The Seasider

I've never seen one in that colour - bet it looks great in bright sunlight.

Spursmadave, you'll get to know me eventually - I wasn't being serious :-) I was just trying to keep the thread alive to debate! Mind you, if they can provide spaces for the disabled, mothers & children etc - why not OCD motorists, we're a minority group!

I'd shop at any supermarket that offered supersize parking spaces to OCD car owners - and had staff policing the area to make sure that nobody parked within a door width of me. Come on Tesco, your business model is going down the sh!tter - differentiate yourself in a good way and keep my spend clicking over.

I'm well jel - it's my dream to go to japan and see where all my spare money has gone over the last 20 years! The skyline crew do organised trips every now and again and get treated like royalty - maybe I should buy a skyline and see if they would smuggle me over. Anybody up for organising a Z club tour next year? My wife says as long as I stay away from pin pong girls and ladyboys - I can go. So, as long as there isn't an optional tour to Thailand - I should be fine!

Makes you wish you could catch them and tattoo on their foreheads 'your c@nt - raise you one' Not that I'm extreme or intolerant or anything.....

I'm a great exponent of defensive parking - I'd rather walk across an acre of car park in the rain than park next to anyone, particularly parallel! Can just about relax if I'm parked in a line knowing that I can polish or spray bumpers :-)

I once saw him in his car here in hull - I was highly amused.

I was joking about your car by the way - just playing along with the banter - so don't cry yourself to sleep, we're just not worth it!

It looked so neglected and abandoned when I saw it a couple of weeks ago - I nearly nicked some bits off it! Agree, superb surroundings - although I would imagine that the thousands of tw@ts like me milling about every day must get a bit tiresome. Those trees on the Central Park need to be seen to be believed - not sure I've ever seen a bigger tree!

I've got the same knob in my 2005 roadster - agree it looks better than original. Didn't realise it was different til I started looking at other peoples knobs and comparing. And that, your honour, is the case for the defence....

You'll all be knackered after independence when Alex decides he wants everyone to drive on the other side of the road to the bloody English!

My roadsters just had a minor service today but took the opportunity to fit some super chic drilled & grooved discs with new brembo pads. Now stops super sweet. Pics to follow....

If Scotland goes, mark my words it will be Yorkshire next

Welcome - a very erudite introduction, I'm sure that you will enjoy the car for years to come.

I'm not a trader, it's not my business, I don't employ anyone - I've just got a few people to sort dents, paint panels, refurb wheels and do general maintenance. I source all the parts myself, do all the cleaning and detailing myself, I can spray a bit of paint - so expenses are kept to a minimum. My cars are always immaculate when they have been through this process - which is how I like them to be - and it always makes them easy to sell at the end (apart from the mazda cx7 - maybe :-) ) As I said in an earlier post - it's a hobby at the end of the day - it wouldn't suit everybody, I'm not trying to convert anyone - I was just passing on my opinions on something that I believe that I do quite well, as it enables me to run a number of cars for the cost of petrol, road tax & insurance - as I never suffer any depreciation (apart from the cx7!)

Cruel but fair

Richard Rawlings - I had to google who he was! That's well bad innit - as I believe the modern vernacular goes I part agree with what Coldel says in that if you buy a good car and keep it clean it should pay you back - but, I would prefer a cheap, lowish mileage, tatty car that me and 'my team' can turn into a gem than to overpay for it in the first place. But, it is my hobby and the cars are not my daily drivers - so, I may have a different perspective to a lot of people. Getting people to buy your car is mainly to do with the marketing of it - which is a fairly obvious statement - but I very rarely see private sellers displaying well written, honest/balanced ads and I very rarely see a clean and carefully prepared car when I turn up. Descriptions are usually filled with meaningless hyperbole and - and this is my pet hate - what one person thinks is 'excellent condition' very rarely qualifies as such at an objective level. Writing a good ad is within everybody. Take time to research your facts, provide all possible detail - people will filter out what they don't want - be honest and don't overplay the car's condition unless it really is 'as it left the showroom'. Prepare the car for sale - again, it sounds obvious but if you don't clean it and, ideally, polish it and keep it clean during the sales period - you will make life difficult for yourself. If it has any damage on it get it repaired - you will lose far more value by 'making allowances' for it in the price. Don't say stuff like 'no tyre kickers, test pilots or timewasters' as you will scare off perfectly good potential buyers - as people will feel obliged to buy the car if they go to see it for fear of you calling them names! In my ads, I nearly always say : 'come and view with confidence, I will refund your fuel if the car disappoints'. This obviously means that I have to describe the car very honestly - but, on the other hand, I have never up to now had to pay up!

However upsetting it may make you - the market finds it's own level. You can't say 'I wouldn't sell it for that' or 'I'll hold out for the right price' because if you have that attitude you won't sell it. The problem with almost all specialist cars - and I've owned a fair few - is that people assume that cars actually sell for what they see people advertise them for and so people use that as 'the benchmark' for values and so the market gets distorted between illusion and reality. When I'm buying, I don't look for the best car - I look for the weakest seller. When I'm selling I make sure that my car is the best value car on offer - and they go. I usually play the long game - start out asking what I think it's worth and progressively reduce the price until the phone starts ringing off the wall. I recently sold a boxster within 2 hours at the highest price I could have reasonably expected and yet my mazda cx7, which I thought would command a good price - I steadily reduced over 6 weeks by £1000 before I got 'the magic phone call' It's the public that set the prices not us sellers.

Whilst I've not painted anything rubber as far as I can remember, I'd have thought that if you roughed it up, painted it with plastic primer - which is flexible - and then top coat it I couldn't see why it wouldn't fix and cure okay. People paint various interior parts okay - don't they? Maybe see if you can find coloured gromits then, friend.

I had this last week - it can be quite hard to see the real level of the brake fluid in the shadows under the bonnet. When I inspected it closely - it was slightly below the min mark - topped it up to the max - no more lights. I do need to change my brakes which are getting done this week.

You'd need to wash it thoroughly with fairy liquid to remove any silicones or waxes, rough it up slightly with some 600 wet & dry, prime with a couple of coats of plastic primer, then a couple of coats of your chosen topcoat - that should stay attached.

If you want to change your caliper colour - that's fair enough, but if it's only overspray, it should come off okay with a bit of rubbing with thinners or t cut.

Yes, that's the one - no, I'm from the north,

Wasn't me but I was strangely at that exact spot last week - stayed at the Old Mill Hotel! Great pub across the road.

Just had a look at the link - make sure you read it to the end, I didn't take my wheels off, jack it up or anything to work on my reflectors. Biggest tip is if you are doing it on your own on a rough surface make sure you put a blanket or similar on the floor in front of the car in case it comes off all of a sudden or you let it slip - as i did. Fortunately, I saw the possibility and no damage was caused.