Reel105

Spot on! Thanks a lot. Ian

Hey guys, Just wondering if anyone has a link where I can get the red LED footwell lights. I've had a search through some older posts but they're outdated and the eBay listings on them have gone. Not sure exactly which lights I'm looking for - I read somewhere that they're w5w bulbs but I'm not sure if those ones are LED or not. Just got a Midnight Sky Z which has the ambient strip under the glove box etc. Current footwell lights are an ugly bright white, highlighting every speck of dirt in the car. Looking to get some nice reds to make it a little nicer and hide all the dirt. Thanks in advance Ian

I'd have to agree with the salesman and say the difference between an 82ps 1.25 and a 1.4 is marginal. For the extra £500+ (maybe more, can't remember exactly), it's only going to get you from 0-60mph about a second quicker and the top speed is a mere 5mph more (which you're never likely to reach anyhow). Compared to the significant difference in the 1.6 models, I think marginal is a fair way to describe the 1.25-1.4 difference.

To be honest, I've only seen a few episodes of Top Gear on Dave, so no, they've not really influenced me. Why is it so hard to believe that I've formed my own opinion of this? Why would I need to rely on a T.V show to tell me what I see day-in, day-out? You seem to think your opinion overrules all, assuming that for £40k BM's and Audi's are absolutely the best product you can buy. In my opinion this isn't true. If I had £40k I'd be much more inclined to buy something like a Lotus Exige because I like them. Before I made that purchase I would, of course, have to consult the Top Gear website to make sure Jeremy likes that car. I can't like it unless he does...

Wow, that was kind of patronising. No, my views do not derive from anyone elses opinion, Top Gear or forums, they are derived from my own driving experiences. Not wanting to own a BMW, Merc or Audi is perfectly believeable. If I had £40k+ to spend on a car I could guaranatee it would not be from any of those three manufacturers. Once again, these are opinions that are born from my own experiences and preferences. Not for a second assuming there isn't bad drivers of small cars out there. I can tell you though if I'm ever being tailgated it's usually by a BM or Audi. No, that's not typecasting and no, that's not what Clarkson said. It's just what I've noticed from about the last five years or so of being on the roads.

Can't really argue with that.

Certainly not jealousy. It's very much down to the fact that a large percentage (I don't mean everyone, Keith) of BMW drivers are a pain in the !Removed! on the roads. Granted, over the past two years or so a lot of these seem to have jumped ship to Audi, but there's still a high percentage who drive like four letter words. In my opinion I think it's down to ego. They're executive cars and half of the people that drive them don't even own them (I'm thinking back to one of my old regional managers - drove an Audi A4 and thought he was the most important guy in the world). I can appreciate that some BM's are nice cars, but I can honestly say that I'd never want to own one. Same goes to Audi and, to a lesser extent, Merc. There are a lot of connotations that are associated with the stereotypical German saloon driver which, unfortunately, seem to ring true.

I think there was a typo there - my underpowered car.....that can actually get up a hill in the snow because it's not a RWD! (That's right, you got burned!) Three BMW's at the bottom of my estate with no snow on the windscreen. Which means they've tried to get up, failed and give up. Just parked at the bottom and walked. Not sure I get the shirt on reference.

I think we're around the 4/5" mark here in Newcastle. Maybe more. Doesn't help one iota that my estate is just one big, ungritted hill. Didn't read through all the posts here but there's a couple of things that seem to help me in the snow: 1 - Taking off in second gear. Not the best in usual circumstances and not the best for acceleration but it keeps the revs down and it's got my out of a few sticky spots this past week. I just find enough gas to get the bite of slowly see-saw on the pedals. Seems to help get traction and stop wheels spinning. 2 - Tapping the brakes lightly in small, short bursts rather than pressing down to avoid skidding. Kind of a super slow, manual ABS if you will. Trying to use the friction of the brake pads more to slow the car, rather than the (non-existent) road friction. Again, not sure if this will help anyone else but it seems to do well for me. One final note, I'm delighted to see the number of BMWs that have failed epically in this weather. It sort of makes up for all the tailgaters over the years. I know it doesn't balance out that way but statistically I'm sure that 90% of BMW drivers deserve to be stuck.

There was an incident near my home a couple of years ago where a 16-year old girl was killed by a police officer speeding without any lights on. He was going 94mph in a 30mph zone. Obviously, I accept that this isn't the normal behaviour of police officers and is (hopefully) an isolated incident.

To be honest I don't go out to town much (the novelty kind of wears off when you've lived here for 24 years) but if I do head out I'll usually head to a place called World Headquarters. Great music and Red Stripe Jamaican beer. Win.

Maybe you're right. I wonder how big a part technological advancements play in this - e.g. character limits in texts and 'autocorrect' functions in word processing applications.

In a word, cold!

Not entirely - you never stop learning to spell or use grammar. From books to games to online applications you can learn to spell words or structure sentences. Maybe some people are more subconciously perceptive to it than others, I don't know. I'm sure if I look back on something I wrote ten years ago it would make me cringe. Hell, I could probably look at this ten years from now and cringe. I'm sure there's a great divide between people who genuinely struggle with spelling and grammar and people who are lazy with it. Unfortunately, since it is almost impossible to distinguish between the two, I may mistake a few posts here or there so apologies if this has been the case with anyone.

There seems to be a lot of pessimism involved in both educated and uneducated views of PCSO's. I can understand why people are apprehensive of their role but I don't understand why there's a few people giving this guy aggro when he only piped up to answer a question that someone actually asked for advice on. Also, I have to mention that bad spelling and grammar drives me mad. It's nothing to do with schooling at all. It's largely down to bad habits and impatience (I get especially mad whenever anyone uses "text speak", text messages or otherwise). This language has been developing for about 1100 years, so I can understand how frustrating it is to see it absolutely butchered to the point where you have to read it several times just to make any sense of it. http://www.spellchecker.net/spellcheck/ http://dictionary.reference.com/ http://thesaurus.reference.com/