Your fleet running reports

[GG.]

Plastic parts get old and brittle and fail. I expect most early to mid 2000s BMWs will have had a window regulator go crunch at some point by now.

I thought E46 window regulators were considered a service item / 'they all do that sir' part anyway?

I’ve certainly done more than my fair share of window regulators. Think I did two on the E36 I had and both sides of the 997 as well. Strangely the E90 didn’t have any failures.

That also reminds me - the 991 has exactly the same issue as the 997 and 987 I’ve owned where it collects water in the doors and smears it all over the windows when you roll them down. No idea why they can’t come up with a design that doesn’t do that…

It is also supposed to have illuminated side sills and they don’t work and seem to have water leak into them when you wash the car. £1000 for replacements seemingly so I’ll be dipping into that Porsche warranty pretty quickly!

[jamcg]

Weren’t those a Cayenne thing? It doesn’t have them anyway, I’m pleased to say because I agree:

That interior is both lovely and a massive disappointment. I know it’s technically ms.Jobbo’s car but still far too boring

[Jobbo]

Yeah, my preference for the bordeaux red or pebble two-tone interior was vetoed

[GG.]

I saw a pebble two tone on a 991.2 Targa at the Goodwood breakfast meet and thought it looked great. May look different on an SUV though.

Deviated stitching looks good though. I'd have specc'd that on my GTS if I'd had the choice from new.

[Carlos]

Another positive experience with WBAC. I've been helping my Aunty with my Uncles estate and the last thing left was his 2019 Duster, no tax, no mot, service light on and only insured until the end of the month, basically a nightmare as they know you just want shot of it. I also managed to get the eml light to go off with a dose of redex, a bit of super unleaded and an italian tune up as it had been standing for 3 months.

I tried the Renault dealer who couldn't buy until after 1st July due to no budget left this quarter but estimated £8k as it had a bit of bush rash on one wing, a fag burn on drivers seat and obviously needed a service and mot. Tried wbac as i didnt want to wait the week and ended up with £8255.

For a car that was £12,199 new i was pretty chuffed for her.

[DeskJockey]

Had the Galaxy in for new tyres and alignment today with my local F1 Auto Centres. They did a great job.

Turns out I'd not measured the remaining tread depth correctly, and there was more life left in the old set. They called me up and offered to store the new set for me while I wore the old ones down a bit more. The alignment required the use of a lot of force and some application of heat to free up a couple of nuts. When compared to another chain I used last time that involved me having to complain to the manager to get them to actually try, it was a nice experience.

Would recommend!

So that turned out a bit interesting. Went back today to get them to check the alignment as requested and asked for the guy that helped last time. "He's not worked here for some time" said the (as I found out) regional manager. I explained what happened last time and this eyebrows went further and further up with a very surprised look on his face. The whole "storing for customers" isn't something they do.

My immediate concern was that the tyres were gone, but luckily they were there, so all is well.

[Jobbo]

Nipped home early because the buyer for the Yeti through Motorway asked if they could collect this afternoon. As I headed down the M5 past Worcester, I encountered a police rolling road block moving at about 15-20mph. Unlike the last time this happened to me about 4 years ago it didn't come to a complete stop and I wasn't right at the front, but when the police pulled over it was obvious there would be a nice clear section ahead (J7-J8 is a good few miles).

So, somebody who was driving my Audi discovered that the speed limiter does not kick in at 155. Having ascertained this, the driver elected not to keep accelerating once he or she had reached 160 because it was far too undramatic and that was plenty, thank you. Think it's decently run in now (just passed 4000 miles).

[DeskJockey]

I'm hoping you gave that certain someone a stern talking to about their road manners.

[Jobbo]

Oh yes

Yeti has departed via Motorway. £294 depreciation over 32,000 miles and 3 years. Not bad. I already miss it; it was a friendly thing, nice to drive and a bit like an old family labrador in character; dependable and happy.

Motorway didn't do a great job though; they showed it on a private plate (we'd already taken that off and got the V5C with the original plate back some weeks ago), no service history because it was mostly with Skoda and on their system rather than in a service book, and didn't tell the buying dealer that it had some finance outstanding (!) Good job I'm honest. I hadn't repaid it myself because I wasn't sure how long it would take to show as clear on the HPI register...

[Jobbo]

Those are the temporary wheels while you wait for the correct ones to arrive, right?

Funnily enough, I have a few sets of alloys in my eBay watchlist. I know which I want (20” ones, so downsizing) but it turns out you cannot get all-season tyres for them and there are only about 3 winter tyre choices, only one of which is Porsche N-rated. So I’m undecided as yet.

Found a nice set of 20"s which are on virtually new Pirellit Scorpion Verde all-seasons in proper N-rated spec, dated late 2021/early 2022.

Going to be a fucker when we wear them out because currently you can't get these tyres any more; I imagine Pirelli will make a new batch at some point...

[Mito Man]

How fucking useless are insurance companies? So I looked online and found about 4 different insurers cheaper than my renewal which crucially had protected NCD which I forgot to select last time. So can I cancel the automatic renewal? Well Sheilas' Tw@ts say you can easily cancel it at any time online or by calling. The online function doesn't work.

Call the number, robot thing asks a bunch of security questions which I end up doing the talking extremely slowly and shouting so it can understand. Then after 5 minutes connects to a call centre in India with the worst phone line ever. Asks me the same fucking questions. Eventually tells me they will cancel the automatic renewal but they must refund me 79p or something because apparently I paid that to have it automatically renew
I ask if they can just keep the 79p as my card details have changed and I frankly can't be asked to spend another few minutes shouting numbers down the line and trying to decipher this person's accent. Nope company policy.

Fuck me, third time of repeating the numbers the line cuts out. I can't fucking bring myself to go through this process again

[Jobbo]

I've not bothered with protected NCB for a while. You still have to disclose a claim and if you have full NCB on another car, just switch them round to get the best deal if necessary.

[jamcg]

Hastings tried to add £200 to my policy this renewal. I got it cheaper than I was currently paying with Aviva, and they seem confused as to why I didn’t give them an opportunity to give me their “best price”

-shouldn’t you give me your best price anyway?
-We can’t give everyone their best price because it’s computer generated and we can’t tailor every policy
-pretty sure confused.com quotes are computer generated with all the info you hold on me and my car, perhaps you should call them and ask for help

[GG.]

I’m playing my tiniest violin

RR insurance just renewed this week. I have asked the nice man at Porsche what he’d offer for it as a trade in on a Cayenne - no response just yet.

I felt a pang of guilt even thinking about it when I took this shot the other day given how good it looks (in its natural habitat on a prep school sports field )

[Mito Man]

It's the needless waste of time which is most frustrating and can simply be solved with a button online to cancel automatic renewals. But our insurance industry is designed and allowed to be difficult and misleading. Think of the colossal waste of resources when this is multiplied by millions of people per year!

[Mito Man]

And yeah. That Q7 and Cayenne don't look quite at home on a field as the RR does.

[Jobbo]

Fabia does though.

[mik]

It's the needless waste of time which is most frustrating and can simply be solved with a button online to cancel automatic renewals. But our insurance industry is designed and allowed to be difficult and misleading. Think of the colossal waste of resources when this is multiplied by millions of people per year!

They aren’t allowed to auto-renew unless you agree to it at the time.

[Mito Man]

It's the needless waste of time which is most frustrating and can simply be solved with a button online to cancel automatic renewals. But our insurance industry is designed and allowed to be difficult and misleading. Think of the colossal waste of resources when this is multiplied by millions of people per year!

They aren’t allowed to auto-renew unless you agree to it at the time.

You can’t take out a policy unless you agree to auto renew as it’s just part of the small print.

[Jobbo]

Insurers say it's to protect you now there is continuous insurance enforcement.