gjm

As I did when suggesting the only thing we saw in a clothes shop that would look good on my wife was the sales assistant...?

Certainly a lovely, uh... M3...

More than $1, less than $10k (hopefully!) (Actually, I'm quite keen to have an idea of price, too.) And yes. Well, probably. Unless it's a like-for-like swap?

I love these cars so much. I had a Delphin M635CSi (what seems like) many years ago. Fantastic.

Obviously should be better than that, regardless of gearbox. I'm assuming you have the 1.8 M10 engine? What gearbox do you have? How well-serviced has it been? First thing to check on a M10 with poor economy is for vacuum leaks. Without vacuum, the K-Jet will keep throwing fuel through as it thinks it is needed.

Yuss. And the guys I'd be working with are genuine car nuts - one is a successful ex-rally driver, the other drives a Skyline and races an AE86.

Round 4(17)... I have applications for roles being reviewed in Tauranga, Napier, Gisborne and east Hamilton. And if all that fails, a local Repco have offered me a job.

I've used Greenlane Auto Panel Repairs who have been excellent. If you go to them, tell Raj that Graham recommended him.

Likewise. And would probably have some aversion to my participating in any picking up... Probably. In the interests of a quiet life, I'm not testing the theory.

Not really a rant. I was offered a radar detector to 'assist' with monitoring activities n SH1 - vans and patrol cars love SH1. I did a bit of research to find out if what I was offered was in fact any good, and found the following on a forum: "My Wife got a ticket in Europe doing 140 mph through a construction zone by a speed camera mounted on a bulldozer. They have some shady stuff over there." Hahahahahahahahaha....

Over qualified. Too much experience. Likely to not find the role sufficiently challenging. Then... Lack of exposure. Insufficient experience. The guy at WINZ was great (I gave it more than 2 months before visiting.) and suggested I (we - Mrs M and I) were entitled to benefits I've never heard of. All I wanted was JAS (Job Seekers Allowance) to help witht he costs of running back and forth up, and down the country, for interviews and suchlike. Gabe - I've sent you a PM.

I am assured by people with a lot more money than me that this sort of thing does work. Presumably with a small subset of society, but... Well, if you've got it... I guess.

That's another part of the problem. There is no public transport outside Hamilton.

Popped down to Huntly earlier to do a spot of shopping. On the way back, a Nissan Lafesta which had been stopped on the hard shoulder pulled out and accelerated, indicated right and moved in to the right hand lane. I thought it was going to do a u-turn, but no... It continued in the right hand lane at about 85km/h. That was it. nothing had been in front of this car, there was nothing to overtake. Sadly this exemplifies the state of driving that many of us see so often. To most of us it is incomprehensible - what are these people thinking?

Speeding, mate... It's all about the speed. Or so we are continually told. Of course, placing wire strand barriers on either side of the highway, reducing available space for vehicles who have stopped for any reason to get away from the carriageway, won't be a factor. Even the police are up in arms about this - when they are pulling speeding motorists, they now place themselves, the person they are stopping, and other road users at increased risk. Some f%&#wit at a council obviously thought this was a good idea. Poor driving standards (which aren't addressed in any way whatsoever) remain the biggest issue on NZ roads. That's too hard though, so let's go after people who are speeding instead.

Shamelessly copied from Sniff Petrol (18th April 2018) Modified Munich missile sure to herald helmsmith hard-on BMW has announced details of its new M2 Competition which the company says has been “fully optimised” for its target audience, which is car journalists who will never buy one. “Every detail of this car has been fully considered,” explained head of M Division, Headov M. Divizhun. “Starting with the way the car looks in a massive line-up of the same model in the same colour at a launch venue on a race circuit in Spain when you’ve just flown in to a nearby airfield aboard a private jet.” “Our stylists also considered every detail such as the new front intakes, the blacked-in grille trim and the new door mirrors,” Divizhun continued. “And specifically how they would look in photographs when the car is on full opposite lock on a rented race track and used as the opening image in a first drive story.” Naturally, the new M2 Competition is more than just a styling exercise and boasts an uprated, 404 horsepower version of the twin-turbo straight six, shared with the M3 and M4, and sure to appeal to people who will spend 36 hours dicking around with it on a circuit someone else has paid for because they could never afford it, or the car. “Thanks to new spring and damper settings and recalibrated stability control the car is now capable of more extreme drift angles and other things that would get a normal person thrown off a track day,” Divizhun explained. “Unless of course you are a journalist on, for example, a race track that has been hired by, for sake of argument, BMW for, let’s say, the launch of the new BMW M2 Competition.” “This car with developed with a complete focus,” Divizhun concluded. “And that focus was on people who will write rave reviews about based on its ability to oversteer wildly and make them look heroic in photos without bothering to think about boring stuff like ride quality or running costs.” The M2 Competition will be available in the summer for car journalists to rag about for two days with a massive bonk on and then not buy one.