stu83

Damn it. With this and activating auto high beams it looks like I'll need to order obdeleven after all! Unless there's anyone in the north Bham area who's feeling generous?

1. Auric Goldfinger. Retired Train Driver 2. Lee01. Job entails sitting in a van drinking tea. Sometimes with tea in a tent. Sometimes I connect phone cables. 3. Roo. Sits at computer or on a train looking at wiring diagrams drinking tea. Sometimes I fix them too. 4. Jars. Operational Quality & Claim Manager in the Automotive Logistics industry. 5. RobClubley. IT Systems Engineer and part-time motoring journalist. 6. lol-lol. Customs & Compliance Analyst for top ten International Logistics company. What did I do, or not do, to deserve BREXIT ! 7. Moley. Self employed engineer servicing the Rubber, plastics, PU foam cutting industries in the UK, Europe and around the world. 8. V6TDI. Senior in an integrated Health/Adult Social Care Assessment team. 9. Aspman. Information Security Manager but also FOI and DPA compliance. I shout at people then get ignored. 10. DarkPeakCycles, Monitoring Data Analyst/IT Support & part time bicycle mechanic 11. IO1901. Treasury Manager. Cash and FX management 12. VWD retired GPO/PO/BT engineer retrained ( perhaps spell checker description as "retarded" might be better) as rail S& T technician 13. chrisw880. Currently nothing, but soon to be shunter/fueler for a large bus company 14. camelspyyder. Retired from aviation (but SWMBO's already complaining about living on the pension, so maybe not retired for long?) 15. Wet Kipper: Data Manager for Clinical Laboratory involved in Pharmaceutical Trials 16. Been a social worker, social services manager, parish clerk, green activist/terrorist. Now Computer Consultant, photographer, writer and music performer (or as SWIMBO says - rock god!) 17 Retired postal worker, now you know why the service has took a down turn. Mind you it was on a down turn before I retired/took early retirement and my pension, that's why I finished. 18. Andyjm2uk. Business Inteligence Developer among other things. Mainly SQL based. Have done Infrastructure and Service Desk in previous lives. 19. Warrior193. Electrical engineer looking after NHS HealthCare Centre. 20. Jonny5ive - General Manager of a Hotel. Part of the award winning Coaching Inns Group 21. Robshaw - ERP Software Sales. 22. ahenners - IT Infrastructure Lead 23. Macca11irl - Structural Engineer, project manager, safety officer, 3rd party and community liaison officer, site engineer, designer, thinker, solver of problems, maintenance renewal and upgrade works in Railway Infrastructure. Oh and maker of decent tea and coffee. 24. tweenster - military aviation infrastructure specialist. 25. 181ce - Sits in a control room doing homer Simpson impersonation. Sometimes goes nextdoor to the lab for a spot of chemistry. Used to be a hgv. Mechanic/driver 26. wonkyewok. Try to teach stuff to students, research into bits of welding / 3d printing, and make furnaces that produce aerospace alloys work better 27. edward: Pharmacist and Civil Servant. 28. FUBAR - Driver / coffee drinker / shunter (OCD parking overlord) for a bus company. I don't really have one job tbh, I do a bit of everything, a spare bus driver who spends 50% of the time keeping myself busy when not out moving cattle 29. KSINGH:- GP trainee registrar 30. Roaddetective- Self employed Fleet Driver trainer. I conduct various defensive/advanced driver training courses for full LGV and B class licence holders. Mainly siting back taking it easy, in somebody else's vehicle giving advice. They call it coaching nowadays. 31. Skodaboy1983 - Insurance clerk with a life insurance company 32. Stu83 - IT Infrastructure Manager - Internal & eCommerce

There's a Travelodge in the centre of town above Lidl - might be worth looking into. It's about a 5-10 min drive to Wilnecote so not too far away, and only 5 mins walk into town ... it's a 5 min walk from the train station too. Alternatively there's a Premiere Inn just off Jc10 of the M42 which is actually in Wilnecote ... or I'm sure there's a few B&B's towards Fazeley, again, only a 5 min drive from Wilnecote. I think there's also a hotel next to the SnowDome, can't remember for the life of me what chain it is. I don't know of any other hotels / B&Bs in the Wilnecote / Dosthill area unfortunately. There's not a huge variety of places to eat in Tamworth itself, mainly basic pubs and some good curry houses, but if you're willing to travel to Lichfield about 9 miles down the road there's some really nice places to eat. Fazeley has some really good curry houses, chippies and Chinese restaurants too - always worth a look of an evening though parking there can be a pain. Avoid Nuneaton - they all have 12 toes plus getting to Wilnecote down the A5 across the M42 roundabout is no fun at all in the morning. Edit : And yes, the fuel in Tamworth is stupidly cheap, especially Sainsburys and Asda. Currently 111.9 for petrol, 115.9 for super, and 113.9 for diesel.

Same here, lots of steaming from my bonnet. Freaked me out a bit the first time I saw it as it was about 20 mins after I'd turned the car off and gone in the house.

I think Alpine do an OE setup, but I can guarantee it'll be ridiculously expensive.

My driver's seat looks exactly the same, and I NEVER carry anything in my back pockets. It's just p*** poor material.

Petrol and DSG. Pre-FL 230 (the 'old' equivalent of the 245).

Mine was 241bhp as standard, which is still decent. Love the Alfa though ... My previous car was a GT and chances are my next will be a Giulia Veloce. Mmmmm ... Alfa.

Yep, mine's 288bhp and 467NM ... More than enough for FWD.

Same as others, I'm running 235s on my 19s, but I've gone for Goodyears. They cost me £142 each fitted. Good price on the Michelins.

Yep, luckily I avoided hitting the flashing green Donkey!

My VRS 230 has 235/35/19 Goodyear Asym 3s on, so it was hilariously bad in the snow ... As in the worst car I've driven in these conditions. Ever. I couldn't even touch the throttle to get out of my road up a tiny incline as the wheels just spun. Had to take my feet off the pedals and let the auto box drag me along. Might invest in some winter tyres next year! Oh, one good thing, the LSD helped me park up on the kerb outside my house

Trust me, it will ... Mine started to get noisier after around 10k miles. It gives out little grunts when driving slightly faster than a pedestrian pace, and full on shouts at me when giving it the beans!

Sounds awesome @Ads230 ... Not jealous at all! I hear my 'standard' 230 exhaust quite a lot now, a hell of a lot more than when it was new which is odd as I thought exhausts were supposed to quieten with time. It definitely burbles on cold starts and is a lot more vocal than my mate's 220 Now done almost 20k miles, wonder if the extra horses help out at all as well ... The upshift farts are pretty pronounced even with only slightly rapid acceleration, obviously not quite as much as your Scorpion! Best of luck on Sat, hopefully the weather will stay ok for you. Make sure you get some free stickers / lanyards too!

Shhhhh!!! I was hoping he wouldn't notice the speeding tickets coming through

Looks exactly like mine

1. Auric Goldfinger, Meteor Grey pre FL 230 2. pist0nbr0ke, Meteor Grey vRS TDI 4x4 DSG Estate 3. nidza, Moon White pre FL 230 4. Gti Jazz Blue, Quartz Grey Metallic FL 230 5. Stu83, Moon White pre FL 230

Poorboys black hole glaze - works a treat. Also machine polishing with a cutting pad and some Megs 105 works a treat. Wouldn't recommend doing it frequently though.

Same here. Annoys the hell out of me. Only had it apply the brakes once, and it was pretty unnecessary. Still leave it on though - it only has to work 'properly' once to pay for itself.

The previous 230 was only manufactured for a small amount of time, so wouldn't be surprised if that's it for the 245 now. No doubt there'll be a run-out 245 model with all the extras towards the end of the mk3's life.

You'll probably need significantly less hair too!

.... and then all you need is a black spoiler

Yeah, that's probably about right actually. Still incredibly competitive, I almost used Oscarli but then Shark offered 25% off, and I'd used them before with great results. Ended up getting essentially a custom map through them in the end, which was awesome. They uploaded the generic map then stuck it on the rollers while they fine-tuned it to my car.

Oscarli are actually really reasonably priced. The only 'issue' is Rich doesn't have a Dyno on site in Kenilworth. Apart from that, he's the guy who write the maps for a lot of the big boys, and well worth a chat with. IIRC I was quoted around the £300 mark for a remap on my 230.

This. Peak power means absolutely NOTHING if it only reaches it for a brief moment, and the journey there is crap. A lot of these maps will only hit peak power for 100rpm or so, or only hit that power in a car running 99RON on an optimistic Dyno with perfect atmospheric conditions. Then that generic map is uploaded to your car. They also seem to have brutal torque curves. A smooth map with useable power and no torque spikes is the way to go, which usually involves a custom map. This is coming from someone who's used a number of mappers before (4 cars and counting) - with my Shark remapped cars I've never had any issues. With others (I won't name them) I've needed new clutches / DMFs even on lower mileage cars way too soon. TL:DR - beware of tuners who are chasing figures, especially if you plan to keep the car for more than two years. And if its a manual- the manual can't take as much of a beating as the DSG, but most tuners will use the same map regardless.