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Post by Alex on Nov 8, 2021 21:18:35 GMT
I think the spec you worked out looks good. It sounds like the GTS is a way of giving some useful options and I can imagine it will be a more sought after used car later on. You have been sensible with the options but they're all things that you'd be annoyed to find missing if you buy second hand and the first owner hadn't included them. Porsches reversing camera is a lot cheaper than the one I've specced on the Octavia I've just ordered from Skoda.
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Post by Alex on Nov 7, 2021 12:14:46 GMT
I read that the next Macan is going to be EV only which in the short term could help a late model S from the current generation hold its value better so long as petrol or taxation doesn't cause a mass market move to EVs.
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Post by Alex on Nov 6, 2021 22:36:53 GMT
Apologies I didn't read through everything (it's late and it's been a long week!) But the gist I get is that you want a Macan. This isn't the first time you've mentioned it and this one isn't the first you've been to see. I dont think you need to ask whether or not you want one, that decision's been made. The question is do you buy this one now or order new.
Going by the figures you've quoted I think youd be bonkers to pass up a new one over this one which is 4 years old and has 50k under its wheels. The issue with the Macan is the lead time and also that by late 2022 it's going to be an 8 year old model that's well overdue replacement. Will it feel sufficiently modern for what you're shelling out?
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Sleaze
Nov 5, 2021 17:41:14 GMT
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Post by Alex on Nov 5, 2021 17:41:14 GMT
Can’t say I agree with Sunak not getting support. The conservatives prioritise winning above anything else. If they believe Sunak can win, they’ll support him. His bigger problem will be if/when then general public realise he can’t walk on water. If something like stagflation hits the economy (Which it could, with rising inflation and flat salaries )he’s toast. Or when the NI rises start to bite in April. That will rather hasten the furlough schemes disappearance from recent memory.
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Post by Alex on Nov 4, 2021 20:05:30 GMT
I think CAR mag have started recording the fuel cost per mile on their long-termers. I was surprised the electric ones didn't appear to be significantly cheaper but presumably they're filling up out and about a lot. I think with the way energy bills are going the cost of using EVs will not be much less than ICE cars before long and that's before some future government (or maybe even our current one) has the political balls to find a way to replace all that lost fuel duty probably by means of road pricing.
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IMAX
Nov 4, 2021 20:02:30 GMT
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Post by Alex on Nov 4, 2021 20:02:30 GMT
I've never been to an IMAX other than a school trip to Bradford many years ago. I want to go and see the new James abond at some point and fancy the IMAX experience. Dune is a cracking film. I think it took 3 VHS tapes back in the day. The last time I went to an IMAX cinema was in Bradford, aged around 12, probably. I think is went to that one. It's at the National Film and TV Museum isn't it?
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Names
Nov 4, 2021 20:00:02 GMT
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Post by Alex on Nov 4, 2021 20:00:02 GMT
Some years ago I worked in an insurance call centre for a company that had an online form you could fill in for a quote. The staff on the sales team were required to call back anyone who didn't buy the quote they'd generated. Not all the names people put in are entirely accurate (Micky Mouse seemed to be somewhat obsessed with gaining home insurance quotes for properties across the UK). One evening when I was supervising the late shift one of the girls called me over and asked if she really had to call back a particular one that had been sent to her. I looked at the phone number and determine that I didn't think 01234 567890 was Mr Cunty Bollocks real number 🤔
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Post by Alex on Nov 3, 2021 21:17:11 GMT
Interesting he’s ordered one The V6 in that video sounds great . Not a fan of the colour he's chosen but then you know I don't like grey cars! I'd go for the blue or maybe the yellow. I don't think the red suits it but the dark green with tan leather might look alright. The V6 he went in didn't have the sports exhaust either and still sounded great.
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Post by Alex on Nov 3, 2021 21:14:27 GMT
That Quattro is awesome. I quite like Renaults EV take on the 5 Turbo which looks pretty good.
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Post by Alex on Nov 3, 2021 21:12:55 GMT
Adaptive cruise on the Ioniq is the same as the Niro and doesn't have normal cruise and does brake far too sharply when someone moves into the gap. If there's a car behind they think you're brake checking them so it's not ideal in heavy motorway traffic. The drivetrain on it is identical to the Niro too and I get just over 60mpg - I filled up today and the car said 60.4 but it was actually 60.8 when put through a calculator. The electric assistance is pretty inconsistent too. It can have almost a full battery and still run on the engine only. The trick is to just lightly tickle the throttle for EV mode which takes some getting useful but with practice I've managed to get to the shop in the village and back without using a drop of fuel until the final uphill to our road.
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Post by Alex on Nov 3, 2021 21:00:19 GMT
You pose an interesting question regarding whether trains are greener than planes. I would guess it depends on the route but some quick googling suggests that per passenger the CO2 emissions from trains are 10% that of planes on short haul routes such as London-Paris or Bristol to Newcastle. You do of course have to take into account how electricity is produced and if its by burning gas the green credentials of electric trains are not helped but you can at least change how you generate that power moving to wind or solar for example whereas planes are pretty much stuck to being reliant on kerosene. I think suggesting we take into account how the steel for the tracks was made is a bit disingenuous because you don't make new tracks for each journey in the same way a flight doesn't take off from a brand new airport each time and if we have to look at the infrastructure around each form of transport do we then need to consider the energy consumption of an airport vs a train station? I think that whatever measure you take, if you want to travel across our country producing as little CO2 as possible then short of getting on your bike, the train is the obvious choice. But it's not the fastest and no way the cheapest. I flew to Glasgow last week and was in the city for 9:30 on a flight that cost £60. I didn't even consider the train because it can't do that. For a start its over £100 more expensive and to be in Scotland at that time in the morning would require using the sleeper train. John makes the point rightly so about our network being unfit for purpose. We do have too many unelectrified routes and the HS2 line being built now should have been built back in the 70s to go with the HST which was capable of 140mph+ but never went past 125 in service. The current reliance on the East and West Coast lines for intercity trains is massively restricting our ability to put freight on the line and squeezing capacity for local services. We should be looking to improve this if we want to achieve net zero. I'm not trying to say I wouldn't like to see more planes, I'm a bit of a plane spotter myself and have always been fascinated by them. If they can be made more green through the use of sustainable fuels then great. But that won't be cheap and it won't be coming that soon. From an economic standpoint we should want domestic air travel to increase so we can grow our economy. But this thread started by asking how you engage the public on environmental issues and you don't do that by giving tax breaks to air travel.
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Post by Alex on Nov 3, 2021 10:29:33 GMT
That's a fair point but at the moment it isn't a clean way of travelling so surely duty shouldn't be cut right now. If the aviation industry can make flying a more efficient and less carbon intensive mode of transport then maybe there should be tax breaks to support it but the line from the government was that the duty cut was to encourage more people to fly between the four nations of the UK. It is a policy driven by a desire for growth not one with any intention to improve the environment.
I accept we have to balance growth with the environment and that doesn't mean going back to the stone age in terms of how we live our lives. But equally I cannot give much credibility to a chancellor who one week gives tax breaks to encourage the most polluting mode of transport and the next week stands up at a climate conference to talk about financial measures to combat carbon emissions. Which camp does he support?
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Post by Alex on Nov 3, 2021 9:06:30 GMT
I noticed that Dishy Rishi is standing up at COP26 to make a speech about the financial measures he'll be putting in place to tackle climate change.
In his budget speech just a couple of weeks ago he announced a cut in duty on domestic flights but made no mention of working to cut train fairs.
So he is essentially making it cheaper to fly from London to Manchester (BA have 5 flights a day) than take a train but at the same time standing up at a climate conference to talk about supporting the environment. Mixed messages 🤔
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Post by Alex on Nov 2, 2021 7:28:36 GMT
On the opposite end of the scale, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates flew to the COP26 in private jets, many other world leaders and their teams traveled from their hotel to the conference by helicopter and Joe Biden stayed in Edinburgh rather than Glasgow and travelled across in a 26 limo motorcade. And just in case our esteemed leaders hadn't emitted enough carbon, they all had a G20 meeting over the weekend down in Rome!
With them as examples why should the man in the street feel inclined to do their bit for the planet?
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Post by Alex on Nov 1, 2021 22:56:27 GMT
I used mobile phones as an analogy more for the point about wanting an electric car to have 500 mile range because that's the range a tank of diesel gives. If you fill up once a week, as a lot of people do, you don't use that 500 mile range in day, you in fact probably use less than 100 - most people use less than 50 miles a day. So the point I was trying to make is that if the battery of your car only lasts a day or two it's not a problem because you can charge it each night as you would your phone.
The 350mile trip you said you did to Devon with just a 5 minute stop for diesel isn't something I would advise but I'm not going to criticise you for because I've done the same on occasion, especially when you just want to get home. But if you had an electric car with 250 miles range you could get half way, stop for 20mins to add another 100 miles to the battery and get home fine with only an extra 15mins added to your journey which in the grand scheme of things is not the end of the world. But Martin is right to point out that at the moment the charging infrastructure just doesn't support it.
I'm not saying you're wrong to point out that going electric isn't as convenient as being able to refuel with diesel in 5 mins, I'm just saying we need to rethink how we use cars in the future and how we think about managing range and that might mean that at some point in the future we will have to accept some of the inconveniences whether we like it or not.
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Post by Alex on Nov 1, 2021 20:09:45 GMT
Right now, a full tank will do me 500 miles. I want equal or better from a new car. I can and have done 500+ miles in a day, with only brief piss or pie stops (never long enough to charge anything up). Sadly, the closest I reckon I will get to an electric estate car is one of the myriad of tall hatchback/pretend offroader things that will become even more prevalent with EVs and their skateboard floorpans. By the time that happens I'll just buy a van and run a small hatch for daily stuff. Out of interest Blarno, does your mobile phone last a full week between charges? Mine doesn't and that's OK because I can charge at home. I think we need to start thinking the same way about cars. You want 500 mile range but you don't really need it. Even heavy users such as company car drivers don't because most company driving policies require you to take a break after 2 hours. At present speed limits you cannt drive more than 140 miles in that time. A lot of modern EVs can add 30-40% charge in the 20mins it takes to stop at the services, have a piss, tackle some emails and make a few calls. Do that twice on a journey from London to Newcastle and you're not adding on much time, if any, to your journey. The problem at present is that this relies on being able to enter a services and find a charger that is working and isn't being used by someone else. Hopefully that is a problem that will improve over the coming years. This video shows an interesting idea to solve the problem of diesel trucks
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Post by Alex on Oct 31, 2021 19:39:03 GMT
Good video tonight from Harry.
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Post by Alex on Oct 30, 2021 13:27:16 GMT
Certainly from the outside it's evolution rather than revolution but that's all it needs to be to sell. I think the rear light treatment will look better in the flesh and probably be quite a good effect on a dark coloured car. It will be interesting to see how the design feature makes it onto other models in the range.
Agree re the dashboard but it has to be said that it's just the way cars are going and I imagine the material quality will be night and day better than Tesla's efforts and will be a very nice place to be.
Harry's brief review showed it much better than the press pictures do
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Post by Alex on Oct 29, 2021 18:41:34 GMT
While she feels it's totally fine swanning off to Berlin "on a separate project". So, hypocrisy mixed into the looniness. Her life time carbon footprint must be of Elephantine proportions and equivalent to 5 or so lifetimes of the common or garden pleb she wants to ration. There is nothing worse than the ancient eco weenie who has enjoyed such a full life lecturing those less fortunate and suggesting their relatively meagre pleasures should be curtailed. The trouble is that that's how western countries look when we try to tell developing nations to curb their growing use of fossil fuels. Why shouldn't they be allowed to burn coal for power when we were allowed to for a couple of hundred years before them? It's why I fear that very little will be achieved in Glasgow next week.
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Post by Alex on Oct 29, 2021 7:12:14 GMT
It's been a well publicised problem for many years and I remember seeing all the warnings (aimed mostly at women) when I started drinking over 20 years ago. I've been out and got hammered on a number of occasions in my youth but only one time at uni do I truly have no recollection of what I got up to. During my first year at uni I went to the student bar but only the next morning did I have one of my angry female friends come to my door to tell me I'd practically fallen through the door to her room at 3am when she'd had a couple of mates from home stopping over who had to help her escort me back to my room. I didn't do anything dodgy I was just being a complete knob! I'll never know if I drunk something I shouldn't have but I've never had that experience again even after some pretty heavy sessions since. Our halls were off campus so how I got back there in one piece is anyone's guess.
I know the warnings about not being alone when drunk are aimed at women but you can be equally vulnerable to a mugging or worse as a man if you allow yourself to get so drunk even the taxis won't take you home. I remember once out clubbing in Bournemouth a mate disappeared and we later found he'd been chucked out and was so drunk the taxis all told him to do one so he did. Walked back 10 miles to his home the other side of Poole including along the hard shoulder of a dual carriageway (he knew he went that way because he ended up home with some of the signs from the roadworks!) OK it's a funny story bit it wouldn'thave been if he'd been run over.
I think the warnings are getting louder at the moment because of the recent murders of Sarah Everard and the two women stabbed in the park by that devil worshiper last year. There was also a recent case in Nottingham of a drunk girl being raped and murdered. Understandably a lot of women feel that enough is enough and not enough protection is being given and in many ways I'd agree, however as a man I hate the way we're all being labelled as some sort of predator. But equally as a father of two girls I do see how men should be made aware of how very low level stuff such as looking at a girls arse in the street makes them feel very uncomfortable and I wouldn't like another chap doing that to my girls when they get older. I know it's a bit extreme to suggest that if you think it's OK to look at a girl with a low cut top you'll probably end up raping her - of course 9999 out of 10000 men won't, but that doesn't mean that it's OK and that women somehow appreciate the gesture.
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Post by Alex on Oct 25, 2021 14:49:13 GMT
It was soft and chipped easily from new, despite having some form of Autoglym paint treatment that was supposed to make the paint harder ! The paint on my Focus was awful and bird mess caused absolute havoc with it if left for more than a day without cleaning it off (don't criticise I often had to leave it at airport car parks)
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GT4 RS
Oct 24, 2021 11:10:49 GMT
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Post by Alex on Oct 24, 2021 11:10:49 GMT
If even Dan found the regular GT4 a bit hardcore for normal road use this will be absolutely mental maybe even unusable on the public highway. I dont doubt it's a great track weapon and a good way to make a fast buck if you can take advantage of being on the early waiting list but if I wanted to actually use my Cayman I'd stick to looking at a GTS.
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Post by Alex on Oct 24, 2021 11:05:53 GMT
He just needs to get this as his daily to have a matching pair
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Random
Oct 20, 2021 10:33:37 GMT
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Post by Alex on Oct 20, 2021 10:33:37 GMT
Tony Brooks is currently in the dealership, we are changing his wheel. He'll be disappointed if you don't get all four done in less than 3 seconds!
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Done deal
Oct 19, 2021 19:59:49 GMT
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Post by Alex on Oct 19, 2021 19:59:49 GMT
My neighbour has one and quite likes it. They're normally pretty well equipped too with plenty of toys.
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Post by Alex on Oct 13, 2021 16:40:41 GMT
Well, it seems people have stopped panic buying petrol and moved onto milk. We've not had any missed visits from the milkman just yet. His deliveries come from a dairy 5 minutes down the road so supplies hopefully won't dry up.
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Post by Alex on Oct 12, 2021 14:16:58 GMT
Politeness and being civil costs nothing. Agree but the point I was making was that he's being constantly pestered and having people point their smartphone at him and he's probably had enough. I'm sure most of us can be civil when we first get someone knocking on our door trying to flog us something but there's only so many double glazing salesmen you'll put up with before you resort to more colourful language when requesting they leave you alone. Is he being advised properly on how to deal with this and the negative consequences of telling kids to fuck off?
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Post by Alex on Oct 12, 2021 12:49:22 GMT
Looking at Lewis Hamiltons outfits this year I'd say he is actually expressing himself much more than most sportspeople who turn up to events in their official team clothing. His fashion sense is a bit dodgy admittedly but he does actually wear what he wants and the point of him going to the Met Ball recently was not because he was paid by a big designer to do so but he paid for a table and chose young black designers to join him, one of whom made his outfit. He is perhaps an example of a seasoned sportsman who does all the corporate bullshit he needs to but finds ways to live his own life away from the sport.
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Post by Alex on Oct 12, 2021 9:55:08 GMT
There is an element here that anyone, superstar or otherwise, deserves a level of privacy and to be able to do some of the more mundane things of life. But a simple fact is that if you become a superstar you have to accept that your wealth comes from having fans. Therefore if you go outside amongst the public you have to expect some attention. In this instance it could be argued that Haaland had a responsibility to at the very least be polite about it and if he didn't want a selfie to let him down gently. Instead he not only upset a young fan but also showed himself up in front of many other members of the public who may be much less likely to spend their money following his team in future.
But it should also be remembered that Haaland is a young player who has only come to the publics attention very recently and may still he coming to terms with his fame. What I think a lot of football clubs and record labels etc are very poor at is giving suitable guidance to young stars on how to deal with their fame. We take it for granted that we can pop to the shops or have a meal without being bothered by all and sundry or constantly photographed. Your nephew might have been perfectly polite but Haaland might have just had to eat his dinner whilst constantly seeing people very unsubtly takin out their phones and pointing them in his direction. Your nephew actually approaching him may have been the final straw. But this is where he needs to be supported in dealing with his new found loss of freedom.
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Post by Alex on Oct 12, 2021 8:21:20 GMT
I think we've become a bit too used to using -19. Not sure why?
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