The picture angle doesnt show it, but its still got a bit of the stock rake forward so the back is slightly higher than the front visually. The car also started up straight away. Always a very nervous moment, and after taking a deep breath I tried the clutch out. It works perfectly. Wow. Not that I doubted my ability but I was actually quite surprised. But the power steering wasn't working now. Sigh..... drove car back into the garage, back up on the ramps (these quick jack ramps are awesome. You just sling the underneath, press a button and the cars 3 ft in the air. These mini`s have electronic power steering and I knew there was 2 plugs which I had to undo to disconnect it when I dropped the subframe incl. the power steering out from under the car. I removed the power steering fan and had a look. Much to my relief, one of these connectors had become loose. Plugged it back in, and all was good. Another big Phew! I have been using the car for work this last couple of days to give it a good test. There was a grinding noise from the front passengers side, but that turned out to be the brake disc dust shield catching the back of the disc. Not sure why that got bent, but a bit of crowbar action fixed that. Other than that it all seems sound! The verdict. Well the car now handles miles better. It really feels so much better. The shocks are just the right stiffness, nice & firm but comfortable. The old car was so crashy. Thats all gone now. Steering feels solid, precise and the car feels much more planted. I had assumed the dunlop runflats on front were responsible for all the skipping & sliding but now the car actually grips. So much so that I may put off replacing them for a while. The new drivers seat is very comfortable and supportive and even the difference in replacing the steering wheel for the later one is surprising - it feels chunkier, more sporty and the interior looks 100% better as a result. The only bad point is that the car seems to turn in too quickly. It feels like its got rear wheel steering. I suspect I need to change the adjustable rear ARB to the softer setting which is a 10 minute job when I get chance.. But all in all - it feels like a new car now. Awesome. The car even got over speed ramps at work with no stress and no bottoming out anywhere at this ride height! Performance wise, the blowing exhaust has gone so the £35 replacement manifold was well worth it, the car also actually seems to rev quicker now. I noticed that the terminals on the old coil pack were badly corroded (common issue), so I cleaned them up, which also probably helped with this. So whats next?! Well hopefully now I get to drive & enjoy it. I still need to redo the fuel-filter seal, but as long as I don't fill the car more than a 3rd its not a problem. I didn't bother fitting the quick shifter or the adjustable rear control arms yet, so maybe they will be on the list at some point. I have also noticed that the drivers side rear wheel still has less negative camber than the passengers side. I am wondering now if maybe the trailing arm bushes on that side are worn, so I will investigate that at some point. Also the rear screen`s window tint is peeling off badly, so I may have a go at re-tinting that myself. I figure if I bodge it up I will just take it somewhere & have them do it properly. I was actually quite sad as I cleared all my tools away on Sunday and cleaned the garage up for the first time in weeks. It kinda symbolised getting to the end of the project. Looking back all in all it was quite fun, and nearly everything went smoothly. Sure it cost me a bit more than I expected - I am working costs out atm and will post them so everyone can see the breakdowns. Maybe I can off-set the costs by weighing some of this scrap in? Thanks everyone for reading and I will update you how I get on with driving it!

That was the scotch VHS tape advert. Some cracking adverts back then. I remember the toshiba computer one where the kid wants a computer and his dads saying dont get that one as it will be obsolute within a year and the kids assures his dad it wont be. Needless to say in reality the toshiba computer tanked. I used to like the Russ Abbot & Des o Conner hamlet adverts, they were pretty funny. Oh and the Harp lager advert with Lionel Blair. Those were the days!

I have a 997.1 Turbo, manual. Had it over 3 years now and done 40,000 miles or more in it as a daily. I use it all year round and it lives on the drive. Its surprisingly practical! I have 2 kids seats in the back for when I do the school run, and when the kids have sleep overs at the in-laws I can fit all their going away toys/suitcases/bedding etc in the frunk & passenger foot well. Can get a fortnights tesco shop in the frunk also. I bought it from a highly respected indi and never bothered with any warranty. First 2 years it cost me about £250 each year in parts. (oil & water temp sensors and tire pressure monitors). Year 3 cost about £1600 if I remember correctly (clutch slave cylinder, clutch master cylinder and accumulator). So cheap motoring. However, last November I had the car completely checked over as part of some performance upgrades I was having done and had anything which was showing signs of worn replaced to future proof it. Stuff like coolant cross over pipes, brake discs/pads, suspension top mounts etc. etc. Whilst not urgently needing doing, it made economic sense to do these whilst they had the engine out. The cars now approaching 110,000 miles and drives like new.

I would avoid that first one. Its a 996 but has 997 front end on it to make it look newer. It also looks like it was off the road for quite a long time in 2018. Very often people do the 997 conversion if the cars had an accident. Id have a look on the 911uk forum. A lot of good knowledge on there, buyers guides, which garages to avoid etc. I love my 911, its been a cracking car as a daily for the last 4 years. Its not really cost me any more per year than other cars I've owned. But if ultimately you want a Maserati then it makes no sense to get a 911 in the interim. Id wait.

Dread to think how much that weighs!

The wet day seem dry comment is spot on, the cornering grip in the wet is just staggering. Im sure I read some sizes of the MPS4S were getting N rating finally so it might be worth checking on that. I didnt bother with a warranty on mine so no such worries.

Totally agree. My 997 turbo came with a brand new set of P-Zeros on it. They lasted 14,000 miles and the car handled shockingly with them. I swapped them out for MPS4S`s and the difference was staggering. Night & Day. I could now "feel" the road and the grip is unreal. To top it up, I've done over twice the mileage the P-Zero`s lasted and they still have loads of tread left on them.