Tempest

Car on stand. myself going back to work. See you all during the next few days! Tempest ---------- Post added at 10:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:41 AM ---------- Car on stand. myself going back to work. See you all during the next few days! Tempest

We need a few massive car accidents due to being blinded by these modern headlights and the rediculously high position of these headlights (as found on all these 4x4s and vans etc.) before anything will get noticed and changed. It´s the insurers who will start the ball rolling if more and more accidents and subsequent claims happen due to being blinded. Tempest

Difficult times indeed. Even my Dad recently admitted to me that he would not want to swap with my generation in terms of work. Too much stress, too little reward (and by that I do actually mean both spiritual and material/financial, given that in my dad's generation it was quite common that one man could easily provide for the whole family as opposed to today where this is mostly only possible if both partners work; granted, materialistic demands have increased, too). Join the club is what i would say, maybe it makes your position a bit more bearable. I for one also do not enjoy my job, and that's me saying that despite being my own boss. i could fill books with reasons, but what good does that do? Trying to find something that ticks all boxes is nigh on impossible, because some other person will already have your dream job or the job simply does not exist :lol: It is somewhat discouraging. We're all doomed! Or not, if we radically change our perspectives on life (which will be the only way how we can hit out at the filthy rich at the top, too, because if no-one succumbs to the materialistic distractions in life all the time, spends no more money, than those at the top will soon have no more income). That's not going to happen overnight, we've still got it way too good, and of course, just want more and more. Tempest

Lucky it´s black! What am I supposed to say with a white (still pristine white at the moment, whilst standing in its garage) one ! Fair play you´re taking the black one, though. Tempest

Yes, me :lol: Need to wake up the Rado again, been asleep pretty much since beginning of October. Tempest

¨Legalised theft¨ as one my colleagues at work calls it. I did get a good service from Martinb at HIC when it came to renewing the insurance on my Rado. My existing insurers, Footman James, came up with some sort of 50 GBP price hike, ¨sorry, tough times also for punters, especially with all the austerity measures and their effects going on - higher prices for food, petrol etc.¨ was my response and left to search for cheaper insurance elsewhere. No-one has money to give away in these times (or ever for that matter :) ) I did notice that each year whatever insurer I´m with, they all each year try to hike the price, so it´s back to the drawing board every time, sitting through the same stupid questions whilst I go seeking a cheaper insurer. That times 3 for me each year, gets a bit of a drag. Tempest

Nah, just the fact that forums and their members in general don´t manage to put on or organise attendance at shows, full-stop. Talking for numerous forums that I am on, not just this one, so can safely say my above statement is a fact. I´d like to be proven wrong, but know it won´t happen. Only the stricter organisation of a club can pull off things like regular shows, because people are more committed and dedicated. Forums are good for banter (leading to socialising, meeting new people - BUT where do you ultimately meet these new-found friends in the flesh? At shows! Who organises them? ... ;) ) and sometimes (very dangerous or unprofessional ) tech-tips (I rely on my Bentley. lots of common sense engineering knowledge, and the CCGB tech gurus instead). Tempest

VW have apologised!! The news magazine Spiegel has even published this case on their website: http://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/doppel-wobber-vw-fans-rebellieren-gegen-abmahnwelle-von-volkswagen-a-863376.html It says that VW have admitted that they have clearly gone too far, Mr Kittler from the Classic Parts department (who are dependent on some good feedback from us, the owners and keepers of classic VW cars) stated that there will be a meeting in Wolfsburg shortly to discuss how to undo the reputation and brand/image damage done with this affair. Here's the link to the Doppel-Wobber page: http://www.doppel-wobber.de/forum/volkswagen-gegen-doppel-wobber.html Tempest

VW´s legal department are at it again, enraging quite a few fns of the brand. Doppel-Wobber, Germany´s biggest VW affinity website/forum/blogsite has a vast collection of VW Golf sales brochures on their website, for which the admin/onwer claims he´s had permission dating back to 2001. He since has misplaced this permission (back then it was still given in writing rather than by email) and now the VW legal boffins have nothing better to do but to threaten the site with legal action unless the brochures are removed. An outcry of anger amongst various fan communities and VW-related websites has started, including on many a Facebook page in Germany. Whether it´ll convince the legal boffins to step down is another matter, because even the die-hard fans of cars like Roccos and Rados over in Germany realise that the days that car manufacturers are interested in what the public think of the brand are over. It´s fleet car buyers who constitute the biggest buyers in the market, and they don´t care, as long as criteria like price and reliability are met, no emotions involved. Sad state of affairs. Tempest

Just ordered 4 (think I depleted the stock levels :lol:) from VW Heritage, Meyle items specifically for G60 with nut. Also ordered 4 of 8 coolant hoses from VW Heritage, need the remaining 4 to go still, just for stock keeping. One tiny hose could spell the death of our beloved G60 Rados. Tempest

So who'se going to have food tonight then? Just want to gauge whether I'm having food at home and get drinks at meet or whether there'll be more going for food :) Tempest

Will have to bring the filthy car in my fleet given the current weather. Got nice and filthy from a roundtrip to Swafham on Sunday, including driving on muspaths / farmland. Tempest

Originally there would have been a platic pipe connector throttle body to the charger. Excess boost would be diverted back to the charger, picking up crankcase oil vapours, too, thus aiding lubrication of the charger. A common mod is to remove all of this. Personally not a fan of this mod. if you wanted to restore to original, you'd need the pipe between throttle body and charger. See here: Tempest

Nice one, did take a piccie of yours at GTI Festival last Sunday, when I was in the Show&Shine with my Mk1 Rocco. Tempest

Indeed, LPG, according to current research figures from the German AA (ADAC) indicates that out of all alternative fuels, LPG is used by far out the largest proportion, by 46%. Network of pumps offering the stuff is also far denser in the Netherlands and Germany, with certainly in the Netherlands pretty much every forecourt offering LPG. Tempest

Yeah I did read that letter, apparently taken from the Vortex forum. Hmm, bit of unsubstantiated drivel in that letter, was my reaction. Tempest

Forget Top Gear, or maybe a reminder of how good it used to be, when cars were still featured in car programmes and not what is currently dished up as car programmes. 1975 German TV car test for the Mk1 Rocco: Watch the dress code, watch the otherc ars, watch the fairly harsh tests, too, and the objectivity of it all :) Whilst on the topic, have a ganders at a race at the annual Youngtimer Trophy on the Ring featuring a TV presenter race the famous KWL Mk1 Rocco (as was made famous to the masses back in 2008 when it raced against the new Iroc promo campaign) Tempest

Took a better piccie today before setting off to work. There were about 100 cars or so in the S&S, and they dished out 20 trophies, judged by 2 of the organisers, simply throwing all entrants into the same pot (so I was up against all sorts of bling-bling and modern cars, all VAG brands, too), and they simply dished out a trophy to the best 20 cars present. The inscription says something like "GTI Festival Top 20 cars". OK, interesting concept, but it seems to work better, so the organisers claim, compared to self-judged schemes, that they have been using in the past. Tempest

My pics of the day here :) Tempest

See trophy on bumper of my Mk1 piccie (bit out of focus because it was already dark and using artificial light rather than flash in camera). Tempest

The rest: Tempest

All of my pics, oh, and bagged a trophy in the fiercely contested show&shine section, where about 100 or so cars, some quite amazing, took part.: Tempest

Toying with the idea of taking my Mk1 up to the Pod on Sunday. Tempest

The above article on Yahoo Finance is indeed interesting, albeit to be read with caution: 1. It does not mention the limits of tax bands in each of the ¨rip-off¨ countries, i.e. when do you start paying 45% or 50% tax. When yopu would compare that, then the UK may not be so bad after all, given the majority fall into the 20% tax band, which is not the case in some of the other countries listed. 2. The tips on how to legally dodge taxes are nothing new, and quite frankly fairly useless, as I found out. Example: ISAs. All ISAs I have had performed worse than just biting the bullet and investing in a non-tax-free financial vehicle. Seems managers of tax-free instruments like ISAs and pension funds aren´t really interested in performing well, especially given that in some the government has capped the management fee allowed, eg. stakeholder pensions. That really gets on my nerves as it nicely demonstrtaes the infinirte greed of the financial sector barstewards, that I, too, thoroughly hate for all sorts of reasons (also very often their lack of academic qualifications compared to me). Rant over ... that feels better. :) Tempest

Nice review there of US, Oz and the UK. I´ll offer Germany: At the moment still going very strong economy-wise. Why? The Germans haven´t placed all their eggs in the one (financial market) basket, have held on to their core engineering and manufacturing strengths (once core strengths of the UK, too, till unions eroded the willingness to invent and produce good quality goods, and then thatcher destroyed everything in her attempt to get to grips with unions). Germany has not introduced consumer credit/credit cards until well into the nineties (by which time the UK was already keeping its broken economy going with consumer credit cards), never really took off till 2000s, and even now you have to pay a lot of money to get one, so a lot of people say sod-it, I don´t want a credit card, and simply pay cash, once they have the money, The average German household has more money compared to the average UK household (which is in debt thanks to all this cheap consumer credit, which the government used to keep the underlying broken economy going). Average as in normal households, not average as in averaging across the entire population, because average in terms of statistics of course does not take into consideration the actual wealth distribution, which up till recently also has been more even in Germany than in the UK. This all led to Germans generally being able to live at potentially higher standards than in the UK. Unteil a few years ago, that is, since when consumer credit has become attractive to some parts of the population, other parts have started to buy all sorts (cars mainly) on credit/bank loans, but the majority who have saving simply hang on to them for fear of what the future may bring, thus causing temporary slumps in the German economy as far as its own internal market/demand is concerned. Germany can keep afloat mainly thanks to its very strong export position. Why? Because they have stuff to export, Britain does not apart from weapons (BAE Systems), something to really be proud of ... So, whilst the average German may be better off financially initially, that is then reversed by higher taxes, a worse healthcare system than the NHS (this situation was definitely a lot better during the 80s and early 90s when I lived in Germany), and it is further deteriorating with ever increasing contributions (18% of salary anyone, just for the equivalent of the NHS, not including pension, and other social welfare contributions, which come on top, then taxes, which are higher than in the UK), lower standards, increasing costs for individual consultations (almost nothing is for free any more in Germany). On top of that Germans have a more strict MOT, which can be a majopr challenge for ardent car-nutters like us. We tend to forget how good the MOT in the UK actually is, especially towards owners of cars like ours. Germany hammers you in road and associated taxes if you do not constantly somehow modify your car to make it meet latest and craziest regulations, usually environmental regs (obviously to boost its own car manufacturing, although no-one will ever be allowed to state this obvious fact in Germany), forcing many a German to ditch their trustworthy cars for something newer that increasing proportions of the population cannot afford. Yes, Germany does have poor people as well, who are treated far worse than over here in the UK. They are hidden, same with the disabled. Germany is way behind the times when it comes to how it treats disabled people. Only last year has the local theatre in the town where my parents live installed a wheelchair ramp!! When I came over to the UK 22 years ago, I laughed at how the British treated disabled, thinking you just ditch these people, like you do in Gemrany, you ignore them, or if you have money, then you as a disabled person can help yourself. Britain has thoroughly changed my viewpoint in that respect, and whilst slowly things are improving in Germany, it is a very slow process. You still have special schools for pupils with learning difficulties, schools for outcasts of society of you like. Once you´ve been sent to one of those, forget the rest of your life. No re-integration possible. Would I want to live there again? Yes, but that´s because every now and then I am deeply dissatisfied with my current job, but as they say, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, and working life in Germany can also be harsh. Are the Germans happy with their politicians? No, same story as in the UK. Bunch of liars to get through elections, then break pretty much every single promise they made. ¨Oh sorry, we hadn´t expected this or that to happen, now we have no choice!" Well, then resign, you liars. Oh no, then these politicians hang on to their sacred, good pension-promising posts in politics, of course, unless they are mobbed out by Merkel (like what happened in June for one minister). The more you compare, the more you realise there is no heaven on earth. Each country is a trade-off for each indvidual, and since each individual has different needs and desires, different countries will meet those needs and desires in different ways, but hardly ever will you be as lucky as to stumble across a country where all needs and desires are met, unless you start a dictatorship, and you´re the dictator. Now there´s an idea :) Tempest