Honest opinion needed

(link edited to the correct one you posted later, 'cos I'm nice like that)

It looks ok. I think you're right in not having colour coded bumpers - I'll agree with you on the two-tone idea. IMHO the rear lights complement the colour of the paint pretty well, and the alloys look ok.

Personally I'd leave it as it is, expect for one thing - the seats. Get some decent supportive seats - I'm not talking OTT bucket seats, they'll just look a bit silly and overdone, but some more supportive seats - possibly the standard SportKa or StreetKa ones (if you can get them reasonably cheap) or maybe some half-decent recaros second-hand (if they'll fit on the rails). Maybe Ka Luxury seats (don't know how supportive they are).

I'm just going on what Doki said about the seats - I've never driven a Ka so wouldn't know. I know I found Mk4/Mk5 Fiesta van seats to be fairly supportive (I'm guessing the car seats would be the same), so maybe they might fit in.

My point being that I'm a firm believer in the fact that the more supportive the seats, the better the car appears to handle, due to the fact that you can push it around corners more. I remember a Citroen C15 van I've driven a few times felt absolutely terrible around corners, but a lot of that (IMHO) was to do with terrible unsupportive seats. I saw a turbo diesel one on ebay a little while back, with Vectra SRI seats in it - I was nearly tempted!

Back to Silver Kas - a mate of mine was looking for a Ka for his mum, with a rough budget of around £4k - I helped him look (she left the deciding up to him as he's more clued up than she), and we did a nationwide search on AutoTrader - there was one he really liked the look of over in Cardiff (around 2 hours drive), which I really didn't see the attraction of, but he thought the colour looked really smart, and that his old dear would like it. Got over there, and in the flesh the colour looked quite different to the picture, so he left it!! When buying, one of the specifications was "not silver with black bumpers, maybe silver with silver bumpers". He ended up getting an 03-plater from trade sales with 2000 miles on the clock for £5k, in silver, with black bumpers!

Peter

In article , snipped-for-privacy@SPAMMENOTspidar.com spouted forth into uk.rec.cars.modifications...

Question is, how much do you want to spend? I could spec you something that would over the £3-4k worth, with about £300-400 worth of headlights for night rides and commutes (technically they are illegally bright, and not kite marked, but good lights are essential).

Not sure really what current pricing is like. Best thing is, read something like MBUK, and MBR, and if it still exists, MBi.

Used to be that £500 would give you a bike that wouldn't fall to pieces if you gave it some offroad hammering. Full suspension bikes started arround the £650-750 upwards.

I imagine that things have come down a little since then though. Haven't really looked at decent bikes since I assembled mine from my choice of Alu, Carbon, and Ti components about 3-4 years ago. Wheels on it are the oldest thing. A set of Dave Hind built Hope hubs and Mavic rims that I had put together for £200 10 years ago.

Names to look outfor are Trek/Fisher/Bontrega, Marin (hardtail and full suspension) and Scott (hardtail and full suspension again. they make good solid bikes from normal to silly money.

LOL

You might say that Carl, but I couldn't possibly comment.

Douglas

Just enlarge the text size in your web browser - or view it at a decent resolution in the first place ;) 1024x768 or higher is what you want

Thats like saying 'Whats the point in leather or alloys because you don't ACTUALLY need them'. They look nice. Some people care what their cars look like and take a little pride in them odd as this may seem...

... i posted the wrong linkfirst time

No, the fact your car is slow as hell means theres no point in putting your toe down between corners :)

You drive like a girl :)

Ah but now it appears although he can't afford the vented brake upgrade, he can afford to buy/run and insure a Capri :)

My mate has a Marin, reckons it the dogs bollox :)

Which is why you should waste money on something equally funny with an engine - like a Protech Phaser 4 RS :)

Which is what i did ;) Only i got mine 2nd hand from Ebay with a shedload of normally very expensive spares. Popped the clutch yesterday - that cost me £15....

Hello! Long time no Usenet; welcome back! :)

How's the Audi?

Aye, maybe so.

How much is your insurance again? :)

Heh heh heh!

This being the one that hit one twenty on the drive home?! :)

True - cars dont need metallic paint, or cool design...

Agree totally with what ur saying Dan..

I've dabbled in the odd post, but not a lot, mainly due to a knackered Maxtor Hard Drive in the desktop, dodgy power problems in the laptop (which is now completely, and I mean completely stripped down awaiting parts), and a dodgy old PII machine that doesn't work all that well due to the multitude of shit installed on it, so I'm using my Dad's computer for the time being. Hopefully I'll have at least one PC of my own working soon, because NTL's webmail is becoming increasingly unreliable.

Since when? Did you read about the wee dent that developed in the front just before Christmas? Well that's all repaired now and it's running nicely. Latest tankful was 39.2mpg, and that's a lot of 95-105mph cruising, plus a fair bit of town work. Acceptable I suppose :-)

Cambelt change in the next month or two coming up, hopefully accompanied by some leather seats and the standard Audi cruise control system to replace the not-all-that-great aftermarket one it's got at the moment. Then there's wiring the hands-free kit properly into the stereo, then some form of in-car PC, complete with bluetooth and some form of GPRS for net-on-the-move, then all else I'll want will be quattro.

But I'm currently dabbling with the evil French idea of a 2.5TDi XM Estate. Madness? You tell me!

Peter

The Ka? Don't think so - there's no vaguely near sane point to do that sort of speed on the way from Slough to Bracknell (other than the M4, and we didn't go that way).

Ah, but I think he might have got that speed out of it on another occasion, now you mention it.

I almost thought you were on about my Audi (110 in third gear!!!).

Peter

Yes; it's madness! See my other post.

Now have Kermit rigged up with an OBD-II scanner, so can produce all manner of useless charts! :)

Just under £500 - fully comp, which i don't think is too bad really! What with me been a student and only 21....mods declared and covered.

Kermit's ECU believes the road-going speed to be 10% less than the speedo...