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Post by Blarno on Jan 17, 2019 19:37:06 GMT
Wait, there's an A class saloon? As well as the CLA? Which is also a saloon?
Is there a CLC? Or CLE?
Wait. I don't really care come to think of it. Mercedes have a long history of muddying the niche waters with increasingly tenuous models and naming structures.
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Post by Blarno on Jan 17, 2019 19:33:56 GMT
Non-round wheelarches as well.
A post Guinness shit, rolled in glitter, then given wheels.
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Supra
Jan 16, 2019 20:03:41 GMT
Post by Blarno on Jan 16, 2019 20:03:41 GMT
The LS engine weighs less than the Mazda lump so all the weight distribution hand wringers have nothing to complain about.
And weight distribution means nowt in the real world. It may be 50/50, but only when the car is sat still with nobody in it. Simply adding a driver alters it. A fat passenger alters it. Fuel alters it. A weeks shopping alters it. It's little more than pub bore bullshit used to sell cars.
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Post by Blarno on Jan 11, 2019 15:53:51 GMT
They looked a lot better as an estate - as do many cars IMO.
Yep. Almost any saloon/hatch car above Focus size looks better as an estate. Even the Insignia, which is a terrible looking car.
Speaking of which, I saw a new Focus estate the other day. What an abomination. Who signed that shitter off?
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Post by Blarno on Jan 11, 2019 11:50:05 GMT
I never had a Spec B, but I deeply miss my old Legacy Turbo.
Apart from the fuel costs, as above.
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Post by Blarno on Jan 11, 2019 11:46:23 GMT
It still looks like the front end of a completely different car, from a completely different manufacturer has been grafted on to it.
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Post by Blarno on Jan 4, 2019 13:38:15 GMT
I can't help but think that a 1.5 in a car of that size and weight, even with a turbo, is going to struggle. Sure, you might be able to rev the conkers off it and get boost, but I wouldn't expect it to be anywhere near as efficient as the claims. Which can be said for any modern tiny turbo engine - they're only built to fudge the emissions tests.
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Post by Blarno on Jan 4, 2019 13:23:56 GMT
Knowing the naming structure of German cars, it probably has a 1.4 3 pot turbo.
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Post by Blarno on Jan 4, 2019 7:45:50 GMT
One of our suppliers has one in full Wilmslow spec - white with black roof, massive black wheels and black leather. I found it pleasant enough to drive and be sat in, but I felt I was missing a Tango tan, massive nail extensions and a rose gold iPhone.
I do like the pop out side steps though.
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Post by Blarno on Jan 2, 2019 14:45:22 GMT
You would have to really want an E30 318is to pay that much for it. That's E46 M3 money right there and I know what I'd rather have.
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Post by Blarno on Dec 30, 2018 19:39:58 GMT
Vauxhall and Ford's 2.5 V6s from the 90s\00s sound good as well.
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Post by Blarno on Dec 30, 2018 19:37:19 GMT
Forgot about the old BDA engine. Second best rally noise after the ur quattro.
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Post by Blarno on Dec 30, 2018 16:58:46 GMT
Any cross plane V8 engine. Most 5 pot turbos, the RS3 is spoiled by the farty bang exhaust fakery though.
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Post by Blarno on Dec 29, 2018 12:25:48 GMT
We had a dealer in Sunningdale for a while, so it was probably from there. But we do sometimes ship other cars around from the factory for photo shoots and magazine stuff.
Speaking of distance driving, one of our customers lives in Jersey and had arranged to bring it back to us for a service. He usually trailers it. On the day he was bringing it back, I could hear a familiar exhaust note outside and when I did a head count of all the cars in the shop, realised that all were accounted for. He'd only hopped the ferry and dtiven all the way from Southampton to Liverpool.
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Post by Blarno on Dec 29, 2018 10:54:36 GMT
100k will get him a second hand Mono... Wow, how much are they new these days? In my head they were around 70k? 135k plus VAT nowadays.
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Post by Blarno on Dec 28, 2018 22:40:51 GMT
100k will get him a second hand Mono...
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Post by Blarno on Dec 23, 2018 14:41:24 GMT
And I also need to replace the glow plugs.
More humbug.
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Post by Blarno on Dec 23, 2018 14:39:27 GMT
Luckily, a backbox is only around £60 but I will have to wait a few days due to the festive period before I receive it.
Bumpers are upwards of £150 and even more difficult to find in the correct colour....
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Post by Blarno on Dec 23, 2018 13:50:20 GMT
I can get a loom from a breakers on ebay for £25 but I need to investigate further whether any of the sensors on that side are damaged. I can live without the parking sensors to be honest, but I do need to find a replacemnt reflector before MOT time.
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Post by Blarno on Dec 23, 2018 13:25:41 GMT
Not the shapely female kind, either. Or male, if that's your thing.
No, more an expression of digust and distaste. Yesterday, whilst on the way home from collecting our Crimbo food haul, my car went into DPF regen mode, as it is prone to every 7 or 8 days, depending on my manner of driving. Nothing unusual there - lots of extra smoke and a small drop in fuel consumption until the regen is done. As I pulled into our close and up the drive to reverse in, a warning pinged up that my reverse parking sensors had malfunctioned. Being as it is a 10 year old car, I figured their time had probably passed and though nothing of it and reversed onto the drive anyway. Jo got out of the car first and quickly beckoned me to the rear of the car.
"Is the bumper supposed to look like that? Why is it black? Why is there a lot of smoke? Where is the reflector?"
"SHIT!!"
As I bent down to look at the bumper, I noticed molten blackened plastic dripping to the floor and the bumper was hot to the touch and flexible. I quickly opened the garage, set up the hosepipe and doused the bumper and underside with cold water. After a cooling off period, I jacked the back up and had a proper look underneath: The foam filling inside the bumper has been completely melted away, taking the majority of the reverse sensor wiring loom and the distortion of the bumper must have caused the reflector to go south some time before. Towbar wiring seems to have escaped unharmed, although this is unchecked so far. It turns out the the weld on the inlet to the backbox had snapped about 2/3rds of the way round, causing the front of the box the sag and point the tailpipe into the bumper cavity just enough to spew molten gas into it and burn anything in its path. Ordinarily, this wouldn't have been a problem, but because it was on regen (which on an older diesel like mine injects pure diesel into the exhaust on the exhaust stroke cycle to burn away the blockage in the filter), the gases were way hotter than normal. Now, as is the case with most of the diesels I've owned, the backbox does no actual silencing of the gases, so I was none the wiser as to it having broken - a petrol car would have been noticeably noisier. Luckily this means I can still drive the car until the new box arrives, but I still have to decide whether to repair or replace the bumper and need to source a new parking sensor loom and/or parking sensors.
Bah bloody humbug.
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Post by Blarno on Dec 21, 2018 10:36:26 GMT
A couple of the lads at work have drones which have been brought in on various occasions. Both of them have a built in function that prevents them from entering the airspace of (very) nearby John Lennon airport. Not sure if this is a function of the drone itself or a virtual no fly zone surrounding the airport, but we tested the function and flew one towards the airport, only to have it stop and return automatically.
Surely it can't be that difficult to have a signal jammer surrounding the airport that simply causes the rogue drones to either return to sender or suffer a total shutdown and a plummet to the ground?
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Random
Dec 19, 2018 15:44:57 GMT
Post by Blarno on Dec 19, 2018 15:44:57 GMT
I'd love to know how she's going to convert the R32 engine to run on diesel.
Also where she is going to fit 2 turbos and a supercharger, because space is pretty limited in there with the VR6 engine.
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Post by Blarno on Dec 18, 2018 16:05:31 GMT
A friend of ours has an 04 plate E46 M3 just sitting on his drive, slowly succumbing to the iron oxide god. He started using a bike for work and now it just sits there, I don't think I've seen it move in more than 6 months. The arches are just starting to bubble.
It's a shame I'm not in a position, otherwise I'd talk him in to selling it to me. Or, I could talk him in to recomissioning it. Or rather, I recomission it for him.
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335d
Dec 18, 2018 15:59:47 GMT
Post by Blarno on Dec 18, 2018 15:59:47 GMT
Since I bought the car I have had the engine check light come and go,inevitably when I took it into BMW to look at ,it had magically gone......3 times the car has gone in over the check light ,and when they plug into the obc they see nothing . I am beginning to think random engine check lights that mean nothing - until they suddenly mean something - is just part of diesel ownership. Both our Shogun and Peugeot Boxer engine check lights come and go as they please and the relevant garage always says "nope, it's fine". Oddly enough, I had an EML come on at random a couple of weeks back. Pulling off the M56 at Daresbury, went to move away from the roundabout at the top and lost all boost and the light came on. I pulled into a car park and plugged my OBD reader in, which traced to a random sensor somewhere on the inlet manifold (I think it was to do with the bloody swirl flaps). I reset it there and then and haven't seen head or tail of it since.
Good job I had the gubbins with me, or it would have been a very slow and frustrating drive home.
What did diesel drivers do before turbos?
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WLTP
Dec 17, 2018 12:41:14 GMT
Post by Blarno on Dec 17, 2018 12:41:14 GMT
Particulate filters on petrol cars now?
Wow. Yet more expense when they're 5 years old and have only been used for short journeys.
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Post by Blarno on Dec 12, 2018 14:35:23 GMT
And I hate lying to Lottie about Santa. Interesting. Never thought about it like that, but I've been Santa at two different schools for the last three years and the kids have never asked why Daddy never makes it to the School Fair This year I did the old leave one door, come in another changed asking if I had missed it all routine Luckily, Phoebe realised about 3 or 4 crimbos ago that Santa wasn't real, but Lottie is a different beast and I think she is going to be devastated when she finds out.
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Post by Blarno on Dec 12, 2018 13:44:31 GMT
The less traditions, the better for me. I'd happily eschew turkey in favour of some denomination of roasted pig or bloody good curry. The older/more rampantly Atheist I get, the more of a fraud/hypocrite I feel for even acknowledging the notion of Christmas. And I hate lying to Lottie about Santa. Why would you feel a fraud or a hypocrite about Yuletide feasting? It's not the food I feel fraudulent about, it's the whole acknowledgment of the word 'Christmas'. I pretty much just call it Crimbo now.
Sadly, the whole tradition of it is so deeply rooted in our society, it's difficult to avoid without being labelled a Scrooge or a downright miserable bastard. (I am, but only when it suits me..)
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Post by Blarno on Dec 12, 2018 13:16:22 GMT
The less traditions, the better for me. I'd happily eschew turkey in favour of some denomination of roasted pig or bloody good curry. The older/more rampantly Atheist I get, the more of a fraud/hypocrite I feel for even acknowledging the notion of Christmas.
And I hate lying to Lottie about Santa.
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Post by Blarno on Dec 12, 2018 12:01:16 GMT
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Post by Blarno on Dec 12, 2018 11:49:45 GMT
Colin Furze on that there Youtube made an awesome turkey cooker a few years back, whereby the turkey was on a rotating spit inside a tank and hot water was passed through the centre shaft, which was perforated. This meant that the turkey was cooked by the water, but was also moistened by it. It also created a lovely broth in the bottom of the cooker as the turkey infused water fell down. This water was then used to cook the vegetables.
Fat tongued prick with a fork, Jamie Oliver was on hand to try it and confirmed it was delicious and moist.
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