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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 26, 2024 10:49:06 GMT
I do like Tourings and still fondly remember mine. They do look better than the X3, albeit has other strengths.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 26, 2024 8:07:52 GMT
How does a turbo work with an EV? Sad that it’s become a trim level across all the models. I sense a class action law suit coming in the US for mis-selling. Can't wait to see the Turbo S version, with the boost turned up.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 25, 2024 21:29:13 GMT
I’m still not sure about it, will have to see one properly. I specced up a Turbo without going mad and it was £112k in a foc paint colour. I thought £87k was too much for a Macan when we quite seriously specced up a GTS for Lindsay, another £25k is a lot and like most more expensive EVs, too much for a private buyer. It is a ‘Turbo’ so a better standard spec than the GTS and you can now have Matrix lights (not sure why no HD Matrix) which I’d struggle to buy a car without plus a few other things you’d expect on a car of that price which you couldn’t get in the old Macan. How does a turbo work with an EV?
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 25, 2024 17:31:08 GMT
The driver's seat looks dirty and the suspension is sitting a bit high. XDrives always sit a bit higher.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 25, 2024 17:28:48 GMT
I would have preferred 381bhp and 630 mile range tbh.
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Random
Jan 25, 2024 9:35:58 GMT
Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 25, 2024 9:35:58 GMT
I've had such poor experiences with Virgin Mobile and Virgn Media over the years that I was greatly relieved last autumn when I finally ditched them totally and now have internet and phone provided by Vodafone. Openreach connected the old BT line back up to the house and in general terms I'm getting a faster connection than VM's alleged "up to 150 Mb/s" (or was it 200?) which rarely exceeded 40 Mb/s I'm about to go the other way. I made a huge mistake going for Sky Broadband via Openreach and it's been a disaster; despite paying for 100 Mb/s I rarely get close to half that, and in the evenings it can drop to 0.05Mb/s. I'm fed up of having engineers round. With Virgin I got reliable broadband up to 350 Mb/s or 1 Gb/s if I wanted. The Sky Q boxes are also shite.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 22, 2024 14:54:09 GMT
Was it only 2 and half years ago my X3 2.0d M Sport was only £42k? List price is £50k now and discounts are back, so not a massive increase. That's with the plastic seats. £53k for leather so a 25% increase.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 22, 2024 14:24:38 GMT
Was it only 2 and half years ago my X3 2.0d M Sport was only £42k?
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 17, 2024 15:28:45 GMT
Ah well.........no point in me asking for the lend of a fiver then..
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 17, 2024 13:58:23 GMT
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 17, 2024 11:12:55 GMT
Aluminium cable was used in houses many years ago. It was stopped due to oxidisation and fire risk. Presumably the modern stuff has solved that issue. Yes, I believe an anti-oxidation compound at terminations solves this. That said; the copper in a domestic dwelling is negligible in the grand scheme of things. I think aluminium has been used for overhead distribution cables pretty much from the start.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 16, 2024 12:05:43 GMT
I’d happily contribute to a crowdfunded ‘hit’ on Jeremy Vine.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 16, 2024 10:51:31 GMT
Aluminium has 60% of the conductivity of copper, but 30% of the weight and, as the most abundant metal on Earth, is far cheaper. The weight advantage means aluminium is used for overhead transmission lines taking the power from the generating location to the factory, office etc and, increasingly, for aviation and automotive applications. In fact, when I worked on EDF's West Burton CC Gas Station all the busbars were 99.99% pure aluminium - I still have some of the weld test pieces in my garage. I guess what I'm saying is; copper is not the sole option.
Increasingly the huge subsea interconnectors are made from strands of aluminium wire, not copper.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 15, 2024 11:44:24 GMT
Just a small update. Although the car is still in the repair workshop and likely to remain there till well in to February, we were discussing what we were going to do at the end of the lease which is now less than 6 months away. Having gone round in circles a bit and thought about the likes of an X5 50e (too big), a BMW i40 (didn't excite), a Mini (maybe not practical enough) we came to the conclusion that another i-Pace was really what Susan wanted. However when I looked at the configurator, Jaguar appear to have dropped the heated windscreen and the 360 cameras completely. There are a couple of other bits and pieces which have also been downgraded like the sound system which is no longer the Meridian surround sound setup and they have stuck a daft looking plastic blanking plate where the grill used to be! Bottom line is it now looks unlikely that we will order another one because the 306 camera in particular, gets used every day for parking and for Susan's drive through coffee where the kerbs have been designed to cripple alloys. Since has had it she hasn't (touch wood) hit a single kerb. Why do manufacturers make such daft decisions and what exactly are we going to replace it with at reasonable cost? Now in the running is the Q4 e-tron, Lexus hybrid or maybe we just forget the leased company car and buy her something personally like a used Audi A5 cabriolet. One of my neighbours has a new X5 and another one has an original X5 (he had it when we moved here in 2004) and the difference in size is remarkable. My X3 sits between them in size.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 15, 2024 11:39:23 GMT
It never ceases to amaze me how clean the X3 manages to stay. I paid (or was conned, depending on how you look at it) to have the BMW paintwork protection applied and it still beads up really well. That, and with it being silver - a colour I find always looks pretty clean, I can get away with washing it fairly infrequently. There a also some mouldings along the bottom of the doors that seem to prevent much of the road muck being thrown up the flanks.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 15, 2024 11:34:58 GMT
I've got a Vanguard Stocks and Shares ISA but generally leave them to get on with it. There's not a great deal of money in there anyway.
I guess the best result we've had was with some shares in a business held by my mum. In 1991, about a year before he died, a friend of my father persuaded him to invest £15,000 (15k x £1 shares) in a construction equipment company he and a few others were starting. Sadly, my dad passed away and the shares fell to my mum. The company did OK, sent her a bunch of flowers every year with the annual accounts, and even named their HO after my dad - but no dividends, ever. Every year I'd get a sad phone call from my mum saying that she was worried about these shares, she'd taken financial advice from accountants who basically said the shares were worthless and she'd never see any money from them, and that the company could trade every year and never have to pay out dividends to shareholders. From the accounts I could see the directors renumeration was pretty good though, but again, taking more advice from an accountant friend of mine, who looked at the accounts, it looked unlikely we'd never see anything - other than a potential inheritance tax problem when my mum died and someone came along and tried to put a valuation on her shareholding.
Years roll by and it's now 2008 and I'm looking at the accounts again, doing a few mental sums on what I though the shares were worth and came up with a figure. I got in touch with the company and spoke to the Company Secretary and asked if some of the other Directors were looking to increase their equity and make an offer. Anyway, a bit of back and forth and we settled on £20.80 per share. My mum got a nice cheque, I got a nice Omega, and about 9 months later the financial crisis hit..
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 15, 2024 7:31:28 GMT
I still think the 500s are great looking little cars. My wife still misses hers.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 13, 2024 15:19:33 GMT
The problem with Fisker is that, no matter how long the warranty, will the Company still be around to honour it?
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 12, 2024 20:27:08 GMT
Men wearing Marigolds make me think of serial killers.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 12, 2024 8:50:58 GMT
If its your own decision you could look at second hand or salvage parts but insurers have to replace with new OEM parts. Not necessarily, when my wife worked for an official Audi bodyshop the cheaper insurance companies would pressurise them to use pattern or secondhand, salvaged parts to keep repair costs down.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 12, 2024 8:48:02 GMT
I've got a 7 night golf trip planned with 11 other lads to Turkey at the beginning of March. The thought of 6 rounds of golf in the sun is what is keeping me going through these dreich post Xmas days. New hotel this year and it looks fabulous. Other than that, 'er indoors and I will be going to Crete for 10 days in June and, hopefully, catch up with a few friends out there. Maybe get a long weekend somewhere in the Autumn but nothing planned as yet. Golf? In Italy, group trips of chaps on "Turkish Hairways" are all the rage. Yeah, you do see the hair and teeth brigade on the flights. In fact, as I was waiting to check in for the return flight I bumped into one of the lads from our production line who had been out there with his girlfriend for a teeth and hair top up.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 11, 2024 14:33:05 GMT
Fly by wire brakes? Are they legal now? Seems odd to have separate left and right circuits, normally they are opposite corners. They'd better be - the Giulia QF has been running them since it came out in 2016... They are weirdly hard to modulate for the very last part of stopping in traffic, otherwise you'd never know... I think all hybrid, and subsequently electric, cars have had some form of brake by wire system since the first Prius in 1998.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 11, 2024 14:30:06 GMT
I've got a 7 night golf trip planned with 11 other lads to Turkey at the beginning of March. The thought of 6 rounds of golf in the sun is what is keeping me going through these dreich post Xmas days. New hotel this year and it looks fabulous.
Other than that, 'er indoors and I will be going to Crete for 10 days in June and, hopefully, catch up with a few friends out there. Maybe get a long weekend somewhere in the Autumn but nothing planned as yet.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 11, 2024 13:46:32 GMT
I had assumed it was the 4th generation of Octavia. How naive! It's a nice looking car I assumed it was their 4th go at getting it right.
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Jan 9, 2024 12:36:46 GMT
Is it even a proper German road trip if it doesn’t end in Poland?
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Dec 27, 2023 21:11:40 GMT
It’s got me thinking when was the last time I had to change a bulb on any of our cars and it was actually the last century!
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Dec 23, 2023 15:39:18 GMT
Mercedes interiors increasing remind me of the 80s Binatone/Amstrad HiFi systems in Rumbelows when what you really wanted was a Sony/Technics.
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VW ID2
Dec 22, 2023 7:43:17 GMT
Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Dec 22, 2023 7:43:17 GMT
I wonder if you could buy one and self ID it as something else?
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Random
Dec 18, 2023 19:38:53 GMT
Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Dec 18, 2023 19:38:53 GMT
No idea. You've got to log in to Sotheby's to see the result. Guide was a few hundred. I did Google art deco glass door FM and that was in the list of pictures. £16.5k 😀
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Random
Dec 18, 2023 19:10:16 GMT
Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Dec 18, 2023 19:10:16 GMT
Freddie Mercury's shower door? Spot on! She wants it mounted on her wall. Guess how much she paid for it?
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