OK, and the scores are in,

Yeah, probably about that.

My 89 Estelle had 49k in 2001, and my 92 Favorit had 51k in 2002. Both very low miles, lowest mileage cars I've ever had. But while mechanically they were sweet and just run in, body and interior wise they were just bloody tatty, welding repairs to both, and scruffy looking interior trim.

Ah but, getting the tail out in mine, is an act of driver skill, not a temporary loss of control of the non driven end. :)

Well, just to remind you.

Yes, that's about right all round. I also notice the difference between being in the car alone and driving 4-5up.

i paid £6k for my mini one with only 23k miles on the clock, that's what i call low miles, 4k i'd expect around 40-50k miles, i think i'm getting old lol although my MR2 turbo was £5k and that had only 56k miles. £4k and 80k miles seems a lot to me, my BMW was on around 80k miles when i bought that and i wish i didn't spend as much as i did on a car with 80k on the clock.

i don't i do between 10-12k miles, you must live in the middle of no where :)

No - you just don't go anywhere ;-)

I reckon I do about 14k a year commuting. And judging by the motorway every morning, I'm not alone. The cars I'm behind tend to be already on the motorway as I join, and are still on when I leave.

I got like, 12 or so, maybe 15 big bags of rubble/mud in the back of the 206 with the seats down - in hindsight, as awesomely low as the back end was, I think I was probably doubling the maximum safe load weight (I never though of that at the time). Each bag was I'd hazard as least 30kg. Performance was....hmmm, stunted :-)

Did twelve bags of ready mix dry cement into the Celsior, instant slammed low rider.

Imprezas are fine as long as you let them warm up properly before thrashing them. This one has a turbo timer thing on it as well, so that's a nice little bonus.

This one is dark metallic green with Prodrive gold rims. Sounds awful but I like it.

I think this is around 320 bhp. I really should, but just can't as it's not a good thing to take to Czech.

Oh I dunno, nice snowy Czech winter, so empty roads in the forest...

went out in the mini friday night to the cinema was me +3 others and you can feel the difference straight away. especially under braking. still seemed to pull ok and had little affect of performance but you don't feel that you could throw it into the corners as well. mind you i don't think the passengers would appreciate it if i did lol

To get the tail out in an RWD car just requires power. In a front driver it needs more skill (unless you're using the handbrake).

Indeed.

True

The important bit.

Yeah, but on a RWD car, keeping it where you want requires skill, on a FWD car it is down to luck.

One of the guys at work talks about "power sliding" his A3 arround a particularly bad corner on the approach road to the office that ices up at the slightest hint of cold and damp (lost an M3 and a Porsche to it last year as well as a couple of crap hatches).

Last week, I experienced my first 4 wheel drift. Initially it lost control, but as I managed to opp lock it back into line, much to the surprise of the Cooper S driver who I was trying to steer round before sliding (he had slid off and hit the kerb hard). 4 wheel drifting is fun. When I get bored/rich I will have to get a supercharger on it and learn to drift properly.

Loads of open empty former russian airbases. Plenty of places to drive it.

Welcome to the hypermiling club! I make it 30.54 to the gallon, but really to two decimal places it's something of a moot point. I guess it's the big number starting with a 3 that's important!

What do you expect the end-to-end, season-through-season, figure to be, after you're used to the IS200?

Winter really isn't helping the 1.8t. My last five tanks have been an appalling* 35.8 to the gallon (that's just over 2,000 miles). In the summer the five tank average spent plenty of time over 39. I'm still expecting the end-to-end, season-through-season, mpg to be ~110% of the official combined cycle number.

Anywhere to repair it after aforementioned trips? ;-)