gjm

Errmm... No. I bought alloys for Mrs M once. Learn from my mistakes. Nice try, but this falls into the same category as kitchen kit. She needs that window, and you must buy something she doesn't know is necessary, but it needs to be that one thing she can't live without. Drink alcohol. Get hammered. Write a list. DO NOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. (I appreciate that with credit cards and the internet this may be too late..) Review list in the morning. If it still seems a good idea, or any lightbulbs flash over your head (figuratively speaking) then the listed item may be a good idea. Edit: I have been following my own advice, can't see straight (although it seems to be helping my hayfever) and now need to edit everything I type! (Having read it twice!!!)

Just make sure that when you are buying *that* present, you have polished your "it's not for me, it is for my partner - wife - mistress - other half - significant other - brains of the operation - lover - girl friend" (© Blue-540i) line to be delivered to the attractive sales assistant. Surprisingly, I did once get away with the line "the only thing in that shop which would look good on you was the sales assistant"... Still not sure why. Hope to find out, one day. Do not buy anything which may involve the kitchen or any sort of housework. I don't care if the maiden in question has cited that she adores something, wishes she had something, or can't believe she has managed to live without *it* for so long. Whatever *it* is. This way, disaster lies. It's like the Titanic, ffs. You can see the iceberg coming, know there is more under the surface than is being revealed, but still choose to ignore it. You deserve whatever response you get. Eventually. Buy something she has not mentioned. That she hasn't hinted at. That - preferably - she has absolutely no idea that she is even the tiniest bit vaguely interested in. This seems to be the impossible dream, but go on - if you've been with her more than 5 minutes, you can do it. It *does* require work, but - and trust me - on this, it is worth it. Ohmigod, yessss... Get it right and it's worth it. Yup - it's nigh on impossible. But make the effort. She'll (probably) appreciate your efforts (if you're lucky). You'll know how effective your choice was very soon - either it will be immediately evident (frying pan / head interaction), or you'll never see the item in question ever again (despite assertions that she loves it, even if she can't name *it*), or maybe, just maybe, it will be displayed. Either for all to see, or just in the privacy of your close, personal company. (I wish you good luck with that.) Regardless, get something. And be sure to have a damn good reason why. Nothing is not better than something you thought she might not like. At least, not if you want to have another chance to buy anything for her...

I have E46 rims and tyres - 16x7" with good tyres... They'll fit. If interested I'll check the tyres (I think it is a true set rather than 1 from each of an unknown manufacturer) and the tread. You'll nee to define 'cheap', though. :-)

Joined the 'over 370000km' club at some time today.

Give them a call. The original thread is a few years old - they may have decided five days a week wasn't enough. :-) Nothing to lose, eh?

Lowering the average speed of vehicles in inner city and urban or suburban areas may have an effect. They are looking for (effectively) a 10% reduction in speed. However, lowering highway speeds from ~110 to 104km/h will have zero - ZERO - effect on casualties in the event of an accident. As for speed cameras... Coming back from Hamilton this evening we had a pale blue Toyota Estima-type people carrier almost hidden in the verge taking pictures of southbound traffic - it was in a favourite place, just past the old Meremere power station, tucked well back fro mthe road in such a position that you can't see it until you are there. Has anyone ever seen a speed-related accident on this piece of road? OK, so that's bad enough, but that would be the second camera you would encounter while heading south. An identical-looking vehicle was parked in clear view in Mercer, maybe 10km up the road towards Auckland, also capturing southbound traffic. Is this a new tactic? You've seen the camera van, slowed down, then accelerated to a speed which may be in excess of the limit only to be caught by a second, identical vehicle, which is hidden from view as you approach it? Surely this is tantamount to entrapment? There were also two police cars on the northbound carriageway between the SH1/SH2 junction and the top of the Bombay Hills. Similar tactics?

It does look as though it may be delayed, although that's for technical reasons. Autocar UK seems to have an inside source at BMW who has confirmed there are challenges in chopping the roof off the i8 and retaining rigidity.

I love Christmas. Not sure about Ms Carey sqwarking on the radio, but I can think of a way to shut her up... I definitely need me a man cave though, that's for sure.

Cool - yes. Not really my 'thing', but I do appreciate the work, effort and skill that has gone into it.

Wishing you well, and hoping for a speedy recovery. I travel that stretch of road every day and it never ceases to amaze me how many people pull out to overtake without looking. There was one this evening at the bottom of the Bombay Hills - off the slip road from SH2, and swing straight into the middle lane. Unfortunately, there was already someone in the middle lane... Not me, but I had to brake hard to avoid becoming a part of it.

Definitely has potential. Probably potential for a lot of cleaning, but they do look nice.

I've put them on TradeMe with a start price about the same as scrap value for the rims.

'tis true - too much time spent looking at the speedo and not enough at the road. There was a Rentokill sign-written soft-roader on SH1 this morning who narrowly managed to miss the wire barriers on a number of occasions. Heading south through TK, there have been at least 3 cases in as many weeks where people lost concentration (or whatever) and have taken the wire ropes out. Road sense and awareness is far more relevant than obsessively sticking to a speed limit. Unfortunately while you can teach people what number they are allowed, you can't help them learn to actually drive properly.

A new tyre is bigger than a used tyre. A smaller tyre will show a higher speed on the speedo in the car. So if your car is showing (say) 5% over - displaying 105km/h when the vehicle is actually moving at 100km/h - then when the tyre is worn and the tyre diameter potentially reduced by up to 10mm, the speedo will (perhaps) show 106km/h when travelling at an actual 100km/h. (I've not done the maths to work out the exact figures, but you get the idea.) Essentially, the speedo does become more inaccurate as tyres wear, but it does it in a way that protects you against speeding. In Australia, legislation says newly introduced vehicle models are required to have speedos that always read on the safe side of whatever the vehicle speed is: the speedo must not indicate a speed less than the vehicle’s true speed, or a speed greater than the vehicle’s true speed by an amount more than 10 percent plus 4 km/h - at 100km/h the speedo must read between 100 and 114km/h. The other side of this is that at an indicated speed of 100km/h, the vehicle's true speed must be between 87.3 and 100km/h. This is for new vehicles. How enforceable a marginal allowance for speed is when applied to older vehicles is tricky. Then try to apply a 4km/h margin to a performance car built pre-1976 and which only has the speedo marked in mph. Here's one from an old Tatra: Anyone fancy trying to pick 4km/h out of that?

I suspect the 4WD bit is going to prove the biggest issue! There was a 530D Touring on TradeMe recently, but for now it's way more than I'll be considering spending. My 320d is all I need.

Options for this car (not including standard kit): S249A Multifunction steering wheel S255A Airbag Sports leather steering wheel S261A Side airbags for rear passengers S302A Alarm system S360A BMW LA wheel, star spoke 81 S431A Interior mirror with automatic-dip S438A Fine wood trim S441A Smoker package S459A Memory Seat adjuster, electric, with memory S465A Through-loading system S500A Headlight wipe/wash/Intensive cleaning S508A Park Distance Control (PDC) Park Distance Control (PDC) S521A Rain sensor S534A Automatic air conditioning S548A Kilometer-calibrated speedometer S672A CD changer for 6 CDs S676A HiFi speaker system S818A Battery master switch S825A Radio control Oceania S850A Export Additional Export tank filling S864A Retailer Directory Overseas S880A On-board vehicle literature English S925A Transport protection package S984A Maintenance interval encoding Some time ago, I recall the standing joke being that BMW offered nothing by way of options. This looks pretty good until you delete all the stuff you really would get as standard; S880A is obviously an option but not one you'd need to choose.

Ta. I suspect that if I get a 5-series, it'll be a Touring. Hmm... An E39 M-Sport 530Dx Touring... Nice idea! But as I said, Mrs M did like the car we saw parked up. Now that is no reason to buy that car, but possibly one similar, one day.

To be quite honest, I have no idea what these cars might be worth. (If I decide to go after one, I'll be sure to ask! ) I agree with Ray - I don't like the wheels. But it would be a boring world if we all liked the same things.

A much better representation of the facts, at least, as far as we know them. Unfortunately while people like Knackstedt hold any sort of influence (I'm not saying he does - only people like him) there will never be any real attempts to improve road safety. If the entire population stuck to 100km/h, and the number of road casualties didn't change, they'd cite increased numbers of motorists meaning a percentage reduction in numbers, rather than an actual one. The MoT data is probably the most accurate available. That they are confident enough to say that the vast majority of fatalities are not related to excessive speed, says a lot. However, it is a stat that will be ignored in the drive for revenue and sensational headlines. "Land Transport Safety Authority spokesman Andy Knackstedt said there was "a wealth of evidence" that showed even very small reductions in speed led to reductions in fatalities and serious injuries, and that lowering the enforcement tolerance meant lower mean speeds." This is interesting, not only because of no listed supporting documentation around the "wealth of evidence", but also because the LTSA was disbanded in 2004. Poor reporting, perhaps? Regardless, the quote from Knackstedt has been proven false in so many countries, so many times, as to make it nonsensical. In some circumstances it may be true - outside schools during term time, for example - but reducing the average speed of traffic on the roads by a few percent is unlikely to make any difference. If accident reduction is the aim, why do the camera vans park in locations where accidents rarely, if ever occur? As I said, this appears a much better report. But sadly it isn't one that will kickstart any policy changes. I'm not sure that with the incumbent government, anything will.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/bmw/535i/auction-669776653.htm I wasn't looking for this car, but for another one we have seen for sale. Parked on the side of the road in Takanini, between Countdown and Repco. If you've driven that road at al, you'll probably have seen cars for sale there. The two - assuming they are two - cars, this one on TradeMe and the one in Takanini, look very similar, down to the towbar and the rear spoiler. However, the Takanini car has imho much nicer wheels (easily changed, of course) and I think it may be an automatic. Nice-looking cars. Even Mrs M said so.

Filled up again yesterday. Squeezed 60 litres in... On just over 622 miles, that's a fraction over 1000km. I've not been driving particularly gently either, so disabling the EGR has made some difference.

I like Maseratis. I like Maseratis. I like Maseratis. I like Maseratis. There. I've said it. It's out there. It's the first step to finding an answer. I hope. But it's hopeless! What sort of a person would sell a perfectly good piece of solid English or German engineering in order to buy something made of chocolate and wrapped in aluminium foil? Yes. I did. But if we discount the Lancia and the Alfas, I only did it twice, so that's OK, isn't it? The first time I did it properly. Spent the money, got a good Biturbo (4-door, Quattroporte), looked after it and lived to tell the tale. Of course, seeing someone else mercilessly thrash their similar car, seemingly without a care in the world, and get away with it was annoying. So I sold mine and bought something solid and reliable. Later, I was offered a long-time garaged 'boxy 2-door Maserthingy'. Yup - that's how it was described to me. I thought it would be another Biturbo and nearly didn't have a look, but found a Ghibli under several years dust. Apparently it had stopped working (surely not! Never happened to a temperamental Italian car before, has it?) at the top of the drive, and had been rolled backwards down the drive and into the garage where it stayed for several years. Nothing actually broken, but the leather seats were dry and had been damp at some stage. Yes, I bought it. For the equivalent of (now) $800. An Italian 2-door twin-turbo V6 sports car, with an iconic name, for 400 quid. Wow. Those were the days. It just needed new fuel lines throughout the entire car. The owner didn't mention he'd run it dry on fuel, left it for a while, put fuel in it, run it dry again, and the lines had picked up rust from the tank and clogged the lines. Perhaps if the fuel gauge worked properly that wouldn't happen? Actually, very little electrical worked. Again, no great surprise. But the engine did. If I ignored the musty smell inside the car (driving with the window open let's you hear the exhaust note anyway) and made sure I was home before dark (when the headlights did work, they were a bit dim) it was fine. This time it was my turn. I looked after it, letting it thoroughly warm before giving it beans (lesson learned from 2 1970s Alfas), and maintained it - oil changes every 3000 miles and so on - but I drove it like I stole it. And it was brilliant. Even if I smelt a bit musty after being in it for any length of time - pulling car it wasn't. I eventually sold it to someone who was going to strip it and race it... Apparently he was doing really well before the engine let go first time out. More recently, and post-marriage, children and so on, I was on a training course in London (before moving here). Every morning, I'd walk from digs in Waterloo across the bridge, turn right down the Strand and then walk up Chancery Lane. And the first time I saw what looked like a lovely Quattroporte. Much newer than mine had been, but wonderful. And the driver would use the loud pedal, a lot. Amazing sound. One day I'd crossed the road and saw the other side of the car. Looked like it had been on the losing end of an argument with a bus - stoved in, creased, and red paint. The driver didn't seem to care. I suspect he was one of Graham's "don't give a f**k" rich types. Yes - I'd have another. Some people never learn, eh?

Hey - it's page 2 of the thread! May even be a miracle it got this far... OK - so what other currently available, or likely to be available cars could the police use to replace the Comadoze? I've done a little research and if the assumption they will use a rwd car is correct (and it may not be) then the replacement will not be a Honda, Toyota, Subaru, Nissan, Mitsubishi, Mazda, Kia, Daewoo, Suzuki, VW or Volvo. Because they either don't make anything in rwd, or (in the case of Nissan for example) it is a 370Z and that won't have space for enough donuts and coffee. In fact, pretty much the only non-European options are a Lexus, Infiniti, or the Hyundai Equus. The only possibly viable US offerings are the Lincoln Town Car, a Cadillac, or the Chrysler 300C - other rwd drives cars from the US are the Mustang, Corvette, Camaro, Charger, etc and don't have enough doors. Maybe something from Lada?

I would vehemently disagree with this as a viable way forward. Proliferation of fixed position speed cameras do absolutely nothing to improve road safety - they sometimes reduce the speed of vehicles on the road, but not even that works all the time. Europe is littered with speed cameras that have received a 'necklace' - tyres filled with petrol that have been set light. (Apparently it's better to drill a hole in the casing and fill it with expanding foam, but that's another matter.) This would also be just another step along from the GCSB legislation that was recently imposed. Also, if there was any hint of perception that cameras might make a difference there would be a dramatic reduction in the number of traffic police. Those who have received a camera-caught notification through the post - how did you feel? Cheated? Stupid? At least if I get pulled by a traffic cop I can hope he or she has taken into account what I was doing, where I was doing it, and the prevailing conditions, and that includes stopping me for travelling at an inappropriate speed although one that may be under the speed limit. (I know - this may not always be the case.) A camera is completely indiscriminate. Police contribute to road safety. Electronic detection methods don't. And that's before we get to the myriad ways there are, or would be developed, to avoid being caught electronically. The police number one eyeball sees all, and if you are caught, will eventually get to the truth, regardless of whether it is your car, your license, or your license plate.