The time came

Oh goodie, there's nothing I love more than multi-quotes :D

[TW]Fox;18981024 said:
Dartmoor. It's known for its lack of B roads and smooth, race track style tarmac.

Oh wait.
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Yes, a quality connoisseur like yourself found the little hard Clio no problem? It's amusing really, almost as funny as the guy who thinks a Clio is a better place to be/more comfortable than a Mondeo.

[TW]Fox;18981024 said:
You told us on numerous occasions you wanted just that - purely a toy. It's why you rejected a lot of the softer suggestions people made and why you categorically stated at one point some old Civic was the best car ever for you.
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It is really, but as I've said already, one still needs to get around.


[TW]Fox;18981024 said:
No, YOU made it sound like you did in your previous threads. I guess it was inevitable that the truth would end up being that actually the Focus isnt even yours, it belongs to your girlfriend :p
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No I didn't and no it doesn't. I stated I had the Focus for sensible family stuff.

[TW]Fox;18981024 said:
I think you beleive you can get away with pretending that the IOW is some sort of little bubble that is completely different to the UK, whilst forgetting that, well, it isn't. You don't live on Jersey.
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If you bothered to look it up (which you probably have - I even supplied some information for you, but you'll continue to act dumb again), you'd see that the Isle of Wight is plagued with particularly bad roads, and this is one of the biggest gripes where tourism is concerned - oh look, people from the mainland complain about the crap roads?
 
Ooh, as another break from the arguing, an even better picture has surfaced - this makes me smile :)

IMG_2227.jpg
 
MikeHiow said:
The trouble is, for the money spent doing that, I could just buy an RX8.
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Here's something I personally don't understand.

You don't like the harsh ride and generally uncomfortableness of a hot French hatchback. I've been there. But why are you going to replace it with a RX8? A car that has a notorious reputation of needing to have the nuts revved clean off them for them to actually make any progress. And firm suspension, bucket type seats and 18 inch wheel wrapped in low profile tyres. Hmmm, sounds comforty! :o

Before you rush off and buy another car take this as an opportunity to really, really evaluate what you want from a car. You generally can't mix 'mega fun B road eater' and 'Really nice and comfortable to drive normally on bad roads'. Certainly not at this sort of budget. Many have tried, many have claimed to strike the right balance but very, very few of those people will have hand on heart not compromised something (usually comfort).

I'm sure you're going to rush in and say that you test drove a RX8 before and found it miles better than the clio, and it's just what you're looking for and whatever. But I don't think that is true because if it was you would have stepped out of that clio on the test drive and thought 'It's good, but the RX8 is better. I'm going to hold out for one of those instead'.

Stop rushing into things and have a think. Can't you see just how ridiculous things have gotten when you buy a car that matches the brief you've had for nearly a year but end up wanting to sell it after just 7 weeks of ownership?

An example of rushing things is that nasty banana Honda civic you wanted. There isn't a doubt in my mind that it WOULD have been worse than the Clio in the ride quality department, but you were willing to rush straight into a deal with it, without logging any time behind the wheel (Not that your test drives seem to tell you much because you still went ahead and bought the Clio despite hating it just a few weeks later, but that's another debate). What would have happened then? You'd be lumped with a difficult to sell bright yellow Honda civic that owned you twice the amount of money this clio owes you. You dodged a banana bullet there. At least appreciate it.

I'm not sure if you've got anything planned today or if it is sunny, but if it's a No to the first question and a yes to the second one i want you to step away from the keyboard, get your car keys and go for a proper drive and have a proper, proper think in the process. If you come back with a smile on your face then that's your answer right there, keep the clio. If you come back thinking 'Ahh, my back!' it might be time to start considering a different type of car altogether :)
 
Comfort is second to compliance, which is my biggest gripe with the Clio and I've repeated this several times already.

The RX8 is really quite comfortable (relatively!) in my mind, even on the slightly lower and stiffer Prodrive suspension, but it's winning point is the drive - you can go fast without getting thrown around or chucked out of your seat, you can just cruise (it does still move at lower revs, in fact it's much like the Clio in the power delivery department).

I think half the issue with the Clio is if feel like driving a lowered car - you all must have done it at some point, taken some standard non-sporty suspension and had silly lowering springs on it? Well, I haven't, but I've driven a few and the bump steer and general non compliant drive is just like that! Perhaps it's just lack of travel (the VXR suffered slightly from this issue), I don't know.
 
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MikeHiow said:
Oh goodie, there's nothing I love more than multi-quotes :D
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Multi-quotes are fantastic :D

Yes, a quality connoisseur like yourself found the little hard Clio no problem?
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I didn't find it excessively hard, no. But then I don't waft around on air suspension in mine do I? I have 35 profile tyres and sports suspension and I've recently been test driving cars with 30 profile tyres, runflats and sports suspension - harsh suspension is something you very much get used to when you choose more 'sporting' cars.

The suspension on the Clio did not stand out as being unacceptable - infact, actually, it was pretty compliant.

If you want an example of a car whose suspension compliance does ruin the experience on B roads, then take a Z4 3.0i out with the sport suspension. This thing is so uncompliant that you have to throttle back because it literally bounces its away from one imperfection to the rest. Much better without the RFT's but still less than ideal.

The Clio was better, in that respect, infact.

It's amusing really, almost as funny as the guy who thinks a Clio is a better place to be/more comfortable than a Mondeo.
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I've ignored that, to be fair.

It is really, but as I've said already, one still needs to get around.
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And, lets be fair, given the advantages it holds in the 'sporting' side of things you apparently crave, it isnt exactly a hardship to do the odd trip across the island in a Clio is it? It's not exactly an Elise?

If you bothered to look it up (which you probably have - I even supplied some information for you, but you'll continue to act dumb again), you'd see that the Isle of Wight is plagued with particularly bad roads, and this is one of the biggest gripes where tourism is concerned - oh look, people from the mainland complain about the crap roads?
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Your 'evidence' claims that the IOW has fallen below the bottom quartile for road condition. This is something i'm happy to accept - note I've said the roads in the IOW are infact race track quality surfaces.

But there will, by the very nature of the statistic, by other areas whose roads have also fallen below this indicator as well. Who knows - they could be areas we live.
 
MikeHiow said:
Comfort is second to compliance, which is my biggest gripe with the Clio and I've repeated this several times already.

The RX8 is really quite comfortable (relatively!) in my mind, even on the slightly lower and stiffer Prodrive suspension, but it's winning point is the drive - you can go fast without getting thrown around or chucked out of your seat, you can just cruise (it does still move at lower revs, in fact it's much like the Clio in the power delivery department).

I think half the issue with the Clio is if feel like driving a lowered car - you all must have done it at some point, taken some standard non-sporty suspension and had silly lowering springs on it? Well, I haven't, but I've driven a few and the bump steer and general non compliant drive is just like that! Perhaps it's just lack of travel (the VXR suffered slightly from this issue), I don't know.
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Mike, I've said my piece. I think I'm going to stick on the sidelines from now on because there really isn't much more to say without going around and around in circles and bursting a few blood vessels in the process.

Make your decision and good luck with it but I think you're making a mistake :).
 
He's not going to buy an RX8, he just needs to exit from the Clio for reasons he isn't prepared to share with us, so he's invented a cover story in the way he usually does.

I think its been a few months now since he had the redundancy thing so it's probably that - for anyone else a completely normal thing to do would be to get rid of the sporty car, but no, Mike needs to make a big deal out of it. Which means instead of people wishing him well for the future, we get another 15 page epic as we try and work out whats really going on.
 
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[TW]Fox;18981114 said:
Multi-quotes are fantastic :D



I didn't find it excessively hard, no. But then I don't waft around on air suspension in mine do I? I have 35 profile tyres and sports suspension and I've recently been test driving cars with 30 profile tyres, runflats and sports suspension - harsh suspension is something you very much get used to when you choose more 'sporting' cars.

The suspension on the Clio did not stand out as being unacceptable - infact, actually, it was pretty compliant.

If you want an example of a car whose suspension compliance does ruin the experience on B roads, then take a Z4 3.0i out with the sport suspension. This thing is so uncompliant that you have to throttle back because it literally bounces its away from one imperfection to the rest. Much better without the RFT's but still less than ideal.
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Well this is the thing, it's not like I don't have a good range of cars to compare my experience to over the very same roads.

For example, the road this was taken on was fun in the ST, but really hard work in the Clio. It has since been resurfaced, and this is the road that makes me doubt my decision to sell, the Clio is absolutely fantastic on a good surface.

By contrast, the Military Road mentioned earlier is a very fast road, well over three figures (in leptons, obviously) is easily achievable for much of it on a quiet night/very early Sunday morning even in the VXR, yet in the Clio I crap myself anywhere approaching those three figures.


[TW]Fox;18981114 said:
And, lets be fair, given the advantages it holds in the 'sporting' side of things you apparently crave, it isnt exactly a hardship to do the odd trip across the island in a Clio is it? It's not exactly an Elise?
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It isn't too much, which is why I'm not dead set on, or rushing to sell the Clio, but I could do better for not much more money.

[TW]Fox;18981114 said:
Your 'evidence' claims that the IOW has fallen below the bottom quartile for road condition. This is something i'm happy to accept - note I've said the roads in the IOW are infact race track quality surfaces.

But there will, by the very nature of the statistic, by other areas whose roads have also fallen below this indicator as well. Who knows - they could be areas we live.
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Of course, but the chances are that there aren't any/many, but it supports my mention of our roads being particularly terrible, and most likely worse than most on here experience regularly.

[TW]Fox;18981151 said:
He's not going to buy an RX8, he just needs to exit from the Clio for reasons he isn't prepared to share with us, so he's invented a cover story in the way he usually does.

I think its been a few months now since he had the redundancy thing so it's probably that - for anyone else a completely normal thing to do would be to get rid of the sporty car, but no, Mike needs to make a big deal out of it. Which means instead of people wishing him well for the future, we get another 15 page epic as we try and work out whats really going on.
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There is no ulterior motive, I have been working self-employed for a while now and I'm just fine, but I appreciate your concern :P
 
Bloody hell, i come out of my coma and its still raging, outstanding :D
 
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