Lady Elanore

I reckon I could manage a hedge backwards if I try hard

Owned Premium and none-premium (not sure how you make a distinction like that these days) and have always felt you get what you pay for. I don't think I would want a cheap new car that was capable of 180+mph, I'd wonder what the engineers hadn't put in!

I would have loved one. A nice 1.4 would make a great retirement car

So now the Jimny is confirmed is no longer being sold in the UK (current orders are being delivered though) and only a vague chance of a commercial version coming back to these shores, how did Suzuki manage to screw up what has been a mini sales sensation? They must have known emissions was going to kill it, the press was saying emissions would kill such cars even before it was even launched, so I assume during development of the new Jimny this must have come up. I still can't believe they aren't able to engineer a small modern and efficient engine to fit N-S in this car. If the car had slightly better performance, improved economy and green-friendlyish emissions you would think it might be a bigger sales success that it was with its current configuration. I realise that aerodynamics will be poo if it keeps it's lovely looks, but an up to date engine and maybe a little hybrid help would improve matters considerably. Come on Suzuki, sort yourselves out and bring back the most desirable vehicle you have made in years!

I don't think a 2 tonne 4x4 is like a motorbike?? I'm glad we agree on something. Personally I still like the more 'focused' cars, but eventually will also grow up and drive a safe Eurobarge Btw I ended up in the Kona last night as it's registration was booked for parking on site (strict C-19 rules demand things like this in my profession currently) and it was too late to change to the M4's which at the time had all my kit in the boot ready for the job (it fills the boot to the gunwales)....grrrr

Had a chat with a pro snapper at a footie match last night and he was brandishing a 1DX3 and the new 400m. He seriously rated the kit. Said the autofocus was stunning and he wasn't interested in mirrorless, as the viewfinder blackout in cameras like the Sony would stop him tracking the action (the 1DX is pretty short in blackout). I was surprised as I didn't think blackout was an issue with mirrorless? He could lift the whole thing with his little finger (hooked around the tripod foot) as the new lens is incredibly light. Don't know if I would have lifted £18K of kit with my little finger to make the point though

Good luck with getting a Macan within several thousand pounds of the real world price of an X3M (assuming similar equipment levels). As a man that prioritises straight line performance over handling would appreciate the bargain that the X3M is. Don't forget, the owners who live with them, really rate them. Car Advice agree with most reviews. As a performance SUV the X3M is the more driver focused vehicle. The Porche being the softer car. Depends on what you want. But £540 a month with a month upfront deposit was a deal of decade and unlikely to be matched until BMW try and shift old stock when the replacement model arrives sometime down the road. I must admit i usually approach a car I'm interested in, or find intriguing, based on it's driving dynamics before I consider the daily grind and the comfort of the vehicle. Your Superb shows you have a different set of priorities that are no less valid imho. "It would therefore be odd to give the win to anything but the most aggressive of this pair. Performance in all its forms is the key metric of this comparison, and by that criterion, the X3 M Competition runs rings around the subtler Macan Turbo. If you had to do anything other than pursue a life of driving at nine-tenths and above, however, things start to get very different. While not as spacious as the X3, nor as tech-friendly, the Macan becomes much, much easier to love and live with in the daily grind. As if that matters, though"

Sorry I reduced the stop for the 7Dii but not the 5Diii figure, You are correct and I've amended the error in my post

Slash Gear said this. "The M Servotronic steering offers precise steering and sensitive feedback. Between the suspension and steering setup, you could feel every imperfection in the road and on the track. Honestly, I’ve never felt steering feedback like this in an SUV before. You can also adjust it across the same Comfort, Sport, and Sport+ configurations." This was a compliment The general consensus by owners on M3Cutters is that they find the suspension firm, but not a problem and pretty much love the car top to bottom.

Yes it was just a launch deal. Several guys on the M3cutters took the offer up and seem pretty happy. They reckon the firm suspension is fine, very firm for an SUV but about right for a 500bhp rocket. Personally I don't think I'd want it to be particularly soft with M3 levels of performance. Some testers found it could hit the 0-60 figure in around 3.8 second on its way to 100mph in a similar time to the M3 which is quite rapid for a big bus! The basic spec on them was very nice too. I think I could have lived with one, although it is too big for me really. I'd still be looking at a new M4 with the amazing current deals, at least if the world hadn't gone mad I would. Still, maybe it's Gods way of saying I should save up for the new M2 in a couple of years either that or buy food now Drove across the Snake Pass tonight (about an hour ago) and the rain was lashing down and in places, lying on the road. I had the Hyundai with it's 4 wheel drive system and it was definitely the right car for the occasion. The M4 would have been very...er lively Interestingly, the Hyundai has a graphic where you see how it's apportioning its drive to the front and rear axels and as you hit standing water, even though you don't detect wheel spin, the power shuffles rearwards as you undoubtedly are spinning at the front a little. It always apportions some drive to the rears in the first 3 gears as you accelerate and the level depends on how much throttle you use, but I hadn't seen it do its thing in the higher gears.

On the subject of cheap deals, this was the launch deal on the current X3M which has the next gen M3 engine and such like fitted (500+bhp). Can't easily get near that now 😞

I use my 70-200mm with a 1.4tc, which gives me 280mm at f4 on my 5D3 and 448mm (or near enough) at f4 on my trusty 7D2. Its still pretty sharp with the TC on thankfully. I find the 100-400mm isn't fast enough for me in anything other than really strong sunlight. The new 5R looks very interesting indeed as does the 6R (specs just released in the last couple of days). Way out of my price point these days, but if I can get myself back on track financially once the world goes back to some sort of normalcy, it might be on the cards

I was thinking if you want to transfer data between devices you might want more speed, plus the better cards also have Bluetooth which is occasionally nice to have. My current router is astonishing (to me at least) how quickly it can move GB about wirelessly

nice lens too

I saw a video of the chaps building Richard Hammond's Jaaaag engine saying it's best to use "crap" engine oil to bed the engine in as you need to score the bores to seal the cylinder properly, which is something I have heard all the petro-motive life and I don't see any reason to discount that advice. Apparently they said that modern oil is so good a coating surfaces, running in is not very efficient at all! Certainly I have always 'run in' my car's engine, assuming the car is new. I have never had an issue with oil consumption which I attribute to this and if I have put my cars on a rolling road they have always performed rather well The M4 in the earlier posted clip is not being excessively rev'd at all and most of the noise you hear is the dyno and close proximity of the exhaust. I was always taught that never keep constant revs and to work the engine up and down the rev range, without revving too high for the first XXXX miles (this varies slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer) I think my M4 was 1,200 miles at less than 4,000rpm, which as it turned out wasn't a hardship at all as the car was still pretty enjoyable even then. My M135 was around 1,000 miles if I remember, but the M4 had an oil change after it's running in period.

That's a very nice camera. Any chance of the EXIF data on the shot, or a copy of the original somewhere like flickr

I'm not the person to answer that question I reckon. There are several PCIe specs and each generation got faster, version 2 is quite old now and the speed isn't fantastic. If you have a modern router, you might be better looking at a slightly pricier card that supports 2.4 and 5GHz like an AC1200 or higher. I think the cheapest PCIe cards don't support Bluetooth either, so it might be a nice option to have built in?

I can't find my exact card, but these are sorts of things I use. I have a Tplink at the moment https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=wifi+pci+card&i=computers&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

I don't see a problem to be honest. If you look carefully at the video you can see the rev counter from about 4.5k upwards and the car never hits this. The car will probably only be turning at around 3,000rpm or less at 93mph and not a speed I see troubling in a new car engine, especially as it is a gentle increase and decrease, not mashing the throttle or sustained high engine speed running.

I think he has ball joints where most people have knees. I thought everything looked about normal sized though. Were you sitting a long way from your screen?

Here's the Prototype RWD version (originally know as the Pure version) it's only got 473bhp so it will struggle on the school run it's nice to watch because the driver is heel and toeing You can't see the grill (I do actually quite like it I think, it's grown on me-like moss) The driver has nice arms

With cars the same size as a Hercules Transporter, they need 500bhp just to park up a kerb

Wow, you take on a challenge Rob

First prototypes are being driven by the mags. This is CAR mags take and Autocar have done one too (I'm just posting the CAR one as it's a bit early to read too much into it, I reckon) https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/car-reviews/bmw/m3/ It has been stated that the new car is significantly bigger than the current one. This is good news, as it means I won't hanker after a car I can't afford anyway Stop making cars bigger!!!

^^^^^ This I used WiFi dongles on an old PCs for a couple of years, but found they just didn't last very long. When I got my current PC it thankfully had some spare PCI card slots. It was a simple job to source a WiFi card and simply plug it in. Drivers installed automatically and the card supports some pretty high speed WiFi (I've an AC4000 router) and also has decent Bluetooth 5 built in, so I can connect various things to the PC now without the dreaded wire. They are cheap and super easy to install (I managed it!). There are now faster Wifi and Bluetooth standard available for when you get a newer router/mobile phone/earbud etc