Plenty of jobs to go round if you really want one – you can’t blame immigration. I got made redundant once and did anything, yes anything to get by – from stacking boxes in a warehouse to washing up in hotels. If there’s a shortage of jobs in your area then just move to somewhere where there is work (just like the immigrants do) – it’s not rocket science!

Thinking and planning ahead = checking whether the 2nd lane is clear and whether there is traffic on the slip road so that you are ready to change lanes if necessary. Changing lanes because there’s a slip road ahead = moving lanes unnecessarily

Sorry but not sure if you quite get it? What you’re doing is good, well done, a lot of drivers don’t even think that far ahead, but often with raised/lowered sliproads and especially with driving in lane 1 you simply cant see what’s on the sliproad, particularly if it’s fast moving, until you’re almost right alongside the sliproad exit which means that despite planning, you’ll still have to execute a fairly fast maneuver.

Temporarily being in lane 2 at this stage not only gives you much better visibility onto the sliproad, but you’ve already positioned yourself to avoid any possible hazards – you’ve already removed the need for you and others to react quickly from the equation, far far safer.

So far as causing inconvenience to other motorists, just don’t understand this, if I’ve indicated well before the maneuver and if there’s plenty of clear space then what’s the problem? Normally it’s likely I’ll be traveling as quickly as the traffic and conditions will safely allow anyway so that’s not really holding anyone else up now is it?

So you move lanes when there is nothing to warrant it? There’s nothing like an unpredictable lane change to keep everyone on their toes.

Nope it’s called thinking and planning ahead, something you sound like you probably can’t get your head around if your driving style is focused on just reacting to ‘unexpected’ stuff that seems to happen to you.

Traffic on the motorway, not the sliproad always has right of way and traffic on the sliproad should always give way to traffic already on the motorway. But the sensible thing for cars already on the motorway to do is to show courtesy and move over into lane 2 regardless (provided it’s clear and safe to do so) to assist someone who might be attempting to join the motorway from the sliproad.

Seems I’m one of the rare people that whilst driving on the motorway pre-empt possible traffic merging when approaching a slip road ahead, and move over into lane 2 (provided its clear) before I can even see if there’s anything on the sliproad. If I can see lots of traffic attempting to join the motorway, if it’s quite busy, or if it’s a mixture of faster cars and slow moving trucks, then I’ll move over into lane 3 well before the sliproad to give everyone, and me, a bit more room.

A lot of people aren’t petrolheads so have no real interest in looking after their car more than the odd wash and getting it serviced when the dashboard light says so. This means there are loads of cars out there with blown bulbs, poor wiper blades, stuff stuck all over the windows (‘funny’ slogans, mini football scarves etc) and – my pet peeve – knackered tyres. I see far too many cars with worn tyres, some down to the carcass, or with really crap ‘ditch magnets’. The assumption that the car is fine as it passed the last MOT is dangerous but seemingly universal. The MOT tester that does the work vehicles also deals with a lot of 3 year old lease cars and he says the amount of cars that have never ha d a tyre checked, wipers changed or a bulb replaced in those 3 years is shocking.

Yep and these are probably the same people who have no interest in further driver training, have clearly jumped on the ‘speed kills’ bandwagon and would probably flash you aggressively if you dared to overtake them.

Had to laugh when some random driving-related Facebook group posted the “How to use a roundabout” diagram from the Highway Code and the comments were full of people “correcting” the diagram and drawing their own versions. Apparently the use of indicators and lanes is all wrong.

Yes amazing how people don’t seem to know what to do. Amount of times I’ve been the green car on your diagram in the right hand lane but going straight on at the roundabout (right hand lane has arrow showing straight on as well as right), and the blue car hasn’t turned left or gone straight on, but just as I’m alongside side it has carried on going right round the roundabout, cutting across my path, seemingly unaware and without indicating is unreal!

Good job I’ve got quick reactions, and after the first time it happened I now tend to either hang back from the car on the left, or use my cars handling and power to position myself ahead of them whilst still on the roundabout. Never alongside!

You’re proposing making people safer by making them all go faster and making things more dangerous?

Nope, don’t bend what I’m saying to suit your own agenda. I’m saying that when there’s a greater speed differential between vehicles, or when traveling faster rather than slower, then people have a natural tendency to be more aware and to pay more attention to what they’re doing. Basic human nature stuff!

Doesn’t necessarily mean being inattentive.

If afraid it generally does – can’t argue with basic human nature I’m afraid. When do you pay more attention on the bike, when you’re ambling along chatting to your mate, or when you’re zipping along, approaching a drop off?

Why do cars need all that horsepower?

Why do bikes need all that travel?

The 135 has just ticked over 10k after a year and isn’t due its first service for the same again.. Maybe a call to the local indie for an interim oil service is due.

Yep good idea, no need to even tell BMW :)

The variable intervals take that into account though. The interval can be a lot shorter than 10k miles as well as a lot longer.

Well I’m only relaying a message from a very well reputed independent specialist I use who’s seen so, so many problems caused by variable (or longlife as it’s normally known) servicing. Everything from minor stuff like clogged air/particulate filters, blocked oil filters to full engine failures.

Might not be apparent on a car that’s a couple of years old, but I’d never touch a second hand performance car that had been serviced every 2 years or 20,000 miles. An annual oil change is essential in my book and I’d never run the oil in any car past 10k miles. Don’t forget that the engine oil doesn’t just lubricate the engine, it, together with the filter removes some very harmful contaminants and particles from the engine. It also might explain why I’ve never run into an engine problem with any of my second hand performance cars – could be coincidence, but I expect probably not.

I thought the pump continued to run after the engine was switched off, until they had cooled?

That’ll be the aux fan, which continues to run using its own electric motor sometimes after the car is switched off. So long as the engine isn’t running there won’t be any coolant or oil circulating in the engine any more.

Is that actually true any more? I remember it being accepted wisdom when I used to get in the car with my grandad but I thought modern synthetic oils / engine design had negated that these days?

Yes still true, most effective way to shorten the life of any engine (and particularly the associated turbochargers) is to hammer it from cold. You should also let a turbo car idle for a short period of time before switching it off to give the hot turbos time to spool down fully before its oil supply, supplied via the oil pump is switched off.

Variable service intervals (e.g. 20k mikes or longer) don’t do cars any good either. Oil, even good modern stuff is not ideally suited to performing at its best over that period of time. Suits the manufacturers though as 20k service intervals help them sell ‘low maintainence’ cars to the fleet market, and so long as they get past third 3 year warranty period then they don’t care any more.

“What modern cars have done is taken the limits of grip to much higher speeds.

And added in a load of passive and active safety stuff to boot.

I would assume that the engine in an RS6 has different components to the more standard engine, at which point you would be stupid to stress the standard engine.

Yup the RS Audi’s have completely different engines, brakes, suspension, seats, body panels etc, etc to those used in any regular model. For my RS4 then apart from the basic shell, the only body panel shared with the standard A4 Avant is the roof panel and the boot – everything else is different. Same with what’s under the bonnet, it does share some components with the S4 but mostly it’s all different.

At a guess I’d say it’s only the body shell, some interior stuff (standard VAG components, connectors, trim panels), that’s the same as a regular A4.

Small point here – I enjoy driving. So you can stick your driverless cars up your Google.

Yes agree 100%. I enjoy the drive to the go mountain biking as much as the biking itself sometimes.

If you don’t enjoy driving, don’t like cars, simply feel that getting from A to B is all it’s about (in other words a chore) then why feel the need to comment on other people’s discussion of a thread around car power and enjoyment?

It’s like me wading into the local Beer Festival to warn people about the health and social perils of real ale, the extra strain placed on the NHS by people drinking too much real ale, and how all real ale should be limited to a maximum alcohol content of 3% for the good of the local neighborhood.

I’ll bite, but not in the usual way. I drive a 400hp+ 4×4 estate car as a daily drive and as you all probably know from previous threads, I do like to make use of that performance where safe and responsible to do so.

So why do I drive a 400hp car – because I need it? Not really, an estate with 1/2 the power would be fine for making progress. It’s because I enjoy driving something different, something who’s capabilities are way above average, and I appreciate the engineering that’s gone into the car to make it what it is. I also enjoy the immense feeling of acceleration and effortless torque that the car can generate, but only where safe to do so.

However despite this I would agree that the ‘arms race’ for horsepower has gone a bit crazy lately. 25 years ago, a hot hatchback with 130hp (e.g. 205 1.9Gti) was considered fast but these days 130hp wouldn’t even be considered mildly warm. 200-300hp is now where it’s at.

Yet driving a powerful car can sometimes be frustrating. Other motorists often don’t realise how capable such a car is, and I’ve been flashed by plenty of ‘self righteous’ sorts when performing perfectly safe and courteous overtakes. Lots more traffic these days means that rather than making progress you’re often forced into the routine of mindlessly trudging along at well below the speed limit with half the drivers doing the same seemingly more interested in their phones rather than the road ahead.

So the options to use a fast car to it’s potential on the road today are getting fewer and fewer, just as the horsepower ‘arms race’ really gets going. Cars with high horespower are supposed to be fun, but apart from occasional squirts on full power now most modern performance cars are far too capable to be truly fun. Brakes have got better, tyres better, suspension and handling have improved, driver aids (ESP etc) have made increased power much more usable but all this means is that these cars often feel dead at more mundane speeds. Modern performance cars are often far too big and heavy to thread down a B road with the same sort of gusto that the aforementioned 205 could muster.

I feel that the way forward now for the manufacturers should be to focus on making their cars lighter and more fun to drive at any speed rather than faster. The Toyota GT86 was a step in the right direction but it would be nice to see more manufacturers approaching things in the same direction. Less power and less weight would certainly be my choice when I come to replace my current car.

People seem to be scared of the ‘ruinous financial horrors’ of owning an older car. My girlfriend’s best friend sold her perfectly good old BMW and bought a new car simply because she’d had a bill of nearly £1,000 to replace a few things. So because she was scared and wanted to avoid future ‘unexpected’ bills, she went out and bought a nearly new car on finance which must have depreciated at least £4-5k in the first year she owned it. Crazy way of (not) saving money in my eyes!

Depends 100% on how it’s been looked after, maintained and cared for. When viewing cars, I’ve seen the same model completely trashed cosmetically and mechanically by 80k miles, yet seen others still going strong and still looking/feeling showroom fresh with twice that mileage simply because it’s been given all the TLC it needs by the owner.

Marin way better than Llandegla in my book, lovely scenery and feels like you’re pretty out in the wilds at times, where as at Llandegla you’ll probably have to fight for a car park space, queue for a bacon butty, and then have one of the over-biked full face brigade nipping at your heels the whole way round. Nothing wrong with fireroad climbs, gets them over and done with quickly and efficiently.

Think I’d prefer to spend my time actually riding the trail rather than watching footage of me riding a trail I’d already ridden. In the same way when I go to gigs, I prefer to watch the gig, with my own eyes rather than through the screen on an iPhone to watch at home later. I find life is more enjoyable that way :)

What I find most crazy is the guys I see out all the time go-pro’ing their surfing. It’s just some whitewater mush near Newquay, not exactly Hawai North Shore! Can’t imagine the the inlaws being impressed having to sit through half an hour of that sort of footage when they pop round for tea!

Audi RS’s bought by people who think they are into cars and watch too many top gear episodes on dave

Or how about by people who need a car to cart around the family, dog and a couple of mountain bikes but would also like to drive something thats fast, rare and capable (talking about the RS Avants here). Granted for the same money they could buy a Range Rover but perhaps they like to drive the thing and hate the whole blingy footballers wives image that buying an SUV entails.

Wait around 3 years and one of these could be had for £50k, or you could buy a 2-3 year old RS4 for £30k, roughly the same price as a reasonably species up new Mondeo.

Thanks guys, some good ideas there, not really screening them as such, just a few mates, a few beers, at home with a laptop and projector :)

I too am not a fan of auto cars and tend to avoid them like the plague wherever possible. However the hire car company, not having the manual 3 series I’d requested last year gave me an automatic 330d Touring xDrive instead for my 2 week work trip.

My daily drive is an RS4 and I love to press on wherever possible but must say I was really impressed with the 330d, lovely sounding 6cyl engine, never dropped below 40mpg despite some very hard driving and a huge amount of mid range and overtaking grunt. And the auto box in this was way better than anything I’ve driven before, much more responsive, didn’t hunt around for gears and seemed to know what I wanted from it without using the paddles.

Heard you can chip these to silly numbers, or there’s also the 335d which should be very rapid indeed. As a petrolhead I’ll still hold out for manual for as long as possible but I was still tempted by an automatic diesel – go figure???

OP, if there are no opportunities within your area then why not consider moving to an area where there are more? I’ve had to move across the country several times to further my career, just means driving to see family and making new friends. If I’d stayed where I grew up then I’d probably would have been still doing minimum wage stuff.

Alternatively with the current shortage of housing you could maybe not buy it and perhaps let a family who want to have the security of owning their own place a chance to get onto the housing ladder?

Fail to see the appeal of a new car when you can pick up a few year old, well looked after BMW M3 (or similar) for the same price as some brand new Hyundi sh*tbox that’ll loose half its value in depreciation over the first couple of years!

The M3 will also depreciate like a stone, until it’s old enough to become a classic. In the meantime you have to fuel, maintain, tax and insure it.

Or you can buy a sh*tbox Hyundai that will be taxed, insured and guaranteed for a few years. And cheaper on fuel.

Nope, older M3’s are hardly depreciating now. Yes Hyundai is cheaper on fuel/insurance but a holiday to Magaluf is cheaper than a trip to St Lucia, and which would you rather take every year?

Fail to see the appeal of a new car when you can pick up a few year old, well looked after BMW M3 (or similar) for the same price as some brand new Hyundi sh*tbox that’ll loose half its value in depreciation over the first couple of years!

It seems there are other factors there which might merit a higher priority rather than just focusing on speed because it’s easy to measure.

Agree 100%, yet all people seem to be obsessed about (including most on here) is speed, speed, speed! Such a shame that this very vocal, yet narrow minded focus on speed is distracting people’s attention from where the main improvements in driving safety can be found, probably costing 100’s of lives in the process.

The same argument could be made for driving too slowly. Remember seeing a video of a car side swiped on a dual carriageway by a truck pulling out suddenly into the outside lane to avoid another car that must have been traveling at approx 40mph in the inside lane. The truck driver obviously didn’t expect the car to be traveling so slowly but would be considered at fault for the accident by not being observant enough. Perhaps a minimum speed limit should also be set on some roads during good, dry conditions?

EVERYONE understands the difference between 80mph on a clear road and 80mph into a tree.

Thought for a moment there you’d considered 80mph on a clear road to be safe :wink:

Speed is a multiplier for accidents. It makes them harder to avoid

Try telling that to my ex GF. In the time I went out with her she’d had 5-6 car park accidents at no more than 5mph, yet no accidents out on the open road at higher speed!

Most people knowingly flout rules now tbh.

And yet casualty numbers seem to be reducing year on year?

What we are saying is YOU can do the best (you took extra training) but instead choose to use this advantage to allow you to go faster, so increasing the risk when compared to you doing the speed limit.

Yes I sometimes drive faster but in a way that’s appropriate to the conditions on the road, so no significant increase in risk. Of course I understand that in an accident the forces could be greater with more speed but the whole point about advanced driving is not getting into an accident in the first place.

Equally you could argue I pay more attention and my concentration and observation are markedly sharper when I travel faster so there’s a reduced risk there. My attention is solely focused on driving. I wish it could be the case that it’s possible to have this heightened sense of concentration when trundling along in a queue of traffic at well below the limit, but sadly like everyone else I’m human and occasionally in this situation my mind wanders.

Serious question – do you not think it is possible to learn these things yourself?

Yes to some degree and that’s what I did at first, but to have someone who know what they’re doing sat next to you giving tips and advice whilst you’re driving is a real eye opener 8O

Nice replies guys but by some of the crazy logic being shown here you could equally say that someone who hasn’t purchased the best handling, most competent and stable vehicle that they can afford, equipped with the best tyres is selfishly compromising the safety of themselves and all of the rest of us on the road. That’s a joke by the way but makes you think doesn’t it!

Anyone who spouts on about how important road safety is, yet hasn’t taken it upon themselves (through further training) to improve their own driving or observation skills etc since passing their test is a totally bonkers in my book and is probably not really best placed to preach to others on this matter.

Entirely true, doesn’t mean you should then put them at risk. Two wrongs dont make a right.

Can you please explain how driving at a speed thats appropriate to the road conditions, with due care and consideration for other road users, in a car that’s way more capable than average, with extra driver training thrown in on top is putting anyone at increased risk?

Which is fine, but other road users may not agree with your decision or be happy that you have made it for them.

Equally you could say that there might be others out there who might not agree with your discussion to shun additional driver training or be happy that you’re putting them at additional risk because you’ve neglected to improve your skills further since passing your test.

No 4, Molgrips – improved driver training and regular retesting, oh and perhaps a greater focus on other areas of driving standards and safety rather than the low hanging fruit it that is speeding.

Why not do both?

Because it’s sometimes possible given the right conditions to drive just as safely at a higher speed than a lower speed.

But what if its a 30 limit, then why would they think fast moving traffic was a possibility.

Because common sense should tell you that not everyone drives at a speed appropriate to the conditions, in much the same way that not everyone crossing the road looks properly before they cross. The onus is often on both parties to look out for themselves and take suitable precautions to avoid an accident.

In the same way as we teach kids how to cross the road, advanced training can help you assess what a suitable and safe speed is for any given conditions. In some conditions it’s perfectly safe, to drive more quickly – in others much better to slow right down to well below the legal limit if necessary.

I’d much rather be in the car with someone who uses their experience and brain to assess what an appropriate speed should be than someone who’s so blind as to think that so long as they’re not traveling above the speed limit then that makes them a safer driver than anyone else regardless of any additional training.