iainc

Oh, and another one that bugs me... those who decide that, although you are already at the limit, if they try to climb into your boot they will either make you go faster or somehow be able to drive thru' you.

Seen it ahead of me this morning, despite the roughly 0 degrees C weather this morning, the car in front of me looked like it was being towed by the car in front of them. Got out of the village and onto the NSP road, and they continued to sit that close, despite the fact that the road ahead was clear enough to overtake (which I did... both of them).

Firstly, speed limits are in fact limits and not targets.

Not the way my driving instructor put it across... yea it's the limit but you should try (when conditions are right) to be close to it, and not drive at half of them.

This means that you can lawfully and legitimately drive at less than the limit. If opther drivers wish to drive at or over the limit, that is up to them. I may well do the same, and there again I may not. Indeed, I may wish to drive at a speed lower than the limit - again, that is up to me. If you are not happy with that then overtake me - I am not bothered.

If you (or I) want to drive significantly slower than the limit (not talking 50 in a 60, but 40 in a 60 and less), then you (or I) should be prepared to occasionally stop and let the huge queue behind past. I know anytime I was in the old Landie and towing a trailer, I pulled in every so often to that the queue of cars behind me wasn't so large.

Problem is, these days especially, you get one person at the head of the queue who wants to do 40mph in a 60, car #2 drives right up his/her *rse so there is no room for car #3 to overtake into, and they ram right up the bumper behind car #2, now you have three cars bumper to bumper, none of whom think they can overtake and you suddenly need a really fast car to have any chance of overtaking the three of them at once (or a very long road)... if people don't want to overtake, leave enough room so the person behind you car if they want, but that's not how it seems to work on the roads I drive.

Secondly, there is no such thing as a SLOW LANE. Overtaking lanes exist on the off-side, and as soon as the overtake has been completed, you should move back in to the lane on your near-side. The lane on the near-side is not for slow traffic. It is for all traffic to use when not overtaking.

The sooner we remember these two points, the less likely we are to get irritated at other drivers' behaviour.

Agreed... again though, the number of cars I've seen take to the outside lane (or "fast lane" as some would call it), 5 or 10 miles before they need to turn right at the next roundabout and hold everyone up is unreal.

Also, if I'm overtaking cars and find someone comes diving up behind me, I'll shift out of the way for them, then carry on behind them again... not like a lot of TDi drivers round these parts, who seem to think they are going more than quick enough and hold everyone up behind them.

Got to say, that having the STi, and it being quick enough, I'm not as irritated as I would be in a slower car when I'd have no chance at all of getting past... much the same as I was in the landie when I'd have needed a good few miles of a straight (preferably downhill) to pass most things (even with it's V8)

Sorry but a yearly driving test is crazy idea, how on earth would that work lol? Want to pay for one every year? I reckon 90% of people who past their test any more then a few years ago would fail due to bad habbits even if they can driver well meaning they could then not drive to work or do their jobs...

Annually is a bit extreme right enough, but there's nothing to stop it being every 5 or 10 years. Okay, you fail and you can't drive to work, tough... learn to pass it again then and get shot of the bad habits... driving to work isn't a god-given right...

Everything changes that much over the years, it's ludicrous to think that you pass your test at 17 and then can drive until you are 70 or older... a hell of a lot of advances are made in 53 years.

Would help get the dodgy drivers off the road as well.

the white circle with a black diagonal line through unless i am much mistaken is national speed limit (60 on a single carriageway and 70 on a dual carriageway. Therefore you should be driving up to the speed limit safely not at 35-40. Subsequently when you get to a 30 limit you then drop your speed not carry on at 35-40 oblivious to the change in the road conditions.

But to be fair this usually applies to Rover xxx drivers so we're again looking at the elder citizen so my first point about the driving test would probably solve that one

Not always the oldies at fault... followed and been followed by younger ones who seem to want to do 45mph everywhere... regardless of whether it's a 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 or even 70mph limit <shakes head> still don't understand the mentality of them.

Sitting at junctions or traffic lights with yer foot in the brake. That big LED brake light on your back window is right in my face!!

Agree with all of the above... but the brake light thing gets me too. Very nearly got out and shouted at a Volvo XC90 driver who was doing this one night (traffic kept moving everytime I got worked up enough to go and speak to them )... some of the newer brake lights on these things are really bright and seem to burn the back of my retnas out.

Have as much fun as I can in the scoob this year, fingers crossed nothing goes wrong.

Get a transfer offshore hopefully at the end of the year so I can move back up North. Of course that means selling my house in Fife and buying one in Moray. I hope the credit crap doesnt affect my plans too much.

Rich

From looking at house prices up north, they don't seem to have dropped by as much as the ones further south. We'd also been thinking of a possible move this year or maybe next so I've been keeping an eye out on prices in Moray.

Plans for ourselves are to try and finish off all the wee things we've started around the house in the last few years and try and get at least some of them done

Yep, had to collect me other half from town at 01:00 and drive back to Bervie in the floods

You know what Iain, I was wondering how you were getting on with the F1's as I feel the same.

Was going to bin them at first but now they are bedded in they're ace

Sorry for the hijack

Late reply

Finding them MILES better than they initially were. Think that they just seem to take a lot longer to bed in than other makes, but once bedded in, they work well.

I'm running with 275's at the rear, the weather we had last weekend was fun

Wasn't it... holy crap the road were "fun" to drive.

Funny how I found the F1's "iffy" to drive with to start with but a few miles in and they are spot on.

My view is that the Driving license should have to be renewed. Every 5 years for example for EVERYBODY.

<snip>

Rich

Totally agree.

Seen some sights on the road.

Al mentioned what makes a good/bad driver. Have seen guys overtaking round bends... now I don't care WTF you are and how quick your reactions are, there is no way you can overtake safely around a blind bend.

Also seen far too many people sitting waaaay too close to the car/van in front with absolutely no chance in stopping in time (esp at this time of year). A re-sit of the test would help as it would keep people "current" IYKWIM. Far too many people pass their test and never look at a highway code, etc ever again (I know I've only looked at it a couple of times since I passed and that was when mates/relations were learning to drive)... and I've "only" been driving 17-odd years.

This has been asked on snet before i think good idea they all said wasn`t legal,

i say go for it id buy a couple tickets worth it better than playing the lottery

for the draw you could do it on webcam and give the adddress to the site to the ticket buyers then they can watch and see its fair Greig

Seen a thing on the TV where a couple had decided that they would flog their house this way.

Basically you need to ask a few questions to make it a valid "competition" and not an "illegal lottery" IYKWIM. I think the difficult-ness of the questions also has a bearing on whether it gets the green light or not as well.

Not quite sure how that differs from buying raffle tickets 'cos AFAIK no-one ever asked me to answer a question anytime I bought one.

Sorry mate.. they are no longer available... Your best best is to grovel...

Thing is... if it's to frame, size doesn't really matter

If there isn't anymore available then I wouldn't want anyone going to anymore trouble... can always frame what I've got already... just thought it'd be quite good to do both (never really thought of it at the time I ordered one for myself).

Anyone know if you can still get those T shirts? Just I quite like wearing mine, but would quite like one framed too IYKWIM

Link wasn't working... found it by googling though.

http://www.reallymeansounds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=83654

or http://tinyurl.com/5umwth incase my link breaks too

Shocking behavior though... wasting a car like that (I'm not a ford fan but you can't leave something as good as that like that)

T shirt one with the sticker looks GOOD... still got to get my picture framed... not had a chance to get to a place with it yet. Had wondered about framing the T shirt as well though.

I spent a few months Scoobless and it was rubbish - every time I passed one I had my window down hping to hear the rumble and get a sniff of rich exhaust !

I think once you've drive anything turbo'd then it's hard to go to Naturally Aspirated unless it's a beast like an RS4 or something.

Aye... I went from a Scoob to a Cupra TDi, which was okay for a while... but always missed the scoob... decided I would do a "grown ups car" and got a 4.2 V8 S6 Avant... but even with 300bhp and a V8 under the bonnet it had nothing on a scoob... traded it for the 06 STi. Both cars had the same same amount of power but were VASTLY different cars. No question, I wouldn't be without a scoob now, even if it was the cheapest "crappiest" oldest one I could afford.

Still got the Cupra TDi alongside the STi and it's a good combo IMO, Leon is cheap to tax, insure and run, STi... ummm... isn't, so between them we have the equivalent of two "normal" cars

Would definitely say if you've done that much to the car you'd be daft to let it go for FA (which is probably all you'd get for it atm).

If you count the cells on the top mount....should have 33.

Found an old messge from David at DR Motorsport. He said that the scoops were unique to each model, so that's

why I had to get the Blobeye STI for my WRX Blobeye.

So, based on that....a hawkeye wouldn't fit a Blobeye....unless someone will come along and tell us differently!

I'll take a pic of my UK STi one if you want? Didn't bother checking earlier when it looked like you were looking for a JDM one.

Its too damn quiet, got absolutely no burble or anything....but that will be sorted very soon

Overall I am very impressed. 7.5 out of 10

Nice looking motor. Splitter on the front makes a huge difference IMO as well.

Found that you get a bit of burble with swapping the backbox, but swapping the entire system makes a huge difference... think the downpipe is ridiculously restrictive on the 2.5's.

What kind of 05 is it? Is it the one with the larger PCD of the wheels (ie a 2.5l STi)?

AFAIK, the springs from the 2.5 05STi onwards are different (knew someone who went from an 02 STi to an 06 STi and needed to buy new springs again rather than swapping over the ones he had).

Mi82aar Simon - my point exactly the organiser should get all the credit and braggin rights for this and should have their names on the certificate too.

But I find it a bit sad that some people on here think and tell people that they own a world record for just parking in an airfield

Quote posts "My claim to fame that i'm in the guiness book of world records."

"I am probably really sad but I will create an area in my office for a Mcrae Gathering shrine."

"Why do i need a piece of paper to tell me what i already know?"

(Roy Castle would turn in his grave)

I wasn't there so can't claim anything, but surely without each individual turning up, then the record wouldn't have happened, therefore surely they all can claim "their" record?

There's plenty of people in the record books for other records that haven't required them to be a complete athlete.

Superb... if the filter on a filter wasn't bad enough, he then tried driving about without any filters for a bit too

Ooops.

Was gonna say that, as the photographer was obviously ready for it and it was a small single track road, that they'd maybe blocked it off to do the runs, etc so wouldn't be just as dangerous as you think... but then their lack of control on landing... just lucky an airbag and wheel is all they need to change. Lucky that the car didn't dig in when it went into the scenery.

Would have thought if you were doing that, that you'd build yourself up in stages and not just try a full on WOT attack first time out

Class We've all been there mate

Craig

I wish I had been

I wont sit hear and preach that Norton is Garbage... But..

...I will.

Have never found something that is more bloated than even MS's software than Norton

Have uninstalled it from a number of machines and always replaced it with something else, AVG has generally been okay whenever I've used it or installed on other peoples machines. It's McAfee on the works machines.

I guess the biggest thing is to just be a bit more careful on what you download/install. Saying that, as the other guys up here will know, one of the local forums here was compromised (on a shared server) and while some of us were okay as our AV detected it and stopped it installing, a few others weren't as lucky. So you don't need to be looking for anything overly dodgy to get hit by it.

Best bet is to ensure that you have a firewall, anti virus, spybot type programs and ad aware types as well... plenty of free or cheap ones out there to ensure that you are well protected.

The problems with suspension is with pretty much all "newage" models, (bugeye, Blobeye, and Hawkeye shapes) from 2001 onwards... there would appear that the quality of the rear shocks are not up to standard, and its common that they have to be replaced on warranty. some have reported having to have them replaced multiple times, there is however, apparently a new shock that is supposed to stop these problems happening... but I don't know much about that.

Guess I must be lucky then... haven't had any suspension issues on my 06STi (2yo and 20k+ on the clock)... and it likes the occasional "back road blast" too so not being grannied about the place.

Hi Guys,

Anyone in the Moray area had expreience faffing about with rear suspension on pug 306's. The rear setup has worn on my pug (leans to one side - a lot!) and rather than repair it ive got hold of a complete rear assembly from another, only problem is that it has been lowered 60mm / 2 splines? (too low, i know, getting old). Does any one know how to adjust the torson bars to bring it back up, by one 1 spline (30mm)?. Seemingly it was all adjusted last yeaar, so should be easy enough to remove and adjust bits?

Il have the assmebly on my trailer so can take it round anywhere for someone to have a go (and knows what they are doing!)

Had a few Pugs in the past myself, never lowered them though. IIRC you need to pull the bars out and rotate them in order to raise/lower them. It's meant to be a complete b*tch of a job to do though (might not be so bad if it was done last year though like you say).

Might be worth hanging about the local car parks and finding some guy with a lowered Pug/Saxo and asking him where he got it done to see if there is someone local that can fiddle with it for you