Why? Spend less than half the asking price of a new LuxuryKa on something big and relatively speaking quick, very little depreciation to speak about compared to a new car, no real need to worry about petrol and insurance as much because you've just saved several grand. Buying a new LuxuryKa makes very little sense to me, especially if you're a tight git.
There are three flaws with this argument.
One, was that Charlie was a new driver, and is American, so is therefore considered to be the highest of risks. :-/
Two, she doesn't like driving a larger car on British roads. This is the most important argument, whatever she was prepared to drive, that's in the short list.
Three, new? New? No he wasn't new.
It's fun, but it ain't quick. The Sierra is capable of understeer, neutrality, or oversteer depending on what I want it to do, if I'm on a mission then it's neutral with a very slight touch of understeer. If I'm having fun it's silliness with an armful of oversteer. The Capri is normally slight understeer going into a corner followed by most of the bend pretty neutral, going to stupid amounts of oversteer on the way out if I'm in the mood for a laugh. The Merc appears to just be neutral followed by mucho smoke from tyres, with a smattering of oversteer.
Wrong. It might not make sense as it's the nearest lane to the centre of the roundabout, but the outside lane of a roundabout is still defined as the far right one.
And it's surprisingly easy if you time it right to beat most cars off the line in a whole host of performancelly-challenged cars if you've got a 30mph rolling start and they're starting from rest.
Peter
In news: snipped-for-privacy@uni-berlin.de, DervMan decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows
It's a possibility. Alfas ain't fond of Kwik Fit specials. Pirelli or Bridgestones work well on 'em though. Michelins tend not to. Avons are a good compromise but tend to exaggerate under/over steer. Fun though.
Alfas don't. It's why lots of people don't like 'em. If you drive it like you stole it, it's not gonna make you look good.
Tyres, bushes, shocks, tracking? If the driver hasn't checked the tyre pressures, he's unlikely to have noticed if anything else has been wrong. You're coming to it "fresh", so you've got no baseline to compare it to.
great aren't they?
Yeah, but the Q4 was 230 bhp, 4wd, with a multitude of catalysts and all that malarky in a bigger car with more toys.
I dunno, the 30-40mph acceleration time of one car normally beats the
0-40mph acceleration time of another, regardless of the car, within reason, i.e. for most standard sub-150bhp cars. Plus there's the fact that if you're approaching a roundabout, having the extra speed to begin with could mean the difference between actually getting onto the roundabout or not.It could have been that, depends how much in control he judged Dervy to be of his Ka.
Peter
True, but it is amusing to read fuel economy calculated in units such as "gallons to the moon" and "metres per teaspoon".
Peter
Get a new one.
Get a new one.
Oh, well done :D.
Oh yeah, with 185BHP through the front wheels, double wishbones, equal length drive shafts, and 1300kilos weight too. Oh yeah, and nearly 5 metres long. I would need to drop the rear seats, but I could just about squeeze a Ka in the boot.
wannabe ? ;)
No not really. The Alfa is a lardy understeerey beast and the 1.8 engine woefully torqueless so you have to be constantly kissing the red line to get anywhere near the supposed 140brake.
Tim..
Is that the Nuvola blue I keep on banging on about? niiiiiiiiiccccceee
You'd charge them 40p to take your Ka to London and back? You getting the petrol, tyres etc off the back of a lorry??
Peter
with
I should check. It's coming to the end of the lease, and lease companies like to put original equipment on it.
Hehehe.
Just general high mileage worn? :-/ Not sure; since it has a full ARMDSH ;) and despite the high mileage, I've assumed it's in as good condition as every other 120K BMW, Mondeo, etc., that I've driven. Not as sharp but pretty close.
It's much less responsive than I believe it should be. The 1.8 I borrowed was a _lot_ sharper.
Oh yes. You'd buy it for the engine noise, if somebody else was paying, heh.
Who knows? The combined cycle figure is 24 mpg, so 18 mpg does feel a bit low. Not impossibly low. 28 mpg on a run was disappointing, since it's not especially quiet, smooth, nor were we going at warp speed.
No no, they're that cheap to run! :p
I meant 40p per mile...
Only on track, or Gran Turismo. :p
In news: snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net, MeatballTurbo decided to enlighten our sheltered souls with a rant as follows
I'll tell ya what he wants, what he really really wants...
sorry, couldn't resist...
Dervy and I have been wondering if the Ka would be quicker over the 1/4 mile under its own power (60bhp) or being towed by my Volvo (180bhp) - anyone fancy doing some math?
I don't get it either - please explain.
Dervy's reasons are all valid - I wouldn't touch an Alfa with yours !
Clearly you don't - Steve has to make do with a bunch of tatty old underpowered Alfas !
If he didn't have to make compromises, then he'd own the V6 - or maybe even something other than an Alfa (yeah, right).
Er, what ?
The loonatic depreciation, and dodgy-reliability-image, conspires to mean that only an absolute NUTTER would stump up his own cash for a brand new Alfa !
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