A false economy

I've always been interested in diesels, performance diesels, economical diesels and just the black stuff in general. Car journos are forever going on about the fact that used, pound for pound, petrol is better value. This runs counter to the prevailing thinking, and especially car marketing. Plenty of recent VW adverts promoted the fact that you'll fuel up once in a blue moon running on derv. Sales of motors powered by the clackety stuff are rocketing correspondingly. So a prestige used advert in todays InGear supplement of the Sunday Times caught my eye. Arnold Clark had two '03 plate Mercedes ML's side by side (not a car I particularly rate - but bear with me). Both metallic and both full leather. No mileage or condition was mentioned, so for the sake of argument we'll assume it's much of a muchness. The 270CDI diesel was £21k and the 500 V8 petrol £16k. Torque is about the same, however the diesel is just 200bhp whilst the V8 is 300bhp. Driving conservatively you'll be doing well to get 30 mpg from the diesel and 20 mpg from the petrol. Put a decent stainless steel exhaust on the V8 and it'll sound like a muscle car. The diesel on the other hand will always have more in common with one of Kelvin Kabs finest. If you do 10k per annum, then it's going to take you nigh on 7 years before the diesel starts saving you money over the petrol (assuming a couple of pence price differential per litre). I'll do a wee comparison on 3 litre Beemers tomorrow if I get a chance, and I suspect the same to be repeated. I know what I'll be getting next...

Learning new stuff

It seems like the rate of change is accelerating every week. Is that a natural consequence of old age? Anyhoo, the guys seem to come up with a new 'thing' to try almost every week. Each new thing is more dependent upon stuff you did before (and more importantly - still remember), and all syncs up seemlessly. This week I have mostly been using Flock yet its not been anywhere near as easy to pick up for a newbie as that monumental shift from IE to Firefox was. First I couldn't integrate this blog. Then right click 'search for' seemed determined to use shitty Yahoo, and I had to dabble in the black arts of "about:config" to get it right. Like I know what the hell that does. Anyhoo, it works and I've now added a further tiny length of IT footering string to my bow. Is this making my life easier?

PS."It seems there was an error with your blog..." - so I had to re-post this on Blogger, the old fashioned way. What was I saying about it working again? Focking flock.

Still worth the subscription?

So, CAR Magazine recently changed format (which its periodically done over its 40 odd year history). The most recent regeneration has been into an uber-stylish Euro version of 'Car and Driver'. Loads of extremely arty photo's, deep and meaningful articles about the evolution of the cup-holder, that sort of thing. So whilst it's taken a slight detour up its own arse - they've relaunched their website, to make up some of the factual content shortfall. Loads of spy shots, launches and first drives are to be found - mostly quite funny and insightful. Such as this critique of the above fud-hatch.

Nothing beats a lads night

Up at Ians last night for one of our irregular technology fests. Quality evening of iMac footering, Xbox 360 with a bit of Sky HD thrown in for good measure. Patter was up to the usual high standard, and Grahams farts were kept to a bearable minimum. Surprise of the evening was realising that a medium Domino's really was adequate after all. Roll on the launch of PES6 so we can do it all over again, in super duper definition.

I love Stussy

I've been wearing Stussy since I was 19 when my Aunt Julie brought me an iconic Gucci logo'd oatmeal tee from Australia. Its funny to think that when I first wore it out (clubbing in The Tunnel of all places - don't laugh) folk used to come up and ask where I'd got it and was it real? Over the years I reckon I've had about 50 tee's and whilst I've not been to their New York store, I know a man who has (Mr D!) - and he took some photos for me. Simply, I love their designs and the build quality backs up the hype - nothing comes close in terms of retaining their look and shape. Recently I've been looking at my collection and wondering (do I still fit into a Large?) when it would be time to hang them up for good. At what age do you become too old for tee's on 'dress down Friday'? For the meantime, todays item is this and I'm still loving them.

New car news...

So last night Lex phoned the Mrs to say that her new car isn't coming in Nighthawk Black after all... Turns out the FR-V gets a mid-life makeover next year, and they aren't making any more in black until the new model comes out in April. Dilemma. She can't wait until then, because the car scheme insists the switch is in February or not at all. After reading this I am not as concerned about missing out on its new bits and bobs. Hold on to your hats; new door handles, revised rear armrests and darker 'chrome' grill and details... This must be one of the lamest model revisions for a long long time. Lex did manage to find a 'classic' in Satin Silver with the right spec, so she's bagged that instead. It was either that or reconsider one of the many poverty class S-Max variants again... I just had a thought, what other 'new car news' could there be... ;-)

Decisions

So what do I do about my car? It really is a curse liking motors as I do because it makes me so miserable and disatisfied a lot of the time. I went to a very local dealers to look at the above WRX at the weekend; its five years old, done only 45k and had two (older geezer) owners. No mods, and it didn't feel as if it had been spanked when I took it for a ten minute test drive. What I did notice was a shocking amount of shake through the wheel which when combined with the offside-front alloying kerbing - meant the tracking and balancing was probably guffed. Not a major issue, but a black mark. Next thing that I didn't like was the tiny little flat spots I sensed as I booted it past some trucks on the dual carriageway. What I mean was that the power did not come across like a massive tidal wave of oomph, it came in but I could feel there was little miniscule spots of *no power* in among the rev band. I'm not explaining this too well, and it wasn't like catastrophic and I'm maybe being a little unfair to compare a five year old with the one year old I sold in Jan. There could be a stack of reasonable explanations for that, coked-up tubes, it was 9am and the engine hadn't really warmed up, and the garage hadn't serviced it since receiving it on Monday as part of a trade-in (I noticed it on Auto-Trader on Tuesday). With a very thorough service and properly warmed through I'm sure it would have felt like more of the 215bhp were on tap. When I was out it felt like only 75% of that, which was disappointing. The brakes felt as wooden and unresponsive as I remembered but that's maybe nit-picking. Back in the showroom we talked money, and his trade-in offer for the Micra was reasonable, so far so good. He wasn't prepared to budge on the £8k asking price (I wasn't expecting a massive saving, maybe £500, but nothing doing) however he would do the full service including a costly, but extremely important, cambelt change. There were a few WR Sport back boxes on Ebay too, which kind of got me all excited (I had one on my previous and it sounded lovely) but when he mentioned a three month parts and labour warranty I stood up and walked. Main dealers offer 12 months, so the least I was expecting was six months. If he was as confident of the car as he professed then six months should have not have been a deal breaker. So as things stand I've left it with them. I dealt with the owner on Friday, but he wasn't available over the weekend. Maybe he'll call once he's back in the garage and been made aware of the situation from Bob the Salesman... Maybe.

A day of monkeying about

Ok, so I'm up to my eyes in it but I've spent a whole 'luncho' fudding about with my blog, getting it to look a little smarter and do fancy things with images (click the above) for a demonstration of lightbox in action. I like it! Mr Dorrian, please stand up and take a bow.

Think positive thoughts...

So, not wanting this to become a diet-blog I decided since last post to actually do something about the predicament I find myself in. The positive element of posting about it being its function as written record of the event, for posterity (or posterior really). So what have I done in the past three weeks or so? I've quit sugar in all things like tea, coffee, cereal etc. I've binned any cakes or sweets completely and any between meals snacking is limited to fruit (note to self, visit that hippie shop that sells grains and things for a bag of Dr Gillian McKeith approved budgie cage droppings). I reckon that in the past 7 months here in the new job I've put on half a stone. That explains a quarter of my two stone overweight bulk, and its not as if I drink to any extent - so the rest must be cakes and lack of hard exercise. One thing at a time though, manage my food intake better and maybe look at the exercise thing in the new year - join the Crutherland again perhaps?