The Car thread - The Bear and Badger

regmcfly

Caveat here -

I am a shitey driver.

Dinostar77

regmcfly wrote:

Aye. Glad I have this. Manuals are for wee boy racer fucks.

If I've got a wee kid, automatic lets me focus attention on the road and, y'know, now kill my kid.

Your confirming poprocks hypothesis!!!

LivDiv

Genuinely if safe driving is a priority and you haven't done it already a Skid Pan driving experience is one of the absolute best things you can do.
I would argue in Scotland it should be compulsory.

poprock

Agreed. Skid training, even just once, makes you a safer driver for life.

poprock

regmcfly wrote:

Manuals are for wee boy racer fucks.

HIYA. That’s quite a hot take.

regmcfly wrote:

… automatic lets me focus attention on the road …

Y’know there’s an equal and opposite opinion that driver aids disconnect you from the road and encourage you to pay less attention. The ‘easier’ it feels, the less care some drivers take.

Bob

LivDiv wrote:

I mean, it doesnt take that much attention.
I prefer a manual personally a big part that I dont want to lose that skill over time.

If others want Auto then whatevs.

I think it’s an age thing as I get older I prefer an auto suv over a sporty coupe

LivDiv

Yeah depends what you are driving as well to be fair.
If you arent going to get anything out the gearbox then may as well go auto.

My dad had a Note for a while as a family workhorse/dump run car. The gear box was so limp.

regmcfly

poprock wrote:

regmcfly wrote:

Manuals are for wee boy racer fucks.

HIYA. That’s quite a hot take.

regmcfly wrote:

… automatic lets me focus attention on the road …

Y’know there’s an equal and opposite opinion that driver aids disconnect you from the road and encourage you to pay less attention. The ‘easier’ it feels, the less care some drivers take.

Dining on this take.

b0r1s

Bob wrote:

LivDiv wrote:

I mean, it doesnt take that much attention. I prefer a manual personally a big part that I dont want to lose that skill over time. If others want Auto then whatevs.

I think it’s an age thing as I get older I prefer an auto suv over a sporty coupe

This, exactly what I've moved to.

LivDiv

My Grandpa had a run of auto Mercs in his later years. They used to cruise across the continent to Germany once a year, makes sense if you are doing that. Its why the yanks have auto.

b0r1s

I used to travel to and from the ex with loads of islands between, exactly why I switched.

I moved to a 3 series coupe with auto from a manual Z4 2.5 petrol straight-six, which I will swear to my dying day is not a hair dressers car. Loved it when I was doing short journeys and down the lanes, but then doing the miles and lots of switching gears it just did me in.

afgavinstan

I've only ever driven manual and plan to keep it that way because I like it.

Minkymu

I have my eye on a 69 plate Abarth 595 with 120 miles on the clock. Ex demo. Loads of extras like alloy upgrade, decals etc. Bright yellow with black alloys.

Eyeing several big suv’s for the misses on pre reg 69 plate too. Not yet zoned in on that one yet.

GooberTheHat

If you've not nearly cracked your head off the windscreen when you attempt to depress the clutch in an automatic have you even driven?

Minkymu

Getting used to the brakes in any new Audi is a similar experience

poprock

I completely fucked it first time I tried to drive an auto.

Test drive in a Cayman. Couldn’t move it out of the parking space. Muscle memory was keeping my left foot on the brake because there was no clutch pedal. D’oh.

Eric

I was listening to Ruben's Barachello talk about left foot braking once on the radio whilst in the car and thought it would be good to try it out. Culminated in a massive skid half way down the road infront of a garage full of mechanics. Looked well erratic.

Not tried it since.

GooberTheHat

I'm sure it's easy once you get used to it, but that clutch pedal muscle memory is hard to overcome.

Paul the sparky

I doubt there's a benefit to it when you're pootling about town. It's to keep the revs up when you're racing innit?

poprock

Yep. And for pretending to be Billy Big Balls when chatting to other petrolheads.

Bob

Eric wrote:

I was listening to Ruben's Barachello talk about left foot braking once on the radio whilst in the car and thought it would be good to try it out. Culminated in a massive skid half way down the road infront of a garage full of mechanics. Looked well erratic. Not tried it since.

To be fair he couldn’t drive

b0r1s

To be fair he couldn’t drive for a very long time.

afgavinstan

So I'm within 30 days of my first years insurance policy ending.

Wat do? Halp.

cockbeard

I would pause, I guess yo;re not driving much, might as well get a holiday, also "new" custoers almost always get a better deal than renewals, becasue marketing cnuts are cnuts

HawBawJaws

They'll contact you, saying next year's policy will be x amount, if you want to stay with us do nothing, we'll just keep taking it from your bank. You can obviously shop around and see if 1 year no claims gets you a better policy elsewhere, just remember you'll have to get proof of your no claims from your current insurer (easily done) and that while another policy might look cheaper, you'll have a higher payment in the first month, same as when you took out your current policy.

Mibbe worthwhile seeing if any insurers are doing anything for key workers.

afgavinstan

Hmmm. I always hear about people getting renewals that are higher than before so I'm just wary of being taken for a ride. Cheers.

Eric

It's always worth checking. Having said that, unbelievably for the first time ever my renewal was actually cheaper than anywhere else.

LivDiv

It is always worth a look at renewal time.
1 year's no claims doesn't save you much these days unfortunately but you definitely want to make sure you are getting the best deal between switching and renewing.

g.man

Yup. Virtually halved the price of mine by going elsewhere this year.

Bob

And at your age that 50p will be a vital pension contribution;)

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