How much is the volvo worth?

Not as daft as it sounds. There is a pub in North Wales where the boundary between two counties passes through the pub and many years ago one of the counties was "dry" so only half the pub could open on Sundays :-)

Parish

But you can get an awful lot of beer in an SUV :-)

OK, don't rub it in ;-)

Parish

A stock bottom end won't handle much more than 300bhp- the conrods are the weak point and will bent like plasticine over that figure.

Tim..

You forgot to mention the obligatory fag burns on the interior trim!

If you buy something over the web, and the firm you buy from does not have a business presence in your state (assuming your state charges sales tax, I know Delaware and New Hampshire do not) you pay no sales tax. The reason you see 'state x residents add y% tax' is thats where the web sit's firm is located.

If you live close to Delaware, like we do, you can go there to buy high cost items like TV's or stereos (or food every week), or you can buy stuff like washers and friges from a low(er) tax place, and have them delivered, saving a very few bucks, but in my younger days it seemed well worth it...

If you are caught there are heavy fines for, say, bringing booze, beer, or the like into Pennsylvania, my state, from New Jersey or S(lol)elaware, low(er) tax states.

If you buy a car in a low tax place you must pay your states sales tax in order to register the vehicle and get license plates, and usually you have to pay the tax right at the dealers. I guess if you were big into saving money you could buy a series of vehicles in Delaware and register them to some sham corporation you set up...there IS a reason that almost ALL big American firms are incorporated in the state of Delaware.

You can get around some taxes, however many states have 'rationalized' tax collection practices so it's simpler, and there seems to be a slow, unstoppable momentum building to have the US Congress pass some law so that the loop hole with internet purchases is closed, I am betting this will happen before the turn of the decade.

For some reason Americans seem to hate taxes, and its a sure fire way for politicos to win office--the system where there are national taxes would seem to result in less inefficency on the macro level as activity to avoid taxes is reduced--but I know you guys hate taxes too!

When I was young I went to Israel and rented a Fiat 126. 1980 I think.

I had it up to 180 KMPH a lot, the army guys in Sinai were amazed how fast I got from check point to check point. In time a cop pulled me over and asked for my papers etc (driving a ford fairmont straight from the USA BTW).

He said the speed limit was 100, so I told him I was just doing 90 MPH (the car had mph/kmph on the Speedo), he looked like he wanted to kill me, said Kilometers, not miles, and told me to drive 80 KMPH all the way to Tel Aviv. I did!

When I returned that car it was understandably worn out!

That was years ago. When I rent a car now I just want to get where I am going. I want no dealing with cops from different states

(although I do admit that in France in 2000, I was driving quite fast, and after I got my wife to close the windows I got a Fiat brake (estate/S/W) with a turbo diesel to go 200KMPPH (140mph) down the side of a mountain hwy. Still he Fiat ran fine when I returned it)

The percentage of people from the USA who figure hey what can they do to me might be a factor in Europe, but in the USA there are low low low speed limits everywhere, and once people get older then 22 or so parking brake moves and Rene Julian (sp?, famous French stunt driver) moves are passé.

In the same vein cops in the USA, not cities, but suburbs just cruise day in day out.

Sure urban cop cars take a beating, and state police/highway patrol cars which seem to be doing >110MPH on a daily basis are a different matter.

In the USA many taxis are retired police cars.....

Most rental cars are driven by folks who do not want trouble and just want to get where they are going. I think they would be an ok buy if I was poor again, however a hot rod police car...I would buy it if I had no other option and had the Need For Speed, but hey its your money your decision.

my ex bodyguard bought an ex police 850 T5. Apart from the holes in the trim, and the seized rear off side caliper, it was a beaut. He loved it and it proved to be a useful tool for getting out of places quick. He still has it as far as I know, according to his colleagues. It was the only front wheel drive Volvo that made me think about swapping out my beloved 240,

In news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, Zathras decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

Heh, £150 a burn.. made some money out of those..

The thing that would worry me is not the maintenance, but knowing that people beat the crap out of rental cars, and the chances of one having been properly broken in are slim to none. That can cause a lot of problems down the road.

I rented a car in Los Angeles once that had them on the *ceiling*!

Our sales tax is typically around 8%, it varies by state though, some have none at all, though usually they make up for it by higher taxes for other things.

As far as I know, it only applies to things you mail order, there's no tax on that unless the company you order from operates out of your state, so if you mail order something from a company in CA and you live there as well, you pay tax on it. If you mail order from another state you don't. If you live in a state without sales tax you are exempt from paying it in a state that does normally.

It's all relative, when the price doubles within a year it doesn't much matter if it started out at $1 or at $3, it still hurts.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Parish saying something like:

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Stuart Gray" saying something like:

What? Are you on witness protection or a old rock star?

At least gas/petrol is still less expensive than bottled water. Bottled water is at least $8 per gallon if you buy it in 16 oz bottles. When you think about it, it is amazing how cheap gas/petrol is. It must be found, wells drilled, crude oil pumped, transported thousands of miles, refined, and delivered to the pumps. For the bottled water they can just put a filter on a city water spigot.

A very cogent observation. Several brands are nothing further than bottled city water -- Aquafina for example, uses Houston city water as the source.

Beverly

The message from "Bev A. Kupf" contains these words:

What was that CocaCola bottled water that crashed so spectacularly in the UK?

Guy King ( snipped-for-privacy@zetnet.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :