OV9

Car back.

No horrible squeals, no awful clunks. The latter, particularly, I should have done ages ago really.

£575 all in, most of that for the lower arms obviously.

I've stopped at Donno services a few times over the years, it's not bad at all. Never thought to look out the back of it though.

Gloucester services similar - those sausage rolls (I assume similar across all that chain)? Two of them is definitely a bit much, I got hot ones, ooh, so much grease ...

Jailed for five years.


The owner of a high-value sports car dealership has been jailed for fraudulent trading.

John Patrick Hawkins, 66, was owner and director of Specialist Cars of Malton Ltd (SCML), and well-known in the business of trading expensive vehicles – Porsches in particular.

But he ...

Garage reports that the squealing is Best Case Scenario - the aux belt is bloody old, and when they tweeked the tensioner a bit, the noise went away - so probably just the belt stretching enough to juuuuuuust start slipping. Don't even think the idlers or tensioner need replacing, just the belt.

So ...

Car dropped off at the garage to determine what the squeak at the front end of the engine is - probably an idler pulley but might be AC/Alternator bearings - easier to diagnose on a ramp etc. Also to finally ID the suspension clunks.

Once those are sorted, I'll rebook it for a couple of weeks time ...

Jobbo wrote: Tue Jan 06, 2026 6:45 am

Rich B wrote: Mon Jan 05, 2026 8:57 pm Get it fixed up good and i’ll nominate it for FECPOTY 26 just keep Scott angry!

It’s never going to beat Marv’s 968.

I'm gonna sorn my car for for a week so I can apply for '26

"Yeah it was being recomissioned"
*hides Magic Tree wrapper*

Even a 991 GT3 RS would be playing 2nd fiddle


Our driving buddy Chris bought one of those in February 2025, whilst moving his GT4RS onto Mr Maurice.

He's not a forum member, but if FECOTY is cool, then I assume ECPOTY is too - even if we're a few days late? So that's 2nd place sorted too ...

Honestly the difference could be down to 'the wrong kind of snow' when I was on all seasons, and the 'right' kind of snow when I was on winters :lol:

But yeah, I'm generally a fan of all seasons(particularly if you don't have space to store a spare set of wheels), because most of the time they're ...

I'm more than happy to admit that I'm sufficiently NCG to not notice one iota of difference between tyres. Sure I could probably tell a set of Firestones from a set of cheap Chinese Remoulds (or winters to summers etc) but a good set of Michelins or a good set of Bridgestone's are going to be ...

Why, is Maduro also also sexting underagers (and continued doing so after being told as much), like Dr Disrespect was banned from Twitch for?

Holy shit, I'm gonna get a 5g router and become a sovereign citizen!

Gravity Falls is fuckin' quality.

Aside, a content creator I follow did an edit of the Stranger Things final battle.

To Wild Wild West by Will Smith - and it works far better than it should. Almost like it was in their head as they did it. Because giant spider in a desert

Alas it's only on ...

integrale_evo wrote: Fri Jan 02, 2026 5:48 pm I am happy for Dan but also slightly dissapointed that my step sons Up! Was so narrowly beaten to the top spot this year.

It's fuckin' rigged mate.

Some shitty times all around folks, hopefully next year is an improvement where it can be...

No real detail this year - work has been stressful thanks to the AI shite kicking off eating up huge amounts of my teams time and us not getting as much work in as we'd have liked (it's fine, but no new ...

Rich B wrote: Wed Dec 31, 2025 10:30 am

Explosive Newt wrote: Wed Dec 31, 2025 9:53 am Hmmm

Dan's car?

It seems a no brainer, but does it qualify a 2025 purchase?

I will allow it an honorary second place, after what is clearly the best purchase of the year.
My neighbours Fiat Panda 100HP

Yeah, factory pop maps like wot the hot hatches have these days (well, have had for fifteen years etc) are way more subtle, and far less aggressive, so they don't tend to overheat the cat because they're tested by the manufacturer, specifically, to not do so. if the cat gets too hot, it'll stop ...

The original buyer wasn't given enough attention as a child.

I don't even think they're plain slot drives - they're security slot bits.

I had to use those to open up a cheap extension cable recently, they're about as classy as a chip butty.

It really is the sort of thing you'd expect someone like the Fast Shows "Loadsamoney" character to wear.

LOOK AT MY WATCH IT'S PURE SAPPHIRE COS I'VE GOT LOOOADSSSAAAMOONNEEEYYY

Prison watch.

Similar examples of prison tech: