Ekona

Blimey, now we're going back! My first wage was just under £100pw working in a restaurant, so when I ditched that to take up a plumbing apprenticeship it doubled to £200pw back in 1999 which as a 19 year old felt like I'd won the lottery! I think you've got the right idea tbh mate, doing less work for a sensible pay rather than chasing all the cash in the world but having to work the hours for it.

Funny PC Format gets mentioned, I used to be the top poster on their forums until I got temp banned for calling someone a c*nt, even though they were and they'd deleted the entire database. A group of us disbanded and ran off to set up our own forums without any rules at all, which is still going strong long after the PCF forums have been swallowed up into whatever Future are doing now. /reminisces I gave up on building PCs years ago. My time is worth more to me than I can save by self-building, and I'd much rather have a warranty and be able to throw stuff back at the manufacturer to make them fix it if it breaks. I used to spend a fortune on PCs and gaming: I had one of the original FX5800 (the hoover!) cards, then I went SLi and thought nothing of spending £1K in one go on two cards. These days I couldn't care less about PC gaming as it's still shockingly fussy to get stuff working so I spend my cash on consoles for the games and just run a fairly basic PC setup for interwebs and PS. I say basic, it's still a 960 i7 with a shedload of RAM and decent HDs, but it's now running whatever crappy nVidia card it came with just to power the monitor. It's also housed in the most basic case I could get, as I don't care what the box looks like any more: Those days of cutting windows into the side of the case are long gone for me!

Best get this thing rolling then, yes? The reason for the delay on this has been because Squee has been incredibly awesome and made up a t-shirt for Zedley, so I've been waiting for that before starting his adventures. It came on Friday, so I'm only going to do a quick update here from myself before sending him onwards to his next home! So, without further ado, it's over to Zedley himself... "So you've already seen some pictures of me naked, which I find almost as disturbing as people pretending to write as a toy monkey, but now I've got a proper sexy t-shirt from the wonderful Squee I'm far warmer. It does get a bit cold outside when some idiot decides to do the obligatory car shots in the middle of February... Apparently the first car has the engine in the wrong place, the second one has a massive ironing board on the back and the third regularly gets covered in sh*t. Ace! I reckon the blue one is the manliest. All real men should have manly trucks like that. Back indoors in the warm, and apparently this is what is known as a 'Zelda': It kept licking my face. Honestly, I think that's a bit forward for a first date, so I think I'll be glad to leave before I get sneakysneakybumtimed one night. Onto far more appropriate things, TOYS! Lego space shuttle, and a small taster of a model car collection. Apparently Dan buys one every time he does a Le Mans trip, at least he does when not being pulled over and having his licence confiscated for speeding. Tut tut! And finally, this is me posing on a drum kit, which is all Dan is allowed until the next house move due to the proximity of the neighbours. Doesn't stop him cranking up the amps when playing the guitar and bass though, but they're apparently considered slightly more sociable. Slightly. I have also been told to point out that the room is painted in Gulf colours, and that it's the actual Pantone match. Yeah, I think he's a sad b*stard as well. Time for me to head off tomorrow to my next owner, so before I leave here is the obligatory pic of me with the sad b*st... I mean with Dan. See you soon!" Bye Zedley, see you in a few months! You try taking a self-pic with a frickin' monkey perched on your shoulder, see how cool you look!

Did you know there were cameras on the M25 before they flashed at you?

Oversteer city. Change them ASAP, get some VUS to match the fronts and you'll be better off by far. £300 is cheaper than £3000

I like the style, I don't think they suit a Zed very well though. They make the brake discs look tiny.

Genuine question as I honestly can't remember, but do all 350Zs not have '98 RON ONLY' or the equivalent written in large text inside the filler cap?

I'm only going on what the invoice said for the Cayman R that my brother bought last month, but 2 years is definitely included and the 3rd year is a non-optional option, IYSWIM. Same goes for the 3rd year of Porsche Assist too, but at least the warranty cost is significantly reduced (£660 down from the £1K). Bit of a con doing it like that, I agree, but it's no different to half the other stuff that Porsche insist you have on a UK-sourced car (windscreen tints is the one that comes to mind, also the tracker on the 911 and the mats on the Boxster IIRC).

Poor Jarno, feel sorry for the guy but it was always coming after his constant whinging about the power steering. I don't mind Petrov as a driver, it's the fact that he's only been chosen because of the money behind him that irks me.

Nah. You'd be lucky to lose that in a year. Put it this way, my car has sat now for about 4 weeks and I'd have no hesitation in jumping in and driving the arse off it without any regards to the fuel.

Supose you get what you pay for. You only get a standard 1 year warranty on Porsche and the extention is very expensive from memory, but I think you get a discount on it if you by on purchase day of the car? Full 3 years now on brand new stuff, extended warranty after that is just over £1K a year, but like I say it covers everything. You get 2 years full warranty on the used cars too, which is still pretty good.

I get that with non-OEM warranties, but would've expected Nissan just to carry on the usual warranty as-is. Makes me realise that whilst the Porsche one is restrictive in terms of mods, the fact it covers everything bumper-to-bumper for 10 years and doesn't shift on price makes it very good.

182 makes 50mph feel like 100mph. Zed makes 100mph feel like 50mph.

I've never done a bad mod to any of my cars. Ever. Well, except the chrome slats on the side intakes on my MR2. They were a bit naff. Or maybe the two offcuts of timber I used to screw a fire extinguisher bracket into on said MR2. Desperately needed something to hold it in place. Nor the spraying of the dash pod in Cheapo-Silver spray paint, again on the MR2. Looked like a 6-year old had been let loose with a can of paint for the first time, and given a bunch of Jelly Babies and told to go crazy.

Surely the Nissan ExWar covers everything that is normally covered in their normal 3 year warranty?

This is one of the clearest warranty issues I've seen for a long time. New roof, nothing else will do. Toyota once changed my roof on my MR2 three times, in the end they sent it to Aston Martin to put the bloody thing on for them!

Different drivers, different days, 370Z figure is on a completely different track layout too.

Good point about the 182 engine, it's still the best engine I've ever had the privilege of ragging to the redline. It's a right little screamer over 5K RPM, love it!

A 182 will be quicker on track and on the roads. A 350Z will be more satisfying to learn to drive quickly, and is a far more refined drive. Depends on what you want really.

What offset are they?

lolwut

Do it now, or you'll never do it. Suck up any money lost and do it full-time, you'll get the hands on experience you'll need that colleges don't teach these days. We've got a young lad (16) started with us and his one day a week at college is taken up by H&S courses of learning how to lift boxes, and maffs and English tests. I kid you not, the kid learns nothing about plumbing there. The building trade is still very quiet (more or less), so you may struggle to get work right now. That said, decent Part P sparkies can charge what they want, it just costs a load to get there in both money and effort. Also, and don't take this the wrong way, but £12K a year is shockingly bad money. I'd be doing something I enjoyed at the least if I was earning that little a year, so honestly you don't really have much to lose apart from not having a job at all. I wish I'd done it years ago truth be told, I'd have loved to be a copper of any kind but there's no opportunities for that now.

Spoilers look pretty. Wings change the air movement across the car. I wouldn't put a wing on my car unless I was very confident of what difference it would make to the aero, but I'd happily put a spoiler on to make it look a bit nicer.