As Binners has said, I’ve skated a lot and I’m 50. Been on the things non stop for 13 years now, played roller derby for 3 teams at one point and played in the European Championships.

Roller skating was the end of my biking career, no driving hours to get to a trail or cleaning bikes, £3 for 3 hours of exercise, fun, and on the basis that 12 years of the 13 years I’ve skated has been with women I’ve met at the rink, it’s a shag palace too 🤣🤣

I think what you really need to do is starting using Microsoft One drive (or similar), store everything on the cloud and have it accessible from any machine.

I looked into this a while back, but I found that a lot of older file types won’t play in it. It’s a fair suggestion though.

I seem to remember someone here having an issue with leasing cars from Ling

Geordie Mick enters the chat….

Let’s not open that one up again.

FWIW, I have a Volvo lease car and I leased it from Volvo, had it 12 months and it’s a belter of a car.

Probably got a micro piece of muck in it, jet wash it again from various angles, that worked for me.

Thanks everyone, I ended up buying an Asus Zenbook 13″, 2TB SSD and 32gb ram, really nice little bit of kit.

Can anyone recommend a) software to enable me to back it up to my Seagate external 1TB HD?

Also, is there any way of plugging one laptop into the other and dragging files over to new one?

18 months is super generous, take it and have 3 months off then no doubt you’ll ace it into another role.

Nope, that’s crackers. Change the drive. If you’re not confident then I’ll do it for you for the price of a pint if you’re local enough to get it to me.

What’s caused it to run out of storage? Is it just a tiny drive, or have you filled it full of stuff that can (should) be backed off elsewhere?

I think it was you who partitioned this for me remotely when I first got it back in 2018.

I’ve filled the 320gb HD up with loads of videos of utter dross, but I’m a photo hoarder and have 200gb of family photos and MTB go pro stuff on a external HD. So the plan is to get everything on this new 2tb machine and then set up a back up.

I took this machine to a shop and he said it’s one of the ones that has a soldered SSD, so I’ll clear this one down and my daughter needs a laptop so she can have it, that way nothing goes to landfill. Even the battery still lasts 5 hours, it’s been a great machine.

Found this article online, is it the M2 SSD that has the storage, or the HDD? I’m confused already lol

https://www.toxicnerd.com/post/huawei-matebook-d15-ram-and-ssd-upgrade/59

We organising a STW skate night in Wigan then?

I’m in

+1!

Wigan has an over 18 bar too, so beer can be consumed too…

I’m an old school skater who picked skates back up in 2010 when I split up with the ex and my daughter wanted to go skating, low and behold, Wigan has one of the biggest rinks in Europe.

2010 to 2016 I used to spend 20+ hours a week on skates at the rink and 10 + hours a week playing/training roller derby. Skating is a way of life for me and to be honest, was the nail in the coffin for MTB for me.

Everyone has nostalgia for Bauer Turbo’s and a lot of the older guys like me, still think they’re cool. I personally thought they were crap first time round and still are.

Skating rinks are disappearing fast, Rollerworld in Colchester has just closed down after landlord tripled their rent, so the South has lost one of the biggest and best floors in the country, it was sublime and had a great vibe.

The only two true roller rinks left are Rollerworld in Derby and my local, Wigan Roller Rink which is now the biggest, by far.

You don’t need quads to be cool, plenty of us skate on fairly top end inlines (£800 a pair) and it’s about personal preference.

Cheap skates don’t last, it really is that simple. I bought a £900 pair in 2013 and used them for 20-30 hours a week until I sold them in 2018 and the lad who bought them still uses them 10+ hours a week now, only thing changed on them is wheels, they have their original bearings etc.

I’m not being funny (honest), but surely there’s a YouTube video/channel for how to make YouTube videos with just a phone & laptop?

Probably, but every time I search for stuff like this I end up hitting click bait and stuff that has to be paid for, which I don’t mind, but would rather buy on the back of someone’s recommendation, instead of a sponsored ad/review.

You asked a question. People are trying to tell you the answer. If you’re determined not to listen, I’m out.

I’m listening, however, I’m not going to listen to people telling me cos the wife has a £50k we should just ‘suck it up’ or saying I have to declare it at renewal when we’ve had it confirmed we don’t, by our own insurer.

Do you know that you’ll lose your NCB?

Because it’s happened to me before when I got knocked off my motorbike by a taxi, as there was no witnesses I had to claim from my own policy and lost two years NCD.

Having a £50k car and faffing over a couple of hundred quid on the insurance for said car do not go hand in hand.

But it’s not faffing over a couple of hundred quid it could be thousands by the time we’ve had to spend another two years paying increased premiums to get back to the level we are now, for the sake of a £500 repair.

But you can obviously put the insurance premium through as a business expense.

Nope. We’re both PAYE.

(and £1600 isn’t really that wild in terms of premiums – a new driver of a 1.0L fiesta will pay well over £1200. But if you’ve not got kids and have been protected by driving a business-supplied vehicle for this long then it may come as a shock)

We’re both nearly 50, got 30 + years of driving behind us and are both building up no claims from driving company cars. We know exactly what the situation with insurance was. This was all calculated in and if the Mrs had stuffed the car into a lamp post then it would be going through the insurance and we’d have to take the pain on the chin.

it wasn’t, it was caused by a shitbag who damaged the car and run and did a little bit of damage that isn’t worth the risk of an increased claim.

Is that really so Fkn hard for people to get their heads around?

You need to inform them whether claiming or not as it changes your risk. What are you trying to hide from them?

How does repairing a bumper change the risk?

Please enlighten me? The car was declared at doing 15k a year and it’s done 5k a year, so if anything we’re now LESS likely to have a claim.

The car was parked in a public car park, is the policy going to shoot up because we didn’t inform the insurance company that we dared to park in a public car park?

Clutching at straws there really, but hey, anything to keep an argument alive.

Utter rubbish. You are just playing semantics to suit your narrative. You’ll be just as bad as the guy that hit you when you commit fraud at renewal time.

Ok Mr pedantic, if that’s what you want to believe then you crack on…

Update: Text from other party to say £500 being paid into my account in the next hour.

Obviously an old account that never gets used.

Does anyone here think OP is going to declare this come renewal time?

As mentioned before, I’ve checked, it’s not a claim. I’ve just checked the policy wording on my insurance proposal form for my car and the wording states “accidents or incidents that are likely to lead to a claim”

Unless the perp of this whole incident is suddenly going to claim off our policy, then no is the answer, no need to inform.

As a responsible citizen you should be handing the whole matter over to the police.

a) It was reported to the Police when it happened, who informed us they’d look for the car but wouldn’t investigate as it’s non injury.
b) he arranged to meet me on Wednesday night and I went to local nick to tip them off he’d be there and showed them his texts confirming he’d be in his car, they had the wrong registration despite being corrected previously, twice.
c) when he bailed from that meeting I rang them again to tell them not to come to that RVP and they still had the wrong registration, so they were looking for the wrong car anyways.

When I located his car at his house, that was in a different Police force. I spent 40 minutes on phone to 101 and they fobbed me off saying I had to report it to the other force who would have to take the lead and inform them.

So tell me I haven’t done enough?

This was the right thing to do seeing as you’d figured where the car ‘lives’ – make our shared roads safer

See above.

The fact that you are not doing this and trying to justify it by taking coming over all sympathetic to his situation because you are trying to outfox the system, makes you no better than him.

The broker we use told us we are under no obligation to claim off the insurance. The police confirmed we do not have to claim off the insurance. There’s NO law that stated we have to claim off insurance.

Here’s some maths behind my decision:

with 5 years NCD (not protected) the policy costs £900 a year. If we claim AND we lose two years NCD then that policy next year will be well over £1600, who knows until that time comes, could be higher. Because of the business use we can’t get competitive quotes from usual sources. So it’s financially better to suffer the cost of a £500 repair to protect ourselves from an increased premium and next year our insurance should come down further, so in reality I’m probably saving £900, assuming the scrote pays back the £500.

You are literally prepared to overlook his illegal behaviour because you reckon it will save you a few quid.

See my first comment, his behaviour hasn’t been overlooked at all.

Yeah it would be a new model, or the new model Trafic type van

If you can afford a new van, I’d spend the money on a used Transit Custom. Mine was faultless and the cabin space was bigger and far more useable than VW at least.

You criticised me for being “personal” but your explanation is all over the place. All this drama and faff for what, a couple of hundred quid cash over your insurance excess on a £50k motor?

To be fair to you, it has been a bit all over the place as when I first quoted £800 that was a guess by me for a repair. Our mate has now given an estimate of £500 to repair the bumper and respray it etc. The £870 is the cost for a brand new bumper form Mercedes which would need resprayed and all the ancillaries such as trims, reflectors, exhaust tips, sensors etc. An insurance job would easily be heading towards £2k. For reasons previously stated, I don’t want a £2k claim on record for something that can be done for less.

One thing I think we can all take away from this is that if you can’t afford to insure your “high value convertible” then you shouldn’t have bought it in the first place.

But some people have “different” priorities I guess.

(And carrying out a cheap repair on an expensive car is not really a good idea)

LMAO! Who said we can’t afford it? I’ve got a brand new £47k car and the Mrs has the car in question. What I’m trying to achieve is remove the risk of expensive car insurance becoming even more expensive because we’ve had a claim on our policy. As previously mentioned, we’re both ex company car drivers an despite being near 50 and having no points, both cars are insured for full business use and we both don’t have full NCD as for the last 4 years we’ve been building up our NCD.

When we ‘compare the market’ we get hideous quotes, so we both use specialist brokers and my whole point of this post, was to establish whether we get a repair direct from a bodyshop which is not much more than the excess we’d lose by using insurance.

It’s not a cheap repair, the underside has been inspected today and it’s good to be plasti welded behind the split and filled, resprayed. It’s plastic bumper, none of the integrity of the nudge bar or styrofoam behind the bumper has been compromised.

Though I must say from the amount of grief the op seems to go through regarding cars I really have to wonder if he might not be better off giving them up

I do 30k a year, had no points for 15 years and not had a bigger claim than £2k, last one being 2007. The Mrs does 5k a year and this happened at a country park no more than a mile from home. You just can’t predict when shit like this happens.

Always turns out rosy in the end though, against all odds.
RM +1

Despite the general consensus of opinion that I’m some sort of charlatan, I’m a very tenacious, fair person and have a conscience. The dialogue I’ve had with this guy today made me feel (now he’s cornered of course) he is quite remorseful and genuine. I’ve given him the option to recompense us for a quality and sufficient repair instead of allowing the insurance bodyshop turn this into a massive lunch for them to dine out on.

You deliberately had a scroat come to your house in his uninsured shitbox and you’re arsing about for £500 of his cocaine/weed profits.
Braver than me.

I had to think long and hard about it, but once he coughed up he was very genuine, he’s having a hard time and my thoughts were having his car seized and six points on his license won’t help his situation. He knows i know where he lives, he said I was very generous is allowing him to take that option and knows not to abuse that generosity.

The next few days will tell.

RM +1

Still don’t know what that means lol

Can you live stream? This could go viral…

A la Tommy Robinson style 😂😂

He’s been, had the brass neck to turn up in his car that’s still not insured. He’s admitted in a text his ‘real name’ so makes me curious as to whether he’s come instead of the culprit. He also started to inspect the front of the car, when I pointed out he hit the back he looked confused.

I’m now dubious as to whether he’s the actual driver.

Pointed out to him the bumper is £870 + respray, labour etc and we’re happy to have it repaired by a panel beater we know who is excellent, for the £500 he’s quoted.

He seemed really appreciative and agreed it was a fair cost now he’s seen the damage under the cold light of day (his words).

He asked me if he can have til the end of the weekend to pay up, which we have and has said I’m fine to keep his phone/house/car keys until it’s paid.

All of our discussions were discussed directly under a CCTV camera and his car is in view too.

Still dismayed at he’s more than happy to drive about in an uninsured car with the full confidence he’ll probably not get nabbed of the Police.

Well you’re a braver man than me. I’d fully expect “him” to turn out to be seven people of the sort you’d expect to offer to tarmac your drive or sell you something wrapped up into rectangular blocks with clingfilm and tape, squashed into the back of his uninsured car who then suggest I crashed into him.

He knows I have the keys to his house and car.

Any news on the ‘meet up’ ? I guess he doesn’t know you are the owner of the car that got damaged. This could be interesting !

He bailed on me last night, so after finding his car and address, I whatsapped him a photo of his car. He’s coughed up, sent me a text asking to come over after work to discuss and make an arrangement.

He’s due in half hour…

Such an important sole purpose that you didn’t mention it once until just now

My apologies for not being clear on a subject that I had no experience of, hence why I asked the question. If I knew how MIB worked then I wouldn’t have asked the question…

I’ll try and research the answer to a question before I ask a question next time, just so I can make my question pedantically obvious to all.

And you’ll still have to tell them come renewal time because the repair may affect the insured value.

That’s affected by depreciation anyways, having a high quality repair done on the car won’t affect it, in the same way if someone had their alloys scuffs cleaned up. It’s a Mercedes E Class not a McLaren.

The only way I can see that course of action having a positive outcome is if a driver who has fled the scene of an accident suddenly has an attack of conscience, and your good self is able to keep to a straight story.

I now have found where he lives and I’m meeting him this afternoon. He clearly swapped his virtual sim over on Sunday from the phone I had as it stopped ringing, so I text him saying I’d found his phone and been texting with him arranging with him to meet him to retrieve his phone.

During this dialogue he’s let slip his location and hey presto, I drove there last night and being sceptical me, I profiled exactly where I’d find an uninsured, un-taxed, non MOT’d car and found it parked outside his house, it took me literally 10 minutes to find it. Once DVLA send back keepers details it should confirm it.

Both of which seem somewhat unlikely

You just can’t help but get personal on my posts? Does it give you some sort of boner to continually personally attack me? 2 year ago you where the great guy who formatted my PC for me, but now you just have continual digs, make me out to be some sort of charlatan who’s stitching people up and dodgy. It’s draining mate, I’ve never stitched anyone up in my life and ONLY YOU seem to turn my posts into an episode where I feel attacked for trying to do the right thing.

Well here’s a dilemma that you can advise me on:

In the absence of any help from the Police, I’ve been a bit shrewd and text the guy as he knows I have his phone, he wants it back. He’s agreed to meet me tonight to handover his phone (he doesn’t know I have his keys). I’ genuinely curious as to why he wants a £130 Argos phone back that’s got a knackered screen, so I’m thinking it may have dodgy content.

My natural temptation is to tip off the Rozzers and tell them an uninsured driver will be meeting up with me, in a car that’s had no tax or MOT for nearly a year.

As you’ve turned this into a scenario that I’m clearly an insurance fraudster who’s trying to evade a claim and such a slippery customer, what would you do??

I think I should tip the Police off, get an uninsured driver off the road and then ask him to confirm his details and give him an opportunity to offer some sort of agreement to pay back the money?

I get the impression you’re going to suggest I should apologise to him, give him some money for his fuel and tell him not to worry, I’m going to claim off our own policy for a £600 repair which means we’d lose £400 excess and 2 years NCD, meaning next year we’ll be paying even more than we do now.

Please enlighten me, without shitty digs and judgement.

I can totally relate to this and tend to suffer this during the week whilst at home on my own.

I’ve been fighting with my own thoughts for a few years and going round in circles.

Why don’t we form one?, take it online and offload? Can’t be that difficult to organise via zoom/teams?

Unite have form for treating the students like cattle.

Ex letting agent here…

Students have form for behaving like animals.

To answer your question, Unite will have a clause in the contract and they need to have it if they deem it necessary to move the ‘tenant’ in case of them not wanting to move for repairs.

They’re doing their legal obligation and offering alternative digs.

I can’t believe you are considering anything other than a MB authorised repair on a £50k

It’s a 4″ split in the top of the bumper and a bent exhaust tip. Absolute basics of bodyshop stuff. We had alloy wheel insurance with Mercedes and the first scuff they sent out Chips Away who wanted to dremel drill the surface and spray the damage. We paid to have them done properly on a diamond cutter, which was in the back of a Luton van. MB don’t have particularly high standards.

If you can afford a high value car in an area with high insurance premiums, then surely you have protected no-claims or understand that the insurance can get pricey?

Both Mrs and I are both Ex company car drivers and are in the process of building NCD, protecting the NCD isn’t an option yet.

It’s literally your opening sentence. You want to make an insurance claim without telling your insurers.

I’ve not once said I want to make an insurance claim without telling our insurers, how is that even possible? I asked if anyone has used MIB and at that point I was totally unaware of how it works. I’ve since found (via a comment on this thread) that I can’t claim through MIB and have to through insurance.

The sole purpose of this post was to weigh up whether the cost of the repair LESS our excess is worth the risk of an increased premium vs self funding the repair ourselves…

You can afford to get it fixed then. What are you complaining about?

We can, I’m not complaining, again, I’ve come to here for some advice. My complaint is more about the lack of respect from the dkhead who damaged our car, I can forgive the Police for being data anal.

No you don’t. Your insurance company does.

Wrong, wrong and still wrong. I’ve rang them today anonymously and they’ve told me on this sort of instance I DO NOT have to declare anything that’s not being claimed for. Just in the same way I didn’t have to declare them when we’ve had the wheels re-cut after scuffing them or re-dying the roof after the neighbour ruined it with a Stihl saw dust.

if you scraped my 18year old Volvo the outcome would have been the same – just because it isnt a 50k car doesnt mean it shouldn’t be in the condition it was in before you dragged a trailer past it.

Totally agree, however, it’s not to be used as an opportunity to refresh the rest of the car and cover up other damage not related to the incident, which was blatantly the case in my example.

aren’t you the fella who tried pulling a fast one on Ling and got completely pwned

*owned

Yes it was me, and no I wasn’t owned. After thousands of replies and lots of too-ing and fro-ing it emerged that she tried to imply that the car was a special order, when it wasn’t, it was already in the build schedule and legislation was unearthed to point out to her that a car with a list of options to select is not a special order. It also showed her terms of business were also unfair (at that time), but well done for bringing it up, it was only 5 years ago.

His insurance company claimed from the MIB but I’m not sure on any excess or if his premium went up. Took some time to sort out, if I remember.

That’s a good reply, thank you , however, we had just about agreed to buy a new car the day before and this incident has scuppered that for now.

UPDATE:
Just spoke to the Police again, the detail that I missed is Lancashire Police have a policy of not pursuing accidents where there was no injury. So despite there being a crime committed, they have effectively turned this into a civil issue by saying I should pursue the other driver through insurance/civil courts.

He confirmed he has their info and could potentially release it, but wasn’t convinced I’d done my research enough by quoting ‘under Section 35 of the DPA’..

Meh, i prefer the Growler myself 😁

The Ginger Growler?

https://mobile.twitter.com/_DHOTYA 😉
RM.

What does that even mean?

You were involved in an accident, unless you were driven into deliberately and there’s more to this story than you’re letting on. You will need to inform your insurance company.

It wasn’t an accident at all. Someone whilst reversing, hit our car. As much as he’s an uninsured low life, he was just reversing out of his space when he did it.

Why do you say there’s more to this story than I’m letting on? Again, I’m genuinely dumbfounded as to why you come up with that.

You seem to want to claim on insurance without notifying your insurer.

Absolutely not and I’m not sure how you even come up with that, given what I’ve written. We have a £50k car that costs a bomb to insure due to it’s insurance group, value and probably our postcode as it’s the same as the shithole town nearby that is full of uninsured drivers ad 4 cars were taken in one night in our street via keys a few year ago. Despite having 9 years NCD, the Mrs has to absolutely trawl the market every year to get something half reasonable.

I’ve been here before when I scraped someone’s stationary car in a petrol station with my trailer, the real world damage was about £500 which I offered to pay. By the time she got her insurers involved it became a new door skin, half the car painted and two weeks for a hire car. It was a nine year old car and the insurance system absolutely fleeced it for every penny they could and I lost two years no claims.

I was knocked off my motorbike in 2007 and again, the claim was eye watering and 4 years later the insurers tried to sue me for the cost of the hire bike I had for the duration, the only way I got off with the £4k bill was because I didn’t sign the hire agreement for the bike when it was delivered. They also went 50/50 on my behalf and I lost my two years NCD which meant I had to sell my bike as it was uninsurable, despite the accident being none of my fault.

I’m trying to work out whether it’s just as easy to fox it ourselves using a local body shop who will fix the scuff, put the trims back together and weld the back of the bumper and fix the small split instead of a whole new bumper which is OTT.

Be aware however that modern bumper systems are designed to crush internally on impact to absorb a blow – once. If this is what’s happened and you’re planning on bodging it then, well, if it happens again at speed I hope she has life insurance

Agreed and upon a quick inspection at the crush bar and packing, it’s all totally A1. But point taken.

Of course the police aren’t going to give you his details. What did you expect?

He’s committed a crime, we have FOUR witnesses and we have a legitimate reason for his details for civil recovery purposes.

Given that you say you’ll be “popping by his house with the bill” if you do get his details, what are your next steps if he tells you to stick it up your arse?

Then, A) I know that it is him and where he lives, B) I have an address to file a CCJ to C) I can keep tabs on whether he’s still driving his uninsured, untaxed and MOT’d car and notify the Police when he does.

1. It’s going to cost you anyway come renewal, as you have to declare incidents.
2. This is what your insurance is for.
3. Turning up on a dodgy blokes doorstep with a large bill may not be the brightest of moves.
4. Holding on to his phone and keys is theft.

1. *accidents – we have not had an accident. Someone has damaged our car and it is always our option to claim or not claim from insurance.
2. See above.
3. Crashing into someone else’s car, leaving your phone and keys at the scene isn’t either, but hey if I get his address info then I can make that assessment and make a decision as to whether I approach him, or indeed find evidence of him driving his car and get an opportunity for the Police to catch him driving it and get it taken off him.
4. Police have actually told me to keep hold of them. I didn’t steal them, they were given to me by witnesses.

Please, don’t ever do jury service.

I had similar. I was fully comp. The nicked car that crashed into my parked car was uninsured.

My premiums went through the roof.

The exact reason why I posted this. I’ve been here before 20 years ago and got walloped, despite being non fault.

Nice bike. I’ve been off them for 15 years and today had to resist buying a new Multistrada. I’m a total sucker for an adventure bike.

Just sold my 6 year old E Class saloon that was serviced by MB Tech in Warrington from new and my Mr’s E class Cabriolet has jus had it’s first MOT and has been serviced by them from new too.

The savings are immense, all services are recorded on Mercedes digital record system and the attention to detail is way, way higher than MB dealer.

We had a warranty issue with the Cabriolet and it was into the main dealer five times, it was only resolved by an incident when the mirrors wouldn’t fold out so we rang merc assistance and they sent someone out and sorted the issue the dealers had tried five times, in 20 minutes.

The Mrs is looking to sell her cabriolet and as it’s in mint condition, low miles it’s getting some really generous offers and having it done by an independent has had zero impact on it’s value.

when I was selling mine I wanted another E class and rang three merc dealers in the North West and not one of them could be arsed to ring me back. I ended up buying a new Volvo V60 R Design that was in a showroom. It lasted 3 weeks and 800 miles before breaking down pmsl.

I stayed Regularly at the Double Tree by Hilton and the underground car park there is plenty tall for a van. Also, if you stay there you park for free too, saving £22 a day.

Op, did you check wbac and others to see what their prices were before you heard their px offer? And if so, how did their offer compare? Was it +3k

I would have thought anyone would do that before considering a px considering how easy it is.

Yep, done that and they offered me £800 more than WBAC, I suspected the uplift was from the decent margin in the new car and when I mentioned it this morning they confirmed exactly what they done.

I’d advertised the car in a private Merc group and the value was around the right mark, hence why I did the deal.

I think you’ve missed my point.

People are arguing that you should accept their mistake and allow them to revise it, after you’ve signed a contract. What I’m saying is if the mistake had been in their favour rather than in yours, say they’d recorded the odometer as 185k, I’m dubious that you’d get anything from them other than “sorry but you signed the contract so too bad.”

Then please accept my apologies, but I totally agree, they’d shaft me.

and now that’s £3k different between what they offered you and what they say they should have offered you?

They say the car with 85k is worth £3k less than they paid, which is ridiculous, even WBAC only has £1200 difference.

True honesty would have said ‘that’s a good deal but I think you’ve entered the numbers wrong somewhere’.

They offered me exactly what I thought they would, it was about £800 more than WBAC quoted. And as they confirmed this morning, they upped the offer using some margin from the new car.

I asked earlier about ‘gift horse’ – and it was denied. £3K would have had my spidey senses tingling, tbh, then again the new car is what, £35K+ so maybe £3K is in the noise?

The car was £47k. the’£3k’ was only ever mentioned last night when they rang me up to discuss the issue AFTER picking up the new car. So there was no opportunity for my ‘spidey senses’ tingle, they paid exactly what I thought they would for an immaculate, well maintained sought after Mercedes.