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Post by racingteatray on Jan 12, 2024 12:04:48 GMT
I am thinking it is time to wash the Fiat - it has got to that point where the window rubbers are gaining a green layer. But it's too cold.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 12, 2024 12:03:31 GMT
I am very thinning on top and grey at the sides - my father-in-law, who has a good 30yrs on me, has more hair and less grey hair, which is mildly upsetting.
My wife, who has thick dark hair that hasn't gone grey at all yet, isn't impressed.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 12, 2024 12:01:13 GMT
Yes. Boris the 500SEC was a case in point and in the end the reason for the Gorilla going was the unknown prospect of some £10k bill arriving. Yes, my 500E was like this. Generally bulletproof as regards things like bodywork, interior and major mechanical items, but with an endless list of aged minor consumables that announced their retirement from action at every service, meaning I never had a service bill south of £1k.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 12, 2024 8:59:38 GMT
As it happens, the reminder for the Macan was waiting on the doormat when I got home last night.
So they are definitely still sending them out.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 12, 2024 8:58:27 GMT
Being a chap who is thinning on top, my wife has suggested several times that I might think about this. But I am underconvinced.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 11, 2024 20:16:34 GMT
If only everything in life was as reliable as a Volkswagen...
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 11, 2024 20:13:17 GMT
Nothing booked yet but expect to have a couple of long weekends - at least one abroad, and a summer holiday - likely 10 days but won't book until nearer the time as it's not a major priority. When we feel like it we'll book and go. In my 'past life' with the ex we would always have 2 holidays booked nearly a year in advance - a weeks skiing and 10ish days in the summer - plus (usually) an extra week away in one of the half terms. It actually always filled me with anxiety not joy doing it that way so I'm happier with things as they are now. Don't get me wrong - I love travel and a break from work but I'm not bothered by going to the fanciest places etc - we used to spend a huge ammount on holidays and I absolutely enjoyed them but the balance wasn't quite there and I'm now more focussed on the time rather than the places and building for the hope I can ease away from work a few years earlier with the savings!!! It's a difficult balance to get right for sure. I get anxiety if I don't have something booked! It’s not getting easier to justify, prices are so much higher than 5-6 years ago eg long haul flights +35-40% and now we need 3 seats it’s broadly double what we used to pay pre 2020. Everyone we know with kids plans their holidays like military operations and well in advance. Not having kids, we can afford to be a bit more relaxed about costs - there has to be a silver lining to it!
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 11, 2024 20:10:00 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.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 11, 2024 13:13:03 GMT
Racing, do you mean you only measured 40+ for the motorway sections so if you included, say, driving from Central London to wherever the motorway starts your average would be lower? Yes. I meant on eg the motorway schlepp from Calais to Lugano, which is circa 1,000kms of motorway. There the 440i would happily give me 40+, and could, for example, get from Basel to Calais (around 750kms or 470 miles) on a tankful. And that's notwithstanding driving quite fast. The Mini gave me 44mpg for the whole three weeks. But probably doesn't do much better on the motorway, because it can almost do Basel-Calais despite only having a 45 litre tank (versus 60 litres in the BMW) which suggests an average of around 45mpg at a fast motorway clip.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 11, 2024 0:41:45 GMT
Nothing. We are congenitally incapable of planning that far in advance.
We have flights booked to Fano for a week over Easter, and know that we have to be in Germany for a weekend in late May for a godson’s christening, but that’s it so far.
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Economy 7
Jan 10, 2024 16:29:40 GMT
via mobile
Post by racingteatray on Jan 10, 2024 16:29:40 GMT
Ah, I think you are not comparing apples with apples. I used to get mid-40s on the 440i on the motorway runs to and from Italy, not overall.
By contrast, our Mini Cooper (1.5 petrol) gave us an average of 43.9mpg for our Christmas travels over a probably similar overall distance (we did London to Fano, then up to Courmayeur and back down to Fano, plus all the interim trips here and there). And that’s nearly what you might term “fast driving”. I can report that you can do at least 175kph in our Mini without particularly noticing (Mrs M didn’t).
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 10, 2024 14:01:12 GMT
My wife definitely got one in the post for the Fiat in October, because she asked me to deal with it. Insanely, despite the VED being zero, you still have to go online and "renew".
The Macan's VED is due from 1 Feb and I have not yet had any reminder. The BMW was, and the Mini is, set up for direct debit. I have no idea whether the Macan was automatically set up for DD when I bought it or not - is there a way to check (short of bothering the original salesman)?
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 10, 2024 8:50:42 GMT
I’ve always paid by direct debit, otherwise I forget. I can’t do anything about the price rises so not really any reason not to.
But come to think of it, I’ve not received one for the Macan yet and obviously the first year VED was prepaid.
We always get one through for the Fiat which is nil-rated for VED.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 8, 2024 20:05:55 GMT
Possibly the C3 on the basis that the Panda and Up are about to be pensioned off. But I’ve not driven one.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 8, 2024 18:55:58 GMT
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 8, 2024 17:41:50 GMT
Our neighbours have a red Swift, but it's the later model. They love it.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 8, 2024 17:34:43 GMT
You mentioned Strasbourg. Near Strasbourg is Colmar which is also exceptionally pretty - we have stayed nearby in Rouffach a few times on our way to and from Italy. Once, as it was my birthday, at the Chateau d'Isenbourg, which is old-school upmarket with spa facilities. www.grandesetapes.com/chateau-hotel-isenbourg-alsace/en/Otherwise we tend to go to the Domaine de Rouffach which is a decent 3* with olde worlde charm and an excellent restaurant called Philippe Bohrer (check opening hours - the restaurant is not open on Sundays and Mondays, although the hotel also has another one which is less upmarket). www.domainederouffach.com/en/We often raid the following nearby vineyards for wine: www.mure.com/en/ (superb cremant) bollenberg.com/Heading south, you could go to Basel for a quick jaunt into Switzerland. Basel's old town is beautiful and there is a spectacular modern art museum if you like that sort of thing. More pertinently to this forum, it means you are within touching distance of the Schlumpf Collection at Mulhouse, which is now France's national motor museum as well as housing the famed Bugatti collection: www.musee-automobile.fr/en/Nestled between Mulhouse and Basel (and handily in France from a cost perspective), I like the hotel "Au Lion Rouge" in Bartenheim. It's a pretty three-star inn, which is really an inn in the classic sense in that it is a great restaurant with rooms, rather than the other way around. The rooms are modern, clean and comfortable, and well-priced. www.lion-rouge.fr/We stayed there last month on our way to Lugano in the Mini, and had a fabulous meal as usual. We had foie gras (the real thing, not the pate) poached with apples in calvados to start, followed by fillet of beef with morels for my wife and venison in a wine and juniper sauce, with spaetzle for me, followed by profiterole, all accompanied by good glasses of cremant and red wine. I paid just over 200 euros for the whole lot (room, meal and secure parking) and it's just five mins off the main motorway from Strasbourg to Basel (pretty much the last stop before the Swiss border). Other thoughts - obviously there is Lake Constance, but south of Munich is also the Tegernsee, which I am told by German friends is very pretty. So, marshalling my thoughts, I could be tempted in your shoes to go (how long you stop and tarry in each place is obviously up to you!): - First stopover in Reims (3hrs from Eurotunnel, great for champagne obviously) or skip that and go straight to Strasbourg/Colmar (5-6 hrs from Eurotunnel).
- You could easily spend a day in Reims visiting champagne houses.
- Strasbourg and Colmar each merit a day of wandering around, plus meals and vineyards as mentioned above.
- Strasbourg/Colmar to next stopover in Basel (takes 60-90 mins depending on whether you are going from Strasbourg or Colmar, stopping along to way to visit the Schlumpf Collection.
- Basel could easily fill a day.
- Once done with Basel, head to Liechtenstein for lunch (2 hrs).
- After lunch over to Neuschwanstein Castle (the fairytale one built by Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria), via Bregenz at the bottom of Lake Constance (further 2 hrs).
- Find somewhere to stay near Neuschwanstein Castle, visit next day and then afterwards head up to Munich (2hrs) for next stopover.
- Munich merits at least a day, including to see the BMW museum.
- You could go across to Regensburg, which is very pretty but east of Munich and thus perhaps out of the way - it's a day trip from Munich.
- Then across to Stuttgart via Augsburg for next stopover to visit Porsche and Mercedes (2.5hrs).
- Then I'd be tempted to make my next stopover Baden-Baden (little over an hour from Stuttgart), where you could "take the waters" at the famous spa.
- Thereafter up to you, but Cologne is worth visiting and the Eifel region of Germany (bordering Luxembourg) is pretty.
- And you could then, if you have time and haven't been before, from Cologne, head up to Antwerp/Ghent/Bruges - all very pretty and a short hop back to Calais.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 8, 2024 16:48:08 GMT
Just got back to London last night after being away for three weeks, and it was very heartening to find that the Fiat started first time this morning with nary a suggestion of a complaint, despite the battery now being into its 11th year. And given that the poor car suffered the indignity of having a large trellis (and attached rambling rose) fall on it after Storm Gerrit succeeded in detaching it from the front wall of the house while we were away (thankfully causing no immediately obvious damage), it could have been forgiven a grumble.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 8, 2024 16:24:29 GMT
Daft shout by the insurers on the Fester.
Good shout on the Swift.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 4, 2024 19:19:31 GMT
We have the same daft 20mph limit in our town. Since they added extra planters and street furniture in Covid and have yet to take them away its hard to get to 20mph in the stop start traffic but I can't remember ever voting for this rubbish. Driving an older car it doesn't sit very well at 20mph so I will burble through town between 1st and second rather then cruising at 30mph. Its just your typical anti-car council actions. Same with our Fiat 500, which is the perfect urban car but for the fact it really doesn't like doing 20mph, being very short-geared. By contrast, the Macan, being automatic, is much easier to pootle along in at 20mph but obviously uses far more petrol in the process. Excuse me while I go and bang my head against a hard surface... It's been wall-to-wall 20mph around us for a while now, and it's loathed by most people apart from a curious portion of the population who appear to view roads as appropriate places for children to be able to frolic. I don't actually object to 20mph on residential side streets, but I find it ridiculous that pretty much the entirety of central London is now 20mph, including wide thoroughfares like Park Lane and the Embankment.
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Post by racingteatray on Jan 4, 2024 19:11:40 GMT
Apparently it was the first crash involving one of the new generation of carbon-bodied airliners and there's been a lot of focus on the speed with which it went up in flames.
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Post by racingteatray on Dec 27, 2023 22:07:26 GMT
Yes the 5 and its Alpine twin are interesting, as perhaps are the Panda and small Alfa SUV if one must do volts. Apart from that, I do have a sneaking weakness for a Mustang but the rest look dreary or weird, or both. As a Mini owner, I must say I am not especially loving the look of the new one. The proportions are good but the back looks like something from Angry Birds and the inside simply looks low-rent. I precisely like that our Mini feels solid, upmarket and well-made from decent quality materials inside. In other words, like a proper car that you’d buy by choice rather than because it was all you could afford, unlike most small cars I have tried.
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Post by racingteatray on Dec 27, 2023 21:55:07 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! I changed the dipped bulbs on Mrs RT’s 500 to a set of superbright ones not long after we got it, as the standard ones were like waving a couple of candles around, especially if you are used to xenons. That was quite easy and could be done by lifting the bonnet. And so far they’ve not needed changing. To change the main beam required fiddling around in the front wheel arch so I did not bother. I think the last car of my own that I had to change a bulb on was the Alfa (being also the last one not to have xenons) and I recall it being do-able but fiddly and a very tight fit.
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VW ID2
Dec 22, 2023 13:22:56 GMT
via mobile
Post by racingteatray on Dec 22, 2023 13:22:56 GMT
I wonder if you could buy one and self ID it as something else? An Audi or Skoda perhaps?!
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VW ID2
Dec 21, 2023 20:50:27 GMT
via mobile
Post by racingteatray on Dec 21, 2023 20:50:27 GMT
I just don’t want a car called an ID anything. Silly name and change for change’s sake.
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Post by racingteatray on Dec 18, 2023 8:37:09 GMT
I wear my Smock on the way to the farm which is 5 minutes away along with wellies and waterproof leggings. I now have visions of a sort of waterproof Grayson Perry...
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Post by racingteatray on Dec 18, 2023 8:35:17 GMT
To be fair I think they themselves are being shafted by the costs of repairing vehicles and providing hire cars so the cost is inevitably passed on to us. I don't think they are being so shafted. Have a look at their annual reports and their profits. I am not 100% convinced that something which is after all mandatory should be quite so subject to uncapped market forces. Admiral had insured my wife's Fiat 500 for the last eight years. It does barely 1,000 miles per year and is worth at best £5k, and the premium has bobbled along at around £150 for years. This year they wanted over £300. No explanation and not much regret when we removed our business.
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Post by racingteatray on Dec 14, 2023 15:30:02 GMT
For that very reason I don't think these will easily find a new home. Overpriced in the first place and with a pretty small range has to mean that prices will continue to plummet. The finance rates simply don't work. I cannot fathom who agrees to pay 11%+ on finance, let alone on borrowings approaching the size of the average mortgage. I was "lucky" to get one of the last 6.4% deals and still wasn't particularly pleased with it.
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Post by racingteatray on Dec 14, 2023 15:27:52 GMT
It’s the standard wheel colour isn’t it and buyers are probably told it’s essential for resale….. Black wheels are like cement grey paintwork. It was a good joke at the beginning, but it has gone on way, way too long. Although I've got used to the cement grey paintwork on our Mini. I'd never actively choose it though. It's actually a metallic shade, but you'd be hard pressed to notice most of the time.
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Post by racingteatray on Dec 14, 2023 15:24:21 GMT
Not usually, because the Macan and Mini both have heated seats, plus the Macan has a heated steering wheel which is one of those "where have you been all my life?" options.
But if it's very cold and I've got to drive the Fiat a short distance, then yes, because (a) it doesn't have luxuries like heated seats and (b) it has a tiny engine so takes an age to generate enough heat to start sending meaningful warmth into the cabin.
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