DangerMouse

I'm looking at trying to get a (used) diesel vrs in the next few days and have a few last minute questions hopefully people can help with? Can anyone tell me the real world difference in the economy of the PD and CR? I seem to remember people in the past saying the power delivery on the CR was smoother too? When did the CR engine get released and is there an easy way to tell which is which for an amateur? Finally on to prices.... Any suggestions on how much should I be paying for something up to around 3 years old with up to 70k on the clock? I've seen a PD vrs with just under 100k and one owner, just over 3 years old for 7950 - fair price? Seems a bit high to me? Thanks in advance! PS, if you have something that I might be interested in send me a PM pronto - I'm off work tomorrow and on a mission to find something suitable asap!

My missus had a nightmare time with Green Flag, who essentially just dumped her and her mates in the middle of nowhere. Of the 15 breakdown firms in the Driver Power survey this year Green Flag are 10 AA are 9 RAC are 7 Number 1 is GEM Motoring Assist. They were number 2 last year and number 1 in 2008.... My Skoda cover just ran out, so I'm signing up with GEM... £79 for the 'top' package they do by direct debit.. seems reasonable enough? :S PS, Sorry- didn't realise this was such an old thread!

Might be worth trying one of those Magic Sponge things depending just how deep the scratches are, certainly might work on the plastic.....http://www.3mselect.co.uk/p-626-scotch-brite-easy-erasing-pad-pk-2.aspx Some people on detailingworld have sorted scuffs and things quite well with them Dont press too hard with it though!

There was a group buy on here for the old ones a couple of years ago. I got one and found it worked exactly as advertised, but I also found it got irritating when I only wanted to nip out down the shops etc so I ended up removing it. Haven't tried it again since :S

Police driver training includes block changing as standard, and with double declutching for smoothness in some forces (though most have stopped training double declutching now). It's also been taught to learner drivers for a number of years now, certainly I was taught to do it rather than change down sequentially when I learnt to drive.

Glad you got the car back, and that you still want it too! This isn't true, it's an urban legend. For a start most car thieves stealing decent modern vehicles aren't your average heroin addled type of criminal, they're usually part of an organised group stealing to order or stealing to use the vehicle as part of a particular job, not to just motor around in while shooting up in car parks. Secondly most IV drug users are actually quite good about capping their needles - don't get me wrong, there are some that are useless at it, but the majority do do it. Finally the vast majority of criminals really don't want to go around actually hurting people just for the sake of it and do it as part of the commission of the offence (give me the money or I'll smack you up/don't try and stop me getting away or you'll get hurt) rather than 'I want them to get hurt because they've found my stolen property'. In quite a few years policing now I've never come across somebody intentionally leaving needles uncapped in an effort to hurt me or somebody else, only ever finding uncapped needles that have been left negligently or through downright stupidity This bit is definitely correct though! I've inconvenienced and worried a few people as a result of sloppy PNC marker practices by some forces/officers!

My FK452s have lasted about 9k and are down to 2mm on the front and 5mm at the rear. They're all wearing very unevenly though and are all verging on illegal at the moment so they're all being replaced with Sessantas and getting 4 wheel laser alignment, no doubt at great expense. A mate has Sessantas on his scooby and says theyre the best tyres he's ever had (and he's had a few performance cars with 'premium tyres'), so they can't be bad. I found Sessantas on ebay for £86 a corner new including postage. (225/40/R18)

They're alright on my vrs too to be honest - as good as any other tyre I've driven on snow with anyway! I find them a bit crap the rest of the time though!

The other week I nicked two burglars in the middle of committing a burglary (charged). Over the last month I've done a considerable number of early morning drugs warrants where substantial quantities of various class A drugs were seized (mostly heroin and crack cocaine) and persons arrested. Last week was involved in nicking two more burglars following a distraction burglary at an old ladies house (she was in her 80s and has Alzheimer's - charged). Also nicked two other people during the week who were wanted for burglary, and another bloke who was wanted for other offences. Over the last couple of months I've probably seized a dozen uninsured vehicles, and I've done far more besides including responding (as an unarmed officer with a stick, tin of CS and a stab vest) to an armed robbery in progress. The people who try the line you have above don't have the first clue what the job is like or what the police do on a day to day basis. There simply aren't enough officers to go to every job and therefore where there is no realistic prospect of a suspect being identified officers generally wont be deployed - if we were at a job making you feel all cosy and saying how sorry we were that your Sat Nav got nicked then we'd be unable to get to the 86 year old ladies house to nick the burglars on scene. In 6 years policing not once have I stuck somebody on for Excess Speed - I have however stuck people on for Careless/Dangerous Driving while they've been speeding, but then most people want the police to do something about idiots on the road causing a danger, don't they...? Yeah... Stupid ill thought out comments do get on my nerves For what it's worth I'd happily put my hand up to go and nick some politicians for what to me seemed to be a number of blatant cases of Fraud... A criminal offence just like the so called benefits 'cheats'.

So, somebody defrauds a family member of you out of thousands and thousands of quid and you wouldn't want them to go to prison? Why should it be any different when the victim of the offence is an 'organisation' (in this case the government)? You're right... A community sentence is the way forward - teaches them a good lesson and stops them thinking about doing it again. Better yet, a conditional discharge - we don't want to be too hard on them. I'll make sure I don't waste my time nicking people anymore - after all it costs a few quid to keep them in custody and then in the admin costs associated with putting them before the courts - let alone if they get a custodial. :thumbdwn:

We call people like that 'thieving scum' at work I think Benefit Cheat makes it sound a bit like theyre just being a little bit naughty. They're not. They're fraudsters and criminals and should be reported. Then if we had a less weak justice system they'd be locked up and forced to repay what they'd stolen from those of us who are honest hard workers.

I still managed to reverse into a post even with parking sensors... TWICE. :rotz: Also some idiot opened a window into my rear spoiler at work recently taking a nice chip out of it. Oh well! :(

Direct Line wouldnt negotiate with me last year on renewal either. 200 quid cheaper for me elsewhere, so I left pronto!

Don't bother with DiamondBrite. Dealer supplied it's absurdly expensive, and it doesn't do what they say it will. I put DiamondBrite on my Fabia (there are pictures somewhere on here if you do a search) and while it looked alright, it wasn't as good as a decent wax. The DB kit cost me 30 quid off ebay and was the exact same kit they'd use at a dealership.

soon to be dead child crossing the road... Fine on a track/course obviously, but dangerous on a road

Absolute rubbish :confused:

I got myself an HTC Hero the other week after moving away from Orange and my Nokia N95 8GB. I was originally after the N97 but decided against it on the basis that it wasn't getting fantastic reviews and the Android platform sounded much better for web based stuff. Having used it for a few weeks now the only problems I've had are a) battery life isn't fantastic, but then it wouldn't be when i have persistant internet connection and wi-fi on and the facebook contact sync goes a bit iffy every now and then, but it sorts itself fairly quickly. It has 5 megapixies in the camera, but no flash. The pictures I've taken have all come out 'Ok' though. Overall a fantastic phone, much more slick than the N97 that I played with in the shop! The OTA updates and the fact it's an open source platform should mean that it only gets better in time too.

The only point to it really is that it makes the government look to be "tough on crime". The reality is that it wont change anything in society to the majority of people. The average person is highly unlikely to be caused any grief as a result in any case.

It just takes SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO bloody long to get the first big detail out of the way though! I spent 2 full days the other week doing stuff with my car and still didn't make it to getting the PC out the garage to sort the paintwork! I just don't have the motivation to keep doing it like that so often like I used to do with my Fabia. I guess it'd be different if I had a garage to keep the car in, but when I have to park it under a tree that seems to have the entire bird population of Surrey living in it I just get disheartened by the next morning! :(

Ooh, just realised that Tardis is a tar remover itself rather than a wheel cleaner that I thought it was, ignore me

Fantastic job! If only I could motivate myself to replace my rear bumper (to get rid of the evidence of the 'accident' it had with a bollard) and get out the PC to do a similar proper job on my car! Out of interest, do you find that the AS Tardis stuff gets rid of all the tar spots etc? I resorted to Wonder Wheels to get rid of everything last time I did mine and even that struggled to get rid of everything) Is it safe for paintwork too, or better sticking to Aytoglym Tar Spot Rremover for that (Sonus green clay wont even touch it and I dont have anything more aggressive!)?

Take the course. It'll be excellent for your observation and you're overall safety and you'll take at least something away from it if you think of it as a positive thing, rather than a punishment (my missus went on one, just after getting her DL back after Totting up for speeding... Oh dear... anyway... she learnt stuff in it that's essentially the observation/hazard perception and anticipation parts of Roadcraft... 'the systematic method of driving that leaves nothign to chance' or words to that effect). You wont have to declare it to your insurance company either, as it's not a conviction.

I don't think it's fascist personally, however I also don't think it's a fantastic idea overall. That said, it's unrealistic to expect that suddenly we'll get loads more coppers instead of these sorts of schemes. It's outright 'policing on the cheap'... A copper costs over 80k to employ, train, equip and pay (including pension costs) for the first 2 years of their service (the probationary period) which is a huge amount of money in the current financial climate. It's not about a 'police state' as much as it's about boosting figures and making it look like the government is innovative and 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime' while sacrificing as little expenditure as is humanly possible. I'd like to think that most people have realised by now that this government is anything but tough on crime or it's causes, and sees this for what it is as a cheap stunt... Cheap being the operative word! Personally I think we should have a wide scale reform of policing [in England & Wales] anyway... Something along the lines of municipal police forces for local issues dealing with Anti-Social Behaviour and low level offences, regional police forces for more 'serious' crime and a national agency overseeing organised and 'major' crime.

That is mega-super-sexy! I want! :eek: