shadowninja

Wondering how 'clean' the bimmersport crew is. And be honest!

I've voting that its an old wives tale. (and of course if you're paying by Automatic Payment all they need to do is Direct Credit your account...) I must almost have a clean license by now. Hey that would be a good poll... anyone?

Austin reference = "Quasi-Evil" ... where Dr Evil is complaining that his son Scott Evil isn't evil enough. Umm never mind. (still trying to get me some sharks with frickin laser beams)

Here's the full collection... http://gorillamask.net/moshgirl.shtml

Quasi-evil?? Any other Austin Powers fans here?I saw a nice dark blue E46 M3 yesterday, license plate: "WAZ HIS"

That'll larn ya! Looks like you need airbags too... nice project cars.

I got another one... "Dammit I can't make it sorry guys, next time" -- shadowninja

From what I understand his wealth was pretty much already gone. Last I heard he owed Sony about $300M. No doubt he's pretty screwed up, whether he's guilty or not we have yet to find out for sure. But in the eye of public opinion, he's already screwed.

On the service front I've had pretty good service from Shellys, even pick-up / drop-off courtesy service for regular servicing (eg- they pick up my car, leave me a courtesy car while they do the job & vice versa). The worst dealer experience I've had so far was waiting for parts ex-Japan for my S15 200SX. Try 10 weeks for relatively common parts.

Haha good point... though mostly E30s so that doesn't put too many in the top tax bracket. Anyone know how much mortgage/house you can buy if you're earning a "rich" $60k in Auckland or Wellington? I think there is a slight difference between these two in terms of scope of damage and number of victims. Besides, by far the largest brunt of damage by those storms are met by insurance companies. Around $100M if I remember correctly for the Feb04 floods. I may sound like a hard bastard here... but my feeling is that most of people people bailed out by the government in those floods were people who couldn't be bothered paying for insurance. :thumbsdown:

Oi back on topic. Don't make us report you to the mod of this forum. Anyway... I'm somewhat surprised by the volumes of National supporters here. For some reason I expected to be harrassed as a Brash supporter... go figure. Personally I believe far more in the ethos behind National policies, which generally favours more power & control in the hands of private individuals & organisations rather than a large maternal government. It is also interesting though how many people vote for an Opposition party more as a vote AGAINST the incumbent government than anything else. For example the whole 'family support' move that provides benefits for families earning between $38k - 60k p.a. This initiative actually provides serious disincentives for working families to work. Marginal tax rates for individuals working in this band can be up to 90%. Something is fundamentally wrong if a family "earning" $60k actually only gets $1,400 more after-tax-after-benefit income than the family earning $38k. Oh and I'm sick & tired of the perception that anyone earning over $60k is 'rich.' Let Michael Cullen harp on about how the 'top tax bracket in the USA is still higher than ours' ... but what he fails to mention is that the top tax bracket in the US only kicks in at $USD 200,000! (and also fails to mention the long list of tax deductions ordinary households can make).

Haha, very good. But I'll still vote for him. (go lower taxes go!) I think so many of his proposed policies just make sense. Like taking out references to The Treaty of Waitangi in job descriptions.

Note this was posted at 1:30am ...

Definitely... speaking of which I sold my old Celica to my neighbour a few years back & over the following 3 months it needed $3k of repairs (almost what I sold it for) Honestly it was running sweet when I sold it!

F1 has lost some of its shine... mostly because of the dominance of Schumi at the top. Who has a chance of beating the best driver, with the best car, with the best pit crew??? One of the mags I read recently hit it on the head... that until Schumacher gets too old, too bored or too rich [or hit by a bus] he'll be in the same spot for years to come. I have no quibbles with technology sharing... you'd be surprised at how much of that goes on between Ford & Holden camps for the V8 supercar series too. If BMW can get some decent money from supplying engines to other race companies, thats more money they can sink into R&D for their NEXT generation engines.

I'm surprised sic didn't get this thread locked already by posting the word 'honda.' Anyway ... $5k seems like a great price, unless something really expensive needs replacing soon.

Amazingly few diesels on the road in NZ, especially for normal road cars (as opposed to 4X4s). You'd think with a country like ours with high petrol costs & low average incomes that efficiency would be more of an issue. Look at the level of Europeans that drive diesels! It will take a generation to get people away from the 'dirty smelly gutless' label on the diesel vehicle. Maybe its because our vehicles are so old (read online last week that our vehicles are on average 12 years old) that we don't realise how good some of these are. Mind you the line has been blurring between the two, as petrol engines gain efficiency and diesel engines gain performance. But hey, I'm a bit of a hypocrite as I don't own one myself.

Exactly... how could he be texting his mates at the same time? Ups to wagon & his wagon.

I disagree entirely about beating the system. For example how about the guy that ran into the back of you ... what if he denied he was ever there & paid a fancy lawyer to wriggle out of it? You'd be stuck with a mounting repair bill on your own. [bTW on the repair front I'll admit I was wrong on that, the damage was clearly more significant than I thought, perhaps the pictures didn't do it justice?] Or how about more serious criminals 'beating the system' because the 111 system didn't get an officer to the scene of their crime? Is it ok that people will smash up someone's ride just because they don't get caught? There's a reason lawyers get a bad reputation, its partly because they twist the system leaving the guilty unpunished, and the victims re-victimised. [stepping down from soap box]

Do the crime... Do the time. Its simple boys. Why encourage a system where lawyers determine whether you have the freedom to drive... how about you just work within the rules to begin with.

Nope I'd still be surprised with all that if it ended up over $2k. I've had worse from someone into the back of me, and that included a brand new E46 bumper.

Probably not something to gloat about man. Oh and don't get worked up about this... from the pics you posted that is very minor damage, probably just recondition the rear bumper & repaint it you're looking at ~$500 of repairs at Auckland prices. At that price its probably not even worth his insurance company getting involved (from what I understand dealerships can have serious excesses to keep costs of insurance realistic).

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How genuine do we think that info on the 130i is? Reason I mention that is that I read elsewhere that BMW were not considering 6-cylinder engines in the 1 series because of the weight distribution. It would be pretty awesome if it were true though... compete against those other Euro-hot-hatches like the Renault Clio RS etc.

I share some of Martyns sentiments here about threads being locked prematurely. Even if a post deviates from its initial purpose, people obviously still care enough about the topic to keep coming back, checking on other peoples thoughts & post their opinions. Even if things outside of BMWs (and Hondas) are discussed... Thats what we're here for afterall! [edited to remove comment regarding BMW sponsorship after reading Andrew's post regarding this on a different thread]