Ekona

I sold our Mini to a dealer who rang me up and asked me what the lowest I'd take for it was. I told him, he sent a bloke down and the cash was in our bank. Everyone wins, I got what I wanted for it with a quick sale and he got a very good car to flog on for profit. Always an exception to the rule, it just depends on how realistic you are or if you want to wait/weed through chancers.

I think it's a no-brainer to remove tbh, anything that takes away direct clutch control from the driver can never be a good thing.

Another year, another MOT passed with just a couple of minors (rusting brake lines, dodgy OSF wheel bearing) which I'll get sorted in Jan. I also had the CDV removed... For those who don't know, and I didn't, modern non-M manual BMWs have a fitting in the clutch pipe called a Clutch Delay Valve. Essentially this is a restrictor that won't allow the fluid to flow back too quickly when disengaging the clutch, the idea being it allows for a slower and smother gear change. The downside here is that by doing so it's essentially slipping the clutch every single time you change gear, and heel and toe changes are much harder to do. By removing it you make it like every other car and any jerkiness is purely down to the driver, but you're now able to do very rapid gear changes. Now, a lot of people complain that the gearbox in the manual 6er is crap, and I'm convinced this is the reason why. Having removed it, changes can now be much smoother and also much snappier, and it's significantly better in feel too. It was a bugger to bleed apparently, but on a drive across to a mate's house to re-bleed it decided to self-bleed and is now perfect. Removal of the CDV takes about half an hour, and you can either just remove the entire valve and pull the metal clutch line over to bridge the gap, or just pop the guts of the valve out using a small punch then replace it back in situ. For anyone with a roughly 2000 onwards manual BMW (E39 & E46 eras), this is a must-do mod. Go try it, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Who?

Accuracy is everything

Surely it should be pronounced Kryst-Mass, given the religious backstory

Sadly it's scarily easy to see, even from a young age, which kids just aren't going to go anywhere in terms of schooling. And it's not because of the natural intelligence of the child, it's down to how moronic the parents are. Honestly, I'd no idea that parents feel the need to fuss over their kids so much when they're best off just leaving them alone. One parent was handed back her child at the end of school (properly, officially, here's your child into your arms kinda thing), and then turned to gossip to another parent outside the playground. Lets go of her kid's hand, kid walks off, parent goes mental wondering where the kid is (in a bush about 10m away, in the end). Parent makes complaint to Ofsted about the school because she lost her own child! :bang:

Doom is immense, one of my favourite games of the year. Witcher 3 I played 10 mins of then got bored. Definitely my loss, I should prob go back to that at some point... Currently playing Sleeping Dogs Definitive Edition as it was free on XBL, it's a poor man's GTA but still quite good fun. Kung fu is always cool

Grammar is definitely taught at schools, it's just done in a completely different way to how us older generation (30+) are used to expecting it. Certainly at KS1&2 anyway, which in fairness is when the basics are set. The bigger issue is lack of stability in the curriculum to enable cohesive teaching: Every time we get a new government in we get a new SoE, and then everything changes again. Even worse when we get an entirely different party and the whole ethos flips around. What it needs is cross-party support for a 10-20 year curriculum that doesn't get altered. It gives the kids stability so they get used to learning a certain way, it gives teachers stability so they can concentrate on teaching not figuring out how to please Ofsted, and it gives parents stability so they can see that all their children are learning the same way and can track progress. Sadly, there's too much point scoring out there right now to make that a viable idea.

On the flip side, how many people are ever happy paying list price for a car? We hear it plenty, that a dealer should knock at least 5% off a new Nismo, or that a Zed up for £6k should sell for £5.5k. In general, no-one expects to pay list for cars anymore, so you can't really blame them for the cheeky offer approach. But yes, taking the p*ss haggling on cars that cheap.

I assumed the caps lock was a fat-fingered misuse of the shift key

3/10, no swearing and correct use of paragraphs. I expected better.

452 was garbage. 453 much better, and I'd run them on something that had smaller tyre sizes.

Please, do NOT get Pirellis. They are premium money for utter sh*t. I'd rather put Falkens on than a Pirelli tyre.

"Book them, and they will come. "

RB = a modern Veilside. In a few years, we'll all look back and realise just how hideous they truly are.

Noooooooooooo the original and the best, you shall never step down!

Original was one of the most tedious films I've ever watched. I will assume this one will be better, because it couldn't be worse.

'Tis a great game, I never actually played it the first time round so this is like a brand new Burnout for me!

Or £20 worth of super unleaded and a match.

Poll added, go go go!

Did they actually buy it with the dildo gear knob on?!

It'd be cold as heck in there. The wind whips straight in the roof and has nowhere to flow out from, so it's constantly bloody cold. That'd rattle like crazy too, without a ton of extra bracing (like the ragtop has). Looks pretty, though.

That silver thing is right up there with the Rolls Royce 350Z from years back in terms of being mashed with the ugly stick.

@Col: So you'd use a rather than an? See, I never ever say Ex-Mass out loud, but I always read it that way. Odd.