Hurrah !

"fishman" wrote

Oh yeah and my friend did the same trip a couple of years back in a poverty spec 1.1 Fiat Punto :-o

"RichardK-PB" wrote

Well Mike P expressed an interest and now he's gone radio silent... someone from the BBC is interested too but he's miles away.

Go on you know you want to, but I won't take £300 for it!

My more immediate problem is that I now have 3 cars and live in a rented shared house in which the four other people all own cars... and whilst the driveway is spacious, it's hard to park all the cars so that anyone can come and go easily without asking others to move their cars etc. And the P6 is in the garage but if the landlord needs access or someone needs to get something out / store something in there, it's a pain.

As long as you get hubcentric-spacers (ie, they have the correct centre-bore to fit your hub directly, and they have their own lip on the outside for the wheel to sit on directly), then there's no problem with spacers.

The troubles come when you try and use the plain metal disc type, with no lip, so the wheels are held in place purely by the bolts.

in news: snipped-for-privacy@individual.net, "fishman" slurred :

Bah, I've been to italy and back via switzerland, austria, germany blegium and france in a tweaked mini with even stiffer than normal suspension :)

2400 miles in 38 hrs with no sleep. Oh yes.

In news:Xns95F199215A165224267@130.133.1.4, Albert T Cone decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows

I've driven to Greece and back in my old LHD Golf, towed a trailer to Zakynthos with a Range Rover, and done more trips from Ancona in Italy to Liverpool and back in various Alfas than I can remember.

Tue Pol Halverson a Skoda Looney I know drives from Denmark, a quick tour of europe, and down to italy in his almost immaculate, but totally standard Skoda S110R coupe every year for his holidays.

He stops off at the same Garage in CZ each year for a major service and any other work he needs, and the same mechanic has looked after this car for 20 years.

The guys from the south coast chapter of the Skoda Owners Club take an annual convoy of Estelles, Rapids and S110R coupes back to CZ, visit friends, buy spares, and harass the Czech women, and smuggle real pilsner and cheap cigs back.

Must be one of the funniest things, see a line of cars, with UK plates, screaming along at 70-90MPH, with the driver out of site (wrong side), for the entire length of Germany.

They tend to be two too a car, one driving, other in the back sleeping.

14 hour journey with driver swaps, single run.

Is that what happens after 2400 miles and 38 hours, with no sleep ?

Mike asked about the Supra too, but I reckon my honest description was enough to make him flee ;)

£305.47 and a penny chew, a packet of Spangles, a slightly chipped Matchbox Lotus Europa in magenta. Oh, and some Pickled Onion Monster Munch?

Motivated seller... go on... extra cash for Hungary, solves that garage issue nicely ;)

Richard

"RichardK-PB" wrote

Why do I need cash for Hungary? I'm travelling on company business, so fully expensed :D

I'll tell you what, for £300 you can have my lovely Micra "Colette" with exclusive beige seatbelts. You won't find beige seatbelts anywhere else and they go nicely with whatever you wear. These beige seatbelts are so rare that Nissan couldn't install them in the back of this car!

"RichardK-PB" wrote

I've just looked up his ebay feedback and I'm starting to realise why there's the radio silence ;)

Must be a missus involved. Soon as he opens his mouth "a..." NO! NOT ANOTHER CAR "b..." NO!!! "w..."

Yeah, I know done properly, they aren't an issue. But something puts me off them, maybe extra load on the wheel bearing, I don't know.

Would rather find the right wheel in the right fitting. Even if I have to wait to find it.

Think about it.

If I got an ET35 rim, and stuck a 20mm spacer on, I've just made it ET15 - which is what my car is supposed to take.

ET35 + 20mm spacer is exactly the same as if the wheel was ET15 in the first place !

There's no extra load on anything - you've merely replaced a lump of alloy from the mating face of the wheel, with a lump of removable spacer alloy.

If you can actually obtain the correct fitment, then obviously it'd be wise to do so.

But if you can find the same PCD, with an offset of more than about 10mm too high (cos you can't really make a hubcentric spacer of less than 10mm, cos it has to clear the lip on your car's hub), then don't turn them down !

Oh, and centre-bores are easily changed with a set of different spiggot-rings inside the alloy, so don't worry too much about that.