XLBaconDoubleCheese

It's £1 to unlock and 15p a minute, so not 'cheap'. I guess it's aimed at people doing short hops rather than renting them and going for a hour ride like I did. There's always free unlock codes floating about so that saves £1 a go. If I was looking at buying one I really like the Uni Moke tbh but I'll make do with my regular bike for now.

I've been curious about E bikes for a while, I gave the Lime E hire bikes a go over christmas and am quite impressed. They're very basic, no gears, no power modes just pedal and get a bit of assistance. You still have to work a bit, especially up hills but they ride really nicely. Solid tyres and no suspension results in a very stiff ride, thankfully the seats are reasonably comfortable. Bit pricey but convenient and enjoyable to use.

Hugely delayed reply! Since the OP I've done the sensible thing and bought an entire new bike. I've not used it yet, I decided to use the bike I was talking about in the OP first, I took bike to a local guy who fixes bikes and builds wheels, he gave it a once over, turns out there were a fair few loose spokes which wouldn't have helped. He's trued the wheel and adjusted the brakes and gears for me. We'll see how long it lasts me, the new bike has 650c wheels, the extra tyre might help cushion the wheel a bit! If it goes wrong I will certainly look into getting some decent wheels built.

Lots of if's, buts and maybes in there. When it comes down to it, it seems ridiculous to me to risk thousands of quids worth of motor for the sake of an extra £50 on the insurance premium. A decent map will cost many times that, so just factor it into the costs of the remap, same goes for any modification.

I have more updates but I cannot get too carried away, he currently has a Skoda so I never know if he's on here

Tell siri to put voice over on. Do it to my brother every time he leaves his phone somewhere.

No, that was brand new, built to order.

£34.5k for a 340i (Plenty of options), plus £1500 for the MPPSK to make it up to the same power as the Stinger. Same power, less money.

I've currently got a Kia Optima Sportwagon from insurers while mine is at BMW to be repaired. It looks smart, inside and out, you can tell they've poached the Audi design guy. Buttons and switches feel way better than I expected, I have it in my head anything Korean/Japanese still has they cheap plastic feel to the switchgear but it seems not now. Seats are good, mine is a '3' so has electric drivers seat and a reasonable amount of kit, although some bits are odd. It has sat nav, heated seats & steering wheel, lane assist, reverse camera but no active cruise and no Xenons/LED headlights. Strange. Inside has loads of room, it's huge really and could sit 4/5 adults fine, being the wagon it has copious amounts of boot space too. Outside is pretty big too, just about fits on my drive. Driving wise it's not great, its a 138bhp diesel and not fast at all given it's size and weight. The DCT gearbox changes quickly but hangs on to gears for too long and often makes strange choices, I can't wait to get my ZF box back. The start stop takes a calendar month to decide to restart when you try to pull away too. The engine sounds horrific and is loud from inside too, although seems reasonably economical. It corners like a boat. Since I'm driving to Spain in it I'm on a bit of a downer about it but I guess for daily duties and towing a caravan it'd do the job. After I got this I was reading up about the Stinger. I thought it was an M3/C63 rival but it's only got the same amount of power as my 340i with the MPPSK fitted, given a nearly new Stinger is going for the same price as my BMW was brand new it seems a no brainer to me!

My F30 feels fairly well put together. I've got the creaky doors that need the tape treatment but aside from that nothing yet, touch wood. To be honest I wouldn't say my E90 is miles ahead in terms of build quality but then it's 11 years old, maybe I'll have to rethink in a few more years and see how the F30 is holding up.

Sheesh, thats a bit scary. On my BMW I've got the warning set to 'early', I've had the red light flicker up a few times on traffic island signs etc but it soon realises it's not a threat. I've never had an issue with it braking at something that isnt a problem though thankfully.

I thought that at first but apparently they have a lot of interests outside of F1 making healthy figures and get a reasonable cut of the 'heritage' money or whatever it's called. Apparently they have stopped development of this seasons car too so they can get the jump on the new cars next year. I hope they survive but who knows in F1?

I thought they were essentially operated as two separate companies?

Fair enough, while the lights are a bit tacky from what I remember the seats themselves are quite nice. Exhaust sounds decent, now I think about it my mates M3 had the exhaust and he got a similar deal. A dealer had a car in the showroom with loads of M Perf bits on it and were asking bonkers money. It wasnt shifting so they offered the exhaust to him for a huge discount. I think I took it through a few tunnels to appreciate it's sound I've seen a few videos of the 340 exhaust on the F30 FB page, it sounds bonkers, louder than all the other aftermarket options, pops and bangs and still switches with the modes so you dont have to put up with it all the time. I was going to wait till after my holiday but I might have to drop Cotswolds a email and see what they can do.

I'll admit I thought Renault had suffered more engine failures but when checking back, I think they had one with Hulk and thats about it. Lot's of other issues but the engines seem robust. The Honda does seem to be running far better in the TR this season compared to the McLarens last season, I am looking forward to seeing what way it goes when RB use them.

Only just seen this post. Beautiful looking car, I'm more of an F30/F80 guy but that do look fantastic. Any interior pictures? It's interesting times with regards to these new filters and emissions restrictions, I kinda feel like it's the DPF for a petrol but hopefully it wont be as problematic. How the exhaust? I keep putting off getting the MPPSK for my 340, I was thinking they'd make it for a while yet but it sounds like if I push my luck too far they'll stop selling it.

Just found out my mates bought one! He's added speaker upgrade and climatronic, in white, due September.

Fines are only based on income if you go fast enough to end up in court, fixed penalty notices are still just that, fixed (£100) I can honestly say in all the years and miles of driving I haven't been in a position where speed limit signs have been placed in a way where they have taken me by surprise, certainly never to the point where I've had to do a emergency stop. Anyone got any street view links to an example?

My mates just collected his R estate, looking forward to a spin in it, see if I think I made the right choice going for the BM.

Hummmm, I might have dropped a clanger then I booked an overnight stop at Bourges & a second night in north east Spain. I'm spreading the drive over 3 days so we have plenty of time (in comparison to our 2 day drive to Naples at least!) for taking longer routes. Train arrives in Calais at 11am, so even if we take 7 hours we still have enough time for dinner and a few hours downtime. The other option is to go east of Paris, A26 to Reims then down to Troyes and west over to Sens.

I'm stopping at a mates place just south of Alicante. Google maps says down the A1 to Paris then A71/A75 down to Spain. Now driving to Italy Google maps saved me lots of time, was super accurate and was very efficient but I really dont think Paris is a good idea. I'd rather spend an extra hour on the road and avoid it I think.

I'll have to keep an eye out for that then, everywhere I've read said dual carriageways were 110kph. They're alright in Germany. Interesting thread, I've done lots of Euro trips but most of the time I only do France as far as Veurne, this time I will be going to Spain so doing the full length of it. I've read lots saying the french target us but I suspect if you behave you'll be alright. The trip to Italy I just sat at 130kph the whole time but it was motorway. I wanna avoid Paris so I think I'm gonna end up using some non motorway routes.

I dont know what the answer is to the problem sadly, it's not just relay thefts that are the issue. A lad on one of the VAG groups got stabbed in the leg for his Leon Cupra a few weeks back, another guy had a an attempted theft of his 2 series with a machete outside a McDonalds and these are on top of all the break ins for keys. The people doing this need a deterrent and the police need the resources to deal with them, until that happens I cant see things improving much. I've said it before, the Autowatch setup is cool but it offers no advantage over just putting the key under the mattress (ok, it might be a bit more useful on a keyless car). The only thing anyone can do is make their car as unattractive as possible to nick. Steering locks, blocking in with other cars on the drive, decent home security etc etc. It's disgusting that people have to think about **** like this tbh when we go out and work hard for what we have.

Shock horror, the bike not only passed the MOT but with a totally clean sheet, not a single advisory. Email has been sent to the original garage to ask what their thoughts are on the situation.

Dusted my Piaggio BV350 off this week and took it for an MOT. I've done a whole 2k miles on it since buying it, it's sat in the garage since last September gathering dust. Anyway, I've had some issues with intermittent cutting out so played it safe and booked it in with a local place for an MOT that I'd never used before. Took it in and it failed on front wheel bearing & headlight aim too low, plus advised on brake pads, front tyre & rear wheel binding. They offered to quote me for the work, £400 for the pads, bearings and tyre Told them to bin off the tyre and it come down to just over £300. So off I trundled home with my unroadworthy scooter a bit ****ed off. Decided to pop into another place near work that came highly recommended, got back to me with a price of £110 all in for the bearing and pads Thats better, I'm dropping it off to have it MOT'd by him first though to see if it does actually need all the stuff listed on the last test. The front tyre is fine, I dunno about the bearings but its been sat for months so it's a little stiff anyway, everything felt fine when I put it away back in September. Time will tell anyway! One good thing though, forgot how much of a laugh it is launching the thing around town Quite looking forward to getting it back on the road now!