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

Phew.

Next year assuming world hasn't ended.

Lovely part of the world - if you’re driving down from Florence > Montalcino then would recommend going through Grieve and stopping in Panzano. World famous butcher Dario Cecchini has some restaurants in the town, also home to one of my favourite wine makers Fontodi.

Noted and thank you! Never been, usually work through Christmas but decided on a whim to take the time off and go somewhere for a couple of weeks to get fat.

Got some good picks for Florence - I’ll send you a DM

We use a picnic blanket in our Honda Civic.

I have a large collection of black bath towels in the boot of the SuperFastWankerBarge. Useful if you want to put one bike on top of another, to avoid scratchings, and then another layer on top to disguise what's in there. My theory is that if Mr Opportunistic Thief sees there's something in there but can't tell what it is, they're less likely to break in to find out. And with privacy glass in the rear of the car, a Big Pile of Blackness is pretty invisible anyway. Seems to have worked so far.

Should I be concerned if I bought this to replace the one in the car?
I'm aware the warranty is as good as anything these days

Look at this on eBay
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/FITS-NISSAN-QASHQAI-07-15-FRONT-SUSPENSION-CONTROL-ARMS-WISHBONES-L-R-LINKS-RODS-/392965966404?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

Lovely part of the world. Enoteca di Piazza ship to the UK for free, should you fancy a few cases of Brunello. I believe the 2012 is just about as good as the 2010.

I wasn't serious about the Honda Civic bit!

I think getting something you can put bikes inside (not on) is a good idea.

Overall I think that there are surprisingly few decent options for this in the automotive world.

The Merc van is logical but it doesn't seem to tick all of your original boxes. An Addison Lee-mobile doesn't really seem like what you were looking for.

Are you doing the work yourself? Lots of the garages I’ve spoken to won’t allow you to supply the parts (on the basis that a lot of customer bought parts, particularly ones sourced from eBay, are low quality). Although I have no specific knowledge of the part in question.

The V Class is based on a commercial chassis (the Vito) but with (the front) suspension changed to that of a passenger vehicle- think C or E class front end, suspension, rack etc. It’s sold as an MPV to rival the Caravelle. The Caravelle has the same underpinnings as the panel van T6.

The interior isn’t the same as my E63, but it’s clearly from the same place and shares a lot of themes. For reference I had ordered the full TFT dash (£2,000) for the T6 to make it more like a passenger vehicle with modern technology such as navigation in the dash and so on. The V Class comes with that.

I ordered the T6 as a 4Motion because by default it’s FWD, the V Class is RWD.

Etc etc really- the V Class is more of what I’m looking for natively, the T6 would require more modifications.

All that said I’d be happily looking forward to getting my new VW if the camper conversion company hadn’t been so awful at customer service.

I didn’t set out to look for the V Class, but I’m happy to have found it. I hope, anyway!

And I can call it Addison, so don’t need to think of a name.

Yes, doing the work myself

Here's a car update, it's a long one with some hilarious content:

Back when the 850R needed a new bottom end, if long time readers can recall, my sister-in-law let us have their spare car on long term loan. It's a 2013 E300 Hybrid that they weren't really sure whether they wanted back. I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep it, but after driving it around a bit, I really liked it as a nice sensible family car. My sister-in-law decided they didn't need it back as she was buying a brand new car, but frustratingly, the Merc wasn't ULEZ compliant so I'd need to get rid of it when the expansion happened.

I decided then to make a plan of getting the 850R up to as perfect sellable condition as possible, and sell them both to get enough money to buy something no more than 5 years old, reliable, with a decent amount of straight line power, but with all the toys.

The problem was, I was out of work for quite a long time so I had a lot of time to think but not take action so I overthought everything.

Options included:
E63/C63 estate (Oh you basically want to be @Dammit)
E90 M3
Lexus IS-F
Octavia VRS estate
Early 2000s E500 estate
E91 330i Touring (N52 engine) - I came very close to buying one on a drunken Saturday night eBay browse
Mk3 Focus ST estate
Golf R estate
F31 340i touring
F10 540i touring
640i/650i Gran Coupe

All of these I couldn't really get the numbers to stack up on my budget with the maximum age I wanted and miles, or all the options I wanted made them impossible to find or too expensive, or they fit the budget and age and reliability requirements but I didn't really think they were quick or well equipped enough.
Some were pipe dreams to be honest and relied on monthly payments I could probably afford but were just far too much money to be spending on a car every month.

I finally settled on a 2016 Skoda Superb 280 4x4.
It's basically a Golf R with a 6spd DSG instead of the 7spd, with an A6/Passat sized body, and a decent Skoda interior with lots of options. I went for the 2nd highest trim level which comes with stuff like Dynamic Chassis Control (DCC - Adaptive suspension basically), Adaptive Cruise, decent sound system, heated memory seats, all that fancy modern car stuff. As it's the Golf R drivetrain, it'll remap to 340-ish bhp with no other mods, and an intake, downpipe, intercooler, and custom map should see it make 400-ish bhp.

One of the things that I found really frustrating was that I was looking at cars that were 30k new that didn't have heated or electric seats, but I was selling a car from 1996(!) that had memory electric heated seats on both sides.

I wanted an estate, but they were coming up 4-5k more, and that's an obscene amount of extra to pay just for an estate, and as the saloon is actually a hatch with proper folding seats, it made sense to get the "saloon" version. By comparison, the equivalent Mercs and BMWs have smaller boots and no fold down seats so the usable space is much much less than the Skoda.

OK, all sounding great so far.

The plan involved money from the Merc going towards the Skoda as a deposit, and the money from the 850R going into savings to rebuild from when I wasn't working.

Except the 850R sold for about 50-60% of what I expected it to, that's not just a number I came up with out of thin air, I had it valued, and that value was supported by the guys at Collecting Cars. I wanted a quick sale, so I was happy to take a bit of a gamble on an auction, but not that much. If I'd sold it privately I'm confident I would have got much more than I did. So I thought, OK, I can deal with that, I guess the savings won't get as much as I hoped they would.

Then on the way back from going to look at the Skoda, after paying a deposit and having the Merc priced for part ex, the Merc broke down. It took 24 hours and £450 to get it back to London, and after replacing the high pressure fuel pump and injectors, I'm going to get about £500 in my pocket after selling it to WBAC.

Here's the best bit, after the garage rang me to say the car was ready to be road tested and I needed to pay the ULEZ fee, I went online and the ULEZ portal now says the car is exempt. Despite it being a Euro 5 diesel that even though is a hybrid, doesn't conform to Euro 6 standard. So, I could have just kept the car and not bought a new one this whole time.

I guess it still would have broken down and I'd have needed to find the money to fix it if I wasn't selling it, but I wouldn't be paying monthly for a car that, while I really am glad to own and am very happy with, I don't actually need.

Before you get out the tiny violins and cry me a river, I've still got a new (to me) car, and I've managed to squirrel enough money away while working at the new job to pay someone to get the MX5 finished finally after 2 years of plugging away at it with what little time I've had.

So I'm picking that up this weekend, one nice family car that's surprisingly quick in a straight line, and one little hooligan track car.

TL;DR:
Bought a Skoda Superb 280 4x4.
Got MX5 fixed.
Merc E300 Hybrid broke down when I tried to part ex it - cost almost it's entire value to fix.
Turns out Merc E300 Hybrid is actually ULEZ compliant, didn't need to get rid of it in the first place.

Turns out Merc E300 Hybrid is actually ULEZ compliant

It may be exempt for some administrative reason, but it’s not compliant. Random website rates its NOx as 158 mg/km, which is double the 80 mg/km ULEZ standard.

it’s not uncommon for vans to get broken into

FTFY.

People break into vans all the time in case there's anything that can be flipped quickly down the pub.

Those "no tools left in vehicle overnight" stickers work surprisingly well.

Yes you're right. That's the point I was trying to make, I have raised this with TFL as the garage told me that recently they've checked a few pre 2010 diesel Mercedes (they're a Merc specialist so I don't think it's a Mercedes thing) and they've shown as exempt. Which makes no sense to me, something has definitely happened in the last few months since the last time I checked and yesterday to make this car and others exempt that shouldn't have.

That's actually the website I sent to TFL, it's hard to get the official figures.

The new car in all of its "business grey" glory.

Needs new tyres as it came with 3x Davanti budgets and 1x Pirelli of questionable age.

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Would four 245/45/19 be of any use?

Really like that, congrats! Re-map, de-badge for even more sleeper points! Wouldn't mind one of those as my next car, estate would be ideal but as you say the premium they carry is mad and the hatch is pretty cavernous anyway.

My BIL rented one of these when his Jewish Racing Gold Range Rover's suspension went south in the summer. It's was a fucking rocket!

Sadly not, 18s on it and I'm trying to keep maximum comfort in this car so it's staying on 18s.

I think I can flog the ones on there for about £100 which will reduce the pain of buying 4x Michelin PS4.

Cheers, I knew about the Superb V6 in the last shape, but I didn't know about this 280 4x4 model until about 6 months ago.

I might be over-reaching but I think it's a suitable replacement for the 850R because it is a sleeper, it's massive inside, it's comfy, it's fast, it's used by Police, and it's hugely tunable.

I’ve been looking at Skodas as an alternative to Audi A6 Avant - mainly because of the price. Could you give me some idea of the cost of the Skoda? PM if you wish. Thanks

I'd love to put an OM 656 in the V Class to make a V400d.