Luxobarges_Are_Us

waste of time. You'll spend £350 or whatever and ages to swap engines and the like, and then you 'll have people asking you why it's had to have a new engine at 74k. I suspect that webuyanycar may be an excellent idea for this bag of shite.

Surely it's 10p for the cassette and £3.90 for posting it or something.

Is there any way of checking whether the RS mudflaps would fit a Mk3 Granny? I bet fitting them would keep my wheelarches from rotting for another thirty-eight seconds, plus I already have RS wheels and a daft boot spoiler.

Billy, I've already made it quite clear that, even if I didn't think there was a threat of things getting really nasty in the banger thread, I thought that you did the right thing in locking it because you suspected they'd get worse. It's perfectly possible for me to have faith in your ability to judge the gravity of a situation without having to agree with your viewpoint 100% of the time. We obviously hadn't thought about it in advance- this saga has proven that different people had different expectations of the 'report' function. It's good that we're having this discussion so that we can, sort of, be on the same page.

Yes, you obviously handle it correctly. However, it's an easy trap to fall in for somebody who hasn't thought about it in advance.

+1 on that. Moderators should only get involved only where there's a real threat of things getting nasty on a large scale. Tedious threads and the odd off-the-cuff remark don't fall under that heading. I think studebaker and others underestimate the pressure exerted on mods from people reporting things they don't like. Mods need to be firmer in telling people that this is not really their remit. I also support the 'hide thread' option. I'm sure we'll go back to normal soon enough- don't dramatise things, everyone can struggle with change at times.

And Elvis Presley in the boot.

I agree with studebaker. There is no need at all for the mods to perceive any criticism as something like a personal attack- if anything, mods are new to moderating and there's bound to be a bit of a debate around where the lines are drawn. It would be much worse if people didn't say anything and started talking in pairs behind others' backs or, worse still, leaving the forum altogether. I think we're more than capable of chilling out and just having a good chat about it. Even if we disagree on certain points, at least we'll understand where each other's coming from. I of course fully subscribe to the ethos of no/very little moderation, so I disagree with Cavette's decision to lock the thread. On the other hand, I think that he did the right thing in the circumstances (receiving a mountain of reports and not being totally sure about how to handle the issue). Some of the responsibility also belongs to the people who had made the reports in the first place, because they put mods into pressure!

I'd be surprised if you could go much lower than £500. My cheapest quotes (31 with 6 years' NCD, no points etc) for modern policies seem to start at about £650 for anything bigger than a Seicento, but a couple of things I've found is that sometimes there 's a comprehensive policy with a daft excess (like £1000) which works out cheaper than your normal TPFT, plus you can also play around with 'where the car is normally kept'- I have come across policies who are cheaper if you park on road than on the drive. If you can't get classic insurance, a motor trader policy seems like the most sensible solution.

'Gulf war veteran'. So you went to defend the independence of a totalitarian Emir from a totalitarian military dictator. Laudable.

56mph instead of 65 and a set of gripless energy-saving tyres can easily lift 26 to 30.

That 505 has Mr Bo11ox written all over it. Please save it!

If I was in charge of marketing for Toyota/Peugeot/etc, I'd make sure this went viral across the Middle East, and possibly other places, too.

Top bombing, Mr Glover. You have almost two months to prepare it for offroading @Shitefest 2013!

Classic car status is not a guide to whether a car was any good when new. For all its advanced looks, technology etc, the Citroen CX is still pretty much firmly in shite territory. You can't give old Toyotas and Mazdas away (apart from a couple of exceptions which are seen as GR8 4 DRIFTN), even if they were infinitely more reliable than the 'bona fide classic' Triumphs and Hillmans (Hillmen?) against which they were competing.