Aashenfox
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Posts posted by Aashenfox
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...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
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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?
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.
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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?
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.
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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?
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Well done for giving them hell.
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I took a car in for a respray and when I picked it up there was 500 miles added to the odo!
If this happened to me, the shop owner would wish he'd never been born (and the same goes for the guy above with the 60 miles in the airport parking). I'd give them such a huge problem, they'd never do it again. Makes me angry just reading all these stories, who the F do these cowboys think they are?
Many of you guys are FAR too lenient on them, and while that is your choice, you should also remember that every person who lets them get away with it, encourages them to do it to the next guy. Don't forget, the Z is famous for one thing really, being a natural drifter. When these a-holes take your cars, you can bet your life they are drifting them aggressively. Check your tires.
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Thanks GM.
So yeh, bytespc, as I explained and StevoD acknowledges, you don't really wanna be going 4% over diameter on 20s. Especially since you were asking about arch clearance, which will be zero with a 35 on a 20 rim if you are lowered at all.
The thing about going over diameter and the speedo calibration is that now the speedo reads slow. OK it's only a little, but it only needs to be 1mph out to cause you to trip a speed camera. You'll have to remember to do 57 in 60 zones, 66 in 70 zones, etc. This is why you'll often see people UNDER diameter, but rarely over.
Enlarging overall wheel diameter also increases the strain on the drivetrain by a small amount that over thousands of miles would take its toll. Just as increasing the length of a lever gives you a better chance to snap a bolt.
Now that I've been able to read your original post. I can tell you what tires you should buy... 255 30 20 and 275 30 20. This will give you a close to ideal ratio front/rear of 2% that the traction control will like, and be less than half a percent outside stock spec overall meaning your speedo will be as inaccurate as it was when it rolled out of the factory.
Now tell me the offsets of your rims and how low you are and someone can give you a clue about the extent of any arch work you may need to fit them...if any.
HTH.
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Dark Bronze is the only alternative to black on a silver car, imo, unless you're planning on making a statement, in which case, pick a colour, any colour! Persoanlly, I'd go with black.
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On what offset rim? Whatever rim it is, you're gonna want a 30 not a 35. The 35 will make your clearance problems much worse and is 4% bigger than stock diameter (your speedo will read notably SLOW, so you'll be breaking the law without realising it, etc (assuming you stick to the rule of having a 1-3% larger rear to avoid traction control issues)). 255 30 20 is almost bang-on stock diameter.
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I just remembered what I told a few people after I sold my S, and it still rings true for me today...
The great thing about the S, is that every trip, EVERY TRIP, is an adventure. The bad thing about the S, is that every trip, EVERY TRIP, is an adventure.
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I'm making this recommendation because I don't believe that mixing and matching tyres is a good choice and these tires will fit inside stated budget of 300 quid (for rears only) for the full set.
Barum Bravuris 3HM.
They excel in every area except wear (they wear quite quickly, but hey, they're DIRT cheap), but grip wet and dry is excellent, as well as exceptionally low road noise. If you're not going to the track (or otherwise overheating them), you'd never know they weren't an ultra premium brand.
Disclaimer, if your roads are totally different to my experience, any advice I give about tires is not only useless, but potentially dangerous. When I want a tire review I got to my friend at the tire place down the road, I've known him for years and he knows what works on our roads. I appreciate that it can be extremely difficult to get non-biased advice from someone you don't know personally, you never know if they are pushing an agenda, so I encourage forming relationships with people around you in order to get honest opinions, and a tyre guy should be high on your list of connections to make if you don't have one already.
What I can say though, is that my Barums (I had them on Civic Type R and now have them on the Z, though I haven't done many kms yet, I don't anticipate any issues) are definitely notably better than SportContact5 and any Pirelli that I have used. Only my Michelin Pilot Super Sports I had on the Beamer were noticeably better (at FIVE TIMES the price)
N.B. Barum is a subsidiary of Continental, some are made in Germany, others in the Czech Republic, to Continental's rubber recipe, with their own tread patterns.
Additional Sources... http://www.tyrerevie...ravuris-3HM.htm
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^ This (@docwra)
I too am an ex-s2000 owner. Going from the S to the Z is a case of growing up in my case. If I was able to own one car for sheer fun and one for DD, I'd go back to my previous cars, I'd have an S2000 for the track and an e92 335xi for DD. The Z is the perfect combination of both of these cars, it is not as racy as an S or as comfortable as a 3 series, but it is racy and comfortable.
I loved DDing my S2K, when I was 30. Nowadays it's just too harsh to be enjoyable in traffic (call me a softie
), I never used to care, but now 10 years down the line, an S would have to be a third car, while the Z makes a very usable 2nd (first is the wife's Volvo XC60 2.0 T4 turbo naturally).The Z is more reliable than both as well of course (yeh, I know I'm going to be set upon by the Stuka crowd, most reliable car ever, etc etc. Well, my EP3 Type R WAS my most reliable car ever. My S cost me a good deal in maintenance and fixup, including more than a few more than minor engine issues, and I'm not the only one).
Bottom line: If you want a balls to the wall hardcore nutcasemobile, get an S, if you want the best of all worlds, get a Z.
Welcome, by the way, although I'm new here too, so er...yeh, whatever.
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His insurance company will sue them anyway (Mercedes guy I mean).
When I drop the car off, I always make sure they SEE me take pictures all around and of the dash and tell them no test drive without me. So far so good, and I've owned over 30 cars in 20 years.
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Speaking of attention, here in Greece, since there are now so few, whenever a 'yoof' or group of yooves sees you out and about, they jump into the road and throw you a hand gesture which wouldn't mean anything to anyone who hasn't lived in Greece, but over here equates to 'give it some you mofo!!' Of course, the obligatory rev it to 6k and dump the clutch is the usual response, which is appreciated and applauded with whooping and hands raised in ecstacy at the V6 growl they get to hear perhaps twice a year.
Especially now that we are so downtrodden over here, I feel it is my responsibility and obligation to live the dream on behalf of those can only stare into their empty wallets and aspire.
As well as boot it on request of course.
P.s. yes, I tend to talk a lot about life in Greece, I've been here 15 years and have a lot of anecdotes to share, so sorry if it seems like I go on a bit.
Vroooom!
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A couple of things...The U.K is the only country in Europe and probably The World where Nissan outsells Toyota. Nissan only had the one production line for The 350Z and with most of the sales either in Japan or The USA and a long waiting list I suppose they just concentrated on those,two plus a few other English speaking countries. Also, the major European countries are lucky enough to have their own car industry and I guess there's a degree of patriotism in there. When we had our own car industry the 240Z/260Z sales here were nowhere near that of U.K sports cars despite it being far better than the rubbish we churned out.
Pete
That's make sense Pete. Wonder if they made more L/H or R/H ones. ?. Japan been R/H as well as the UK. ?.
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, Ireland too are all L/H and quite large numbers of Zed's were sold in Australia. My knowledge of car production is limited to the 1970's. Back then they ran the production line in batches, they would make say 1,000 cars for the Canadian market then on the production workers day off the engineers would quickly retool for the next batch which could be going for example to Sweden and built to Swedish market specs and so on,
Pete
Think you ll find Ireland is R/H drive.
I was there recently and unless I was on the wrong side of the road I drove same as the UK..!
All the other countries he cited drive the same as the UK as well. I think he meant the left side of the road, not left hand drive.
For everyone's reference... http://www.worldstandards.eu/cars/list-of-left-driving-countries/
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There's a very specific reason why you don't see them in Greece anymore, and I can;t help wondering (without knowing) if it's possibly the same reason in Italy...
In Greece and many other EU countries, road tax is largely dictated by cubic capacity for older cars and CO2 emissions for newer cars. All 350Zs are taxed based on the (by Greek standards) humungous engine. 2 litres here is considered a big powerful car. To give you some numbers (better sit down)...
If you own a 1.6 older than MY06 you pay 275 euros a year for road tax.
If you own a 2.0 ditto ditto ditto you pay 610 euros a year
If you own a 3.0 ditto ditto ditto you pay 1150 euros a year
As you can see, it ramps up really fast. You don't wanna know how much it costs to own a Dodge Viper (8.0 in case anybody needed reminding) over here. lol
Fortunately, you do have a choice, you don't have to pay the tax if you don't want to, but obviously you then can't drive the car, or sell it. So what people who are struggling under this crisis (and it is still a crisis, I am still limited to spending 800 quid cash a fortnight for over a year now, capital controls for the lose) is giving their plates back to the government for safe keeping. This way they get to keep the car (or rather at that point it ceases to be a car and becomes little more than a hunk of metal) and then when they're flush again they can re-tax it for a new year and all is good.
As I say, I wonder if there is some tax reason in italy too, as their economy is also in deep poo.
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Picked up my Brembos (mine was a US import base model) full set for 500 quid shipped from ebay User qwikcarparts
AUTORECYCLING LTD
MAIN ST. MOSSEND
BELLSHILL
North Lanarkshire
ML41DX
See any one of his listings for telephone and email (didn't post them here cos of web crawlers, I'm sure he doesn't want more spam).
When I called, the fella who picked up the phone couldn't have been more accommodating. Delivery was instant, brembos in great shape.
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Any chance of a list of what's sold? Quite a few bits I'm interested in have already been mentioned by other members, but with unknown outcome, need to know if they sold or not. I have a mate who wants the rear brembo calipers if still available.
Personally, I'm also looking for (if not melted):
seat switches
oil pressure sender
wheel speed sensors (front both)
lightweight flywheel if available
passenger door actuator (uk passenger door, I'll be using it on the driver's door of a left hooker)
filler cap actuator
cap for the coolant reservoir
cap for the other reservoir (black) next to coolant reservoir (washers?)
steel brake lines
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...I actually prefer tire to tyre. Now that I am used to both, the american use just seems more sensible to me. Please don't misunderstand, I think that they mostly bastardised (note S not Z) our language, just not in that particular instance.
Yes but in good old British English, "Tire" means to feel sleepy or in need of sleep or to have lost interest in something whereas "Tyre" is a rubber object surrounding a wheel (alloy or steel) which vehicles run upon.
As this is a UK site we prefer the correct spelling whenever possible.
No offence intended. Sir, yes, sir
/Yankee salute.
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*tyre
Don't get me wrong, I'm British, I learned to spell it as you do, however, I've been retrained by the yanks due to being highly active on the internet in the hobby of radio controlled cars, writing product reviews and moderating for the two largest sites relating to the hobby for a truly surprising number of years. To tell you the truth, I study language in a very amateur way, I'm truly heartbroken by the slow death good language skills are suffering at the hands of the internet. I'm also a fluent Greek speaker, not that I suppose that means much in this context, it does provide a bit of insight into the origins of lots of words. Anyway, tl;dr: I actually prefer tire to tyre. Now that I am used to both, the american use just seems more sensible to me. Please don't misunderstand, I think that they mostly bastardised (note S not Z) our language, just not in that particular instance.
Anyway, I won't criticise, you'll see me playing grammar police now and then, I just can't help myself. The two that I cannot let go, are incorrect use of apostrophes with words terminating in S, and people saying and typing 'could of' or 'would of' instead of 'could have', would have'. Mostly I'm easy going, but those two really get me.
I bet you didn't know...
in 350Z General
Posted
I put 100 ron in mine, it's available at every petrol station. About 96 true octane, it's good fuel actually.