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bmwhere?

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Everything posted by bmwhere?

  1. There's some great place names in Germany - only really funny to English speakers First up the village of "w*** in Algau". The funny thing about this place name, is that in the German language, a man from the village of w*** would be a "w***er"! A woman would be a "w***erin". Another favourite with British tourists just across the Border into Austria, is the village of "Fu©king". Who knows whats going on there Nearby there are also villages called "Hucking" and "Franking" which would be really funny if "Fu©king" wasn't there! Another place I stumbled across one day was the village of "Killer"! I didn't fancy stopping in that place! Not a place name, but funny a company name that nearly made me crash when I drove past: In the town of Villingen is a company called "Limberger Fuchs Koch & Partner". In German Fuchs means Fox and Koch is Cook. I also came across a restaurant in Munich which made me laugh... "China Restaurant Man Fat"! I really don't recommend trying their special sauce
  2. I stand to be corrected, but I believe the latest Euro vehicle rules now required daytime running lights as standard. There's some other interesting rules for driving in Germany: You have to give way to the right at every junction, unless the junction is marked with a relatively small yellow & white diamond shaped sign. The idea is that if two people arrive at a junction at the same time, its clear who has the right of way - The problem is if four people arrive at a crossroads at the same time, they all end up waiting for each other! The size of the diamond sign differs slightly depending on if its in an urban area or on open roads and can appear just before or just after the junction, just to add a bit more confusion. Pretty much all junctions outside of 30kmh zones have such a sign, which means there are way more junctions with a sign for an exception to the rule than there are where the rule is in force, so it would be way easier to scrap the rule and add extra give way to the right signs where they're needed. The give way to the right rule also used to cause chaos on roundabouts where essentially you'd have to give way to people entering the roundabout. They fixed this by adding the typical roundabout sign (blue circle with three white arrows) which now also cancels the give way to the right rule. The only problem is, they didn't fit the sign to all roundabouts, so there are still a few German roundabouts that you have to give way on! Another odd quirk of German roundabouts is you should only indicate when you're coming off the roundabout, so not indicating means you're staying on. There is also no requirement for which lane to use on a multi-lane roundabout (although there are not so many multi-lane roundabouts in Germany). The result is, most people use the outside lane and drive all the way around without indicating. As with most countries, most people forget to indicate to come off the roundabout, so its absolutely impossible to predict where people are going and when they're going to turn off. Another one of my favourites is a rule that means you have to indicate to stay on the road you're already on if there is a sharp curve and a junction on the corner. They add extra signs on these junctions with a thick line showing the flow of the road which has priority and thin lines representing the junctions which have to give way. By not indicating, you are essentially telling the other traffic you're not staying on the road, but continuing straight ahead, so anyone waiting at the junction would be quite entitled to pull out in front of you. Again, most people don't bother indicating on these junctions, but thankfully people don't pull out on you either, so again a bit of a pointless rule.
  3. Been there done that! Saw some pictures of US WRX's with the lip spoiler and thought they looked really cool, so quite fancied having something unique
  4. Time flies Kim! Can't believe this is now my 5th Scooby over 16 years, still remember picking up the first one back in 1998 like it was yesterday Almost 400kms on the clock now, will be taking a quick trip over the Alps to Northern Italy on Sunday/Monday, so should complete the running in and have a bit of a blast over the passes on the way back
  5. There's not many around! There's a girl at work with a classic and the dealers 4 sons all drive STIs, other than those, I probably only see 3 or 4 a year! The rest of Germany isn't much different - ownership is pretty exclusive Plenty around across the border in Switzerland though! Bad Waldsee seems a bit of an odd place to visit
  6. Cheers guys, I'm very pleased so far & turns a lot more heads than the black hatch
  7. After 6 1/2 happy years with the Hatch, I decided it was time for a change and for a 40th Birthday present to myself (back in April), I ordered a new 2015 STI. Was a little sad to say goodbuy to the '08 but really happy with the new car... I wanted a few options that wern't available on the standard German spec, so managed to get a Swiss "Luxury" spec instead, unfortunately that meant I had a few months longer to wait. Specs as follows: Full leather interior Electric drivers seat Seat heating Keyless entry Push button start Harmon Kardon Navi system Front Fogs Rear wing delete Rear lip spoiler Sun roof Rear tints 78% with slight mirror effect Rally Armour mud flaps Still to be fitted: Quick shift Exhaust surrounds First impressions of the new car is a huge step forward from the hatch. Its the first Scooby I've owned that I haven't instantly felt the need for handling upgrades. My old car was PPP'd so is 30PS up on the new car, although the sharper throttle mapping and the slight weight saving go some way to make up for that. Will be looking at power upgrades over the next months, once its properly run in! The seats are pretty nice and the leather is really nice, although I had the Recaro's in the old car and do miss the extra lateral support. They've also moved the start button to the other side which is a little annoying, mostly because I keep reaching the wrong way! Can't say I'm massively impressed with the Navi, but maybe I just need to get used to it, but the audio quality from the Harmon Kardon amp and speakers is really excellent!
  8. The Scooby or boxer 'burble' comes from the unequal length headers and the resulting time difference it takes for the sound to travel through the exhaust system from either side of the engine - The bigger the difference in length, the more pronounced the burble will be, with equal length headers you'll get no burble 1---2---3---4---1---2---3---4--- <= Engine firing timing equal --1---2---3---4---1---2---3---4- <= Exhaust sound timing with equal headers -1-----2-3-----4-1-----2-3-----4 <= Exhaust sound timing with unequal headers There is a performance gain in using equal length headers, but its so minimal, you'll only notice if you really need an extra couple of tenths on a lap of the ring! You'll get a bigger performance gain driving in the rain!
  9. July's competition is now open! This months topic: "Lights" Entries/Voting topic -> here Discussion topic -> here Entries Close: 31st July Voting Closes: TBD
  10. Correct tyre pressures will probably make more of a difference than tyre sizes. Don't forget, if you load up the car, then you will need to increase the pressures.
  11. February's competition is now open! This months topic: "Freezing" Entries/Voting topic -> here Discussion topic -> here Entries Close: Closed Voting Closes: 22/03/2013
  12. Sorry for the delay this month! Voting is now open!
  13. Last few days to get your entries in! I'm away for the next few days, when I return, I expect to see the topic full
  14. Octobers's competition is now open! This months topic: "Autumn" Entries/Voting topic -> here Discussion topic -> here Entries Close: Closed Voting Closes: 19th November
  15. Well done again Lot more entries this month, so hopefully the upward trend will continue! September topic is now open too, so get your cameras out now
  16. [moderator hat off] Interesting Topic! I'm only left with one small question! Why is an SIDC RO organising events for another club and not for SIDC? Communication works two ways! If you need help or support, ask for it! [moderator hat on] As for deleting this topic, maybe that'll happen at some point in the future, but at the moment, I believe its important for this discussion to be aired in public so that all members of the forum can see what's going on and any rumours and bad feelings on either side can be laid to rest. In the past these issues were hidden from the members and it clearly didn't do any good! It really is about time we put these issues to rest! I urge both the SIDC committee and the SW Scoobies to try and sort out the differences for the good of everyone. Together we stand, divided we fall!
  17. With Nikon full frame cameras (FX), you can fit the crop lenses (DX), but you either get a black circle at the edges where the image is cropped or the camera automatically crops the image so you get a smaller picture. With Canon this is unfortunately possible as the crop lens mount (EF-S) is not compatible with the full frame mount (EF) so you can't physically attach the lens to the body. As said though, you can attach EF lenses to EF-S bodies. Its only something you really need to worry about if you think you'll end up buying a pro camera at some point in the future. The majority never do! If you think you might, then you're better off getting full frame lenses (Canon EF/Nikon FX) from the start, but bear in mind they will be more expensive, bigger and heavier compared to the equivalent crop lenses. Also, the difference in focal lengths, or crop factor is 1.6 for Canon or 1.5 for Nikon. So for the same image size on a crop camera for the classic full frame EF/FX 28-80 lens, you would need EF-S 17.5-50 on a Canon or DX 18.6-53.3 on a Nikon!
  18. Some cracking shots there for a point and shoot As for Nikon vs Canon, you'll read a lot of crap about that one and the real truth is its as long as it is short. There are some minor areas where you can say one is better than the other, but generally speaking they're pretty much identical! For me, the biggest difference between the two is the user interfaces. Personally, I just don't get the Nikon interface, it just doesn't work for me, but I know Nikon owners that love it, so its really down to personal choice. Best bet is to have a bit of a play with both and work out which one you fine easier to understand and use. The best camera for you is the one you find easiest to use! As for Canon model numebrs, the less number of digits the better the camera is. So the 1100D is the entry level, then the 650D, 60D, 7D, 5D and 1D is the top model. To add confusion, some models have been updated with higher numbers, other with a Mk number, so they went 1000D to 1100D, 500D->550D->600D->650D, 40D->50D->60D, 5D->5DMkII->5DMkIII For Nikons the number system just seems to be random to me, no idea how they came up with it! In either case, you can pretty much go off the price! I would argue the lenses are more important than the bodies, so if money is an issue, you're better off getting a cheaper body and better lenses. Saying that, its also worth considering a decent body to start with and then buying the lenses down the line. For lenses, you can get a single ultra zoom which you can then live with just one lens, but the quality will be poor. If you want quality, then generally, the shorter the zoom range then the better the quality will be with fixed (prime) lenses being the best quality. Also look for 'fast' lenses, that is lenses with the lowest 'f' number and if possible a fixed 'f' number over the complete zoom range. e.g. Canon do an EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens, which means the widest angle is 18mm at f/3.5 and maximum zoomed in is 55mm at f/5.6. They also do an EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 which is pretty much an identical zoom range, but at f/2.8 lets much more light in (making it faster) across the zoom range, so its a much better lens. For reference with zoom, its really hard to get your head around, particularly with manufacturers of compacts and bridge cameras saying things like 10x zoom, which is actually a very meaningless figure. With SLR's the reference is always against 35mm or full frame cameras. In the 35mm format, what we see with our eyes is approximately equivalent to a 50mm lens in terms of magnification and perspective. However, full frame SLRs are rediculously expensive, the majority of SLRs are APS-C format, which effectively magnifies the image, so the magnification level we see with our eyes is approximately equivalent to 35mm although the perspective remains the same at 50mm. The larger the focal length number, the greater the magnification, so 100mm is greater magnification than 50mm, similarly 20mm is more wide angle than 50mm. Theres lots to take in, but hopefully some help for you!
  19. Well, I'm hiding in Germany at the moment
  20. I'm pleased to announce the photo competition is back following a years absence Please accept my apologies for the lost of the competition for the last year, but lack of time on my part and a dwindling number of entries all played a part. With huge thanks to Rachel (Little Vodka Goblin), we now have a new sponsor for the competition and we can therefore now offer a real prize for winning the competition which I hope will help boost interest and number of entries With that, I'd like to formally welcome Autoglym as the new monthly competition sponsor and would like to thank them for their participation The competition will resume starting from June. The subject for the June competition is available in the Previous/Future topics thread for those that would like a sneak preview. Given the year's break (exactly one year), the next photo of the year competition will include the winners from 2011. For more details, see the photo competition discussion thread -> Here
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