What makes you grin? Antidote to grumpy thread

[cort16]

So I could just go onto gumtree, buy 10 £600 shagged out Astra and Escort vans, emulsion them orange then hire them out at 25 quid a day as Cheesey C's Wotsits Van hire?

I thought there was some kind of regulation to do with the age, mileage and general road worthy ness of hire vehicles?

 

I always thought a fleet of mk1 MX-5's would be a good little hire business for tourists wanting to drive up into the Highlands in an open top car without spending a fortune.

 

£35 a day hire at 30% occupancy with 4 cars out and one as spare = £15,000 a year. Maybe one for after I have my melt down at work and spend 2 months thinking I'm a potato.

[phil_lihp]

People have had worse ideas!  It's not a bad business model, the problem comes with running older vehicles, especially vans which lead hard lives, when they inevitably break down or go wrong while loaned out, I would have thought that as long as the vehicle is in good roadworthy condition it shouldn't matter if it's a 20 year old Bedford Rascal or a 2 year old Transit.  It's in theory no different to the companies that hire out classic cars.  

 

I may be totally wrong of course.

[Wilko220]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23281804

 

Hopefully these Government u-turns on minimum alcohol pricing and plain cigarette packaging represent a genuine turning point against the relentless onslaught of the nanny / bully / control-freak state. Can't quite convince myself to believe it just yet though.

[Sigmund Fraud]

£35 a day hire at 30% occupancy with 4 cars out and one as spare = £15,000 a year. Maybe one for after I have my melt down at work and spend 2 months thinking I'm a potato.

 

I suspect that finding a company that would insure said cars for hire at a reasonable price would be the biggest problem. If not, I am looking forward to visiting the Highlands in a Wotsits Sports Car Rental vehicle !

[Pillock]

I was thinking yesterday, after I was passed by yet another big-name rental van at 250mph on the motorway.... those things are always dented to buggery, but they never seem to get fixed. Quite often you can see rusty old dents where the paint has cracked months ago and it's still there.

 

So if they're stinging everyone who doesn't take out a CDW something like £300 excess (given that any panel work, even a little ding, plus paint is going to be close to that figure as a minimum), are they under any obligation to then get the repair done? If not, do they actually make more money on the £300 every so often than they do on the £40 a day hire? Maybe this Easy Van Hire lot have the right plan - £300 excess on a little dent, lob some filler in it and blast it over with orange Dulux, pocketing the £280 remaining.

 

 

Anyway, my grin today is finding http://www.opentopia.com/webcam/7635?viewmode=livevideo

It's a webcam feed from some garage in London but I've been watching them scratch their head over a Saab rear wheel for ages now. I'd love to think there's a locking wheelnut jammed or something.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

I think this one's worth monitoring: http://www.opentopia.com/webcam/14684

[meggersdog]

World of Sport : crazy racing . on ITV4. Doulbe decker bus racing from 1981 only on for five minutes but it was ace.

[dollywobbler]

I'm using flightradar24.com to watch my wife's flight from Spain. She's just flown across the Bay of Biscay at 524mph! In a plane I hasten to point out.

 

Technology is ace. Aren't there a lot of planes in the sky?!

[retrogeezer]

World of Sport : crazy racing . on ITV4. Doulbe decker bus racing from 1981 only on for five minutes but it was ace.

 

gah, missed that.  Can't see a repeat or catch up for it either.

[dollywobbler]

If only people posted that sort of thing on Youtube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hatT5D25qYI

 

(so that's where all the DMS Fleetlines went!)

[cort16]

Good to see Mr B achieving his life long dream of having a business making formica counter tops.

 

http://www.bollocktops.com

 

 

Bollock Industries specializes in helping you choose the perfect countertop or closet organization system for your needs.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

^^^^ Now that is brilliant.

[Station]

A couple of workmates took out an mx5 mk1 eunos on track for tyre noise recording purposes. It had 700,000 kms on the clock! And it had been used as a track car for hire for god knows how long!

It also had Manlung tyres for extra ditch finding squeal ability.

[scaryoldcortina]

Grinworthy for this week is the long awaited return to the road of my Volkswagen LT35, possibly the world's shitest recovery truck. At 22 years old it is neither new nor classic, the LT avoids all scene tax by being huge and square, attracts road tax at £240 per year and the non turbo 2.4 six cyl diesel makes it both slow and thirsty. Being a 3.5 tonner weighing 2 tonnes empty, I can't carry modern cars on it - even a fiesta is too heavy now. The brakes are marginal, the shock absorbers stopped absorbing shocks about a decade ago, the gearchange is so sloppy you have to slam the lever into the dashboard to get reverse, the blower motor doesn't blow and most of the rest of the electrics are best described as "intermittant". Despite all of this it passed a MoT yesterday, and I love it to bits.

[Wilko220]

^ and non-LEZ compliant no doubt, so rendering use anywhere near London out of the question!

[dollywobbler]

Worth a 'grin' that SOC is still in town. Thought you'd disappeared!

[Mr Lobster]

I was thinking yesterday, after I was passed by yet another big-name rental van at 250mph on the motorway.... those things are always dented to buggery, but they never seem to get fixed. Quite often you can see rusty old dents where the paint has cracked months ago and it's still there.

 

So if they're stinging everyone who doesn't take out a CDW something like £300 excess (given that any panel work, even a little ding, plus paint is going to be close to that figure as a minimum), are they under any obligation to then get the repair done? If not, do they actually make more money on the £300 every so often than they do on the £40 a day hire? Maybe this Easy Van Hire lot have the right plan - £300 excess on a little dent, lob some filler in it and blast it over with orange Dulux, pocketing the £280 remaining.

 

 

The vast majority will be hired out long term to one corporate hirer though so all the damage will be fixed in one hit on its eventual return rather than as it happens.

[Cavcraft]

Grinworthy for this week is the long awaited return to the road of my Volkswagen LT35, possibly the world's shitest recovery truck. At 22 years old it is neither new nor classic, the LT avoids all scene tax by being huge and square, attracts road tax at £240 per year and the non turbo 2.4 six cyl diesel makes it both slow and thirsty. Being a 3.5 tonner weighing 2 tonnes empty, I can't carry modern cars on it - even a fiesta is too heavy now. The brakes are marginal, the shock absorbers stopped absorbing shocks about a decade ago, the gearchange is so sloppy you have to slam the lever into the dashboard to get reverse, the blower motor doesn't blow and most of the rest of the electrics are best described as "intermittant". Despite all of this it passed a MoT yesterday, and I love it to bits.

 

Is it on the V5 as recovery mate? My old 609D (5.9 tonner I think) was actually cheaper than most cars to tax because the logbook had it as a recovery truck.

[scaryoldcortina]

^ and non-LEZ compliant no doubt, so rendering use anywhere near London out of the question!

 

Oh, completely not LEZ. Barely passed the emmission test! It did get a run through london a couple of years back, which was fun.

Worth a 'grin' that SOC is still in town. Thought you'd disappeared!

I did! The Gail Tilsley's tits episode traumatized me so badly I didn't even look here for ages. It seems much better now!

 

Is it on the V5 as recovery mate? My old 609D (5.9 tonner I think) was actually cheaper than most cars to tax because the logbook had it as a recovery truck.

Sadly, that's about weight. 5.9 puts you in the private HGV classes, which haven't been put up for ages. 3.5 makes mine PLG and it goes up every year. I can't even put a crane on the back and avoid the MoT!

[TagoraSX]

 

[Cavcraft]

Ah, you're better off like that anyhow tbh as once you hit 3501kgs+ you're into the murky territory of tachographs and all that bollocks.

[cms206]

Applied online for my new driving license on Tuesday. It arrived this morning. Service indeed!

[quicksilver]

Big grin as my shite-spotting drought has ended in some style and I didn't even go out looking - I glanced out of the window and there it was 

 

1979 Vauxhall Chevette 1.3L by quicksilver coaches, on Flickr

 

1979 Vauxhall Chevette 1.3L by quicksilver coaches, on Flickr

 

and as you can see I've finally figured out how to share from improved* flickr

[STUNO]

A note for all the assembled thousands. stuno has had enough of the far side and will reappear as if by magic in the county of Dorset next Sunday for an extended stay.

That is really making Me grin

[myglaren]

Big grin as my shite-spotting drought has ended in some style and I didn't even go out looking - I glanced out of the window and there it was  

 

and as you can see I've finally figured out how to share from improved* flickr

I haven't and was trying to attach a nimage direct but managed to hit the 'close' button on Chromium while it was doing it.

I get that it is the 'wrong file type' when attaching a flickr! image (.jpg) 

[myglaren]

Some of my nephews and my ex-sister-in-law are American. They're all nice, polite, well balanced people who don't eat donuts all day or think they own the world.

I have recently acquired an American daughter in law and she is delightful, not in the least like the stereotype.

 

 

Freezing to death there, February in Newcastle

She just was headhunted for a super job with a well known international company, they gave her the car of her choice, she had to wait 13 weeks for them to glue it together in Bavaria, has had it three weeks and driven it about 60 miles.

They were here in it last weekend and she would clean the screen.  I'd just washed mine and would do their's too but she just wanted some Windex.

 

I have some professional glass cleaner that fell into my car at work and gave her that.

Off she went and came back rather distraught a few minutes later after deciding to clean the bonnet too, removing the wax and probably the lacquer too.

 

What really makes me grin though - and reduces me to tears too, is this american.

After a performance like this, she reverts to a happy, excited and slightly embarrassed kid with absolutely no pretensions whatsoever.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

It always cheers me up when I see a New Beetle with a flower in the little vase. Just saw two in ten minutes. 

[beko1987]

The councils removed our kebab vans power supply to kick him off his pitch so their new houses look better. So 50+ locals gathered for a photo shoot for the local paper, and we are all going to the council meeting on Wednesday to fight for him.

 

Don't want to loose him, have to drive to get a kebab otherwise, which doesn't work when drunk...

[Station]

Cars get stickered threatening removal and crushingdom if you dare put it for sale notice and park it somewhere on the street around here (Wirral). This isn't against the law, they just do it because they're QUNTZ.

I've worked for the council before and they're very aggressive - yet lazy.

[Cavcraft]

Took the dog for a walk earlier and he was 'accosted' by some beagle or basset type. Apparently (no joking) it was a hermaphrodite which I found quite amusing, until the owner said it was called Billy.