mystery machine

Feck me - I'd need to sell me erse to cover that lot About the only way that could be worse is if you were paying for your own wedding this year too...

That's the laddish spelling

Quite - you have to admire a guy who's willing to venture out in the snow all in the name of keeping his Scooby slick Anything less than 6dC and absolutely bone dry roads, or even a hint of rain in the next three days' weather forecast and mine's wearing the muck

OK, my mistake - I thought the parking attendant had seen something. Don't think you'll have too much of a problem sorting this one out either way, unless the third party starts playing silly beggars. All the best.

Aye, I know what you mean - losing your excess is always a possibility. It's all relative, but for me that's quite a high excess (I'm £100) - so I can understand you not wanting to lose it! Having said that, this case seems pretty clear-cut, don't you reckon? I'd be awfae surprised if the insurance company couldn't settle things in your favour. I mean, if you reckon that you have a better chance of settling things through Accident Claims Scotland than your insurance company do as 'motor claims experts' - then what does that say about your insurance company? You're paying them very handsomely to represent you in these very such circumstances, after all. I just don't like to see a guy suffering hassle or anguish over a bump that wasn't his fault in the first place Anyway - best of luck sorting everything out whichever you play it, mate P.S. I think I might be right in saying that most insurers will warranty a repair for longer than most garages will (if used independently).

It depends on how you work it... When you're fully comp - regardless of who's at fault - you can usually have your car booked into a garage for repair very quickly after the accident (usually within a week, in my experience). Upon collecting the car, you usually have to pay the garage your the excess and the insurance company picks up the remainder of the bill. Then, once your insurance company and the third party insurance company have agreed that the third party was at fault, you get your excess back (and NCB too, if applicable). This can be days, weeks or months after the claim was made, depending on how complicated the case is. In Welsho's case it seems pretty clear-cut and IIRC he has a witness, so I wouldn't expect that it would take too long to sort things out in his favour. When I've been in the same position I've just stuck the excess onto a credit card until I was reimbursed, so that I didn't have to take the hit. I think it's also possible to make the claim entirely through the third party's insurance (never done it myself). In that case, you don't have to pay any excess, but you might have to wait until the claim is settled before having your motor repaired - and that could mean months of driving about in a dinged motor!

Oh jings - Gav's heid will be set to explode now Glad you got your maw sorted - tell her 'welcome to the club'

You seem quite reluctant to go through your insurance... do you have a high excess? (if you don't mind me asking).

Welsho - don't take your car to any place you're not 100% happy with. You don't have to give the third party a list of options only for them to select the cheapest. Give her the price for the place you've had the most recommendations for and if she doesn't like that then put it through your insurance, claiming against her - it's not too late to do that. You have a witness so you're in a strong position here. Just my 2p, as someone who's been in a similar position a few times.

That's a healthy increase in peak torque Do they give you a before/after torque curve graph for comparison? I only ask out of curiosity - you're obviously pleased with the on-the-road results, which is the important thing!

Links 3 and 5 were the only ones working, and out of those two I vote for 3.

I love it when you talk dirty like that Oops, wrong forum

Quite - it'd certainly put a whole new perspective on things if it transpired that someone had been seriously injured or killed because of a speed camera Being a little less dramatic about it, I certainly wouldn't be surprised if they're prone to causing shunts like the one you saw. I've seen some Gatso sites where the road was awash wish skid marks - and that just can't be good... Of course, your speed camera advocate will tell you that average-speed cameras are the answer to such Gatso-induced erraticisms... My answer to that would be that average-speed cameras don't take account of road conditions, i.e. it could be perfectly safe to drive above the speed limit on a given road if the surface is dry, visibility is good and the traffic is s p a r s e*. Conversely, it could be very dangerous to drive on the same road, 10mph under the speed limit, in the pissing rain during rush hour, while tailgating the car in front. Not that the roadside average-speed cameras would give a monkey's about that, mind. Technology isn't even nearly advanced enough to do the job of a well-trained traffic cop. * I had to space the characters out like that to stop the forum auto-sanitiser from censoring the 'a r s e' part 's p a r s e'! Big brother strikes again!!!

Yet someone will always be willing to step forward and declare, "but speed cameras save lives!" OK - and so would a 25mph speed limiter on all cars, so would a mandatory jail sentence for anyone caught driving 1mph over the speed limit... but where do you stop? Tricky thing is striking that fine balance between 'nannying' and 'personal freedom'. IMHO, we've moved too far in favour of the former. Personally, I'd rather see more traffic cops policing the roads judiciously and intelligently - not just sent out with a quota of speeding tickets to hand out each month (I'm not saying that's necessarily how they work at the moment). But then bobbies and patrol cars cost money, whereas speed cameras generate revenue... Hmmm - accountants in charge again?

Fun game, cheers for posting. Curious how well-attuned the brain becomes to everyday 'hazards' - in this case the back end and double-smoked windows of a white van... I remember the days when you could devote most of your thinking time to watching out for a child or on old person stepping into your path, or a car pulling out of a blind side street... Now we have to keep ourselves otherwise occupied, looking for surveillance traps in the bushes, crater-sized potholes on the road, traffic islands jutting out randomly into the road, and speed bumps that weren't there the last time you drove up that road Very true.

Pardon my ignorance, but as a Hawkeye owner I do not know what you mean by 'bumpstrips'. I would've thought that term referred to plastic strips along the middle of the doors... but mine doesn't have those...

Comes on when heading North, three miles before Perth? That'll be Subaru's patented "Teuchter Country Proximity Warning (TCPW)", surely?

P.S. Gav - do you have one bunch of sales guys for Isuzi and one for Subaru, or do y'all flog both?

Ah - in that case it was probably the younger chap You missed a trick there, Gav - I was expecting:"I don't like to labour a point, so I don't think it was me. So let's be perfectly clear on this - I will NOT labour a point. One last time, so we're absolutely crystal - I am not in the business of labouring points. Me - point - labour - NO." P.S. In all seriousness, the guy was fine with me - no complaints

I get the same thing myself. Not that I look very young, I just look skint. Don't get me wrong, I actually am skint - just not as skint as they think I am

As ma maw used to say, "if you look like a ned, you'll get treated like one" I'm just kidding, mate. As you say, might've been an off day. Maybe the nearby snack bar was out of square sausage or summat

Ian Greive's service department has been OK with me so far - usually polite, helpful etc. Perhaps a wee bit reluctant to get properly stuck into one 'not quite run-of-the-mill' problem, but then I suppose most garages are a lot keener on the 'meat and potatoes' servicing than potentially tricky diagnoses. I've only had fleeting experience with their sales department. Car salesmen (well OK, any salesman) I only have so much time for, but the guy at Grieves was fine - laboured some of his points a little, but he was never arrogant or patronising. Actually, I dunno if it was our resident forumite Gav I dealt with - Gav, are you the younger guy or the older guy? Or perhaps I should ask, "do you like to labour a point"?

Fivetide - out of curiosity, how is Scooby ownership comparing with the Supra?

You'd think they'd have plenty of spares too, now that the rally's a bogey...

Cheers. Sounds fantastic to own. Can't blame you for being nervous about parking it - I'm the same with my wee WRX. Black's a wh0re for picking up marks, too. Oh jings - I've only had my motor six months and I'm getting an itch in the ditch...