Having dirty thoughts about getting rid of Lizzy

mattpc said:
Thing is with insurance you can often get it much cheaper if you have a classic/enthusiast/limited policy for your looney car. If he didn't use the Elise for work I bet with careful phoneing around he could get a much cheaper policy for it. The workhorse could surely then be insured on a 3rd party policy blah blah blah
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That's what I did when I was living and working in Cambridge. The issue I have now is that I very often leave the house 3am Monday morning, drive to Heathrow, jump on a plane and land back in the UK on Friday evening getting home around midnight. This means that all the stuff that I'd normally do during the week like sleeping, seeing my GF/friends, doing washing, keeping the house in order I have to do on the weekend. The end result is that if I had the Elise as a 2nd car I would probably drive it in anger once a month probably costing me £100/blast. Now while the car is good it's not that good especially when I am trying to save money for a house at the same time.

I REALLY don't want to sell my Elise as I am totally in love with her but the simple fact is that for the journeys that I do at the moment she really isn't a suitable car. To give an example I am driving to our Belgian office tomorrow which is about a 280mile trip, all motorway. I will enjoy the drive because I will be spending time in my Elise but it is a complete waste of a fantastic sports car and something like a BMW 740i would allow me arrive relaxed, not covered in sweat and half deaf :D
 
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The S1 Elise is pretty bad for comfort. Why not upgrade to a fairly new S2 with all the touring/sound deadening packs? :)
 
mattpc said:
You can't possibly tell me that you can't buy a car for £1000 or less that is a great motorway cruiser?
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my hundred-pound car will cruise happily on the motorway. but that isnt what the OP wants.

i'm just trying to suggest that a lot of the arguments here are a bit misplaced - surely if most of your driving is motorway, your "best" car should be for that?
 
NathanE said:
The S1 Elise is pretty bad for comfort. Why not upgrade to a fairly new S2 with all the touring/sound deadening packs? :)
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Didn't you notice that I said I had a GF, not a BF :p


I actually find driving my Elise pretty comfortable, I can easily drive 250 miles (a tank of petrol) without a break and have done 500 miles in a day without any real hassle. What's starting to bother me is that the Elise in any varient is a pretty hardcore sports car and using a sports car to drive up and down the M11/M25 is just a total waste of a car especially when I don't get to drive it as it should be driven very much anymore :(
 
hmm i see the problem but then again if you find the car comfortable, love it, it's not too bad on fuel etc then why sell? I know it's a waste but if you enjoy the thing then so what?
 
Del Lardo said:
Didn't you notice that I said I had a GF, not a BF :p


I actually find driving my Elise pretty comfortable, I can easily drive 250 miles (a tank of petrol) without a break and have done 500 miles in a day without any real hassle. What's starting to bother me is that the Elise in any varient is a pretty hardcore sports car and using a sports car to drive up and down the M11/M25 is just a total waste of a car especially when I don't get to drive it as it should be driven very much anymore :(
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It's better to waste it than to not have it at all...
 
Muncher said:
It's better to waste it than to not have it at all...
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Not for the amount of money and hassle it's costing me at the moment :mad:


Had a chat with my Dad and a couple of mates during the week and the idea wasn't laughed out the window so I'm going to try and take one out this weekend to see what I think.

Anything in particular I should look for on a 7-series?
 
Del Lardo said:
Anything in particular I should look for on a 7-series?
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Check blower works through full range of options, common faliure.
Check suspension carefully, the V8 engines are heavy and wear the suspension quicker than 6 cylinder models.
Auto gearbox should be smooth and faultless - if its jerky, its broken.
Check for carpet samples in the boot.
Check for missing pixels on the OBC.
 
cdcopyman said:
make sure all cup holders work , front and rear (in rear arm rest) and if your going for a sport , make sure its a gen sport (v5 should say sport)

:D
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Yea, fake Sports are EVERYWHERE, loads of people seem to think a BMW is a Sport if you put the word SPORT on your Autotrader advert or if it has a SPORT GEARBOX (Which, in reality, doesnt exist - just the standard autobox has a Sport mode).

E38 Sport's didn't have a bodykit or anything, so the best way to identify them is that they should be fitted with standard fit 18" Style 37 alloys and should have no orange indicators.
 
[TW]Fox said:
Yea, fake Sports are EVERYWHERE, loads of people seem to think a BMW is a Sport if you put the word SPORT on your Autotrader advert or if it has a SPORT GEARBOX (Which, in reality, doesnt exist - just the standard autobox has a Sport mode).

E38 Sport's didn't have a bodykit or anything, so the best way to identify them is that they should be fitted with standard fit 18" Style 37 alloys and should have no orange indicators.
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My understanding is that on the 'sport' model the gearbox has a shorter final ratio?
 
Del Lardo said:
My understanding is that on the 'sport' model the gearbox has a shorter final ratio?
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AFAIK it's the differential not the gearbox? Either way it doesn't make an awful lot of difference, really.
 
Took a 740 out yesterday and while it wasn't a particulary good example I did enjoy driving it, silky smooth ride whatever the road surface, a nice sound from up front but there was one rather major problem. My GF played her executive veto card as she hated it even though she couldn't actually provide any reasons why :rolleyes: If I'm being brutally honest given the potential for something to go wrong I'm not sure if buying one would have been a good idea but it was good to drive one and get it out of my system.

I'm now not really sure what to do. I've come to the conclusion that keeping my Elise just isn't an option for the type of journeys that I am doing and if I want to get on the property ladder. It's a rather sad realisation that right now that is where I think my priorities lie :(

I had a very brief look on autotrader yesterday evening and I'm starting to think that an OcUK favorite in the form of a Mondeo could be my best option. Budget would be upto £4k as this would give me ~£6k to pay off debts and stick in a deposit account. Seems like I could pick up a high spec mkIII V6 for budget so what should I look for and are there any alternatives????
 
Del Lardo said:
You seem to be forgetting womens other power of executive veto ;)
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I guess this is a fair point to some extent. All depends on the ladies taste on cars. Some action between the sheets would not, for example, be justification for spending any amount of time stuck in one of those pink Nissan Micras with no roof.

Muncher said:
Yeah, but have you seen his Missus???
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I'd need a picture to be certain of the validity of this claim... :p
 
Muncher said:
Yeah, but have you seen his Missus??? ;)
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Ah forgot that you met her briefly at the Thurrock services before the LoT Brands Hatch event.

I'd love to post up a picture for all to see but the only ones I seem to have handy would get me a life long ban from OcUK :p
 
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