Blue Straggler

and last one (had to shrink it as my upload limit is being reached)

and this

Couple of snaps from this morning, would have put more effort in but I felt a bit self conscious in the office car park!

[quote name='GMballistic' timestamp='1455455314' post='1586385'] Gonna move this to "media/photos" for you to as not really a newbie intro thread anymore. [/quote] Thanks, I hadn't been sure where to put this. Anyway my spring cleaning unearthed a polariser for my camera so hopefully I can get some reflection-free pics tomorrow. Yes, J-Lo is in good nick, just a bit of rust-bubbling on rear wheelarches (both sides), tolerable.

That's better

Photo doesn't seem to have attached....

Hi all. I had another thread about no longer being a potential owner, but that one's getting a bit old now. I know you all like photos; I've been a bit too busy to even get the car washed in the past few weeks let alone do a photo shoot. Still busy spring cleaning the house so for now just a quick snapshot amongst the bins I'll try to get some better ones tomorrow! (J-Lo because she has a famously large rear end, and can still turn heads despite being relatively "senior" )

Interior light issue fixed by reading the manual What I had perceived as them coming on only very dimly, is actually their permanent running state! I was fiddling with the "Door / Off" swtich, thinking that it was a 3-position switch with manual "on" being the central position. Didn't realise you just punch the light to turn it on. D'oh. All good now.

(25mpg this week)

Goes quite fast but the tracking is way off

Thanks all for replies, sorry not been on the forums for a few days and I don't get email notifications about updates on threads. Well having done another week of commutes (plus two slightly longer trips) I'll soon be due my next refill and can calculate this week's mpg. I certainly know how to have spreadsheet fun on a Friday evening! :-) In the meantime I bought a pet....er how do I upload a photo??! Hang on...

Saw another azure blue 350Z parked in "my" town last night! Felt like Daffyd off Little Britain for a moment, till I got a grip. They had standard Rays on so I win anyway Hopefully they were only passing through!

Jingers! First week of use shows 22mpg average. Mostly sensible driving, below 3000rpm. Brim-to-brim average, 48.8l for 232 miles unless I recorded the start mileage wrongly. OK on Sunday when I picked up, I had a bit of a "play" and I had a couple of other "high rev" fun moments and some test journeys around bendy back roads, but mainly it's been dual carriageway and some motorway trips i.e. sensible cruising conditions. Apart from yesterday morning when my 25 minute, 14-15 mile commute had an additional 2h+ sat almost static due to an accident. But I can't imagine that that alone could have dropped the average. And of course I know that this is not a car that you buy for fuel efficiency ! Granted, I was getting 46.6mpg from the diesel KIA and admitted that I expect my fuel costs to double, but I thought I'd been taking it easy this week! This was on 98RON. Probably best if I stop keeping records :-)

Five days in, so far so good. Trust me to buy a car like this just when a really cold spell starts! So still taking it very easy on roundabouts but trust me the loud pedal is getting some use. I have 20 years of "rarely going above 3000rpm", I guess I am supposed to eventually get out of that habit, right? :-) I did have a bit of a scare on Tuesday night negotiating the most infamously vicious speed bumps I've ever seen (Wigman Road in Nottingham, in case anyone knows it). Rookie-style, I tried to "straddle" one, I know you are meant to try and put one wheel over the apex when you have a low nose like on the Zed, but these bumps - which are actually the height of a standard kerb! - are also tightly chicaned. Anyway I was doing perhaps 4mph and I still heard this MASSIVE bang....and then again on the next bump despite taking it even more carefully. Honestly thought I'd dropped a bumped or crushed the back box. Happily there was actually no harm done, I guess it was just the front bumper "underskirt" doing its job but BOY what a noise. I can deal with those speed bumps now, just super slow and careful not to scrub the alloys on the chicanes. The boot is a bugger to open isn't it! I tend use the spoiler as a handle! It is not as bad as I expected for reverse parking, I even had to parallel park on Monday night which I don't like doing at the best of times. Have stalled it twice so far, like the hero that I am. Still got a lot to get used to but am a happy new owner. Gotta sort out the interior light though!

Ha, sorry I forgot to put a smiley in before. The "again" was because you asked me the same question on my "Red Zed" thread

Still Loughborough, Payco!

You guys all helped me think it through and consider it ! Funnily enough the one I have bought is the first one that had a very well put-together advert - I remember in early December (when I thought I could get away with budgeting 5k - 6.5k) sharing the ads for this one on my Facebook page and saying "this guy saw me coming" all the photos were taken against scenic backdrops in Glencoe, and there were no spelling mistakes etc. in the ad. At the time I was ruling this one out as being beyond budget and "too posh" with its uprated wheels, exhaust and brakes, so it was initially only one of the "joke" or "dream on" cars. And now it's mine! Bit of bubbling on the alloys and the black plastic trip along the top of the passenger door is coming away at one end so I'll see what I can do with that, and aforementioned interior light issue (ditto) but no rush. Higher priorities are to book Drive-Ride course (gotta see if my work can subsidise this, we get corporate perks for "self improvement" which can be a gym membership, a pair of trainers, an evening class etc.) and look at insurance costs for next renewal in 3 months (for now I just changed car on existing policy)

Question #1 Why is my interior light so dim?! i.e. dim enough to be useless. It's "glowing" so the bulbs are obviously not blown, and current is reaching them....

Do these really count as a modification? Got insurance renewal coming up soon, guess I'd best declare them eh?

...because I bought it today! It's been a grotty day both for photos and for driving, so I didn't stop long for the snapshots, sorry about quality. Azure Blue 04 UK GT. 64000 miles, LMGT4 wheels, Black Diamond Brakes, Scorpion exhaust. I paid £7750, private sale Only driven 50 cautious miles so far (snow and dark and wet and nervous anyway as it's my first RWD and my first petrol car bigger than 1.8l), and it's ACE. Going to be the coolest car in the work car park tomorrow, sure there are newer and more flash posh expensive ones there but they don't SOUND like mine. I call her J-Lo because she has a bulbous rear end and is getting on a bit in years but is still quite sexy I'll be posting a few basic questions in the next month or so. Thanks for all advice so far.

From the look of this thread - and I am sure there are others - overall it is going to be fine (in terms of "no damage") as long as I use whichever premium unleaded is available at a given station, and there is a small chance that I'll perceive a difference in performance and/or consumption when using a PARTICULAR flavour of premium. Is that about right? As I should be collecting my first Zed on Sunday and I need to know whether to immediately fuss about 97 vs. 98, Shell vs Esso vs BP vs Tesco etc. etc.

If you put the following into Google, without quote marks etc: 350z bad review it doesn't really find any "bad" reviews! At least not in the first page of hits. At worst you get positive reviews which highlight a few now well known and acknowledged niggles.

Hopefully picking up the Azure Blue on Sunday, as long as the stars align

Good point! It was only an idle pondering I guess. Which brings us to the second question. Basically I am soon to buy a Zed and as I have 3 months remaining on existing insurance policy, I'll just change the car on that policy, which incurs a small additional fee. Within those three months I will have sensors fitted and will of course declare them on the new policy when it starts in mid April. But will I need to declare them on the existing one? This will no doubt incur an admin fee comparable to the extra that I'm paying, so I could perhaps carefully time the fitting of the sensors for just before I renew! But yeah it's not going to be a biggie either way.

And if so, do you have to declare them as soon as you get them, or can you legally wait until next renewal? Thanks