Safe Speed Forums

Alfa has nothing added apart from scratches and dints. TVR has a TVRCC, Pistonheads and Backhome 06 stickers.

Stackmonkey, are you going to London on Sunday for the TVR London Rally - 400+ Gas guzzling TVR's all heading in central london and not having to pay the congestion charge.

How about these two I snapped in Chicago last week?

http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y111/g ... W_5898.jpg
http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y111/g ... W_5968.jpg

Or if combined with Japanese sized number plates it becomes completely meaningless. Clear glass is an optional extra over there.

Variations on the "baby on board" sticker, particular "babe on board" or "princess on board" - Take the bad driving of the baby on board sticker and multiply by the annoyingness of the variation in use. Additionally multiply by 1.5 if pink instead of yellow. (note that this can result in a reduction in some cases, eg. "This is a stupid yellow sign" results in a negative score and therefore a good driver.

The "shopping list" of tuning companies is another debatable one. You need to establish if it's likely that the car actually has worthwhile components from those companies fitted, and then decide if it's a genunine performance car, a ricer or a chav. That list is in descending order of quality of driver. Whilst I think ricer cars are stupid, they are generally driven fairly well so each to their own tastes.

WTF is a "ricer"?

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"Politicians are the same the world over... We build bridges where there aren't any rivers." - Nikita Kruschev

It's an american term that's in common use over here now.

It refers to a certain style of modifying cars, usually Japanese hence the name, though it is no-longer considered a term specific to cars from the far east, to make them look faster than they are, or the ill advised fitting of mods that are common on genuine modified japanese performance cars.

The most common example of a ricer mod is fitting a vent to atmosphere dump valve to an Impreza without changing anything else. This actually hurts performance as the Impreza uses a recirculating dump valve and now you are getting the wrong MAF readings and running rich. Cold Air Intakes that are fitted really low down and collect water are another example. As are cut springs to lower the car cheaply at the expense of handling.

If you see a Honda Civic that is painted up like a D1 car with a huge 5" slash-cut "jap style" exhaust then it's probably a ricer. Unless of course they've also converted it to RWD and improved the engine.

There is a fine line between the two, and it's hard to define, especially with the current trend of fitting "jap style" side skirts to Citroen Saxos.

It's as much to do with the driver's reasons for fitting the mods as the mods themselves.

In my experience, ricers tend to be better drivers.

Quite the opposite, in our case.

SWMBO's car came with a built in DVD player in the roof - fold down screen. When the kids are at their most unhappy, putting the DVD on gives them something to do so they are less likely to be screaming and moaning - less distraction potential for the driver.

I've described an in car DVD as the "bearable" switch for long journeys with kids.

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

I've actually just traded my Cougar for a MX-5 for my wife.

The Cougar had the orange Ford side repeaters replaced with clear ones (I hate random isolated blobs of colour on cars), had the Ford badges replaced with black and silver badges with the Mercury Cougar head logo on them. The lettering from the bootlid was removed and the V6 badges were removed.

It was lowered a tad on stiffer springs and had 18 inch 5 spoke alloys instead of 16's. It made the car much more rewarding to drive, although I admit I didn't enjoy potholes much.

The only other thing I had on show to the outside world was a pair of stickers saying "Ford Cougar Owners' Club - www.ukcougar.com" in white lettering, about 6 inches by 1 inch fitted at the bottom of each quarter light window.


I have no idea what that says about me:

Maybe I liked the impression of the car but didn't like cheap parts bin details, and wanted more people with Cougars to read the sticker and join the club to avoid paying rediculous dealer prices for maintenance

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i came across one of them the other day. instead of 'babe on board', there was a sticker on the back bumper reading 'queen of the road'

the driver was male! make of it what you will

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Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

woohoo, I'm not alone

my wife says I'm a sad old git for doing this!

Snert

There is a (oldish) BMW convertable in Southend (suprise, suprise) with the word Babe cunningly placed in the number plate. I'm looking forward to the day when I can leave a not that says "Babe huh? I'll be the judge of that!"

In my village there is an old Corsa that has a pink interier and a BIG pink lipstick mark on the drivers door. The driver appears to be a 30 something and looks like she wishes she was 18 again.

There are no additions or accesories on my car, I don't like to attract any attention. I did pull the dealers sticker off my old Golf after I encountered what VW passed as "service", but Honda have been good so their sticker stays.

Any car I see with "decorations" gets a wide berth. Particular causes for concern are under sill lighting and those stupid washer nozzle neons. Noisy exausts get alarm bells sounding too, which also applies to bikes.

Does it look like this?
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/prof ... 6&t=320230

If so you may have "outed" a PH troll!

naar, but very similar. The car is older and is probably not long for this earth. The kiss is the same but at 45 degrees. Could they be related?

I've done this on every car I own, even if it did take about 2 hours on my first car!

Those things irritate the hell out of me. Also never buy a car from People's in the north west. They actually stick a metal badge to the bodywork. No thanks.

so do i. i bought the car but i never signed anything to say i would advertise them

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Richie

SSAFA supporter
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126025031585

How do you get the sticker off with out causing damge to the heating element in the rear window?

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Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

I've removed loads without problems. As far as I recall they were all below the heating elements.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

My car is hatchback and the sticker is below the centre brake light, and the bottom right coner goes over the element. I have wanted to remove it, but more worried about damaging the element

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Oct 11 Birmingham Half Marathon. I am running for the British Heart Foundation.
http://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Taylor

Makes sense. Try lighter petrol to soften the glue - usually works.

If you start peeling at the top edge, you can drip the fluid between sticker and glass.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

I thought the heater elements were now pretty much always encapsulated by glass?

[edit to add link]Pilkington Automotive Products

I recalled way back when I worked at Pilkingtons, they were able to produce heated (and included aerials) on the line, so it wasn't a covering or stuck on glas but embedded / encapsulated.

Still not 100% sure, certainly that's what I thought.

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COAST Not just somewhere to keep a beach.

A young loner on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless, the powerless, in a world of criminals who operate above the law.

LOL! I wish they had had stuff like that when I was a kid. My siblings and I had to make do with playing "I Spy" and travel Monopoly!




He was probably just driving his girlfriend's car, but I still would have laughed at him!!




Peel off the plastic, then use Autoglym Intensive tar remover to get rid of the glue - it comes off like magic.

This stuff is also useful for removing tar, apparently.

You could use petrol instead, but the autoglym stuff smells far nicer.

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“For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken