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61

General Car Chat / Re: Bavarian brawn

« on: 10 April 2024, 17:39:34 »

Wow, you get some decent courtesy cars don’t you.    Whenever I’ve taken a £50K beemer in, I’ve been given an old 318 or similar. 
Car salesmen can smell wealth so they know it’s worth letting you rag about in it if they’re going to get a sale in return. 
A Competition Edition as well you jammy git. 

They let me have it for the day.

Filled it with enough petrol for 200 miles.

It would have been rude to refuse.

They want me to buy it though and that might be a stretch too far even though it has lost £35000 in just 6 months.

62

General Car Chat / Bavarian brawn

« on: 10 April 2024, 17:03:36 »

When asked how much power a car needs to make it exciting  Carroll Shelby of AC Cobra fame would often reply with a smile  "Too much is just right" 

I reckon he may well have said something similar if asked about the 625 BHP BMW M5 Competition.


I really like this car.

 
















BMW 240i

63

General Discussion Area / Re: Starlink.

« on: 08 April 2024, 14:18:19 »

We have been looking at how we integrate LEO solutions into a car for some years now, have worked directly with Amazon and Starlink on this.

So have you set it up, tried it, and its not performing?

Basically yes.

No obstructions as it looks out over fields. Starlink customer service say that it's as good as it is going to get.

Now using Lebara with the Vodaphone network through a Huawei router,  which costs £12.50 a month instead of £75 for Starlink.

Connecting the TV aerial to the router seems to have made it much faster.....or is that just the placebo effect.

Possible but far from ideal, you can get directional and external cellular antennas which are MUCH better, they just need pointing at the cellular mast (for directional)

I shall look into this.

Do you have one (or more) you can recommend that works well and won't break the bank?

64

General Discussion Area / Re: Starlink.

« on: 08 April 2024, 13:08:48 »

We have been looking at how we integrate LEO solutions into a car for some years now, have worked directly with Amazon and Starlink on this.

So have you set it up, tried it, and its not performing?

Basically yes.

No obstructions as it looks out over fields. Starlink customer service say that it's as good as it is going to get.

Now using Lebara with the Vodaphone network through a Huawei router,  which costs £12.50 a month instead of £75 for Starlink.

Connecting the TV aerial to the router seems to have made it much faster.....or is that just the placebo effect.

65

General Discussion Area / Re: Starlink.

« on: 08 April 2024, 12:16:43 »

I've signed up for a 30 day trial with Starlink because my options are pretty limited before 5G becomes more common.

I've gone for the 'residential package' at £75 PCM.......roaming and mobile packages are £85 PCM and according to users regularly throttled back if the demand is high elsewhere.

As suggested by Sir Tig  I have gone for the refurbished dish which costs £150, so £79 less.

I'll see how it goes.

That's not actually how it works, the major issue is the user count on the satellite.

It might appear that there are loads of satellites up there but, there are often only 1 or 2 over the UK at any one time, throw  in a 30 degree acceptance angle for the receivers and you have many thousands of people using the bandwidth of a single satellite.........it then gets worse with between satellite bandwidth sharing (for when they cannot access an uplink, and there are not many uplinks!).

The killer for Elon is that as users increase, bandwidth falls, plus there is big competition arriving (Amazon Kuiper plus others) and he has backed a bespoke setup so will have to replace the current  space junk he has up there (although they only last around five years anyway and they are constantly burning them up over the Pacific)

Interesting live map here:

https://satellitemap.space/

Interesting, Mark

It's shite so I'm sending it back.

I'll lose the cost of postage and £75 they have already taken for the first month.

66

General Discussion Area / Re: Outage this weekend

« on: 06 April 2024, 13:57:55 »

Excuses...excuses.

67

General Discussion Area / Re: I dont know if us men know...but..

« on: 05 April 2024, 12:09:05 »

I quite enjoy it when a girl takes control. 

Yep....but I have also put a few 'naughty girls' across my knee when they become too strident and bossy for their own good. 

68

General Car Chat / Re: Warranty work on the Mexican tomorrow.

« on: 04 April 2024, 10:47:58 »

625bhp, rwd on damp roads. What could possibly go wrong?

It does come with 4 driven wheels.

The second Jagaur XFR  I owned had around 600 BHP after Viezu had a play. And rear drive only.

It did shit me up in the wet though.

If I were stupid enough to go for a spin with you, it would end up in a fatality. I'd definitely have a heart attack.

You should go for spin with Rae in his Evo then!      I'm a shadow of my former self....     

Your elderly uncle is a man of advanced years, Tig.

A spin in a tuned 500BHP Evo driven by Rae would surely see him into the next world.

A bag of boiled sweets, a cup of Ovaltine, and an early night is far more appropriate.

69

General Car Chat / Re: Grandland X

« on: 03 April 2024, 18:53:41 »

Why the hell do manufacturers put puny engines into bigger and bigger cars? Ford stick a 1 litre engine in a Mundano for gods sake. 

1 litre is not even a decent bike engine. My FJ1200 had an extra 200cc.

70

General Car Chat / Re: Grandland X

« on: 03 April 2024, 13:01:11 »

Back in the day 118BHP was a respectable amount of power for a 'sporting saloon car'

When cars were not fat bastards and  car owners were not fat bastards.

71

General Car Chat / Re: Grandland X

« on: 03 April 2024, 12:51:15 »

It's a heavy car, with 128bhp, what can I say ?

Time for a change.

A paltry 118BHP in something that weighs the same as an old steam  train is never going to rip your face off. Did you not notice this lack of urge when you had the test drive? 

72

General Car Chat / Re: Grandland X

« on: 03 April 2024, 12:46:58 »

We're up in N Yorkshire for a week away. I decided to take the wife's grandland because we can fit everything, including doggie, in one car. Coming back from Pickering towards Kirkbymoorside on the A170, 60mph limit, some old bastard pulled out about 200 yds in front of me in a Chinese MG and decided 40mph was plenty. There was plenty of room (thank fùck) so put my foot down and pulled out. Auto box dropped from 7th to 6th and off we went. Nothing, eff all. I was waiting for the kick I get from my 1.6 astra but it never came. We got past quite easily but I'm glad I did that on a clear road with nothing coming in the opposite direction. I might have come cropper with less time to overtake.
1.5 diesel in a big car......no.

At 40 MPH it should kickdown to 2nd or 3rd.

Does it have a sport mode for more response?

Even if, like my Signum, there is no sport button, it should kickdown far more gears at that speed.

7th to 6th does not seem right.....so little wonder it struggled.

73

General Car Chat / Re: Grandland X

« on: 03 April 2024, 12:40:52 »

We're up in N Yorkshire for a week away. I decided to take the wife's grandland because we can fit everything, including doggie, in one car. Coming back from Pickering towards Kirkbymoorside on the A170, 60mph limit, some old bastard pulled out about 200 yds in front of me in a Chinese MG and decided 40mph was plenty. There was plenty of room (thank fùck) so put my foot down and pulled out. Auto box dropped from 7th to 6th and off we went. Nothing, eff all. I was waiting for the kick I get from my 1.6 astra but it never came. We got past quite easily but I'm glad I did that on a clear road with nothing coming in the opposite direction. I might have come cropper with less time to overtake.
1.5 diesel in a big car......no.

At 40 MPH it should kickdown to 2nd or 3rd.

Does it have a sport mode for more response?

74

General Car Chat / Re: Warranty work on the Mexican tomorrow.

« on: 03 April 2024, 12:25:48 »

625bhp, rwd on damp roads. What could possibly go wrong?

It does come with 4 driven wheels.

The second Jagaur XFR  I owned had around 600 BHP after Viezu had a play. And rear drive only.

It did shit me up in the wet though.

75

General Car Chat / Re: Warranty work on the Mexican tomorrow.

« on: 03 April 2024, 12:14:14 »

Sounds like a fun day ahead 👍

Yes....it would have been rude to refuse.

Depreciation is a real killer for most cars in the first year, unless cars are in short supply with long waiting lists.