Aashenfox

If I ever felt the need to grow up a bit more, I'd be going back to an e92 335i (had one, got stolen ). Unless you take it down the track, it's every bit as handy as an M3 with just a few bolt ons, but much cheaper insurance, much less '****er' factor. I've driven a 3 litre SLK, my mum had one a couple of years back, nothing special to drive, but sure, if you want a Mercedes, it fits the bill.

Unlucky, but let me tell you that by rushing I've also picked up a couple of lemons in my time, you never know, you may have dodged a bullet. As you say, hopefully new owner will turn up here and tell us all about it.

The problem with ebay or any other system which is available to use by any random arsehole, is that it is used by random arseholes. I was once properly screwed by a US soldier no less. This was back in a time, over ten years ago, when your right to dispute expired after 30 days. Being in Greece, things sometimes take more than 30 days to get here, so that was a problem on its own, but that wasn't the specific issue here, this soldier spun me a tale about his deployment and things being difficult, and he would send it but I needed to be patient. I was super patient and understanding. After 40 days he still hadn't sent the item, stopped answering any attempts at communication and disabled all his accounts. Ebay and paypal both told me I had no right to dispute after 30 days, period. That was $400 on a radio control car that I doubt the fker ever had, I also doubt he was a US soldier, though it would be an unusual and unnecessary lie, maybe he thought it gave him more credibility. Anyway, that's life, if you do enough ebay business, you are going to come across some really awful people, it's simply inevitable. As a seller it's a total nightmare, much worse than it is for buyers. The buyers can come up with any crap excuse why they want a refund and it's HEAVILY biased toward the buyer. If you sell on ebay, no matter if you're the offspring of a union between Mother Teresa and Ghandi, you're going to get negative feedback and lose some money sooner or later. This is partly why some sellers come across bitter and unhelpful, they're tired of people's crap and who can blame them.

Careful...most of the owners on here have modified their cars, and would strongly disagree that they've been ragged to hell and back! and they'd be, at best, in denial. lol, I'm kidding, but it is very subjective, one person's normal use is another's 'ragged to hell and back'. You don't mod a car and not drive it hard. However, as is stated time and time again, no sports car wants to be driven like miss daisy, that causes its own problems (coking, etc). A certain amount of thrashing keeps things running smooth, blatant abuse like burnouts and street drifting on poor surfaces are what you don't want, but pretty much anything else goes. Basically on a modded car, pull the dipstick and look at the oil, if it's black and old, walk away, as it's likely thrashed and not looked after. If it seems relatively recently changed, rock on, you can take a car to the rev limiter in every gear if you want, that's what the limiter is for. As long as there have been regular oil changes and maintenance, it's not a problem. Try to ask what fuel the previous owner was using, if they can't tell you and are unwilling to contact the previous owner, buyer beware. The Z wants high octane fuel and long term usage of cheap fuel has been documented to cause premature piston wear, it's one of the most important questions I would ask about a Z, and something I learned after I'd purchased mine. By the way, I also have a mystery switch, mine is near the Traction control button. No clue what it does (yet). Probably activates 'ludicrous speed'. How many more sci fi references can we get in this thread???

Thanks lads, the bold Z was what I was looking for, I knew about the others. Subtle!

Wahey, coventry had at least three visitors today! lol (I can rib coventry, I was born there )

Hi guys, I've noticed on quite a few forums, there is a marker against a thread in which the logged in user has posted (a green icon or something in the left or right margin of the subject). This is really useful for quickly running through a forum and seeing which threads in which you have ever contributed (I contributed+bold text= I got something to read!). Cheers for considering it...

I would most definitely be replacing both batteries after seeing smoke. Batteries (especially damaged ones) are a serious fire concern. Best of luck bruv, let's hope you haven't melted any wiring.

Hm... http://www.motoringa...cataclean-work/ http://www.asrcrevie...-fuel-additive/ Standards organisations say cataclean is snake oil too, beyond the fact that it's main benefit is designed for diesel engines...Plus, the testing evidence was submitted confidentially. Not illegal, but also pretty shady. It's like an athlete refusing a non-mandatory drug test, on it's own it's not an indication of guilt, but it certainly looks really bad... I have not conducted any independent tests personally so cannot speak on the validity of the above content. Take it at face value and draw your own conclusions. It obviously did something for Holfy (unless Holfy, you hoofed it when you wouldn't normally have, in which case, you know what I'm goinna say, that the act of hoofing it is what cleared your problem, not so much the additive. Tell me I'm wrong by all means, I'm always a bit cynical about additives.)

Vid or it didn't happen. lol Edit: I just figured that could come off as in bad taste, not intended, just thinking of what an epic video it would have been. I'm very glad you're ok and back in a Z, of course.

Well, we're talking a lot of variables here... I don't put much 'stock' (pun intended) into stock nurburgring times, as many cars have much higher potential, the s2000 being a prime example. It's a short geared ragtop with crap brakes and poor suspension straight out of the box, it's not supposed to compete on any track with a laptime higher than 1m30s or a straight longer than 1km. You need a really big set of giant brass balls to drive the S on the limit, many people just don't have the ability (or the cahones) to compete with a serious driver in a car that is 'easier' to drive fast. I put myself in this category (balls just not big enough), I knew I wasn't good enough to get the best out of an S2000, and that an Audi S3 driver would be able to drive faster than me with zero effort, but that doesn't mean the S isn't capable of much more in the right hands. Now that I think about it, given that difficulty to drive well, perhaps it wouldn't be the best choice after all, but the potential is there.

Val-ett-ing is the correct pronunciation, however, val-ay-ing is acceptable in common usage. The source is indeed a French word pronounced val-ay and spelled the same as our English word. Some therefore might argue that the majority are incorrect and to honor the origin of the word, it should probably be pronounced as the French do. The reason we don't do that is because the word has officially been Anglicised over the years of mispronunciation and is now an English word pronounced differently to the French, not a French word in common usage (e.g. chic, a french word we use unchanged in spelling, meaning or pronunciation). Source: I'm a grammar and spelling nazi first class, call it a hobby. lol.

Megane RS is 2.5 innit? Nothing will beat a well driven S2000 in that class under those rules I reckon.

Same deal here, you have to be a true car lover to justify the cost of anything 2.0 or above. Tell him I feel him.

But you got lovely sunshine and pretty women.. You couldn't be more right.

I know right, have you ever seen a more epic waffle?

Nah, it's not terrible, similar to uk, but don't forget...I take home 1/3rd as much money as the guy doing my job in my firm's london office. Rent, taxis, food, cigarettes, are all cheap here, the basics of life, but almost anything that is not an essential of life is pretty dear. For example, we pay more than you guys do for electronics of all kinds. The problem is volume, the total population of Greece is less than the total population of London, so we don't move enough units of anything, so prices are high.

Is fuel expensive as well. ? I can't remember what it is currently (truth is I do very few miles a year, about 2000 at the most in my sports cars, so I don't really pay much attention), the 100 ron stuff is about 15% more expensive than the 95, which is about the same as your prices I believe. I'll update later if I see a petrol station when I'm out and confirm.

According to Google that's closer to 32k in sterling! That's shocking, even if it does only have 40k miles. To be fair though, aren't wages in Denmark one of the highest in Europe and everything is that expensive? I remember my mum was working in Copenhagen some 20 years ago and said she'd never paid so much for a glass of wine and a slice of cheese, she said it was something like 25 quid.

I put 100 ron in mine, it's available at every petrol station. About 96 true octane, it's good fuel actually.

...how much it costs to buy (and own) a Z in Greece? If you're not at all interested, turn back now, cos that's what this topic is about. Me going on about the cost of second hand Zs in Greece and moaning about taxes, etc and how much better things are in the UK, and before the war, and blah blah. Those who are still here, you really should find something better to do with your time. Right, those who are STILL here... You might be more than a little surprised...I've been on ebay looking for Z parts for my recent restoration project and couldn't help noticing how much you can get a decent Z for over there...that's what prompted this waffle. No, not that waffle...the one below. Firstly, ok, cars here have no rust, so there is that. On the other hand every single one has a dent or scratch and/or has been involved in a minor/major accident, and/or is clocked back on the mileage, buying a car in general is a high risk proposition in Greece, there is extreme shadiness in the industry. Bear in mind also, that we are in the deepest depth of the Greek crisis at the moment, we've been at rock bottom and not getting better for 2 years now, people are really starting to run out of savings and reserves and the government continues to tax luxury goods (including cars with large engines, by which they mean 1.8 or bigger, yeh, feel the torque!) up the wazzoo. Oh, before we continue, I guess important to mention that cost of living here is about half the UK, but wages are a third. So, the Z with it's (by Greek standards MAHOOSIVE) 3.5l engine, basically costs me a thousand quid a year with the current exchange rate in road tax alone. Insurance is reasonable to be fair (just over 400 quid), but fuel is the same price as the UK. If you happen to own a car with a big engine that's less than 10 years old, you get an additional 'luxury' tax to pay in your tax bill every year, based again on the size of the engine, for a 3.5 it's over 1300 quid. That's on top of the grand for road tax. So that's 2300 quid (let's throw in 400 quid for third party fire and theft insurance for me with 10 years no claims), make that 2700 quid if you own an 07 car this year, just to have it in the garage. I wouldn't be able to afford to own a Z here (not many would) if it was subject to luxury tax (mine's an 04). As you can probably appreciate, the whole point of all this is to charge owners of large expensive cars hard, but it's a very fine net to be claiming you're only going after big fish. So, due to the crisis and these mental taxes, the second hand prices of cars with big engines are naturally at an all time low. But that low, is still going to make you spit your coffee/beer/PG Tips, so swallow and put it down. Drum roll please...the average price of ads matching the following criteria... Make: Nissan Model 350 Z Gearbox: Manual Mileage: 125k kilometres or less (about 80k miles I think) Location: Attiki (the county of Attiki contains Athens and 50% of Greece's population, if not more, and I wanted to exclude cars from the islands as their prices tend to be all over the place.) ...is.......... 12 grand (euros), on Google that converts to almost 11k sterling, and that's the average, the nicer ones go for around 15 to 20 and the shoddy ones go for about 10 I just bought a fixer upper with a LOT of minor problems, but a good engine, gearbox and chassis, for about 7500 quid and I consider that I got a total fking bargain, I'm over the moon. So there you go, fairly random, barely interesting, totally useless information for you. No you can't have those 2.3 minutes back, they belong to me now. Crazy money, though, no? Have a good weekend all

Ahh the vw up's a good shout. Out of my budget but reminded me of the Fox or lupo. Always stayed away from alfa's for reliability reasons and think the golf gti mpg and insurance costs would be to high for me to save money. Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk Alfa's actually aren't that unreliable, traditionally it's the rust issue (not a problem over here ), but the 159 is a solid (not to mention goppingly beautiful) car, and there are few cabins that are nicer to be in. Drive one, I promise you'll be surprised. How about a mk5 fiesta? There's not a bad thing to say about the car. I'll keep the 159 in mind and give it a chance lol Insurance was fairly high for some reason on the fiesta. Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk Possibly cos they are a riot to drive, as Jer said above. Best steering in a small car I've ever used (feels a lot like a focus, unsurprisingly I guess) and a sorted little chassis. I never would have guessed the insurance companies would know that though, after all it's just a fiesta...guess they're smarter these days.

Ahh the vw up's a good shout. Out of my budget but reminded me of the Fox or lupo. Always stayed away from alfa's for reliability reasons and think the golf gti mpg and insurance costs would be to high for me to save money. Sent from my E6653 using Tapatalk Alfa's actually aren't that unreliable, traditionally it's the rust issue (not a problem over here ), but the 159 is a solid (not to mention goppingly beautiful) car, and there are few cabins that are nicer to be in. Drive one, I promise you'll be surprised. How about a mk5 fiesta? There's not a bad thing to say about the car.

My daily is a VW Up, something tickles me about my daily having half as many cylinders as my Z I actually really enjoy thrashing the poor little fella lol. They go surprisingly well once you get the revs up in second. I'd make a suggestion, but I have lost touch totally with UK prices, I have no idea what you can get with 1.5k. Mk4 Golf GTi? High mileage Alfa 159?