The new news 24 thread

[Mrs6C]

8 minutes ago, puddlethumper said:

Had a good chat and showed them round my hovel home on wheels. 

Great company, warm welcome and even chocolates! Really nice to meet you in person and what a winner of a motorhome! I look forward to grafting some new apple trees from your neighbour as well...

[reb]

Application to form a limited company has been put in. All being well (proposed name is accidentally one word off a much larger company) I'll be a powerfully built company director by the end of the week.

Next step is convincing someone to fund me/it.

My plan for the rest of the evening is to transfer the business plan from my cranium to a PDF.

Wish me luck.

[reb]

Well that was quick.

[richardmorris]

1 hour ago, reb said:

Well that was quick.

What’s the idea? 

[reb]

9 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

What’s the idea? 

Pay my rent.

[Six-cylinder]

2 hours ago, puddlethumper said:

I would like to give a very big shout out to @Andyrew,@Six-cylinderand @Mrs6Cfor delivering a gearbox to me. Had a good chat and showed them round my hovel home on wheels. This place etc,.

Rang the garage and they can fit me in on Saturday which is good news coz I needz ma weelz yo.

It turns out @puddlethumper has parked his RV in the Pensnett canal! He would be deep in trouble if it was pre 1950! 

[Joey spud]

Bye,bye Honda.

For me it's always a sad day when you scrap a car.

This Accord had been in the family for ten years with me and then the father in law but had sat idle since the Summer. Its mot lapsed in September but still drove spot on and everything worked fine, I'm sure it would have walked another test as it's a Honda.

But the wheels needed a referb and the paint was tired and flaking in places, it's a thirsty thing too and tax is £30 a month so I took the £380 offered by Redcorn rather than faff about trying to sell it to Joe Public.

I did keep the front seats though.

 

[horriblemercedes]

Just now, Joey spud said:

Bye,bye Honda.

For me it's always a sad day when you scrap a car.

This Accord had been in the family for ten years with me and then the father in law but had sat idle since the Summer. Its mot lapsed in September but still drove spot on and everything worked fine, I'm sure it would have walked another test as it's a Honda.

But the wheels needed a referb and the paint was tired and flaking in places, it's a thirsty thing too and tax is £30 a month so I took the £380 offered by Redcorn rather than faff about trying to sell it to Joe Public.

I did keep the front seats though.

That seems a shame - I bet someone here would've had that. That said, it could be a bit more rotten underneath than it seems on top

[cobblers]

fuckinerl aren't the cats off those worth nine million quid?

[Joey spud]

I got the serial number off the cat and checked up and it wasn't worth anywhere near as much as the internet tells you.

I think its value with a fresh mot was only around £600 to £700 so add in an the MOT, getting the tyres to seal on the rims and going through and cleaning/ freeing the brakes etc then there's not much profit to be had.

And just selling it for scrap removes the grief of dealing with the Ass holes that seem to currently thrive in these parts.

I did think about offering it here but the last time i tried to sell on here the opinion was i was in the arse end of nowhere (Kent).

[barefoot]

I'd have had that off you in a trice, 

- had you not been in the arse end of no-where.

[MrGTI6]

A colleague with a 16-plate Audi A3 often tells me that he'll never buy a French car because they're unreliable.

This evening, a small queue had formed on the way home from work. I thought perhaps there were some temporary lights in place. Got to the front of the queue and saw my colleague's A3 was the cause of the obstruction, just sat there with its hazard lights flashing.

It turned out his state-of-the-art dual-clutch S-Tronic gearbox decided to completely lose drive and he has no breakdown cover. 

I towed his car back to the yard using my unreliable 25-year-old French car. Only just got back home having dropped him off at his house. 

 

 

[SiC]

13 minutes ago, MrGTI6 said:

It turned out his state-of-the-art dual-clutch S-Tronic gearbox decided to completely lose drive and he has no breakdown cover. 

Not sure it's quite state of the art! Depending on the engine it's either a 7spd (lesser powered engines) released 16 years ago or the 6spd (higher powered) from 20 years ago (TT Mk1 was the first to have it).

[Ghosty]

12 hours ago, Joey spud said:

Bye,bye Honda.

For me it's always a sad day when you scrap a car.

This Accord had been in the family for ten years with me and then the father in law but had sat idle since the Summer. Its mot lapsed in September but still drove spot on and everything worked fine, I'm sure it would have walked another test as it's a Honda.

But the wheels needed a referb and the paint was tired and flaking in places, it's a thirsty thing too and tax is £30 a month so I took the £380 offered by Redcorn rather than faff about trying to sell it to Joe Public.

I did keep the front seats though.

 

WTF? You've shot yourself in the foot for four figures surely... tourer as well.

[Split_Pin]

33 minutes ago, Ghosty said:

WTF? You've shot yourself in the foot for four figures.

Would you have bought it?

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

On 11/01/2023 at 22:52, SiC said:

Just found out Moss in Manchester has closed down permanently. Bit of a shame.

https://www.moss-europe.co.uk/about-moss-manchester

 

I'm proper upset about this branch closing. They're close to my house and even though a few of the cars I've had were not officially supported by Moss, thanks to the BL parts bin they often had what I was looking for. The staff were wonderfully helpful every time I went in and put some random P6, Allegro or Marina part on the counter and said "do you have this?" they'd take the time to figure out what it was and they usually had it. Even when the Moss website said an item was out of stock, 9 times out of 10 they had it here.  Most recently I needed a bulb holder for the Marina tail lights, and they figured out what other car used it and five minutes later I walked out with one and fitted it in their car park.

I saved a fortune on postage collecting large items like body panels and windscreens here, and a physical location was also useful for the tiny stuff like when I somehow lost one wheel nut, I was able to get another one within the hour. 

 

[New POD]

On 12/01/2023 at 17:07, reb said:

Well that was quick.

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/SC755183/officers

Amazing what information is available on free government websites 

[brownnova]

Good news!!!!

After a hiatus since 2019…. 

Chodmondermingerly is back!!!! 

[reb]

9 hours ago, New POD said:

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/SC755183/officers

Amazing what information is available on free government websites 

Well aware, your point?

The only thing there that wasn't publically available already is the address. So I suppose some weirdo might turn up, but they wouldn't achieve much.

[Timewaster]

On 12/01/2023 at 14:05, lesapandre said:

The dream...and reality...

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/halfords-shares-tumble-shortage-mechanics-profits

Investment advice: sell.

I have no evidence of it but I bet they don't pay and are ****'s to work for.

Properly managed this is probably a good business but I bet it's being run by the usual cheese-paring-mingebags.

£60M profit on an operation this big is pitiful:

"As of June 2021, Halfords has 404 stores, 3 Performance Cycling stores (trading as Tredz and Giant), 374 garages (trading as Halfords Autocentres, McConechys and Universal Tyres and Autocentres) and 143 mobile service vans (trading as Halfords Mobile Expert and Tyres on the Drive) and 192 Commercial vans."

So ignoring the commercial vans, that is 924 outlets.

£60m ÷ 924 is just under £65k pa. Or less than £1250  profit a week per outlet.

 

[Metal Guru]

47 minutes ago, Timewaster said:

So ignoring the commercial vans, that is 924 outlets.

£60m ÷ 924 is just under £65k pa. Or less than £1250  profit a week per outlet.

 

Most of that will go this year in higher energy bills.

[lesapandre]

2 hours ago, Timewaster said:

So ignoring the commercial vans, that is 924 outlets.

£60m ÷ 924 is just under £65k pa. Or less than £1250  profit a week per outlet.

 

Yea I did think of doing the calculations - but that just about sums it up. 

Or another way...I think (maths was never my strong point...but using 'freakanomics')

With 32 million-ish cars on the road and 924 outlets, each store (ignoring cycles and caravan etc), has about 35,000-ish customer cars to serve.

Dividing this 35,000 potential customer cars base-line by the annual store profit... this vast motoring combine is managing to take £1.86 per car spend per car in the UK marketplace per annum for parts and services.

Absolutely laughable... given Halfords store reach nationally, how a lot of local garages have closed down, the need for annual Mot's, the loss of most smaller car spares businesses and the online and warehouse retailing of cars which all require subsequent maintenance and servicing somewhere... etc etc.

It's a publicly quoted company - with a fairly gloomy trajectory. 

My hunch would be it would be bought by a private equity company in due course for a knockdown price.

[captain_70s]

Whenever I go to a Halfords it's deserted, and Amazon will ship most of the stuff they sell to your door for less money...

[Timewaster]

Where most remaining car spares shops are quite small and rammed with stuff in every corner, most Halfords have the same amount of stuff in a shop the size of Tesco's.

[lesapandre]

We've probably had this...

Pathetic IMHO. 

 

[richardmorris]

If you need to be told, then you probably should not be driving in the first place.

[RoverFolkUs]

The only thing Halfords are good for is their tools. 

I'm not sure what a Snap-on 10mm socket does that a Halfords Advanced one doesn't 🤷

[puddlethumper]

Further to my gearbox woes I got the van in the garage and it turns out to be a 4 speed not a 5. I did ask the seller what it came out of and he said he thought* it was out of a phase 2 van. Probably out of a phase 1 which had 4 speeds. Anyway, it works and I'm not so bothered about losing 5th. 4th is longer geared on a 4 speed so no big loss. It's the longest it's been off the road, 5 weeks, in the 22 years I've had it.

[ProgRocker]

Autoshite gold right here:

A dangerous and insecure load (Eastern Daily Press)

[wesacosa]

fun day in Berlin today . Second time driving a Trabant, shitter than I remembered.  Tempted with that one on eBay now