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

I have a 5 year old Superb. I like it; owned since new.

It's decent to drive for a big car, it's comfortable and it really is big. Holidays with 2 adults, two teenagers and two cats, everyone is reasonably comfortable (as far as I know).

So far, nothing's gone wrong with it (touch wood). If I were buying another car, another Superb would be on the list.

If it’s space, might I recommend a V Class?

But seriously, anything roughly 5 series sized sounds like it would work, do you want petrol, hybrid, electric?

If it’s space, might I recommend a V Class?

This is probably a reality for us in the future

Nice. A friend of mine had one with twin ZX9R engines. Surprisingly reliable, and thanks to the transfer box it was possible to drive on only one engine around town.

I bought a Passat B7 to replace my Fabia Estate (outright).

I sort of wish we'd gone for a Superb if i'm honest, the space would have been useful.

Interesting, thanks. I thought they would fairly comparable as I assumed they are based on the same platform but maybe not?

do you want petrol, hybrid, electric?

I'd assume for that kind of money we'd be limited to petrol / diesel, preferably an automatic.

They are based on the same PQ46 platform yep, but a lot of the VAG platforms are modular and can be tweaked - a superb is 100mm longer. The rear seat leg room is massive and the latest superb wagon has a 633L boot.

We have a 2014 Passat Alltrack, 2.0 TDI, DSG and some ridiculous amount of options we paid £11k for it. 8 think the boot is more like 600L, and we found the front passenger seat was a bit compromised with the rear facing baby seat we had.

15k might just get you into a B8 Passat which is bigger than the B7 internally but about the same outside.

My shortlist was Skoda Superb / Passat Alltrack or Volvo XC70

Brill, thank you.

I really like mine. I'm aware that this is a fairly small sample size, however.

Approaching the end of a vehicle lease and have a scuffed alloy wheel which will (quite rightly) be chargeable.

Based on size/finish looks like £80-100 for a mobile repair but am keen to avoid the faff of booking, trying to hold a parking space for their vehicle close enough to my house for their electric/power etc.

Anybody sent back a lease/PCP vehicle with wheel damage? Any recollection of your £££ penalty if so?

Who is your lease with and who will be picking up/inspecting the car?

I handed one back last year (VWFS financed, British Car Auctions picked up and inspected) and all 4 wheels were scuffed. Total tally came up to £350 but I disputed it as fair wear, said they were within the tolerated amount and the charge was waived as a gesture of goodwill. YMMV of course.

From what I've picked up on the pistonheads lease thread, you're almost always better off leaving them as is and then disputing/haggling the charge down. Just make sure the car is clean, you're nice to the person picking it up and leave just enough fuel in the tank to allow them to get to the nearest forecourt.

Entirely conjecture as I haven't got the experience to back it up but I suspect a 90s super bike would be the most engaging and stimulating ride for @Dammit as you've got plenty of power without being nonsensical and none of the driver aids of newer bikes...

A really clean CBR900RR or a Foxeye FZR1000 would be really nice and plenty of bike to scare the shit out of you...

Recommend me some small, cheap, high to very high power to weight cars, bonus points for RWD.

Toyota MR-S with a supercharged 2ZZ engine swap and supporting mods is going to be 95% of an Elise for significantly less wedge if you fancy RWD and mid-engined...

BRZ/GT86 is supposedly a superb chassis and as mentioned before easy enough to turbo if you want more power... I believe plenty of people have EJ25 swapped them now too which would be a really nice thing to own.

Define cheap? bmw 1, 2 series with some cheap tuning. The are fun to drive imo.

On another note i just fixed a dent in my hood that appeared one day and some holes in the bumber that we still cant figure out why somebody sawed before i got it.

I will also (Only 3 years late) finally fit the slightly larger wheels i bought which im hoping will give it a better visual balance and a tad more ground clearance (def needed).

Why dident anyone warn me cars are so damn expensive. Per mile it must be a 10000 times the cost of my bicycles.

I've always had a think for bike engined cars ever since having a messy conversation when I was younger with a dude who wanted to put two gixxer engines in his Pinto.

I've always had a think for bike engined cars

Me too. I've got three. Well, two and a large pile of bits.

Sadly none which are road legal at the moment. It's on my TTD list.

I’m not sure I’ve seen it mentioned yet but a major difference is that overtaking is so much easier, meaning you don’t spend ages in queues of traffic. Consequently you can find a clear patch to ride to the road and not to the inevitability terrible road sense of the driver in front.

Lovely bikes, but for someone learning?

Over 5000 people a year die off motorbikes.

Not sure what you're trying to say here: if you mean that there are 5k road deaths a year in the UK that involve motorbikes, that's simply not true.

In the year to June 2021, there were about 1400 road deaths in the UK across all forms of transport.

For motorbikes, the 5 year average 2015-2020 is a bit over 300 deaths (6 a week), and a bit under 6k serious injuries (115 a week).

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-motorcyclist-factsheet-2020/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-motorcycle-factsheet-2020#:~:text=Averaged%20over%20the%20period%202015,week%20in%20reported%20road%20casualties&text=66%25%20of%20motorcycle%20fatalities%20occurred,injured%20(%20KSI%20)%20casualties%20were%20male

MR2 MK3 with the corolla compressor engine, rare in the UK so looking at importing from europe. But then the engine will be 15-16 years old. Then the other option is the TRD supercharger kit I think.

Oh definitely not for a beginner but aspirationally I reckon these would be ideal after a bit of learner time and some sort of sensible naked as an interim...

Extremely rare as Toyota never actually built them but there are plenty of conversion out there! TRD supercharger kit is a bit overpriced for what you get I think... there's lots of other superchargers available though.

Was the corolla a toyota EU model?

When I looked at engine prices was cheaper to get XJR. But then it was hard enough to find a celica 180.

Bikes vs cars:

• bikes lean. So you don't notice the G force when cornering. The contact patches are tiny, compared to 4 fat tyres on a fast car. So some cars can corner faster than a sports bike. Hence the Nordschleife record for cars is 20-30 secs lower than for bikes. The extra grip which cars have allows them to brake later for corners. So the racing line for cars is different from the one for bikes.

• the main difference is that bike performance is useable on UK roads, whereas with cars it isn't. On a busy road a bike hardly ever has to wait to overtake (assuming a good rider.) You go from 30 to 100 and back again in a couple of seconds as a matter of routine. Not that you should...but people do. Plus you can filter past slow or stationary traffic. You can do fast filtering and undertaking on motorways and get away with it

• riding a bike fast without crashing is ten times harder than driving a car fast without crashing. It's a very, very difficult skill to develop. If you don't work at it systematically, with training on the road, the track and in the dirt, you're taking a terrible gamble with your life and your spine. Hardly any riders put the work in. They blame crashes on car drivers, but almost all crashes could have been avoided if the rider was better at anticipation and/or got their road position right.

• the electronic aids are great when you're learning and being cack-handed. But they don't make much difference if you're a good rider. You can do an emergency stop without skidding, which is great, and might save you, if you don't freeze in terror when a car pulls out in front of you. However good the ABS is, you still need to be so good at anticipation that you almost never need to do an emergency stop. If you're doing them often it's going to end in tears anyway. Good riders can often do better than the aids. They turn them all off at track days, because they cut in too soon and slow you down. (They generally work by cutting the throttle when they think you're going to lose traction.)

• I love big bikes more than anything, but I would never advise anyone to take up biking, in case they die. It takes ages to get an unrestricted licence. A used superbike looks like dirt cheap high performance, but the purchase price, maybe 4k for a used Blade or something, is just a fraction of what you'll spend on safety gear, training, insurance, locks and tracker, tyres and servicing, new bodywork when some cunt knocks the bike over when it's parked....bikes are endless trouble. You must accept this.

Edit: I forgot to mention the law. In some ways the biggest dilemma is not being banned or sent to prison. How can you enjoy a sports bike on the road without doing jailworthy speeds? Answer: you can't. The enemy is the unmarked police car. They get most of their big wins on the motorway, with bikers doing 150 or whatever. They can't really get you on a busy road when you're overtaking because they don't have a chance to follow you enough to get adequate video. There are some unmarked bikes, but very few. They seem to be deployed on the famous roads where too many bikes go anyway, e.g. A272, Cat and Fiddle. But tbh there is no answer to this. If you get into bikes you can't help painting yourself into a corner. Yet another reason not to do it.