ArosaMike

TKM? Didn't they make you all have chain guards to stop you sticking your fingers in? Quite how anyone ever managed it in the first place is impressive given the distance from the sprocket to the jet adjusters! Still...I suppose you have to cater for the idiots in this world! What are the numbers like in Super 1 for TKM these days? They were having trouble keeping the numbers up not so long ago weren't they? I do miss karts, although cars get even more addictive when they stick you on tracks like Brands, Donington and Zandvoort! Good luck for the season. Sounds like you've got some good races lined up

Flanged Sleeve Flanged Shaft Big End Little End Bleed Nipple Could go on

+Finally starting my first season of car racing +Winning my 1st 3 events +Winning the championship at Brands Hatch -Loosing it half an hour later due to a questionable stewards decision +Meeting a whole load of new friends doing this +Getting 6 signatures on my National B race license meaning I could remove my Novice cross +Two awesome holidays -Driving my Skoda in to the back of a lorry at 5mph bending the bonnet and costing my £600 +iPhone4 +Discovering Angry Birds +Seeing the bike I've been designing as a physical object -Having MCN snap it on it's first day of testing +All the new people I've met -The people I've lost touch with +-Octy reaches 100,000 miles -Price of petrol reaches an all time high

As great as VW are, I really don't like the idea of them owning absolutely everything. It leaves very little room for any innovation within brands. Where exactly would Ferrari fit in when they already own Lamborghini, Porsche and Bugatti and have Audi making a mid engined supercar? OK, at the moment, Piech seems to like letting the brands manage themselves, but that's not to say the next chairman or indeed shareholders want it in the future. I'd rather VW stick with what they have and let Ferrari etc get on with things in their own way!

Got some winter steelies/tyres on the Arosa at the moment. They're basic black VAG steelies from a dealer and don't have any hub caps. Since full on hub caps look a bit naff, I'm after some of the centre cap things instead to protect the bearings (on the front more than the back). I think they used to come on the Polo 6N and look like this: Anyone know where to get them other than a scrappers? I've tried eBay but I can't find them at all. Any info anyone's got on what they're actually called would be good. Ta.

Someone needs a lesson in how to strap a car down!

Posted by a friend on Facebook after he spotted at the side of the road today. FAIL! Sums up most of the people on the road at the moment to be honest!

I've got 99% Halfords pro stuff. It's a year old and has been used and abused building/fixing the Caterham and it's as good as the day I bought them. Lifetime guarantee means it doesn't matter if it breaks, and bits and bobs are pretty cheap, so if I ever need some bizarre imperial socket (happens quite a bit!) I can just pop down and pick it up cheap. Their torque wrenches are actually made by Beta tools and are better than many others that I've used. Never used Snap-On, but from what I've heard, they're not worth the money these days. All the guys in the development workshop at work have Halfords....says it all really!

There's a taxi driver in my village who has had a string of Mercs. He goes to Heathrow and back at least once a day and usually sells them on when they get to around 300,000! Merc actually give you a badge when you do a million miles in a Mercedes.....he has 3!

Sent him a message saying I'd rather do it through PayPal. If he's genuine, he'd have no problem with this, since it won't cost him any extra. All this is irrelevant of course if James sister buys it off me p.s. Cheers everyone for all the advice Knew I could get some sense out of you all

Anyone's help/experience would be appreciated here. My old iPhone is up for sale on eBay. It has 4 more days left to run on the auction. I've had someone contact me asking if £180 cash would be enough for me to end the auction today as he lives in the area. Most go for about £210, so I responded to say such, however, for the convenience, I'd accept less. Immediate response to say 'Seems fair....do you have a number I could ring you on' Now perhaps I'm being overly cautious here, but the guy has zero transaction history and I'm a little suspicious. Opinions?

Nicky....do they decide how much they give you after it's been sent in. Discovered that my 3G has got a hairline crack in the back casing by connector...Computer Exchange offered £50! LOL Seems eBay would be an easy £150, but Envirofone sounds pretty good!

Good isn't it? Your first or are you coming from a 2G, 3G or 3GS?

I took the opportunity to jumph ship back to Orange. 18 month contract, Unlimited (ok well 750Mb 'fair usage') data and a significantly better network. Plus it was on the network, fully data enabled as I walked out of the store!

I do find it slightly bizarre just how much hatred there is for the iPhone and even more for it's users/owners. I appreciate that it's not for eveyone, and many find their HTC Windows and Android based phones really good, which they are. Many also find their ancient 3310s do everything they could possibly want which, if all you want to do is make phone calls and send texts it is! OK, so queueing up at 4am to get one is a tad on a fanantical side (I didn't do this, I hasten to add!), but is it really any worse than people who queue for hours to get their hands on tickets to see a football match or their favourite band play? We've all done it at some point, and if people are really in to Apple products or they really want the new iPhone, is it really that bad if they get it on the launch day? Now, Mac fans can be pretty blindly fanatical about many of their products, but it's not really any worse than those who go round saying 'OMG the HTC EVO 4G is lik the most ammaaaaaa!!2q!!1ing phone evvaaa. OMG lolLOll!!!1!!!! 8 mega Pixels, 1GHz, 512Mb RAm OMG betta than the IpHone fffsfsafa' (and there are some!). In my personal and humble opinion, Apple do things right with the iPhone. Yes, there are some questionable policies at Apple (You're going to LOVE iAds etc etc and SJ's 'What reception problem? Just hold it differently already!') but overall the user experience, the way things 'just work' and the general focus on performance rather than stats is spot on. They actually have the right attitude to design in that they create complete, workable packages that provide the user with a fast, slick and easy to use product. I've tried lots of other smartphones (my previous 2 phones before my 3G were HTC windows mobile phones) including a number of the Android incarnations, and whilst they all do things well, it's just not as well integrated and easy to use as an iPhone in my opinion. I find the Android OS confusing and completely unituitve tbh! Yes, a Sony Ericsson or an HTC EVO 4G might have an 8 MPixel camera, but the lens distortion and sensor noise is absolutely terrible! They still look like mobile phone pictures. My new iPhone 4 camera however, even at 5 MPixels, is streets ahead with well balanced shadows and highlights and low noise even in low light which for a tiny sensor is amazing. This is not fanboyism. Whilst it's a little under saturated for my eye, with only a few mild tweaks, I think this stands up pretty well to many 'pro sumer' cameras: Anyway. Enough of my reasoning. I frankly love my iPhone. Absolutely the best phones I've ever had, the only one I've never got bored of, a software update every year that makes it feel new, a huge App Store, any song you want only a few taps away, a UI even my Mum can understand and a distinct lack of hardware boasts.....it's just quick, neat and beautifully designed. Suits me fine!

Oh if only that was true. Sadly, £62k is mere pocket money in motorsport. It's only about a quater of a Formula Renault season!

Go out with your mates, meet some girls, get some numbers, go on a few dates and you'll be over her soon enough. It's tough, but dwelling on the relationship and the breakup won't help at all. Look at it this way, you'll probably meet someone who's much better suited to you and you won't end up marrying someone when it wasn't really going anywhere like so many people do.

My Caterham kicks up tonnes of stones (as would an Ariel Atom) so that one doesn't wash IMO.

How many hours did that take?

None of the offical models they sell will have wheels or tyres that stick outside the arch. Manufacturers have to be very careful about legal issues to do with roadworthyness since they self certify most stuff for Homologation. This fundamentally means, no one actually comes from the government to check whether a car passes the required legal requirements for lighting, visibility etc. If it is found however that a model doesn't pass (which has happened on occassion, but I'm not going to mention what make or model) it's likely eligibility to sell the vehicle in that country will be withdrawn at best and at worst a massive fine, and withdrawal of all Homologation on all models until further testing is carried out by a government organisation at the expense of the manufacturer. Lighting is usually the one that gets them since it's party subjective and effectively, if one official tester fails it, it's very hard to get that decision reversed without lengthy legal action and or retooling at a few hundred grand a light. I would agree with what most people have said about, if the officers can't tell you precisely which part of the law your car breaks, then they don't really have the grounds to do anything. DON'T WHATEVER YOU DO TAKE IT TO A VOSA STATION. The inspectors at VOSA test centers take great pleasure in picking fault at everything. When I was getting my Caterham on the road, I got Caterham to do it for me. Everyone who's ever SVA'd a car will tell you how unpleasurable the experience is. As an example, they made someone I know cover up the edges of the hood poppers that are on the windscreen of their Roadsport because they were outside the minimum external radius rules. If you take your car there, you'll be lucky not to come away with 5 other things they want you to change. Are the Police threatening to fine you or give you points?

Funny you should say that.......... I grafted the metal body of mine on the plastic chassis off a Jeep thus making a Renault Traffic monster truck......I started young! LOL

Ta for all the responses folks. Glad I'm not the only one bemused by it all, but thanks for the links (particularly PC Pro). I used to use Scan amongst others (and Dabs when they used to be cheap which is a long long time ago!).

Christ....did you actually use any of them? I had a good many of those. The Porsche had heat reactive paint didn't it? No idea where mine are now, but they're definitely not in their boxes!

I work there........and live 25 miles away. It's not horrendous (Nuneaton's worse!), but it's not exactly spectacular. You'd have a better night out in Leicester, and that's only a 20min drive away from the centre, or about £30 in a taxi. It's not like you'll get stabbed, but expect lot's of underage drinkers in the bars and old boys in the pubs. Very little in the way of shops too.

I never got to grips with 3DS Max and the like. Being trained on CAD I've never really got along with dimensionless 3D stuff....plus I also spend about 10 hours a day modelling stuff on ProE which is about as enjoyable as poking spears in your eyes. Impressive rendering skills though