Rob_Quads

Thats an evil one - I am sure that will catch out A LOT of people. Would expect BT to clamp down on it though and remove the premium number

I would contact him and ask if he has receipts for all the renault parts that were replaced and any bills for the repairs. If thats all good I would say invest in a full car check. might cost a £150 but it will a) put your mind at rest and b)if its been done badly it will be spotted. ( if you don't have the car knowledge jacks etc to have a good scan round. Make the report a condition of sale If it goes for that sort of money it could be a bargin - a lot of car for your money but remember that you will equally get less when you sell it.

I would not just say "Don't buy it". Cat C & Ds is where you could end up paying less for something thats quality. There is only 1 way to find out what the car needed and thats ask the seller, then find out how it was fixed. Generally CatC & D cars are brought back onto the road by the enthusias who can fix the car for the fraction of the cost of insurance jobs. Once a car gets to the low thousands its fairly easy for damage to occur that via insurance repairs are uneconomical. Perfect example was my old 206Gti - just before selling it someone dinged the front wing. Got 2 proper quotes for it both between £600-£700. I fixed it for £189 + 2 hours of my time and the job is as good as any isurance job. Scale that up a few times and you have an insurance job thats quoted at 3/4K and it could be fixed for 1K. Thats potentially a bit saving. Obviously I would not pay full price for the car but as long as its been repaired properly and that you are getting a discount

Ah maybe you can get an aux into the standard Bose Amp then.

The speakers in the boss system run on an amp. If you place an aftermarket head unit in then it is not designed to work with the amp. AFAIK there is not an adapter to provide phono in for the amps so it means you can't use it. The speakers the amp uses are 2 Ohm which is lower than standard speakers - 4 Ohm. You 'could' use the standard speakers but you would risk frying your headunit as its not designed to run that sort of load (Also not sure how the speakers are crossed over either)

You mean one of these leads steve? http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=1331&cadid=b1838a3219b4bfb84d8f8eb7dbd78694 The autoleads one is a PC2-77-4 I think - http://www.ukaudioshop.com/product.asp?pID=3281&cID=114 Time to get your hand in your pocket to replace due to needing at least a new head unit + two sets of speakers

Personally no mate. But I am from Southampton Doh - will have to keep my eyes out for another black Z in the area then

Blacky is also on the 'other' forum where there are pics of the wheels on the car - an american one in the US. I presume its his car he posted rather than another one with the same wheels http://forums.DELETED.com/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=4044

Pics look quite good. Do you know of many other US 350z owners who use the UK forums?

I am sure that if I asked to take the car they would have given it to me but they won't give he car back early as a norm otherwise you will get people complaining about it taking half the time so should pay less.

AH yes I do remember your name. Good to see you carry on the modding. Nice and tidy car.

Just had my 27,000 mile service at botley and have to day it all went as well as could be. Dropped the car off and waited for it to be done. Price was the best I could find for the area - £155 inc oil but I supplied my own and the bill came to £122 which was nice. Only slightly anooying part was the service was done within 45 minutes and they had me wait for the allocated 1h30m before giving my keys back. Did not really bother me as I was working away on the laptop and I understand why they do it. Saw a number of people come in for various jobs and everyone was spoken to well and they did thier best to help the two that came in on tow lol

On a sunny day Mayflower Park in Southampton is a good place to meet as long a its not too busy http://local.live.com/?v=2&sp=aN.sggp2vgwgb2g_MayFlower%2520Park___

P21S - http://www.cleanandshiny.co.uk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductID=9100 Another place I have reguarly use http://www.cleanyourcar.co.uk/

$32 for P21s - you can get it shipped in the Uk for <£20. Definatly agree about polishing. Remember the basics Polishes cut away at the paint - some a little, some alot Waxes just layer on protection. If its new paint then you should be fine with just a clean, clay bar and then a wax. Its only worth polishing if you are starting to get lots of scratches, swirls etc. Its a shame the paint on the Zs are so thin as it means that you can't really give the car a good polish too many times otherwise you might end up removing all the paint.

From Southampton

They are the place I have got all my tyres from recently. Did that include tracking?

Just a quick message to actually introduce myself. I've had my Z for a couple weeks no. Slowly getting the modifying bug again. I've have had a couple of other modified cars, 1 a very heavily modified saxo then followed by a mildly modded 206. No Major plans with this one as I think its a fairly cracking car standard. Looking to change the wheels and hopefully I will be making a half decent install in my car as its what I'm best at. Will also invovle some carbon if all goes to plan. I know Steve Jones from the forum (known for quite some time) but other than that hope to meet at an event sometime in the future. Couple pics of the new car Couple of small pics of the old cars (Please bear in mind that the saxo was all bar the spraying done by my own hands. I learnt a shed load from doing it so no "pointless" comments. Blame Mr Jones for some of it . The saxos life story can be seen at http://www.saxovtr-vts.com) Here are a couple of cars I have recently worked on

Sold to me Time to get out the old blow torch, lead and polisher

Wouldn't agree personally. I'm good friends with a dealer who sells them almost daily and the number of returns he has due to faulty brains is VERY VERY low BUT the number of times he has been asked to fix cliffords which have gone wrong which were installed by someone else is much higher. It seems that a lot is down to the installer than the equiptment. Would say its a much of muchness about which alarm is best - Toads are pushed a lot due to thier margins which is generally more than the cliffords.

To be honest a top end alarm is going to give you no more protection than a basic alarm. As long as it has a battery backed up siren then a bog standard alarm is going to give you as much protection as a top end clifford. IMO the only benefit you will get from top end alarms are confort features and nothing to so with security like the ability to open a boot remotly, turn on the head lights, remote start (although breaks insurance in most cases). As long as the alarm goes off when its broken into then its done its job. To be honest no-one cares about alarms any more because everyone ignores them. When was the last time you challenged someone who was at a car with the alarm going off? all cars are now made with Cat 2 immobiliers which is the main thing you want now from an alarm so it not really needed. The only thing worth getting now is a form of tracker.

It would be bloody handy to have a remote BOOT pop on the key though. For the sake of $1s worth of actual parts would have made it much more usable. Doh - Helps if you use the right word

Did you get stung for any import Duties?

I know what you mean about Megs Endurance gloss. I use a paintbrush to apply it. Try and leave it over night and then use a kitchen towel to wipe off any excess. This still gives me a half decent shine but it also removes the stickyness of it and stops it being thrown onto the body when the wheel spins. For shows static shows megs can't be beated.

lol - nope i would not recommend, It might be 'Max Power' but with a 5 figure investment under bonnet its still go go go