Car appreciation... the aesthetics, the engineering, etc

How do they want you to prove this? If it's by sending a picture of the V5C then I hear that there is a program called Photoshop.

My MX5 has the exact same specs so I know your pain and frustration.

If you had started this convo a month ago, then I'd have told you to order a set of ATS DTC. They're very light and very strong, a true motorsport wheel in a sensible offset and 15x8/4x100.

Unfortunately after many years they've decided to stop manufacturing them and the GTR in September and they closed their order books about 2-3 weeks ago.

I have a set on my MX5 and they just look so good on every car.

It's worth setting up an eBay saved search, they do come up for sale, expect to pay anywhere between 250(v cheap) and 600(a bit much).

I paid 400 with needing a refurb, but it was the only set that had come up in about 24 months so I paid the asking price. Since I bought mine, about 3 sets have come up in the last 24 months and they've all gone for cheaper than that.

It is easy to change the V5 to your address, but the knock on effect is that you will have to change the insurance to your name and your address. As it is, if your MIL is the main driver, it's most probably insured at her house, so you're technically fronting. If anything were to happen in the immediate future, I recommend not saying that you've been keeping it there and it was only at your house by coincidence. They still might expect you to pay the difference in premium between the 2 addresses as well as your excess if making a claim, or they might flat out deny it.

The council can check the DVLA database automatically, so when you apply for a resident's permit they'll be able to "see" that the name and address don't match and so will most likely deny you a permit.

If you want to be fully legit and also make it work with the council, change the V5 to your name and address, inform the insurance company you want to switch the name and address of main and additional drivers, then apply for resident's permit.

It used to be easier to break the rules back in the day, you just went into the council office, showed them a V5 with the name and address change section filled in, and then "forgot" to send the V5 to actually change the name and address. Once you had a permit once, they didn't do any checks to renew it.

Spoke to the garage, turns out that when they fitted the new water pump (£550) they didn't fit a new belt (£30) or a new tensioner (£80), but would have inspected them to make sure they weren't visibly fucked.

I'd rather have spent the extra £110 and not spent three hours sitting on a curb yesterday waiting for the AA.

I've just had JDM Distro back on to me...

Custom Sourcing:

1. Deposit €200 paid via Bank/Paypal/Card (£ GBP payments via bank transfer only). Deposit is 100% refundable if you decide not to proceed and your deposit goes towards paying the total on your order.
   
2. We notify our Japan office of your specific requirements.
   
3. We email suitable candidates for you to consider as they come available in Japan. We will continue sourcing until suitable item found. This process can take some time for particularly rare items but we will keep the search open until complete.
   
4. Total balance payment due once item is ready to ship from our Japan warehouse.
   
5. For UK & Europe orders we will ship your order to our warehouse in Ireland before forwarding to you. Our price includes all import taxes and duties.
   
6. For USA and rest of world we will ship your goods direct from our Japan warehouse.
   
   

I think I might get them to source something for me, I'd never be able to compete on shipping to source them myself when they're bringing in full containers so I'd imagine their margin will be no worse.

I need to come up with a shortlist of ideal wheels now...
Work Equip 40 are top of the list.
Work Meister S1/ L1/ CR-01 also very nice.
Gram Lights 57DR

Any other suggestions for JDM wheels that would look sick on an R53 with meaty tyres welcome...

That's a pretty poor decision by them!

Glad it's an easy fix. Probably worth asking them which other relatively "minor" items they inspected and deemed not necessary to replace yet.

Yeah, never occurred to me that they'd put an old belt back on.

Why not phone the broker and tell them.

Or you could just say you bought the car here is the new buyers section with proof of residence...

Cheers for the detailed answer. All sounds a bit of a ballache so I'll probably just go with the visitor permits for the moment (£3.50 a day rather than ~ £120 a year annoyingly) and leaving it at the MIL's mainly.

We wouldn't make any insurance claims for damage/theft whilst it is parked (it's a 2002 punto so not the most valuable) so hopefully that shouldn't arise but I take your point.

If it isn't processed fully you have to get a temporary permit first and then get a permanent permit after.

Where do you live? It's worth investigating as many free to park places locally and what times they're free.

£3.50/day isn't wallet busting, but it's still something. If you can work out a 5-10 minute round trip that lets you park for free, then you can reserve spending money for when it's pissing it down outside and you can't face the trip to go get the car from where you stashed it.

Any one care about the panda saga?

The £200 panda got an oil change, filters and a clean. Even replaced the gearbox oil, as the change was a bit crunchy. Washed the interior and the seats came up clean. Even replaced the brake fluid and cleaned the brake calipers. Cleaned the outside with a claybar and then a polish and the car was looking good. Stuck a new MOT on the car, and mentioned to a couple of people that I was thinking of selling and gone in less that 48 hours....

Now I need a cheap mota to drive up and down the motorway to birmingham and use to clear out a garden and umpteen other stuff and there is nothing around that doesn't have dodgy mileage or strange mot fails, such as one car that failed the last MOT at one place and then a day later passed at another.

Rear suspension failed panda is still minus rear suspension as I'm finding it hard to go and get the parts till lock down is over.

Not to be rude, it is a 02 punto, I'd be more worried that it doesn't meet ULEZ . Is the parking fee emissions based?

So authority got wise to that one. I'd speak to the insurance broker and as a hypothetical question.

Interestingly my insurance told me that when I move back to Brighton in September I'll likely get a small refund because its safer there than in London

Yeah, that's probably worth looking into. All the street parking is permit only but there may be other spots.

It meets ULEZ, I wondered that myself so I checked. Resident parking is emissions based which is why it would be about £120 rather than £60 or so.

@NurseHolliday will be pleased to know that replacement rims have been ordered for my Beetle.

I dang near ordered the ATS Cups but they were just too much for my budget. Would have looked great though.

I went with a safe BBS option. Now to wait.

If I ask a question here about a satnav am I gonna get run out of town?

Only if you can find your way...

What do you need? I am going through a ton of research on sounds/nav stuff. Happy to share.

Looks like a No on TomTom support for Chinese

https://discussions.tomtom.com/en/discussion/1008288/lack-of-chinese-language-supports-in-all-ways#:~:text=Yes%2C%20Tomtom%20exists%20in%20China,product%20range%20is%20very%20limited.&text=5.,to%20install%2Fdownload%20community%20content.

The UK support website is pretty poor.

Yeah - that is a bit dim witted. Wouldn't worry about the engine though, the Mrs's 535i threw a stop immediately / overheat thing not long after we bought it and after sorting the water pump has been fine for nearly 10k now.

yeah that's what I've been coming up against. They've been borrowing one which does. I don't know if it was purchased in China or if they just used to support chinese on older models. Cheers dude

Stand alone gps or android head unit with screen?

Yeah - that is a bit dim witted. Wouldn't worry about the engine though, the Mrs's 535i threw a stop immediately / overheat thing not long after we bought it and after sorting the water pump has been fine for nearly 10k now.

Fingers crossed everything is fine. I think in future they'd swap the belt, given that they know what I'm like as I've had the car serviced by them exclusively. The water pump service was, I think, the first one - so maybe the tech was trying to save a bit of cash. Who knows! I'd rather have paid the additional for the peace of mind, but there you go.

I've asked them to sort out the other niggles, and finally remembered to ask them to check the pump for the rear screen wash, which has always been a bit weedy.