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

Ha totnes aka clown town.
I wonder if they take it off road

It’s around 40k to convert a car to EV- that buys a lot of unleaded.

Jesus that is loads, I thought it would be less, but surely its going to get cheaper.

Getting ready to go on holiday, get up early to try and get stuff done, quick swap over of winter to summer wheels (car doesn’t get much use and it dropped to -1 when we did the last big drive over Easter, don’t judge me).
Discover one of the practically new summer tyres has a nail in it. Fuck sake. Local tyre place can’t fit me in, start ringing round, national tyres want £40 just to swap the wheels over ffs, ring another place who quote £5-10 to fix a tyre (alarm bells ringing), end up going kwik fit and they get it sorted. Was genuinely surprised/impressed to see the lad check all the bolts with a torque wrench (saved me a job). And managed to get a decent look under the e46 while they had it up (wouldn’t recommend opening such a can of worms). Did manage to add extra cable ties to my exhaust hanger bodge at least. Looking at the shocks, I reckon a suspension refresh really wouldn’t go amiss. Anyone got finger in the air prices for a garage to do front and rear shocks and springs on an e46 estate?

Better get the car washed and needs a valet. It seems I grossly underestimated how long this takes too!

Always the way when you need to be on the road asap.

CSB etc I know.

40ish is for a medium sized car, just the motor and reduction/ gear box for a big Yank tank like this will cost between 18 and 30 grand. And to have some range you’ll need a bigger battery pack as well.

Washed it. Went to move it after and a fair puff of white stuff came out the exhaust. Would have thought it a bit hot today to be steam... Hoping nothing serious...

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Have discovered the secret of making money from car parts. Sets of alloy wheels that were bought as the tyres were in better condition that the tyres on my car for £25. Wait 30 year or so, and then they are worth £800.

Lots and lots of old car that were stripped for 'spares' as you had to pay to get cars taken away then the parts are suddenly worth money...

Bump. Anyone got a proper Jack I could borrow for a few days (Need to redo wheel bearings). Can pick up. London ways. Ideally not crazy far out.

Maybe put the car on bricks and hope that synthetic fuel will arrive before we get too old.

I would really like a proper 4x4 and I do need to go off-road but they're super expensive here for anything not shit. A mid 2000s shogun is 8000eur. Even back model is 5000. But I need to go off-road so I guess I fit some AT tyres to the outback, 400 EUR is better than 7000.

Still yes.

Back to Ascona, brother had one, I had cavalier. Ascona far superior in all measures.

What is imoprting a european 4x4 like?

After lots of reading, looks like the Ascona, at least, had far more options than the vauxhall and marketed as being of superior quality as they were german.

Yes going to Germany to get one is an option. But it's 10% tax at market value here on a car with high co2. Plus the 500 EUR to drive here. Then a few hundred costs here. So might be not that worth it.

What are the prices like in France/Spain enough to make a difference?

Say 6k Germany, 9k Spain. I'm in Spain.

UK would be like 4k GBP. But that's expensive to import and rhd

There's quite a scene of people modifying outbacks to use offroad, well in NZ anyway. People go mad for them for ski field access because 4x4s all seem to be insane money

Probably just condensation build up in the exhaust, more common than you think. Maybe even a bit extra from water going in the tailpipe during washing

My weekly silly estate search has turned this up, rather nice IMO!
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202205246059791

Not sure I’d want a car that had been owned by Mr C

love that interior

and the "twin" sunroof works. nice

Yes. Want to keep the outback for skiing and going places with family. We are moving to 1000m so it will come into its own soon and do better than a big truck for those purposes.

I've got a similar one but from 1994 in green. This looks like a lovely one, especially given the sunroof version's propensity to rust.