gangzoom

Just think about the money you'll be paid and that will get you through it! Don't get any "holiday" bonus or anything like that (I work in the NHS were the words "Bonus pay" doesn't exist in any form ). I've just been unlucky with the way the shifts have been allocated...still cannot really complain, been on plenty of holidays this year and its better to have a busy job than no job (as my bosses keep on pointing out)

You lucky gits.....doing a 24hr shift Xmas day, infact had to work the last 2 Xmas as well

I went to see the new/current STI with a view of buying one about 18months ago but a rubbish quality interior, poor MPG, high insurance/road tax costs, and a high sticker price of £30K meant I didn't even bother taking one out for a test drive. Shame, always wanted to own a Impreza but looks like its not going to happen for a while now I don't think the STI is a bad car, but compared to what BMW/Audi (335/S4) can offer interms of performance/economy/price for the fast saloon market I'm not surprised Subaru hasn't been able to shift many...and at £30K it's a lot more expensive than a fast Ford/Renault hot hatch.

I'm waiting for the mythical OLED TVs to become affordable...

I'm sure your love it!! Will be much better than the TVs own speakers....just a warning before you go splashing out on stupidly overpriced cable (speaker or HDMI) have a read of this.....http://www.head-fi.org/t/486598/testing-audiophile-claims-and-myths I have some decent floor standers (Mordaunt-Short THX 502) which came with some "free" Oxygen Free Cables which retail for about £5-6/m!!! Out of interest I hooked up the speakers to some standard HiFi cables which cost about £1.5/m.....nor me or the wife couldn't tell any difference between the two set ups...I'm sure for some super audiophiles they can hear a difference but for me spending money on expensive cables is just a waste of money.

Been watching F1 for years, this is has definatly been the best season, and the race today was just mental!! I keep on reading people saying Vettel is lucky...people seem to forget he failed to finish in 2 races due to mechanical faliures, and Alonso failed to finish in 2 races because he was taken out. Vettel has had to come from the very back of the grid in 2 of the last 3 races. Alonso has done amazingly to finish on the podium nearly every race, but thats has usually been because of cars falling off the road/failling to finish ahead of him. But both are so much more humble than Hamilton...who arguallby had the best car for the early part of the season buy some how has only managed to finish 4th, incidently the one time Hamilton started from the back of the grid he managed only to get to 8th

Stick to 8 ohm speakers if you can, my Denon 1909 really struggled with my M&S speakers which were rated at 4-6 ohms....it all gets very complicated when you start trying to understand what all the numbers like watts/power really means .

You might be right about the RE040s , my run flats are Michellin Pilot sports and the grip/handling is fab!! I've read many stories about how awful the ride is and how the grip goes away once RFTs are half worn but have been really susprised at how good these tyres are!!

I'm a bit biased towards Denon, but all the big names do decent low-mid budget AVRs. Don't be afraid to go second hand, a well made AVR lasts for years and any that's been made in the last 3-4 years will do 'HD' audio via HDMI, and most of the current lot do 3D pass through and AirPlay When your buying speaker/AVRs make sure they match and work well together...there's no point buying decent speakers if the AVR hasn't got the power to drive them, and there's no point in havig a massive AVR if the speakers rubbish. Do the research yourself before hand, there's plenty of reviews on the web, never had much luck in Currys, even Richard Sound staff can be hit and miss (don't get conned into buying stupidly priced cables/wires). I've found the main difference between the good AV setup in my cinema room (4 Ohmn M&S THX select speakers, driven by a Denon 4311) and the ok setup in our living room (small 'lifestyle' speakers driven by Denon 1909) is the clarity/definition of the sound, not necessary the volume. Infact I rarely turn up the volume in the cinema room because it always sounds clear even when it's barely audible, where as in the living room we often have to wack up the volume to compensate for a lack of detail in the sound. Don't read too many reviews though...because the cost of higher end AVR stuff really is limitless

Run flats on my 335 are fine, the ride is similar to the Z. Even with the tread down to nearly the legal limit no problems with grip, infact much better in the wet than RE040s that I use to have on Z. Will be replaced by standard tyres soon....purely because of cost, if prices were the same I would pick run-flats over standard every time.

Moving the OBD port on the BMW is a 10-15 minute job...no idea how to do it on the Z though.

Not its not...thats why I resisted going anywhere near for about 6 months when looking to replace the Z Really starting to appreciate the uprated antiroll bars now...roundabouts are now so much more fun!! Still not where near as bad as this....

Just to be contrivisol....have a look at Apple laptops . I paid £1600 for my 2008 MacBookPro in 2008 (Still going for £450-500 on eBay), after 4.5 years still running well, currently on the latest version of MacOS, handles photoshop/Lightroom with no problems, even have Windows XP on it for running SPSS and BMW coding software. My previous Apple Laptop lasted me 8 years (2000-2008), was still working when I sold it on eBay for £200 after nearly a decade of abuse!!

My thoughts exactly, If I couldn't afford to drive it everywhere I would sell up tomorrow... Personally I can't see why people wrap their Zed up over the winter, it is fantastic driving in cold conditions, as the car is NA it breathes so much better on a winters day and you learn a lot more about the handling of the car than you will any other time of the year.... Each to their own though +1 My Z loved the winter, only ever got stuck once on a summer tyres when I drove onto some wet grass covered in snow Best MPG I got was 47 mpg but that was a very very long hill....over 30 is defiantly possible on A roads if your not trying to overtake everything

I know some people may be lucky enough to get a decent camera for Xmas/holidays...just don't be a idiot and drop the thing like I did a few weeks ago Had a UV filter on the lens which smashed on impact...a quick glance and the lens looked fine, the filter was dented and stuck. But on closer inspection and in the right (wrong) angle you can see the UV filter has scratched off some of the lens coating when it smashed... Luckily photos look fine and the image stabilisation works fine too. I managed to get the filter off with some wire-cutters...have now taken UV filters off all my lenses to stop this from happening again...not dropping the thing would work too

Fireworks Found one of my old Z....nothing special but just thought it looks nice

Use to like the look of the XF....but I think the new XJ looks even better in real life...though I've only ever seen 6 or so in the last year (2 of them was in Dubai)!!

£17K for a 3 year old XFR!! Thats amazing value/unbelievable depreciation (over 70%), they come loaded with toys too (unlike the german cars).

If you really want something "special" take a look at the Alpina B3 GT3, almost as fast as a M3 GTS around the ring but £50K cheaper, still not quite a bargain at nearly £70K....but its essentially a standard 335i with a LSD, better brakes, better suspension, and a power increase upto 400bhp. 335i are going from £10K now, you can add an LSD, and get 400bhp from a stock 335i for £2.5K, spend another £2K on brakes/suspension and for less than £15K your have a very nicely sorted bit of kit (which can also sit 4 adults, with a decent boot and do 35-40mpg on M ways)! http://www.e90post.c...ad.php?t=761943

I've had my 16Gig iPad 2 for while now, still plenty of space left. But all my music (50gig) and photos (100gig+) is accessed via 'the cloud' so actually the only things taking up space on the iPad is Apps/Games. Without WiFi access my iPad is pretty much useless. If this 4G stuff really work and the networks gives us proper 'unlimited' data tariffs I can see everything becoming cloud based...why bother trying to store all your media on 1 device if you can upload them to the cloud and access them on any device at any time??

Just been reading this about some more about the 335...looks like I might be emailing you some Ebiach spring for me car at some point oh if your around mid next week I'll take you out for a little drive to see what all the hard work was about (the brakes have now been run in) http://www.birdsauto...erdog-june-2012

Glad to see you done the hardest part of swapping cars....I'm sure your love test driving all those cars....if you can handle the potential running costs I think the M5 would outclass everything else on that list with ease (on paper the Apina B10 weighs more than a 335, and once remapped/tuned the 335 will offer the same power output but obviously the E90 chassis is a generation younger than the E39 5 series). Good luck with the search and let us know what you end up with

My wife looking much more glamorous than me at the Singapore GP Â Some none car pics from SingaporeÂ

18 months ago I px my 350Z for a BMW 335i saloon. I wanted something bigger to replace my 350Z but it also had to be just as quick , easy to live with, newish and not break down every 5 seconds. Virtually every car with 4 seats and a decent engine in the £20-30K range was considered. In the end it came down to the 335i or Audi S4 (B8)…the £10K difference in 2nd hand prices meant the 335i ended up on my drive . Ideally I would have gone for a E90 M3, but the wife said no to that. However soon after acquiring the 335i I realized it seems BMW hadn’t really developed the full potential of the 335i and set about putting thing right….It also gave me an excuse to spend the money “saved†by buying a cheap 335i compared to a M3. This is how it looked after I took delivery. The first thing I wanted to sort out was the lack of traction, I still don’t understand why BMW didn't fit the 335 with a LSD. 1 week into ownership the car went down to Birds BMW for a Quaife LSD which has really improved things, the TC now rarely comes on even when really pressing the car. For some reason I’ve always found the standard suspension setup to be a bit soft (even on the much hated Run Flats), steering feel is fab but turn-in was always a touch slow and the rear end always seemed unkeen to get involved in the corners. Under acceleration the backend also seem to always take a few seconds to settle down before launching the car forwards. After some research I ended up uprating the rear sub-frame bushes and antiroll bars. The car is now much more keen to turn-in, and body-roll in the corners is much improved. The ride is now just about perfect, the damping could still be improved but overall the car now handles beautifully. Infact I would say the car now handles better than the 350Z and has a hint of how my old Integra Type R felt. It certainly doesn’t feel like a 4 door 5 seater saloon!! Though the car is also perfectly happy pottering around town at 30mph, which is precisely what I wanted from my Z replacement . After the extended warranty expired I looked into getting some extra BHP. I had good experience with the JB+ tune therefore upgrading to the JB4 tune (ECU chip) was a natural extension. I also added a few other bits to reduce the backpressure (downpipes, and intercooler). I’m more than happy with result of the suspension and power upgrades. The car now performs at a level not far from a E90 M3 , but rather unexpectedly is also surprising economical, this was the mpg read out after a 3hr commute on a Friday night across various M ways (traffic jams and all)!! I should add finding a garage to fit all the various mods was a headache, I ended up going back to Mitz and Andy (Cougar Store) who did all the work on my 350Z, as usual the work was top notch and the service provided puts main dealers to shame!! Thanks again guys!! Some other bits done including braided brake lines, EBC Yellow stuff pads, Alpine speaker upgrade (the standard speakers were awful), and DAB/iPhone input via a Pure 300Di. None of these items were essential but improves on some inherent weakness in the stock car. I’ve also added some exterior changes, spoiler/splitters all of which are cheap copies of more expensive items but funds aren’t endless (and I have to save some money for when/if the turbo wastage/fuel pump/injectors/steering rack decides to fail )… This is how finished product looks, I quite like the fact the car looks pretty much identical to a 320D, even though it now pushing close to 400bhp!! Plan is now to leave the car alone (which means Mitz needs to stop tempting me with things ) and just enjoy it for a good few years.... …nearly forgot the most important Mod any BMW needs..OBD port deletion...if your not sure why its needed search for "Watchdog BMW thefts" on Google

...and finally some off track action