oldgregg

It has been looked into, and actually a small increase in size was substantially more expensive...

Brian Wards do one - And as usual you'll get 10% off using the discount code 'NBN' at checkout.

Yeah I think unless you have a 1980's floor-standing model then you won't see a drastic increase in efficiency, and actually combi's are much less reliable because there's a lot more complexity in a much smaller package. But they do give you convenience of instant hot water, and therefore you only heat the water you actually use rather than heating a tank you may or may not touch during a day. With an intelligent thermostat you can save a fair few quid too, certainly, as they know when you're not in and whether it's going to be cold outside.

Believe it or not, Reliant also built the bodyshell for the Ford RS200

Always quite a few there, yeah http://www.leboatbrokerage.com/view-our-boats-for-sale/ Tamaris is indeed an Aquafibre Sapphire 32 (similar to the Broom 9/70 and 32), as is Lake Star. That Lake Star is a Broom fitout, whereas the Tamaris looks like a Darragh build.

I saw a hotel (I think they called it a Flotel) in Rotterdam last year and it was an interesting idea, there are quite a few of them on the IJ in Amsterdam as well. Norwich, though? I don't know that it'd work - And especially when there's a Premier Inn right opposite. There's probably some life left in it, but perhaps Norwich is no longer the place for it.

In the UK they're known as pre-registered, and yeah it's very much a thing.

Controversial hat on..... I think it needs to go sooner rather than later as the cost of getting rid now would be a lot less than when it's sitting on the bottom.

Take a good look at the Vauxhall Crossland, Grandland and the Peugeot 2008 and 3008....

I don't know how true it is, but I was told by someone some years back that the parts you bought from the Bedford dealer would come in a Suzuki box as well....

I've seen some old VW group 1.9TDI's (mostly the Skoda version which was detuned and thus lower stress) with over 400,000 miles on them and was told it was just good, regular servicing that got them there. They're the exception rather than the rule of course, but it does show even VW group used to be able to make good cars.

They're a bit heavier certainly, but now that the platforms are being engineered with electrification in mind (and they definitely weren't before) the packaging is a lot better and batteries aren't just shoved wherever there was a space ie the boot floor or under the rear seats. But any SUV is heavier, slower, worse at handling, less economical and less stable in strong winds than a regular car just because of the laws of physics - so any car is a compromise. A Lexus IS hybrid weighs a lot less than an X5, and an RX hybrid weighs about the same depending on model. The Prius is a horrible car. Great tech but way too slow and why did they not restyle it for Europe like everyone else does with Japanese models? I wouldn't drive one unless I was being paid to. But now that there are a broader range of models and some performance models then it seems logical. Why turn fuel that you've paid for into heat (and brake dust) every time you press the brakes? Seems mad (and a bit prehistoric) not to recover that energy so yes you do have to carry round a battery pack, but the penalty for that isn't quite what you think it is because the weight is offset by the amount of energy it stores. Admittedly, the life of the battery pack is a bit of a worry. After 250k miles you may need to replace it.

There's a reason they're always top of owner satisfaction surveys....

The more powerful stuff is nowadays, yeah. And as a result they're less reliable and more sensitive to all manner of things. But yeah, the average leisure boat will do a lot less hours. A popular hire boat will log upwards of 600 hours in a season, though.

It does but partly because of the (relative) leniency of emission regulations, marine diesel engines are very different and basically far more robust than anything you'd find in a production car now. Fuel consumption is greater, but so is reliability. Some very solid vehicle engines such as Ford's 1.8 Endura D and the GM Circle L or 'Isuzu' 1.7 engine were killed off by emission regulations.

A mate of mine used to have a Jetta with the dreaded FSI engine (known as Failure Seems Imminent), and it would mis-fire if fed supermarket petrol. It was a known issue and obviously the fault is with VW who should never have sold that engine in the UK (or anywhere really) without reworking it, but it does show that all fuels are not equal.

That's not a bad shout, and they refuse to sell them in those colours, so it's not as bad as you'd think. Usually the yellow gets painted white so you're left with a blue which isn't too bad on its own.

2nd hand tyres per se aren't a problem, nor are budget tyres. What's important with any tyre is whether it's any good. I have had cheaper ones that were brilliant, and a few years back bought a used car which was fitted with newish Pirelli P6000's (or 'ditchfinders' as they're known on car forums) which were absolutely lethal in wet conditions. We swapped those 'premium' tyres for a set of cheaper Avons after both my wife and I had nearly crashed the car in the wet on separate occasions and the car was transformed... Auto Express (and their sister brands) do an annual test of tyres whereby they put each product round a track in a set of controlled conditions and compare things like wet grip, dry grip, stopping distances etc etc. Of course it's a bit subjective, but I wouldn't buy anything that did badly in their testing. Funnily enough, the Pirelli P6000 didn't score well in the wet. I personally don't buy part-worn or remoulds because you don't know the provenance of the actual tyre you're buying.

But just don't go to Kwik-fit. They're not engineers, they're parts installers. I wouldn't have them touch my car.

I'm with Wyndham on this one. I am, as you know, a bit of a petrolhead and absolutely love cars but I just can't get excited about mass-produced stuff. The problem with cars is that generally they are pretty good at being cars these days and so the manufacturers have to work very hard to make people buy a new model every 3 years or less when in reality you just need to buy the right car, look after it and then keep it for 10 years. We all know that certain countries have a tendency to produce unreliable cars, and that most of the German brands also gave up on reliability in the early noughties when they were haemorrhaging money. This was partly because their cars were lasting too long and thus not being replaced as often, and partly because of the vastly increased costs of meeting safety and emissions standards. We also know that you can't trust a badge like you used to, particularly now that Nissan and Mitsubishi are basically just producing re-skinned Renaults and Mazda and Volvo are owned by the Chinese. Unless you have the money to buy a hand-built supercar they're just not genuinely exciting, so as a daily driver you're best off with something solid like a Lexus, Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, Kia or Hyundai. No they're not considered as exciting, and that's because they may not have invested quite as much of your purchase price into marketing the product via TV ads, having the brand in a racing series, events etc etc. The money has been spent on developing the product, making it reliable and getting the basics right. Robin has mentioned the 'BMW ecosystem' before and that's sort of the point. There is no 'BMW ecosystem'. It's a car. A metal box with four wheels, the drivetrain and some seats. Anything else is just marketing, and you're paying for it.

I do think double mooring is much less common than it used to be, and that's a big part of the problem. There are plenty of places where the river is wide enough to accommodate it, yet you rarely see it. I have seen double (even triple) mooring within the last year during school holidays, but it's definitely not the norm. Long have I said that there's a perfect place on the North for another WRC-style facility but I can't see it ever getting built.

The other problem on the Broads is that because the base stations are usually quite a distance from where you are, the phone is working extra hard to send / receive data (which it does regularly to keep in touch with the network) and so that means more battery usage. Compare standby time at home to what you get on the boat, and it's never the same. Sent from the Norfolk Broads Network mobile app

And of course that can sync automatically with Google Drive or Dropbox etc while you sleep.... Sent from the Norfolk Broads Network mobile app

Indeed. Probably not that popular with NBN's demographic, but Google Drive or Dropbox installed and set to sync automatically is a good way of having a second backup. It's a case of balancing any concern / risk around privacy with the risk of losing data.

What he said, basically. Can I suggest that a USB stick shouldn't be relied on as a sole backup strategy. They're cheap and unreliable and will let you down when you least want them to.