Aspman

Mate has one, a 3.0 NA. He loves it dearly and has done well over 100k with it. He shoot as well so it's had a reasonably hard life running around fields and he swears it's better off road than many true 4x4s dues to the perminant 4x4 and differential layout. He has spend a fair bit on maintenance over the years, it does seem that all subarus have a weak point for rust in the exhaust system, they hole at one little point where it can't be welded and you have to replace the exhaust at some considerable expense (over £1k). Fearsome thirst, if he floors it I swear you can hear the tank drain. He's thinking of changing now but really struggling to think of something that does everything for him like the Subaru does.

https://www.uswitch.com/broadband/news/2019/07/ofcom-names-worst-broadband-providers-customer-service/ Vodafone is #2 for complaints IMHE as long as you don't get a problem you'll be fine. But in general if you do get a problem the big boys are often rubbish at sorting things out. Plusnet used to be a very good company, then BT bought them and they went downhill fast. I was a long standing cutomer of theirs and they made an absolute shambles of my housemove. If I hadn't had bigger issues at the time I'd have taken them to the ombudsman. If you want to stick with Plusnet (because everything is working) you can ask to be put through to their disconnections team. Disconnections have more authority to authorised discounts etc than sales do. It used to work but more recently I've been told to take a hike by companies when I've asked for a discount to stay. Then I've left them. If you want good performance and service you need to pay for it with someone like Zen. They're much better reated but in no way the cheapest.

It's been like that for every BMW for a long while. It annoyed me for a long time but I'm used to it now. It does stop you taking the oil measurement at the wrong time (hot cold, run, stopped etc), so it's more accurate, but less convenient I think it's still a household supply but a big fat cable to carry more amps.

Why this could not be done pre-delivery is a concern if it is indeed so easy to do. It could even be part of an automated PDI.

I think that's a more salient point. Both you and George are speaking very highly of your experience of daily driving e-cars even at the opposite ends of the hype spectrum. More than that they seem to be practical now. Im putting a charging point in my new build, not because I have ideas on electric but that it seems stupid not to do it while it's easy. I'm not sure I could give up my fossil fuel additction but maybe the main car could be electric with the fossil for fun.

Sounds like the engineering for the drivetrain in the car is top notch but everything after that is in beta or budget mode. Many of the things you describe would be unacceptable on a £10k car, but on a £40k car pushed with many marketing millions Tesla should be embarrassed to produce a product so poorly finished. They might well struggle now the old manufacturers are bringing their electric game up. They (generally) know how to do QA better than this.

I dunno if being in such a colossal motor makes the driver feel invincible. I suspect SUV tailgaiting is in part down to the height of the cars, people just don't see how close they are to the car in front but it's the difference between too close and stupidly close, not the 2sec rule.

What is the actual car like George? Decent seats etc, is a Vx still a less nice place to be for an hour?

I don't think tailgaiting and general sh|#y driving is restricted to any marque now. If I was to point a finger it would be at the Landrover/Range Rover set, the bigger the model the worse the driving. But then recently I've had a selection of Corsa's, Audis, Range Rovers, Pickups and even a campervan up my chuff, usually on 60mph single carriageway roads.

Never had an issue with poundshop cables. I think you need better ones (or chipped cables, they've got tiny chips in the connectors didn't you know) to use fast charge etc.

If kept the road clear ahead of me I'd be right with you.

Batteries for cars with stop start are much more expensive (and heavy duty) than batteries from a few years ago.

TBH both options are overkill for your needs so maybe just as well you ended up with the cheaper option.

I agree but only with regard to the cheap ones. Out rental has a 'a lot' of spots. I've replaced them with LED but just teh supermarket ones. TBh they last even less times than the halogens. 25yr my arse lucky to see 3 months from them. However I also have some quite expensive Phillips LED bulbs and none of those has even flickered in the 2yr I've had them. So don't buy cheap LEDs, false economy. Just to contradict myself I had a lot of cheap corn light bulbs to replace G9 halogens and they were really reliable.

I've stuck with FF on the desktop, I've used it for a very long time now and I like my add ins. I don't use it on mobiles, but I've read very bad things about this update https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/25/firefox_android_update/

That shape just seems a bit wrong. Maybe the colour isn't helping. Wheels look tiny too.

Might be rough, dealer might be an ass who knows. We've all seen over priced cars for many reasons.

Base Mondeo is £25k , Insignia £23k Having owned all 3 marques (and not having a problem with any tbh) I think a £7k premium for a 3series is worth the spend. I dug around lot before buying my BMW and I thought geniunely that a used BMW was offering better value than the majority of other marques, including Skoda.

335d, 313hp, 630Nm the cars do make you push on because it's so damn easy. It makes other people seem slow because you can power out of bends and limit changes so easily and overtaking options that would be silly in a less powerful car look quite reasonable all of a sudden. There is no skill involved, the car has 4x4 and an auto box so you can just floor it in a straight line and the car goes faster. I used to have a Mini Countryman with 122hp as well. I would drive far more agressively in the BMW if I wasn't thinking about it; in the mini I was happy to tootle around. In corners it does feel like the BMW would quite like to kill me. The TC does not go off, it will spin all 4 wheels in the wet if you're heavy footed. Do I feel like the car is too powerful? Nope And I would look for my next car to have considerably more if I can get it.

Aye as does mine, and allegedly a 20Gb hard drive in there too. But I don't think I've ever put a CD into it.

Mine was in for a service and a recall the other month. Flaming EGR issue, but mine had welded itself to the manifold so I got a new one of them as well. I totally get the performance but I'd have that Lambo in a hearbeat over the Tesla even if they were the same price.

We're on 2nd or 3rd gen wind turbines now which are "allegedly" much more efficient than the old ones and much cheaper. Much of the cost of wind power early on which gave it bad rep was payment for development. It's pretty effective now although does chop up lots of birds. Electric doesn't appear to me though I have to say, but then I've never driven one, maybe I'd be a convert if I had a go. Still the new house will have a charging point built into the garage. It wasn't that expensive to put in and seem logical to do a bit of future proofing.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/21/charity-warns-e-scooter-fire-risk-trials-begin-road-use-uk/ "Commuters are being warned that e-scooters could catch fire and explode due to risky batteries, with a safety charity urging owners only to buy replacements from reputable sellers."

Could you put in an old box as a linux print proxy? If you've got a hardened box acting as a proxy that will allow your guests and LAN users to access the shared printer without the print server acting as an insecure bridge. Dpends if you've got anyone up to speed on 'nix or if you're comfortable following an online guide. You could use a windows ISA server but then you've got licensing to deal with. By the time you've farted around too much it'll be cheaper to buy a new printer.