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Post by Martin on Jul 11, 2022 14:11:24 GMT
Any thoughts as to the future of the Polo now the A1 is back with your daughter? A good question. As the Polo is insured until mid Feb next year, and taxed and MoT'd jntil next Jan, and was given a full main dealer service in Jan, and has 4 tyres with a decent amount of tread, I plan to keep it until at least the end of the year, not in the least in case either daughter has further car issues, it's a 'spare' that they can use. But if someone makes a decent offer for it...... Is that 4 cars you're running now then Chris? With used prices starting to soften, I would be selling it sooner rather than later. Well.... I would sell the A1 and let your daughter keep the Polo, but I know that's not an option you'd want to consider. I'm now going away to see how I can man maths a Panamera Turbo as a 'spare' in case I have any issues with the family truck!
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Post by Martin on Jul 10, 2022 10:50:45 GMT
I drove non stop (apart from the ferry crossing) from Cheshire to just south of lake Annecy when I was 18 in my mums BRG MG Montego. The plan was to stop and sleep in the car when I was tired, but I felt OK to keep going. Helped by a stack of dance music cassettes!
I’ve just checked on Google maps and it’s a 830 mile / 1330km journey. I can’t remember how long it took but we made very good progress driving through the night.
Since then, the longest single journey has been Hythe to Lucerne via the Eurotunnel, c570 miles / 900km which was back in 2010 in the 520d, closely followed by Geneva to Calais on the return trip after going to a wedding in Perugia.
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Post by Martin on Jul 7, 2022 16:47:05 GMT
It was more of a celebration speech than a resignation, not even a hint of an apology or taking any responsibility.
Agree he needs to go asap.
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Post by Martin on Jul 7, 2022 16:07:55 GMT
Unlikely that we'll get Amazon stores near us. If they know what you've got in your bag, then every item must have some sort of RFID on it. That can't be cheap? I'm sure some bright spark will soon work out a way to hack the RFID or even move it onto more expensive stuff. People are very inventive. For the past two years I've been doing the self-scanning as you walk around in Sainsbury and that strikes me as a good solution - no unloading and then loading at the checkout; you can see what you're spending as you go round; you can pack directly into the correct / desired bags in your trolley. They use (a lot of) scanners, so it's reading the barcode rather than RFID. Their system can tell when you pick something up and whether it goes into the trolley/basket or back on the shelf, so it's item level rather than a bulk scan when you exit the shop. Barcode scanning technology has come on a long way, the latest tech can do some really impressive stuff, including reading pretty damaged barcodes. Without getting too geeky, the latest kit uses camera technology and can read both 1D and 2D barcodes at rates in excess to 1500 scans per second. I've got a Cognex cameras in a number of my sites on the bays, move a pallet off the back of a vehicle and it scans the pallet label on every box at MHE speed. Because they use a camera, the same scanners can do other things as well such as checking the cube fill of a box before it moves on to final packing/labelling
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Post by Martin on Jul 7, 2022 5:12:33 GMT
I’ve not visited one yet, but will do when I next have the opportunity. We look after the warehouse that supplies their stores.
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Post by Martin on Jul 6, 2022 13:47:46 GMT
They are decent value and most are really well equipped. The GC is the same and looks better imho, but at 850i money I’d be more interested in an M5. Had a meeting with a colleague in business development this morning and got to talking about cars, he’s got an RS6 on order which is due in November (ordered October 21). Maybe I shouldn’t be quite as concerned as I am about what I get next.
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Post by Martin on Jun 30, 2022 20:10:49 GMT
I think the 1.2/100bhp maybe a little weedy 5 up up a mountain pass but it chips to 130bhp Personally I'd use the advert misprint to chip the other LHD cooper to a closer price. They are clearly an oddity with a limited market, if you go by reg date they have been hanging around 6 months already, so bargain hard! Edit Just found them on Auto trader, the Cooper Exclusive has already dropped £2k since listed, if you like them I'd put a really low ball offer on the table and let it sit with them for a bit..... A bit more off the Cooper because they’ve forgotten to add the top coat. Neither will be an easy sell.
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Post by Martin on Jun 30, 2022 20:08:05 GMT
It’s a special feature to force tax dodging company car drivers into actually plugging them in from time to time.
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Post by Martin on Jun 29, 2022 16:24:38 GMT
The only car that's a bit out of place is a 650S convertible that belongs to my neighbour a couple of houses away, but that's tucked away in his garage. Other than that, my next door neighbour has a 740d, iX and Mustang V8 and the guy next to him has a just new RRS and Cayman, but they are 4-5 bedroom detached houses, so pretty much what you'd expect.
There are so many reason why there is an apparent disparity between house values and spend on cars, some have been mentioned already plus PCPs make it easier to afford something you wouldn't otherwise be able to.
It's also really costly to move and upgrade your house/location. We've thought about it and had a look a few times over the last year, but it would be a cheaper to add a new Supercar to the fleet!
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Post by Martin on Jun 29, 2022 12:10:05 GMT
It really is a poorly designed car. A fast BMW family wagon is something I should be excited about, but it’s a mess and I’m not just talking about the obvious. I thought it might change when I saw videos / one for real, but there’s no ‘want’ at all, even ignoring the £90k price tag. It will be all over YouTube, then the market will be full of them at a premium….which is another switch off for me. Its not just the grille is it? the round door handles, poorly grafted on extended wings and ducts, the too aggressive rear diffuser the dodgy Vossen style rims. Its just looks very after market and the choice of colour at launch was a mistake. If you get one in a very dark colour it will hide most of the design issues. I do quite like the purple too so its not a total loss. It’s not at all. The way the rear doors stop and then the rear wing starts looks particularly aftermarket to me and I don’t think any colour will save it!
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Post by Martin on Jun 29, 2022 11:02:24 GMT
Great we have the choice of an M3 Touring at last but its all a bit too little too late, especially when its such a poorly designed car. I wonder if no one will buy the car and BMW will say they were always not to build one right and not that its the wrong product at the wrong time. An E46 or E92 M3 touring is still something that I wish was available It really is a poorly designed car. A fast BMW family wagon is something I should be excited about, but it’s a mess and I’m not just talking about the obvious. I thought it might change when I saw videos / one for real, but there’s no ‘want’ at all, even ignoring the £90k price tag. It will be all over YouTube, then the market will be full of them at a premium….which is another switch off for me.
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Post by Martin on Jun 27, 2022 20:33:59 GMT
I don’t like the 5 door at all, but appreciate there isn’t a lot of choice when looking for a small LHD car in the UK. I don’t think a ‘ONE’ (1.2 / 100hp?) would be a great choice for longer cross continental trips either, even just a couple a year.
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Post by Martin on Jun 26, 2022 7:12:23 GMT
I wouldn’t be surprised! Works out broadly the same as our allowance then, but I never claim for lunch unless I’m entertaining.
The overnight allowance isn’t there to have a piss up on the company. We have ‘entertaining employees ’ and ‘entertaining customers categories on the expenses system, that’s what they are for!
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Post by Martin on Jun 25, 2022 12:37:59 GMT
So glad I drive a ZOE which I charge at work, the wife's employer (she's a nanny) instead of upping her 45p per mile allowance (can become a tax issue I believe), have told her to claim an extra £60 per month on her expenses. It is a tax issue. Any more and HMRC deem it to be a benefit. Its the same reason our overnight allowance for food/drink when staying away on business has remained at £40 for over 10 years. That sounds fine to me and a a fairly generous allowance lot 10 years ago, although it’s not so good if it has to cover breakfast as well? Ours is £25 for evening meal & drink, so a main course and soft drink most of the time but I give people a bit of slack as long as they don’t go mad. The hotel allowance isn’t enough at the moment either. My PA looks after travel bookings for the whole team, so there’s a level of control (making sure people stay in decent place at the moment!), not many bookings are within policy.
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Post by Martin on Jun 25, 2022 7:31:57 GMT
So glad I drive a ZOE which I charge at work, the wife's employer (she's a nanny) instead of upping her 45p per mile allowance (can become a tax issue I believe), have told her to claim an extra £60 per month on her expenses. Not the start to a sentence you’d expect to see on this forum! I’ve not changed driving habits yet, or thought about something more economical. Not yet anyway.
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Post by Martin on Jun 24, 2022 21:29:08 GMT
There’s no colour on offer by any manufacturer that costs them more than £100 to apply. They call them individual and all that crap but it’s really just an opportunity for them to increase the profitability of an order. If you like the colour and are prepared to pay these hugely inflated prices then buy and enjoy and don’t let the fact they’re pulling your pants down spoil the experience. Have you forgotten the story of Pure Metal Silver….. That would gave cost them a lot more than £100 to apply. But otherwise I agree with you and while I wouldn’t have something as potentially problematic as the colour on the 7, I would pay to have an individual colour if I really liked it / didn’t really like one of the standard colours. If I was speccing a new BMW I’d pay the £5k for the B&W speakers as well, which is in the same inflated price category, but is fantastic and one of the things I miss the most about my last car despite having a decent Meridian surround system in this one.
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Post by Martin on Jun 24, 2022 17:45:53 GMT
I looked at the individual colours because I fancied dark green but thought it was taking the piss compared to the premium on the £1k I paid for dark red. I've edited my post with some man maths to get the cost down. BMW would charge you £1995 for your paint now, as metallic is no longer standard, so that closes a gap a bit.
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Post by Martin on Jun 24, 2022 17:17:58 GMT
Depends how they’ve set their paint shop up. Likelihood is they wait until they have more than one so the set up is more efficient, hence the BMW special colour option on mine was far cheaper than any other Individual colour because they promoted it to get more in the paint shop in a day. Or......it's really a standard colour because it is in the main price list and can be added to a standard order, but they think they can get away with charging extra for it (£1k?) by calling it 'Individual'! To be fair, the three colours they charge an extra £1k for do have more metallic flake in them and will be more costly for BMW. There are about 90 options and looking at the link below, based on the 5 series they start at £3k for colours available on other BMW models as a normal option to just under £5k. Which isn't quite so bad now they charge £900 for a basic metallic (even on the 6 cylinder cars which was never the case) and £2000 for the 3 more expensive options. £4,385 for Chalk on an M3 btw! discover.bmw.co.uk/iframes/individual-visualiserEdit: Bit of man maths and the individual paint can seem like better value. Even with the lower discounts available now (17%), the most expensive paint is 'only' £2,400 more than Aventurine and an even better way of looking at it, 3.5% on top of the cost of a well specced eco wagon. The next price rise will be more than that, so order now and it's 'free'....
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Post by Martin on Jun 24, 2022 8:27:59 GMT
£2.07 last night for Shell V Power. I think it might now be worth the drive to Costco to fill up there with their Super fuel which was £1.89 the other night! I'm just using Tesco 99 for the Golf now to try and keep it under the £2 mark, which is a psychological barrier. But my local Tesco has just gone up to £2.09, which is only 1p below Shell and it's £1.929 at the Tesco in Kettering.
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Post by Martin on Jun 24, 2022 8:20:48 GMT
Well I have a build slot - December. Was passing Mayfair Porsche yesterday so dropped in and had a spec fiddle…changed colour to Gentian Blue, upped interior to Extended Leather, upped alloys to the GT Design ones in Satin Platinum, and added wireless charging. Re-ran the Finance quote and despite the above and a recent c£2k price hike, the monthlies were largely unchanged thanks to a £5k hike to the GFV… Careful, with the wheel/colour/leather change that's getting closer to 'Martin Spec'.....! Have you decided to stick with the Macan order?
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Post by Martin on Jun 23, 2022 17:49:44 GMT
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Post by Martin on Jun 23, 2022 17:17:39 GMT
With the necessary additional packs the price is likely to be c£93K which is completely and utterly mad. BMW have removed most of the finance options from their site but if you look at the used cars, a June Registered M4 has a GFV of just over £32K after 4 years and it wouldn't have cost much less than the M3 Touring when new. So that's a £60K bath over 4 years - that's going to cost c£1250/mth + a deposit!! I know it's not a touring but this offers so much more value and has the ultimate pack (every box ticked): usedcars.bmw.co.uk/vehicle/202205276216085?quoteref=6e5f8ae3-cb64-426c-a169-4c17e5adb4edIt's a shame the M3 Estate looks like it does and I think this is a much better way of spending c£90k on a BMW M car. www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202204224922614?fromSavedAds=true&advertising-location=at_carsI'd rather have a nicely specced (both plus packs, Merino, Panoramic Roof, M Seats etc) M340i than the M3, with a £30k (after discount) saving as a bonus.
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Post by Martin on Jun 23, 2022 11:31:50 GMT
My biggest issue with a 911 is usability. Not ease of use, but when I'd be able to drive it as it wouldn't be good form using it for work and it would be such a waste only doing a couple of thousand miles a year. A McLaren would be even worse in that respect. A client of mine bought a year old Carrera S about this time last year. He has had countless issues with his customers and staff who, when they saw the Porsche, thought he was making too much money. Customers are more aggressive in resisting price increases and staff are looking for large pay rises. He is now driving a Citroen Berlingo and the Porsche stays in the garage for the weekend but he did say to me that it was an expensive ornament most of the time and he is losing his enthusiasm for it after the reaction he received. I think in the current climate, displays of wealth or perceived wealth are not good for business. Yes, that's where I'm at right now and why I use the Golf more than my car when visiting my own sites. The 750 was great, because most people wouldn't have known/spotted the difference between that and the site managers company 530e.
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Post by Martin on Jun 23, 2022 10:44:19 GMT
I do agree with you and it's one of the reasons I've pushed back thoughts of buying something. Thanks to the depreciation I can't help looking at McLarens, but the running costs are way above a Porsche and when looking at the financial side, the purchase cost isn't the most important factor, it's the total cost over 4 or 5 years. Check out these guys for warranty if you haven’t already. I was trying to justify a 570s a few years ago. It almost made the maths possible. No link, is it Thorney? If so, they are only 30 miles from home and a couple of miles from my nearest Porsche dealer. I don't know whether it's changed much, but they want £2,850 with a £10k cap per claim and the McLaren warranty is £2,985 or £5,600 for 2 years. The GT (which I do like in the right colour/spec) is now sub £130k from a McLaren dealer (£140k for 12 months old) and a decent spec 570 is just under £100k. McLaren think a £130k GT would be worth £65k after 4 years / 40k miles, so not horrendous depreciation compared to dropping £30k in the first year when it's a crazy market. My biggest issue with a 911 is usability. Not ease of use, but when I'd be able to drive it as it wouldn't be good form using it for work and it would be such a waste only doing a couple of thousand miles a year. A McLaren would be even worse in that respect.
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Post by Martin on Jun 23, 2022 10:02:51 GMT
It is daft money, but there are loads of examples from £50k for a Golf / £70k for an A3 through to 4 year old 991.2 GTS at £100k or the cheapest 911 at a main dealer, a 2012 991 with 50k miles all beige interior and very few options for £53.5k!. A 4 year old 991.2 RS will set you back £200k+ and 992 GT3s are more than that, you won't find one for under £100k more than a 992 GTS. I hear you. The point being that 911’s shouldn’t be that money even if they are, At that money your opening up the market to some seriously interesting cars. 250k gt3’s are bonkers, especially as you’ll get into a 600LT for 100k less and the gt3 wouldn’t see which way that went. The fact the Porsche makes you a 100k and the McLaren losses you a similar amount is by the by. I do agree with you and it's one of the reasons I've pushed back thoughts of buying something. Thanks to the depreciation I can't help looking at McLarens, but the running costs are way above a Porsche and when looking at the financial side, the purchase cost isn't the most important factor, it's the total cost over 4 or 5 years.
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Post by Martin on Jun 23, 2022 9:14:22 GMT
No chance I’d pay 150k for a 992 GTS. It’s a GTS not an RS! Daft money but maybe I’m just well behind the curve on pricing. The only 992 I like is the Turbo. Love the Lexus. Even really like the interior which is a lot more interesting then black. It is daft money, but there are loads of examples from £50k for a Golf / £70k for an A3 through to 4 year old 991.2 GTS at £100k or the cheapest 911 at a main dealer, a 2012 991 with 50k miles all beige interior and very few options for £53.5k!. A 4 year old 991.2 RS will set you back £200k+ and 992 GT3s are more than that, you won't find one for under £100k more than a 992 GTS.
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Post by Martin on Jun 21, 2022 16:38:05 GMT
I ran some numbers through an online calculator a a few weeks ago and (iirc) it was about 15 years payback if I fed back into the system or closer to 20 years if I didn't.
That will change if electricity prices keep rising, but it doesn't feel like a good way of spending/investing my money at the moment?
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Post by Martin on Jun 21, 2022 12:07:19 GMT
Left field option and I know the Porsche will be a far more sports oriented steer and significantly faster in every measure but for something more suited to 'GT' usage on our roads that would likely still make you feel special every time you saw/sat-in/heard it I'd be very tempted by this for less than half the price: usedcars.lexus.co.uk/en/used-lexus/Lexus/LC/500-50-464-Sport-2dr-Auto-Mark-Levinson-vdctce5I know it's a couple of years older (although one the same age would still be massively cheaper) and goes against the established 'sports car' ethos but for most it might just be more special much of the time and for some reason the fact that they are not your typical option actual makes their appeal greater for me - but i've always tended to be drawn towards the alternative to the mainstream options I think they are fantastic.They look superb,n/a engine ,lexus quality and the interior is nicer than any 911 .Considering its nearly 500 bhp the performance is relatively sluggish but aside form that they are fantastic . The interior on the one linked is hideous….but I’m sure it’s much better in a different colour. It is a good looking car (grille aside) and the N/A V8 is very appealing. Lexus have faith in the quality, £400 for a minor and £650 for a major service, but that includes 12 months warranty for cars up to 10 years old / 100,000 miles. So cheap to run. I bet it wouldn’t fit the garage though. I’m regretting not going for one big garage door rather than two standard ones when I replaced them a couple of years ago, as it will limit options in the future.
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Post by Martin on Jun 20, 2022 18:58:38 GMT
Our electric supplier went bust earlier this year - and based on their prices it was only a matter of time once the wholesale price blew up. We were moved to British Gas. I reckon we're paying double what we were this time last year. I've just got an outline quote from a local supplier for a 6 kVa solar PV system plus backup battery. He said he's never been so busy. We've applied to our DNO to get approval and will then be able to firm things up. What do you think the payback will be?
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Post by Martin on Jun 20, 2022 17:07:47 GMT
This is c£15k over list, which is daft for a 6 month old car, but not when you compare the spec to similarly prices cars and a 4 year old 991.2 GTS at £100k. If you include the PTS (which it wasn't at the time, but would be now) cost then it's 'only' £10k over list.... More than I'd want to spend, but still plenty of 'want'! finder.porsche.com/gb/en-GB/details/porsche-911-carrera-gts-preowned-0Z3Z0NThat looks amazing . Not a huge 992 fan (looks from the back) but I’d have that all day long. I know what you mean, but it's grown on me. One way of changing the rear is adding the Aerokit....Lindsay quite likes it but I'm not sure.
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