steve_16v

cooking? :scratch:[/quote:2dl3iykm] lol, needs to be done when you're between gf's, can only live on takeaways for so long! Anyhow, for those that haven't already seen it this is a really good video of the ring on gt5 [youtube:2dl3iykm]-Mi_xKz3WLw[/youtube:2dl3iykm]

You win a delorean early on in a b-spec event, mines never left the garage. You should get your b-spec drivers working, they make some good money and win some really useful cars. The Zonda R and Mazda Furai Concept are capable of winning a good few a-spec races :) Obviously racing yourself is more fun but if you can leave the ps3 going while you're watching tv, cooking or whatever it's well worth doing

I say F1 it's the polyphony digital one from the online collectors dealership, costs just under 5mil, it's the same as performace as the ferraris though, plus you need to buy it for one of the extreme series. Not a big fan though, they're ruddy fast but it's too much like hard work keeping them on the track. Saw someone online in a RedBull X1 prototype the other day, that thing was mental, I was in a ford GT LM race car and got lapped on the first lap of one of the shorted tracks :shock:

I've lent you mine, just done that race myself, wasn't gonna bother because I didn't like the idea of racing a nascar on the ring but it wasn't too bad, only took 3 goes to win it. Wait until you try an F1 on the ring in the wet, now that's a challenge! They're quick as fook in the dry but even with wets and max downforce they're damn near impossible to control on the ring. Oh and a bit of advice for anyone thinking of doing an endurance race, your car takes damage and it's not repairable in the pits, had a go at the first one when I got over halfway, two laps up but hit the wall once too often and lost 5th & 6th gear. Had to quit the race because I was losing too much time per lap to finish anywhere but last place. It's not like GT4 either where you could let the AI drive most of it for you, you've got to do the whole thing yourself!

I used a '70 Toyota 7 Race Car (898BHP 620Kg) for the Historic racing series, got it from winning 'Like the Wind' in B-spec. Winning that's not easy though, had to use a fully modded Pagani Zonda R to win it in A-spec and the prize for which was a Toyota 88-CV LM car, fully tuned that's an absolute monster, 1040BHP, 850Kg and loads of downforce. The Zonda R was another b-spec prize car (or 2.6m from the dealer), well worth getting hold of, probably my favourite car in the game and kicked ass in the All Stars races :)

You need to turn the traction control off completely for the rallys, makes a world of difference to your times

No worries, sent it over now, like I say there's no rush to send it back, I've also got cars capable of winning all the other events if you're stuck on any others

You can borrow my Lambo, no rush to send it back, my controller's playing up at the moment so I'm not on GT5 until I get a new one

Seen worse than that before now, not saying it's my cup if tea but the workmanship looks pretty decent and I'd quite like to see better quality pics to see what he's done with the heater controls & dials

:lol: Literally lol'd at that!

I've been playing on and off since it came out now and think it's a great game, to begin with I did think it was pants but as you progress up the levels it gets much better. Early on the AI and damage modelling were pretty much non-existant but once you get further on it improves and for the most part you can't win races by bouncing off walls in a high powered monster anymore. I'm level 24 A-spec and 23 B-spec now and enjoying it more than previous GT's I'm particularly liking the introduction of seasonal races, they're released frequently and are good fun, a lot of a-spec races are too easy to win simply buying much more powerful cars than the opposition, the seasonal races actually take skill to win and have offer good experience and cash rewards. To echo what others have been saying it does have its problems though: The car physics & graphics of non-premium cars is pretty hit and miss, some feel & look great and others just wrong. The rally races aren't any better than GT4 and still way behind even early Colin McRae games. Some challenges & licence tests are next to impossible without a steering wheel & pedals (especially NASCAR). Never played Forza so can't compare it to that but I did buy a big HDTV and PS3 specifically for this game and don't regret it.

Apologies if this is a repost but a friend of mine brought this to my attention http://www.shell.co.uk/home/content/gbr/products_services/on_the_road/fuels/promotions/ No need for vouchers / coupons just go to a participating Shell garage tomorrow and fill-up :)

996 turbo for me, been in one that's was driven appropriately and it was simply awesome, I've been in a few really fast (400+ BHP) cars before and the Porsche blew them away, the grip, poise and acceleration at all speeds is simply breathtaking. Might be a different story if you weren't likely to inherit property later on but as you are, you might as well enjoy a nice car without looking like you're having a mid=life crisis. You only live once and if you change your mind later on it's easier to sell a car than a house.

My favourite corrado colours... 1. Mettalic Black (code LA9V, by no coincidence the colour of my old Rado) 2. Blackberry 3. Mystic Blue TBH though, I like Corrados in pretty much every colour

Sweet. Zombie. Jesus! That is ruddy fantastic :D

True enough, I've met a good number of well-paid IT bods on courses who have the quals but really struggle with simple stuff like VLSMs. Really good engineers do tend to stand out, where I work there's a bloke who hasn't even taken his CCNA but is easily the most knowledgeable person on the team (of 3 CCNPs and 6 CCNAs), certainly as good as any CCIE I've met. Good luck with it though, it's not an easy field to get into when you've not got the experience, even with a degree in Software Engineering from a top uni I still had to start at the bottom and work my way up.

Surely you could get a LAN/WAN support job with the CCNP? The route to CCIE is long, expensive and the well paid jobs few and far between. I'm a network engineer myself working on a good size network (600 odd sites, 30,000+ users) and have never felt the need to progress beyond CCNP, unless your employer is footing the bill it doesn't seem worth it anymore.

If you're buying as a weekend car a well looked after high mileage C is a fine car, if you need a reliable daily driver forget it. I don't own one anymore but ran a 16v as a daily from 140K to 195K miles over 4 years and it cost me an absolute fortune, mine was looked after meticulously but still had bills totalling over £5K for the last two years / 30K miles alone. When a car gets to that age/mileage every single part has reached the end of its expected lifespan and will need replacing sooner rather than later. Trust me, just when you think everthing is fine a hose will go, or the starter motor will pack up, or the fuel pump will die, there's always something about to fail. I sold mine and it was sadly written off a few weeks later because a bonnet pin or something failed and the bonnet flew open on the motorway :(

Can't really argue the chav comment too strongly but Subaru have a well deserved reputation for being ultra reliable. I spent a long time looking at various cars with a similar budget to yourself that offered a good mix of reliability and performance and eventually bought an '02 WRX with FSH and 50K on the clock, done 4K miles so far and there are no faults whatsoever with it, it drives perfectly and went through an MOT without so much as an advisory. For the most part the only ones you hear about with problems have been badly modified or poorly maintained. They're also not that chavvy with the small spoiler in standard form. Insurance and petrol are the main costs, it will do about 30mpg when driven gently but that takes a lot of self control to achieve. Normal driving on a mix of a-roads, b-roads and motorways with the occasional blast will see low 20's. Second choice was a late GTV V6 but I was eventually put off by the many tales of shocking reliability and awful dealers, also considered similar age e46 3-series and a4's but they were either a lot more money, had stratospheric mileage and with the exception of the S4 and M3, slower. I do miss having a Corrado though :( Going to have to get a VR as a second car as soon as I've got the time and space

I was in a similar situation recently, I use my car for work so needed something newer and more reliable than the corrado. Was thinking of the usual fast germans, bmw m3, c43 amg, audi s3, s4, TT, golf r32 etc. but I've heard too many horror stories of extremely large repair bills so decided against them. What I really wanted was an Elise but I needed something with a bigger boot and isn't such a pain to get in and out of (I'm 6ft 3). Anyway, I got a completely standard, low mileage, dark blue '02 bugeye wrx and for the most part it's brilliant, my old valver had coilovers and arb's so handled really well but the impreza's in a different league, wet or dry the speeds it can corner are frankly ridiculous. Acceleration from a standing start is fantastic, it's only 215bhp but still gets to 60 in 5.9s. They're also very reliable, you never really hear of people having problems with them, apart from the ones that are very heavily tuned or poorly maintained. The only bad points are the front end ain't pretty, fuel consumption is poor, it lacks power at low revs and some people look at you like you're a complete tw@t even when you're driving like an old man. Other than that I couldn't find another car for that kind of money that was as reliable and quick as the impreza. Apart from evo's that is, but insurance quotes for them were more than double the subaru.

I've not tried any on that list other than the SportContact3's but have tried plenty of other 'performance' tyres and the conti's were the best by far (compared to eagle f1 gs-d2, gs-d3, toyo t1s, t1r, sportcontact2, yoko a539), loads of grip and when they do start to let go it's very progressive. You were never worried that they'd suddenly let go and leave you wrapped round a tree. Also, the design vastly reduced tramlining compared to more directional tread patterns like the gs-d3. The only thing letting them down is they're not fantastic in the wet, that's not to say they're bad in the wet, in fact they probably have more grip in the wet than most tyres have in the dry. But there is a noticeable drop in performance when it's been raining. It's a shame they don't do eagle f1 asymmetrics in corrado sizes, I bought a set for my new car and the level of grip from them is something else!

Saw three :shock: in the carpark near Blackburn Halfords this afternoon, dark grey with Lenso splits, silver one (didn't get a good look) and a dark green vr6. Was like a mini-meet but they were parked away from each other

Spotted a white one on the A556 (south of Altrincham) heading towards the M6 at about 16:30 this afternoon, waved but don't know if you noticed

Might as well do the power steering and alternator belts as well whilst you're at it, they're only a couple of quid each

Christ, 6 months without driving it! The longest I've ever gone without driving mine is about two days :) No wonder you can't wait to get it back on the road. Don't worry about Venom being dodgy, my best mate works for Tar-ox so has dealings with pretty much all the car tuning places / shops in the UK and tells me they're one of the better ones out there. I had a problem when I was getting my exhaust fitted and Richard bent over backwards to help even though it turned out the problem was entirely due to an incompetent fitter (who was sacked soon after).