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

reasonable level of maintenance

Ominous drums in the distance

I have a deposit from a buyer. Sorry.

Yes, Fiat twin cams and celica axles seemed to be the go-to mods for people that wanted to go beyond the a-series. I remember seeing this back in the day and loving all the fab-work that went into it.

http://www.beardmorebros.co.uk/website%20pages/new_project.htm (super old site)

These guys did a bunch of stuff to all variants of Minors and also did a cool Fiat powered Lada.

A lot of the e46 range has been whittled down by emergent faults too. Autos not as reliable, certain versions had problems that only emerged at 90k (something about a timing gear being machined directly on the crankshaft as a cost saving measure only for it to cause wear and have the chains fail IIRC).

By no means an expert, but I definitely came across certain versions to avoid.

It's so pretty ay.

So 30's / Germanic.

Electric motoring so far. Very quiet. Acceleration from 10 to 60 is strong. 0-10 less so.

Stereo, heated wheel and heated seats great.

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Did the E46 airbag recall happen over there? Here in Aus many many perfect E46 were killed by the Takata airbag recall. Dealers either had to buy back examples to be scrapped or offer a replacement vehicle. Owners had to cease driving them until fixed. Not sure what the outcome has been but it basically wiped out that series.

Don’t know what exactly happened here, but as far as I understand it, it affected pre 2001 models. My HPI check included recalls but came up clear.

Turns out Cycliste has moved on from the buying-a-Polo-in-Switzerland plan. She's thinking of moving up to a Skoda Faaaaaarbia Estate. All 3 cylinders and 95 throbbing SwissGerman ponies. But it has cruise control and sat nav.

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202009053356726

178 ponies!

That's the 1.4. Speed machine. Cycliste is looking at the 1.0 version. Not sure they even sell the 1.4 in the Helvetic Federation.

I have pointed out that her daily driver will have 50% of the turbos, 30% of the cylinders, and 20% of the capacity of mine. She just laughed in a very endearing manner.

Ha, I was just letting you know that a fabia estate didn’t have to be totally boring. Although The VRS is definitely rare compared to the 1l!

This is someone who got seriously pissed off when the hire car company gave her a free upgrade from a VW Up! to an Audi A7, and from a VW Golf to a Mercedes AMG Cabriolet...

I had a 5J fabia estate for six years, it was great (despite not being a VRS) although mine was a 105bhp one.

My Dad had a VRS, it had 3 replacement engines

Trying to find a cheap auto with a smaller engine so partner can learn to drive, was close to getting this mk3 golf for 600 quid but didn't pull the trigger as it only has 1 week mot. £1000 is the budget but depends on how much my CLK350 goes for on the bay. Any suggestions for cars to look at please? Need to free up some cash so wife can return to studies. Students eh.

Turns out Cycliste has moved on from the buying-a-Polo-in-Switzerland plan. She's thinking of moving up to a Skoda Faaaaaarbia Estate. All 3 cylinders and 95 throbbing SwissGerman ponies. But it has cruise control and sat nav.

We drove one of those around the Austrian Alps for a few weeks last year. It was horrendous. Steered like a boat and really struggled for air above 2,500m on really not that steep bits of road. Splutter splutter.

First thing I saw too.

I've got a 2018 Fabia 1.0 110PS, 6spd manual.
I really like it - all mod cons, actually pretty nippy when you want it to be between 50-80mph getting on to the motorway etc. Obviously it's not 'fast car' quick but it doesn't sound like your partner wants that. Averaging about 56PMG too, which is nice.

I was hoping for someone who knows to advise... I've been slowly uprating bits of my Focus ST with a view to bumping the HP significantly at somepoint in the next couple of years (probably to somewhere around 320 - 350 hp). This is just for a bit of fun - I might stick in on a track in the future, but it's never going to be a significant use of the car.

However, I got an MOT advisory for a leaking shock absorber. So I'm going to address that first instead. I know nothing about coilovers - sorting various sites by price makes a set of Bilstein B12s look a reasonable choice at c.£700, plus they'll lower it a bit which I'd like. Or possibly some height adjustable BC racing ones at c.£800.
The alternative of course is to stick with stock shocks, but that seems a slightly wasted opportunity and isn't actually much cheaper for all four corners.

However, I'm aware that this is something that could totally ruin how my car drives, particularly as I drive mostly around West London... My question, does anyone know what I should put on and whether something like those Bilsteins will make my car awful to live with day to day?

Picking the C55 up later, total invoice £3,520.50

That... doesn't seem too bad given the work in those photos you posted.

I'd agree, and it's worth it for the peace of mind for the next 10 (?) years.

I compared the cost to that of my local Mercedes dealer- labour alone would put the local place at £13,400

I'd avoid cheap coilovers, that's for sure. Also be aware that uprating your suspension counts for less on track than a good set of tyres... BUT... based purely on internet knowledge, not first hand experience, I think you'd get a good setup with coilovers. Anything higher end that uses helper springs and has poly/rubber bushings in the mounting points will make the daily driver experience much better - think KW makes good things. If you're chasing power, how about aan uprated LSD diff?

Out of curiosity I was trying to search for what the finance costs would be on a new one and struggled to find the modern equivalent on their website.

On new Mercedes does AMG now = big alloys and a body kit?