I can vouch for what Daffy says about the N53 engine being brittle. I’d avoid that particular engine. I had one in my e90 325i and it absolutely loved coil packs and injectors. Depending on the particular manner in which the injector decided to lunch itself it would cost between £200-350 a pop to sort out (with 6 cylinders it is a concern). One of mine failed in the open position so when the ECU tried to shut down that cylinder due to misfire it continued to piss fuel in there eventually forcing fuel past piston and contaminating oil..

Also – uprading an N53 from 25i to 30i is not simple and costs about 2.5K IIRC (there is a 3 stage intake with some electrical gubbins to plumb in that changes the intake length according to where you are in the rev range, effectively giving a slight forced induction effect).

I think a lot of the problems are to do wih this engine being an early adopter of direct injection in petrol engines and it is a bit sensitive to fuel quality (don’t think it was sod in regions with poor fuel quality). It also means the engine sounds diesely/tapatty on tickover. Mind you, my new 135i sounds just as crap on tickover.

I’d go for the Porsche. A nice early 987 in ‘S’ if you can get one. Mind you a mate of mine had the 245bhp 2.7 with all the right toys, colour, wheels etc. and it was a lovely car.

135i is stupid fast but if you’re after “fantasy” then a Porcshe badge and a naturally aspirated soundtrack is more appropriate

I’m no expert but the photos from the report look a mess. I need to speak speak with the company on Monday so could discuss it then. Cheers

Cheers all. Only reason I think it’s that deep is because there is a step between our drive and next doors so it will probably either be deep or slope steeply. Bit of a ball ache at times this home ownership malarkey!

Thanks footflaps. Probably a bigger job than I was expecting.. And messy!

There are good deals on the Golf R hatch at the moment. I’ve seen 230 in the last few days on a basic 3dr manual on a 9+23 with 8k pa. If lease is no good (e.g. Having to find new deposit every two years) and you want a PCP then spec up exactly as u want, get a quote and use as a lever in negotiating your PCP. You should be able to negotiate the deposit contributions to get the monthlys to hopefully match the lease monthly costs (or near enough). My understanding is that dealers can’t do anything at the back end of the deal (I.e. Residuals and balloon payment as this is fixed based on depreciation models) so the negotiation is on the front end of the deal

I did a load of research into all these amazing lease deals. My understanding from about 12 months ago was that a financial institution approaches a manufacturer and agrees to buy X’000 units and negotiates big discounts based on the volume (that even big dealer networks can’t match). Each of the units in the batch is there allocated to a lease co. That’s why when some random lease company is offering Golf R’s for 230/month there are another 20 lease co’s offering the same. But when the batch is gone it’s gone. I specced up a 335 tourer then rang back the next day and they were gone. Next time I seen them they were +100 a month steeper. So if you want one then get one (or at least get the quote sent to you).

Aged 14 I had just delivered a daily mail to the old dear on my local paper round. Just as I jumped back on my bike (a Peugeot I think!) and began heading down the street I hear her screaming and running after me in her dressing gown:

“OI YOU! COME BACK! Where’s my bloody Weekend magazine?!?!”

Me:

“It’s Friday”

Fair play to her she did give me a decent tip that Christmas.. £10 I think, which was more than my weekly wage from the papershop!

Fair play. I hadn’t considered all of those points. Obviously hard without seeing the job but I still think 200 is steep for the work described! Maybe I’m just used to Geordie prices. I’ll get back to disrupting metro services with peodo banners now..

No he doesn’t but at 200 for 1/2 day rate even if you take off 50% for all that ^^^ it’s still a canny little earner!!

I really am in the wrong job!! 1/2 a day and 200 quid to connect a toilet and a sink to a water supply 1 metre away..

To answer your question he’ll isolate the bit he wants to cut, cut it and have wee bucket/tray to catch the water then T off that bit of pipe and run some pipe to the sink and toilet before turning water back on.

Is the job accessible? I.e. will the plumber need to lift flooring, panels, etc to do the work. If it’s all exposed and ready to connect up it should be a VERY quick job for a plumber. As above, you’ll still be looking at £100 like.. Where are you based?

As has already been said – this should be an easy DIY job. £20 in screwfix for some plastic pipe, a cutter and some fittings, plus an hour of your time. Make sure you put the pipe inserts in though!

Agree with the above comments on any pipework on show, when I did my bathroom for instance the towel rail has copper “tails” although everything behind the scenes is plastic – it really is a doddle. I am not a plumber.

Also – the amount of people that see me in cycling gear at work and then stay stuff like “is your car in the garage?” is unbelievable!

Not only is cycling to the office in the city centre cheaper, healthier, etc. etc. it is ******* quicker! Lunchtime rant over.

Just picking up on this thread second time around. What an absolute load of old shite she is talking in both of the articles. Increased pollution?! WTF. Arr aye pet I’m well known for breathing out nitric oxide as I pedal along on my bike you thick ****.

I think some people have just got a block on this stuff and she is obviously one of them. I’ve mentioned it on here before but there are a couple of blokes at work (normally intelligent, sensible people) who strongly dislike cyclists for no apparent/logical reason.

See plenty of it in the North East. If I’m in the car and traffic is heavy I normally give a quick stealth blast of the horn.. Some stop texting/twitting/etc. but most do not GAF.

Read the link and watched that Rick Stanton video. Really interesting but tragic story on the BBC. I had no idea how much gear they needed to take with them and the lengths/depths of the dives were much greater than I had imagined. Fascinating but truly scary stuff.

Parking infringements (double yellows, near crossings, etc.). I’ll end up doing serious jail time for some clown one day.

Oh, and my Girlfriend turning the wheel on my brand new car lock to lock while stationary… Arrgghhh stop it! (Think this may belong on the other thread..)

Toothpaste here too.. She’s not even a “middle squeezer”, more of a “top squeezer”! We’ve had full blown arguments about it but nowt changes.

Tailgating. Every time I’m in the car with her. Doesn’t even know she’s doing it or why it’s ill advised.
“Can you please drop back darling”
“WHAT?! I’ve been driving this long and never had a crash bla blah blah don’t you bloody tell me how to drive my car who the hell bla blah..”

Also car servicing and maintenance. Seems to think it’s optional. Oil service light been on for couple months (it’s £75 at the local mini indie) but things like curtains and haircuts are obviously more important..

Issue with the Phaetons used to be finding someone who knew what they were doing with the things when it comes to servicing and repairs.. Not even all the dealerships were equipped is what I heard! Not sure if that has changed?

Worth considering saloon vs hatch/estate. If road noise is important then a saloon does a really good job of isolating noise from the rear axle (sheet of metal rather than flimsy parcel shelf). Saloons often cheaper but obviously less practical..

I reckon e class as noted or maybe a 525d both in auto. Go for SE trim if it’s the Beemer.

No idea but the waterless urinals in McDs make me laugh… “This urinal saves 100,000 litres of water of year”. Aye? It also stinks of piss!

Aye sometimes. Interestingly the ZF auto in my 135i keeps hold of gears til the very death! Beyond what I would if it was a manual. When I first got it and popped it in Sport mode then reached for the kickdown I thought it was broken.. Don’t get me wrong it sounded glorious but I was just thinking “is it EVER going to upshift?!”. As others have said there are other sweet spots in the rev range too – there’s a lovely spot around 3200rpm (I’ve found the same in other straight 6 Beemers)

The GFs Mini Cooper 1.6i gets a fair ragging but sounds mechanically harsh within 1000rpm of the limit so I always feel bad on the poor thing afterwards!

Some really useful info here. I was about to start looking into this after getting some informal sign-off from the other half..

She is dead against motorbikes, however, after getting an itch for some 4WD four-banger turbo fun, I threatened to buy a white Evo 6 and I think her response was something like: “No chance, I wouldn’t even have it on the drive never mind drive the bloody thing, horrible charva car, disgusting, would rather you had a motorbike”. Good enough for me! :D

Was going to just do my CBT first and get a little Suzuki Van Van or similar.. but some of the different routes to a full license up there ^^^ have got me thinking.

Bloody hell I’m glad I live up in Newcastle!! Paid 2500 for the whole house (3 bed) including boarding every single ceiling! 500 sounds okay. 900 is having a laugh. Materials are next to nowt

Some useful info there Somafunk, cheers. Think I’m going to order one of those in the near future. Plan is to plug it into the power socket in the boot and run wire along the top of the doors inside to the rear view mirror. Do you reckon the wires supplied are long enough for this or do they assume you’ll plug it into the front ciggy lighter?

I’d really like a go/sit in one just to feel the acceleration. I didn’t realise how fast they were until I seen a few at Goodwood last year tearing off from a standstill pretty much quicker than anyting else there. There was a puzzled moment where me and my mate just looked at each other with a “WTF” look pasted all over our dials!

Couple of people at work have been passengers in Model S’s and described the acceleration as being like those rollercoasters that fire you from a standstill.

Cheers molgrips – I’m less nervous about tucking wires now! I can’t imagine an airbag directly in me bracket would be a pleasant experience..

Good thread. Interested in a dashcam after a few near misses over the bank holiday weekend with people pulling out in front of me etc.

My main concern, and as already touched upon above, is making it discreet by hiding wires.. People who have installed themselves how did you get the wires behind the A pillar internal panels – did you just “tuck” them in or remove the panel? I’m a bit nervous to touch anything with “AIRBAG” written on it… which seems to be pretty much everything in a modern car!

Fitted our IKEA kitchen (1st time for me) about 12 months ago with the new METOD “rail” system and I thought it was very good. As noted the rail will need packing etc. where walls aren’t straight but ours weren’t too bad.

Agree with most of the above but the void is about 8-10mm rather than being none existent so you can get away with electrical routing without disturbing the inside of the carcass but certainly not plumbing..

We got the IKEA bespoke worktops as we wanted a breakfast bar and these are manaufactured in germany – they’re really very good and all the joints are cut and ready to just bolt together with biscuit joints underneath. Again – the pre-prepped worktops assume you have perfect 90 degree angles in the corners etc.

Only thing I would re-iterate from above is get the ikea integrated dishwasher. We got a load of Siemens stuff cheap through friends and family discount but IKEA urged me to get the dishwasher from them. I was dubious at first but after fitting the IKEA dishwasher I realised anything else would have been a king sized pain in the arse (tall cabinets with short kickboards mean a sliding mechansim is required).

Good luck with the project.

Aye lost credibility with that one in the dry.. Good craic between them so far though!

We’ve got an R56 (’59 reg) Cooper. It’s a cracking daily driver. I take it when working away to keep miles off the “nice” car. It’s on 16’s and wouldn’t want any bigger – it rides hard but not crackers on these wheels. Ours has chilli pack which gets you half leather seats, light pack, heated mirrors and some styling bits and bobs etc. etc. – not essential but nice to have. One thing to note is that they chew a bit of oil (variable valve gubbins I think) and there is no warning and the dipstick is crap to read. It seems to have an intermittent fault on the stop/start that I havent had looked at yet but I just turn it off.

As noted by tinas some require the replacement of the whole cross member under the bumper (like my old 3 series) and will be more of a pain. If you want to know if there’s cutting involved just ring the indie you got the quote from and ask them – that’s what I did as I wanted to know if they’d be hacking away at my car (they weren’t!)

Having said all of that I got mine done for about £340 all in for a Thule detachable so your quotes are steep. This was a towbar indie in Durham.

Couple of my mates shared a house for about a year. When one moved out I took the room and noticed the dryer performance was sub-optimal… I pulled (yarked!) the filter out and i could have made several jumpers from the material in there… I enquired with my mate as to when the last time he emptied the filter was. His response?

“what’s that then?” 8O

Chelmsford and St Albans for the last two 2nd hand ones from Newcastle so a canny trek. As above I love the drive home in a new toy! The cars were a 4 year old Mini Cooper and a 4 year old 325. Both were great spec, right colour, price, mileage etc. What’s a day for something you’ll probably have for 3 years? Got to have some good conversations on the phone with seller, extra pics and stuff mind. Maybe I’ve just hit lucky but I’d do it again.. I told each of the sellers (one was indie garage and one private) that I was coming a LONG way and if there was something they weren’t telling me that I found on the day I would be less than happy. Having said all that I’ve recently bought new from a local dealer which was particularly easy but maybe not as exciting?!

Wouldn’t have happened in a Golf R estate, could overtake 5 cars nee botha in one of them…

Oh.. and be careful! I used all manner of power tools but the thing I very nearly hurt myself with? A screwdriver.

Just reading your post on the bathroom layout – you may be somewhat hamstrung by where the existing services are (especially soil pipe) and the direction that the joists run.

We did this (including the staying with parents bit..) about 12 months ago on a 60’s property but there was a re-wire in the equation too.. we used 3 trades:

> Spark for the re-wire;
> Heating engineer for new boiler relocate, pipes and rads; and
> Plasterer to sort out the mess from that lot ^^^ (and create a bit of their own mess)

We also got a bathroom fitter in to sort the downstairs loo after I had lost the will to live (it will happen).

My main pointer is on time estimates for DIY jobs.. treble everything and then add a bit. I did everything from tiling, kitchen fitting, coving, plumbing, fit flooring, skirting boards, new patio doors etc, etc. and I couldn’ believe how long it all took. We saved an absolute packet (Bathroom fitter reckoned he would charge about 6.5K for full ripout and refit of bathroom that cost us about 2K) but the project really dragged. By the time you’ve sat on youtube for an hour and went to screwfix/toolstation/B&Q a few times the day has almost gone.

Other pointers are:

> Buy a cordless drill AND screwdriver thingy. I just used my drill for both and it got old constantly swapping bits.
> If you’ve got a lot of stubborn bathroom tiles adhered to plasterboard dot and dabbed to masonry for crying out loud buy/rent an SDS drill and a proper bit. I used a hammer and a brick chisel thingy and it was a pig of a job.
> If you’re doing a hob cutout in a worktop get the proper tool (plunge saw / router?) or get a pro in to do it – I very nearly messed up a longish lead time piece of worktop (and that was a brand new makita jigsaw with the proper bit) – jigsaws are not the way forward for this..
> Get decent underlay – 10mm stuff if possible not the cheap crap.
> Don’t put PVA anywhere near plaster or boards you are going to tile especially in a bathroom. Use proper primer.
> Check the electrics – rewires are expensive..

Couple of things I wish we’d done:

> Ripped off all the architrave before the plastering and put all new up afterwards. We just left the old stuff up and it’s not quite right.
> Put some sound deadening boards up on the party wall in the main bedroom and living room before plastering cos next doors bairn is doing me tits right in.

There’s loads more that I’ve probably forgot but that’s what comes to mind.

That’s way over the odds. Got any pics? Can you not rip out as suggested above and board it? Boarding is better than getting it skimmed anyway as it can hold a greater weight and should be flatter to ease tiling, plus u can do it yourself as oppose to getting a professional plasterer. Dot and dab onto masonry is not too difficult.

Problem with the Xdrive Beemers is the only fast ones are diesels. We don’t get the fast petrols e.g. 35i models in the UK.. I think the only Xdrive petrol 3 is a 320i.

Cheers Stato – Aye, think I know the path at the bottom of Duckpool. Few different options to explore.

Both good shouts. I like the idea of going west and over Scotchy bridge. I used to do that route when I worked at the old Vickers plant.. However, I might get a bit nostalgic thinking about Chally 2’s as I ride past knowing that the UK no longer have a tank factory!

1st suggestion is good as well as Market Lane is wider than Whickham highway. Cheers

Poly – point taken. “Gordon” was in a queue of about 15-20 other cars that I filtered past – maybe I should take note of close passers and not filter in such scenarios.