embers merino for me.
Have smartwool too, but its crap compared to Embers.

Building on what ScottChegg said. I have had a lot of success buying cars privately by asking "How much were you really hoping to get?".
Everyone who sells privately expects to haggle down. Asking this question quickly gets rid of the 5-10%.
Guage how much to offer from their response.
Also, don't make an offer until you have to.
As soon as you make an offer then you have just defined THE LEAST you are going to pay. Letting the seller come up with the numbers keeps them working. If you give them a figure then the game changes and it becomes a tug of war between your number and theirs.

I love buying cars.

Big fan of the Nikon wireless flash system.
It really transforms the pictures I can take.

You don't say the model, but second hand saabs are very cheap. 8k for a 5 year old one sounds very expensive. Best thing I do is search on autotrader and get a feel for what they go for. Also track a few on Ebay and find final selling price. That will give you a feel for the market.

Without commenting on colour temperature difference (camera and monitor could throw that out), I prefer black on both. As said above the range of colour differences that can be seen in the black is much better. On "blue" everything looks muted and similar colour.

I have an unused Ti456 Flame Blasted logo frame in 18" in my loft.
I bought it planning to build it up, havn't yet.
Now lusting after TD1 instead…ho hum.

njee20, those posts are stupid price!
These are virtually identical and a third of the cost.

cheap tat.

OK, miele is tempting.
So is LG.
My dad used to repair washing machines and fridges, so I know what I want, and its a well engineered machine that has great bearings, good quality motor and other components.
The option of delaying wash by an hour or three sounds good, as does something with a bigger load capacity.

Beloved wifey thinks any more than £200 is a waste… I need to educate that we NEED to spend more. Am currently trying comparisons between my mates rover 216 and her Volvo V40! Good engineering costs money.

Specific model numbers that people have/recommend would be most welcome.
Thanks.

j-cru…sorry for my NVQ4+ technobabble…..

ok here goes.

Big flying petrol can hits big metal and man-rock thing.
Petrol make metal bendy bendy hot hot….no no touchy.
Metal bend a bit.
man rock fall.

Bad bad things happen.

Now lets stop this crap and go to bed.

saladdodger…electric heating is VERY inefficient. If you don't believe me, turn of your gas central heating and buy a 3 bar electric fire for each room in the house.
Oh, you might also need to arrange an overdraft facility for the spring. 😈

….that said. Don't get me started on David Kelly.

There really are some nutters on STW these days. I thought we were an educated bunch and just argued on religion and whether Gordon's a moron or Gideons a gambler. This 911 stuff is really a surprise, as a chemist, and as someone who has heated many a steel thing in a fire, nothing that happened on that tragic day needed any extra "stuff".

Trout, that looks brilliant. Anything with brushless motors and Volvo bearings gets my vote. Shame about the cost! The LG direct drive ones look interesting.

Not really the best day for this crap.
I watched the footage many times and the day is burned in my memory (The JFK moment for our generation).
For me, if Bush can't plan an occupation of Iraq then I don't think for one moment his cronies could execute this as a conspiracy.
This was a horrible event and as said before the simplest explanation is also the most credible.
My thoughts go to those who lost their lives on this day and in the days (and countries) caused by this event.

The D5 ia an excellent engine. I have one in my XC90,they go on for ever, proper volvo engineering.
My mate has an 09 reg 2.0 V70. Fantastic car though not the best engine (the bloke at volvo dealer in leeds told me the current 2.0l engine is a ford unit!!! yet more reason to go for a D5.).
In our house we are huge fans of volvos. I maintain my own cars and the quality of all the bits you don't see is fantastic compared with ford/GM/french.

If you are on the volvo forum say hello, I have the same user name onthere.
See me on the V40 and XC90 forum.

Take along someone who you dislike and tell them to taste first.

And cars all have four wheels and an engine of some type. Your point is?

😉

Really not funny or well illustrated. And I am a big fan of Viz cartoons and others.
Sorry, but a waste of server storage.

Rio – Member

Its an ideological con.

No, it's what you'd expect from a Tory/Libdem government (has no-one read the Libdem constitution?). Now the previous government pi$$ing money against the wall to buy votes whilst pandering to its new middle class voters and at the same time pretending to be the Labour party – that was an idealogical con, this lot are just amateurs in comparison.

Most insightful post of the week.
The myth that anyone who votes libdem is more attuned to Labour than Tory really need de-bunking.
I know many who would be somehwere between Tory/Libdem and are really delighted to have a the pair of them in power.
For me, I agree with Labour spending more money on public services, what I despise though is the inefficient way this extra money has been spent, and the refusal to put the chequebook away 3-4 years ago when things started looking tricky with the economy.

To take the election period, in a way none of us got what we voted for. NONE of the parties would detail what cuts were needed. They couldn't otherwise no one would have voted for them. That sucks, but if one party had done it, then the other two would have singled them out as the "bad" party and they would have been decimated. IT was however quite easy to see through this pretence and realise that cuts were coming, just a bit faster and with more vigour with the conservatives.

My sincere and heartfelt condolences to all his friends and family.
Our armed forces are one of the best things about our country and I pass my respect and gratitude to them all.

A2's are brilliant. But you won't get one for £2000.

Thanks again for all the advice.
I had the car in bits today.
Turned out that all it needed was lube, grease and a big pair of pliers.
It was like servicing a pair of oversized Avid BB7's.

That bike is perfect, love the bars, the fork and the cranks.
Only thing missing is a rohloff.

They were great in the 60's, but lets face it they are crap compared with pretty much any modern car.
I had one as my first car. Rusty little pile of shyte.
In fact the austin metro I had after was an improvement.

Just out of curiosity I had a look on autotrader….jeesus…. £2000 for a 16 year old one litre car with an inefficient ancient engine design.

I am all for nostalgia, and classic design, but theres a lot of tat out there.

Thanks all, and particularly Takisawa2, I am sure that a career in the secret service awaits…."Now listen carefully Bond, refitting is the reversal of removal!"

I am sure I would have gotten a worse answer off a ford forum.

sorry meant for this to be in chat.

So has the lumems per watt and general efficiency flattened out a bit in the last year or so? I know that Fenix still havn't got a 2xAA torch better than the one I bought 2 years ago (Q5 or something), I accept that batteries and optics are being optimised, but are we anywhere near 500 lumens from a pair of double AA cells with a few hours run time??

It's fine. Me and a mate were there on Friday (getting overtaken mainly).
There was one section of singletrack through the woodland that had lost its smooth finish, but that just adds character.

As said above. Its the wattage that counts, though anything over 500 should be OK for most builds.
Personally I am a big fan of corsair powersupplies. Very stable and VERY quiet. Stay away from cheap ones as they will either be noisy or poor quality. Other number to look out for is efficiency rating. The higher the number the better the quality (and the lower your electricity bill!).
Antec are a fairly good brand, so their power supply ought to be halfway decent.

mines been the same for the last couple of weeks.
I assumed it was a PS Network problem.

In 15 years of bike and car faffing, frigging and fettling, I have never met an imperial hex bolt. My FACOM metric set however is well used.
Only time I could imagine using imperial is with cheap metric components where they are made to poor tolerances, so that the correct allen key is a loose fit?

I have an XC90, 99,000 mile late 2004 model D5 SE automatic with lots of extras on it (DVD, running bars, posh stereo, winter pack). Paid just over £9000 for it in April this year. So far so good on the reliability side.
The pre-2006 ones are know to wear out the link (spline) that drives the rear wheels, but that is not a huge problem if it happens. The D5 engine is very reliable and for a 6 year old car its in fantastic condition. If it lasts as well as my V40 (12 years, 163,000 miles and counting) then I will be happy.
As said above, they are not a drivers car. You have to get used to driving at a steady speed and cornering is not at all saloon like!

I bought it as a family bus now that the kids are in their teens, and the 4WD so I can get to work next winter without asking my mate with his RAV4!

Most retail coffee is suitable for a bodum type caffetiere.
If you want a really top notch crema then maybe grind your own or buy an espresso variety which is finer ground.
There are some really good preground coffees out there to choose from.
I use preground always in a Krups pumped espresso machine.

Bruneep's link says to NOT freeze coffee. I must say the link is talking rubbish. The oils in coffee will not degrade by freezing. From a chemists perspective the number one thing that will kill your coffee is oxygen. So keeping it airtight is important. The type of film used to make coffee packaging offers a good O2 barrier. Considering O2 molecules are much smaller than most macromolecules that would cause taint, I really would not worry about these getting through the bag. I don't freeze mine, but do keep in the fridge and roll down the bag top and hold with an elastic band.

Thats Easy…Claire every time. At least she would find it equally repugnant. Vanessa might enjoy it, and that would be wrong.

All three cars sound similar.
Don't forget that condition of brakes (ie how lipped are the discs) and condition of tyres will have a big factor on value, but often little on resale cost. If one car needs 4 tyres and discs all round in next 12 months then thats £1000 plus!

I have an HTC HD2 and for email its brilliant.
For "just working" and the sheer number of apps available I have to say that iphone has the market lead for a good reason!

As Coleman said.

well done.

search easecase on ebay.
Custom made in china, but really nice quality.
I have one for my HD2.