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

This area probably has an abnormally high Civic ownership due to the Honda dealer in South Ruislip. Had you carried on, uphill from Ruislip Manor station, you would have arrived at Park Wood!
Next time.

I have a broken fog light on mine - £100 for replacement parts. Protective film is my next purchase.

those are really great cars - well done

Nice work @Fox !

Looks like you got a great deal.

Since you've already taken the dash apart, it's very easy to fit an aux cable to these cars if you don't have one already or don't have Bluetooth.

Coolant is super easy to change if you fancy doing it yourself before 120k.

You've already got the meguiars but the best stuff I've used is Carbon Collective Platinum Trim

Comprehensive health insurance- anyone got it and can comment on how much it costs? And do you need it per country, I assume yes?

Your free EHIC card is still valid until end 2020 as far as I am aware

Planning for next year, just renewing my travel insurance (which covers downhill mountain biking and skiing), but they didn't know if their own policy would cover all medical from 1st Jan.

Very much a piece of string. I've had a halfords one for years. It's got a couple of cracks but still works for lugging shit around.
Thule will be more secure. Can have fancier opening options. May be more aerodynamic. But if it's just for very occasional trips they are all just boxes that fit on the roof.

I've got a halfords one,it's been fine. Just a big plastic box, hard to see where more money would improve it. It has survived being scraped along a multi-storey car park ceiling (wife was driving...)

^ & ^^ thanks - yes with us it's not going to stay looking new for long

I've had a tentative go ahead for the Polestar 2, leasing option. If we go for it we should have it in September.

Excite.

The psychology of car giant is interesting.

Am still looking at cheap A2......

Can anyone advise on the regulatory downsides to buying a petrol car now? Will not be used inside the congestion zone of course.

Depends how old. A pre-Euro 4 car (2005-ish) will be liable for ULEZ which is expanding to the north/south circular next year, and potentially low emission zones in other cities, including abroad.

There are very few petrol cars that qualify for the super low road taxVED bands, and many diesels do.

Eventually there might be areas where all ICE cars are banned / fined*, but probably not something worth worrying about for a car purchased now.

(* in fact there already are a couple, but they're very small and easily avoidable)

Hoping to get a years trouble free motoring out of this before flipping it.

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Petrol/Diesel?
4/6 cylinder?

Petrol 318i

That last really good looking 3 series imo.
Handy touring too

I got a Halfords Exodus 470L roof box ex-display for half price (now called Advance). They're actually made by Thule but about 1/3 cheaper and now come with dual opening etc.

If you don't want a warranty and don't mind a few scratches then I'd look at Facebook marketplace (sorry) - people seem to sell £300-400 roof boxes for around the £100-150 mark.

Depends how old

Target car is 2017. Is there anything other than increased VED coming down the track though?

I used to think that too, but my e91 has seriously grown on me, despite the issues I've had with mine...

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Popped up on my YT feed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teukcgZ_yVI

I love the Polestar 2. I was on the waiting list too and was soooo close to buying it.

Why didn't I? Range anxiety.

The car is perfect, but where the Tesla beats it is the charging network. And even the Tesla I feel I would struggle with as my drives are London to the Lakes or London to the Highlands in single drives. The time Tesla would add to that journey in terms of achieving range by driving moderately, and then the time to charge... it adds hours to a journey.

If 95% of my driving was <200 miles roundtrips and I had a driveway where I could install a charger... the Polestar 2 would've been my car.

But frankly... for the same price I got the Volvo V60 T8 Polestar... I get the pure electric for barely 25 miles, and have no range anxiety because I just fill it with petrol and just drive and drive, top up in 10 minutes and drive some more.

In terms of performance, the V60 and Polestar 2 are almost identical on 0-60, and the acceleration is there throughout the range... but I get to floor it above 70 without any fear of what that is doing to reduce battery range as it's not using the battery at that end.

The only thing the Polestar 2 has that isn't on the V60 Polestar? That large display and Google OS for the entire dashboard. Which I did want, but not enough to bring range anxiety into my life.

Meh. I just plug my phone into the head unit. Presto! Google OS on a 7 year old Beetle.

But yeah, our last family car purchase was preceded by long discussions about range and the lack of charging points near us. With older family over an hour's drive away, we stayed with the ICE option.