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1

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: Yesterday at 14:56:17 »

Retrieved TPC from Gatwick Long stay. The ground all down the right side was covered in glass.

This once happened to my dad in Barcelona airport car park - having a British plate on it, it wasn't a rare occurence. They took his pocket knife and 200 pesetas out the centre console, but left his extensive music collection. He wasn't sure whether to be grateful or put out at this result 

2

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 26 June 2025, 11:17:42 »

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202506233799176

Thar do lad. Local and reasonably priced. You'll not miss it long

7 Seats is a pretty rare option no? Although I'm not sure how useful the third row is, unless your aim is to make young children and midgets vomit in the boot of your car. 

3

General Discussion Area / Re: Trump has gone to the top .

« on: 25 June 2025, 10:01:59 »

The USA needs a good war periodically. They spend far too much on defence to just have the stuff sat about and Iran is as good a target as any just now.

Honestly I suspect that the bombings were just as much about demonstrating US capability as anything else; I doubt it will deter the Iranian 'government' - religious zealots tend to be hard to dissuade - its part of the job description, but hopefully it will set them back a bit.

.

4

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 23 June 2025, 11:34:43 »

The biggest issue with the job is the weight of the assembled struts as you try and d get the nuts started.

Fortunately I was able to balance them on the bottom arms supported by one of those inflatable door wedges to get the top nuts in. My biggest issue was getting the suspension pulled down far enough to get the bottom bolt in.   

5

General Car Chat / Re: So what have you done to your car today?

« on: 22 June 2025, 23:07:46 »

Not my car, but the FIL had a nasty surprise from BMW when he took his 520d in for a recall last week. Broken spring and a service due - £600. The stealer also suggested only replacing one spring, which didn't sit well with me

So this morning was full service and a pair of rear springs. In doing the job I've discovered that several Bavarian villages are missing their idiots. I hope whichever oppswits decided that the strut tops should be accessed through the speaker grilles in the rear parcel shelf get knob rot.

6

General Car Chat / Re: Who owns a milk float on here?

« on: 16 June 2025, 13:17:56 »

One thing holding me back currently is the 100% of the EV gross figure (which are stupidly large) goes straight into my pension. So at the moment, I'm keeping that flowing as that is the true cost to me.

Yes, this is where I am. I think the iX 'costs' around £14k p.a. and I could really do with boosting my pension by this amount, but on the other hand, it is a nice car. I also have another 17yrs of private school fees to pay, so retirement is a little way off for me! I think the way I will go is a second hand EV, once decent ones fall into a sensible price bracket, until I fill out my pension annual allowance (should I ever get there!).

All that said, the 435i is going to be a hard act to follow. Other than my ar$e not fitting in the M-Sport seats, its a really nice motor!

I don't have a pension.

I should imagine a man of independent means such as yourself is well above such paltry financial trifles 

7

General Car Chat / Re: Who owns a milk float on here?

« on: 15 June 2025, 23:12:21 »

It does work well for us, but sadly my next car will be something a bit more modest, clearly I didn't work as hard at school as Mr Tunnie, so I'm nowhere near maxing my pension contributions, also, whole I don't know I suspect I'm 1-0 up on divorces.

These two facts, combined with me now being the wrong side of 40 mean I really need to start chunking money into my pension so I can retire before my state pension age of 107. 

8

General Car Chat / Re: Who owns a milk float on here?

« on: 15 June 2025, 20:23:48 »

As I say, mine was a vehicle manufacturer employee scheme so may have been much different. 

Ours is through a third part leasing agent (Octopus). I have a mileage limit on the lease but beyond that, all I do is add electrons. There's no tax, insurance, maintenance to pay. For us, wear & year and acceptable damage is covered under BVRLA guidelines. Given I'll have done 100k miles in it if I keep it the full 4 yrs, I may have to get a few bits paint corrected as I'm not as religious about looking after my car's as you 

9

General Car Chat / Re: Who owns a milk float on here?

« on: 14 June 2025, 19:01:45 »

There are many, many factors though. I expect my mileage to increase significantly. With a salary sacrifice deal I would:

Never have any repair or service costs
Never have to pay for tyres
Never have to pay for insurance.
I get a brand new car every 3 years.

It will cost me sub £5 to charge at home and cover 300 miles.

I expect my petrol fuel bill to rise to nearly £200/£250 so already some big savings. But I need to wait until the new commuting style kicks in before I make a decision.

Then of course getting something nice and new has its appeal, along with never having to do any service work on it.

Sounds like you and I are in a fairly similar boat. I took the iX for exactly this reason last year. Except in our case we both use it to commute and clock up around 25k per year.

I worked out I was basically maintaining my own cars for the fun of it, while paying about £25 pcm for the privilege. There is also a great sense of comfort knowing that I don't have any repair bills coming and anything that does go awry (3 punctures in 11 months in my case) I just ring a number and a nice polite man makes it all better for me 

As for the i5, it's a lovely car, I had a razz round in one while the iX was having a little niggle sorted at the dealer. Better to drive than the iX for my money, but SWMBO wanted an SUV, and the i5 wasn't out when we ordered.

Let us know how you get on with it

10

General Car Chat / Re: Who owns a milk float on here?

« on: 12 June 2025, 20:02:42 »

Eh, I quite like them, they do a blue denim seat that's better but I think these are pretty cool too. Arguably we're probably not the target market Renault were looking at anyway 

11

General Car Chat / Re: Who owns a milk float on here?

« on: 12 June 2025, 15:49:33 »

I like these very much!

12

General Car Chat / Re: Who owns a milk float on here?

« on: 06 June 2025, 23:15:08 »

]

Dynamic charging.....I think that means only charging when there is spare 'leccy available'. If you could charge for 7.5p at any time it would be better. But just being able to charge for a couple of hours here and there in the dead of night doesn't really make much of a dent.

Then there is the higher than usual charge for all other electricity.

Sort of, octopus guarantee you at least 6hrs.of 7.5p every night between 9pm and 6am, but you don't get to choose exactly when. I always set it so that it takes the max it can every night and never seen less than about 7.5hrs available. Our charger kicked in and out through the night and it's always given us at least what's contractually promised.

It's quite telling that in 25,000 miles I've rapid charged the car twice (and the first time was only to check that it could). And swmbo has only charged a hand full of times at work - a 185mile round trip.

The technology works well, if you can trust it 

That said, if your mileage is less, then the. 7.5p does less to offset the extra 5p/kWh the rest of the time.

13

General Discussion Area / Re: VodaThree

« on: 06 June 2025, 09:34:13 »

As always, selecting an MVNO can reduce costs if you just need a simple voice/text/data service, and not the little add-ons like visual voicemail etc...

This is what we do, pretty much the whole family is on Lebara sims (Vodafone network iirc), basic but works and no lengthy contract tie-ins so if they do fu£k up, its easy enough to give them the boot. 

14

General Discussion Area / Re: Dorset police

« on: 06 June 2025, 08:56:43 »

1997 or fairly soon after

This.

Blair's obsession with getting crime rates down by changing criminal behaviour into 'anti-social behaviour', and making having kids on the dole a viable career choice. The fact that no government since has managed to reverse this trend is also reprehensible. 

15

General Car Chat / Re: Who owns a milk float on here?

« on: 06 June 2025, 08:46:24 »

The above figures are using diesel from Asda at 134.7p, most fuel stations are more expensive than that.
Plus....I'm sure you could find cheaper electrickery than that.

We have ours with Octopus. its 7.5p for the car using their dynamic charging and 27.85p for everything else (per kwh obviously). Its a bit faffy and if I were to change providers, or did fewer miles I would probably look to get on an economy 7 type tariff.

The iX is getting a lifetime average of 2.8miles/kwh so our 25,000 miles per year is costing at most £55.80p per month not counting any free electrons from my work. Doing the same in a 45mpg diesel (which you wouldn't get from a similar sized car) would cost around £285pcm.