Ekona

Dunno I went from a 265/40/18 to a 275/45/18 and it appears to have closed the gap Quite. It'll work, but it's the wrong way to do it. You increased the profile by nearly 20mm, or 3/4". Why did you do that, out of interest?

You shouldn't, as that's how the TCS starts getting confused. You also end up raising the car, which makes it look like a 4x4. That said, you will get a more supple ride as there's more give in the tyres. Normally you'd do that by dropping wheel sizes instead though.

Those ratings are pretty useless. Look at how many tyres get an A: Most of them, and I can tell you from experience that they have massively differing levels of grip in the wet! This is why NCAP change their test procedures each year, because technology improves and what was hard to get 5 years ago should be easy to get now. The tyre ratings don't do this, so it's actually very easy to get high pass marks. The idea of the ratings is to weed out the truly crap Ling Longs (as opposed to regular Ling Longs), which legislation has managed to do pretty well. The EfficientGrips are shopping trolley tyres IMHO. They'll do the job, but they are very far from a performance tyre as they're designed for fuel-saving and longevity. That's not me saying that, that's Goodyear themselves.

First off, chill. This isn't as big a deal as you might think, so don't stress. To start with, you've had an accident, so you MUST report it to your insurer and/or declare it come renewal. Failure to do so may lead to your insurance being invalidated etc. Now, the easy thing to do is just call your insurance co and let them sort it. I can't tell if you've done that or not yet. Legal cover is irrelevant, any injuries the TP may have will be covered by your standard insurance terms, so you already have enough cover for everything. Let them deal with it, any letters you get you can just pass on. That's the right way to do things. On the other hand, if you're not going to tell your insurer at all, then Docwra's absolutely right. Pay him the £200, get him to sign a full & final settlement letter, and you're done. If he comes back later, you have that letter as proof that he was done with. You can then go to your insurer at that point if he really is an arse, however I suspect he's no intention of doing that.

Erm, don't drink the coffee? Blag a test drive in a 370 whilst you're waiting, at least. Or anything really, might as well use the time constructively, even if it's to know for sure that the current Micra is still a POS.

You don't change arch gap with tyres, you do it with lowering springs.

Then do AB12/A12 TDB, or whatever combination of prefix you like. Anything else just looks a little try-hard to me, I'm afraid. Doogy's one is nice though, as an exception.

What are your initials?

Bearing in mind that Porsche universally undersell their estimates to make sure they never get caught out, even more so. My old car was 0-60 in 4.2s by the book. I regularly timed it at 3.9s easy, and given that the car has LC it can't be hard for Porsche to get accurate times for it if they really wanted to I really need a ride in your Beemo at some point, Doc. Sounds f*cking awesome.

Exactly. It's not.

Indeed, please check the wording of your policy. Most will monitor and charge you more should they think the risk is higher than stated. As for your question, put down what you can prove with official documentation: That is, what it says on the V5C. If it says 350Z on there, then put down 350Z. That way, if it ever goes to court and you're asked to prove what it is you have a letter from a government agency proving that. Alternatively, tell the insurer the situation on the phone and let them decide, but you'll be paying more for an import I suspect.

Check your paperwork, I'm willing to bet it contains a clause that lets them alter the free stuff at any time. Alternatively, have you tried calling them? I reckon a good moan at the right person would see you get it for free for the rest of your term

I ditched my sub to BT Sport recently too. It was nice to have for free as I watched the occasional thing on it, but £6 a month? I don't think so. I may well miss out on the CL stuff, and I guess they do have to pay for it some way, but for me it's just too much cost. £3 I might have sucked up, but not double that. It's peanuts really, but I don't think I'd get any value out of it, as I can count the number of games I've watched on BT Sport over the last few years on one hand. Sure there's other sports on there which might make it worth it for others, but personally I hope they fall on their arse. It's all well and good saying that it's bad when companies have a monopoly on football, but last year I could watch all the football I wanted for £60 (or whatever my Sky bill is). Now I have to pay an extra £6 for the same stuff. How is that fairer on the customer? Very few people are going to ditch Sky for BT altogether, so really the vast majority lose out.

Does your car have Brembo brakes or the smaller ones? I suspect discs that cheap are for the JDM model.

*brake

Alignments should be done annually at least, if not 6 monthly if you do a lot of miles or your local roads are crap. No recommendations sadly, it's a bit far from me, I'm sure someone will have an idea. Just remember that a place with a Hunter machine != a place that will always give you a good setup.

Yup, piece of cake. I got our superking Tempur mattress into the back of one of our Transits at work, no probs at all.

Truckin' awesome.

And if my aunt had a penis she'd be my uncle.

Or some wheels that don't clash with the car

The Cayman S is indeed a 3.4L. It weighs less than a 350, and has more power than a DE. For the Zed to have been quicker, the Cayman driver must've been taking an age between shifts or not getting on the power quick enough. The gearing isn't that far apart on the two cars to make a difference at those speeds.

Brakes, tyres, track days.

Here for sale is our 2009 MINI Cooper S Convertible on 62000 miles with the following spec: Midnight Black metallic paint Red leather and black cloth interior Manual gearbox Fully electric roof in both sunroof and convertible modes Black Star Bullet wheels iPod connection Sport mode (turn on for some fruity noises from the exhaust...!) CD player Rear parking sensors BMW & Specialist Independent service history MOT until June 2016 We're the 3rd owner of this car, purchased from MINI Colchester in July '13. She had 33K on the clock when I picked her up, but looked like a 3K mile car which is what caught our attention in the first place. Since then, she's been used as a daily drive by my wife who is a primary school teacher for the motorway commute, and also for some top-down fun at the weekends. Well, it's too much fun not to borrow the other half's car sometimes! Servicing has been carried out at MINI Rochdale before our ownership, and at MINI Colchester and Braintree Motor Works (our local BMW/MINI specialist). The last service was carried out in June '15, so she won't need anything doing for at least another year. I have also carried out 6 monthly oil changes myself as well, using Mobil 1 oil only. She sits on stunning Black Star Bullet wheels, and the two front tyres are brand new as they were replaced at the recent service. Some Cooper S cars have been known to have chain tensioner issues, and as we noticed the beginning of a slight rattle from that area recently, we had the chain tensioner replaced in June as a precaution. This is a must-have on a car of this year, please check this has been carried out on any car you look at. The car was professionally detailed in November of last year, with a stage 1 paint correction carried out to bring out the very best of the metallic flake in the paint and to remove the vast majority of swirls that are the bane of any black car. The car has been maintained using a combination of Dodo Juice, Swissvax and Envy products, and looks as deep and glossy as you'd hope for. Even the photos uploaded here don't really do the finish justice, when the sun catches it just right the reflection is like a mirror. The car does have finance outstanding on it, and a couple of the wheels could do with a refurb if I'm honest. There are the usual stone chips you expect on a car of this age, however the above maintenance work ensures these are barely visible. The interior is in superb condition, with no rips or tears to the seats at all. We currently have official MINI rubber mats fitted, but we do have the original carpet mats as well which will of course come with the car. As you can tell, we love this car and have spent a lot (both in terms of money and hours) making sure she looks as good as she runs. The only reason for the sale is because my wife has a new job practically within walking distance, and it's not fair to leave a car this good doing nothing during the week. Any inspection is welcome, but test drives only with proof of licence and fully comp insurance please. Any questions or queries welcomed. Thanks for looking

You make it sound like a bad thing!

The market was all about diesel 10 years ago, now it's all turbocharged petrols. The market changes that quickly, and if Tesla can't make their cars get to mass market soon then that's not a sustainable model. As Ilogikal alluded to, if they keep bringing updates out then where's the incentive to buy a car today? I don't really think hydrogen is the future either, I'm just pointing out that the big guns aren't 100% set on elastictrickery as the solution right now. Plunging everything into that is, again, a risky move. We still have in theory 20% increase, rumours of 100kWh batteries etc. What's the real-world range on a P85S, after a couple of full-bore starts in the middle of summer when the AC is on? More power just means more usage of fuel and decreased range, whether that's an M5 or P85S. One of those has dealers in just about every big town across the EU and U.S. and the ability to increase the range in a way that electricity will never be able to manage to in my lifetime, and one has a handful of dealers worldwide with a range that drops significantly the more stuff you turn on. EVs actually make a lot of sense as a city car. As an uberbarge or GT, currently they do not.