writeoff

I didn't forget. I assumed he had those already. These are items that should be in your armoury at all times! No I not. The guy asked for guidance. You felt the need to point out the mistake. I believe he would have realised that on his own.

Ruby I've been meaning to join up but I will only do it on one condition - that you change your avatar. I'm sooooooooo sick of having to see a male groin thrust in my face. Use scandy's avatar as an example of what I'd prefer to see. I wouldn't be able to attend Monday meetings as I play indoor soccer on Monday nights.

I'm happy with my time slot. Does that mean that I don't HAVE to be there before 9am? Especially if I pay beforehand?

Not very helpful for a guy who's just been in a crash, been injured and had his car written off. Poor form dude. Mark may be young, he may have a bad driving history, he may never have had insurance before and have a really low rating, he may be tight on $ - there are heaps of reasons why people don't have insurance. It's a gamble and it was his choice to make not yours to judge. FFS the guys had a pretty rough week. Mark - if you can provide as many receipts as possible to the other guy's insurance company this will help increase the value of your car. You should provide them with a full list of the modifications and the current price of these mods from a place like Just Jap etc. The more evidence you can provide that would increase the value of your car the better. I also forgot to mention that you are allowed to remove personal belongings from your car. Take a tool set and get busy if you want to grab some of your mods.

Hi Mark, Sorry to hear about your crash mate and I hope you pull up okay with your neck and back. I unfortunately have been involved in many crashes, 4 of which I've been injured in and 3 where the car I was driving was written off. In your post you didn't mention whether your car was insured and if so who it's insured through and whether that is for an agreed amount or market value and whether you have any rights/claims on the wreckage. 1. You need to have reported the accident to the police to get an accident number, I'm assuming this happened at the crash site, but it will be a small blue card. 2. You need to fill out a claims form for your insurance company. 3. You need to fill out a claims form for Compulsory Third Party Injury. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! The injuries you have sustain may effect you long term. 4. Find out where the car is and go there and take heaps photos (I'm assuming that the cops called tow trucks to move the vehicles involved). 5. Remove your registration disc and get a form from Transport SA to get a refund back on the unused time remaining. You may need to get the form signed by a JP. 6. Your insurance company will send out an assessor to determine if the car is indeed a complete write off. If that is the case then they will settle your claim and begin a claim against the other driver's insurance company. This can take years if fault is being disputed but you should have your payout (for the car) within a month. 7. If the car is a complete write off then you have to negotiate with your insurance company to buy the wreckage back if you want to remove parts. 8. If the insurance company denies you that option then you need to find out when the car will go up for auction and bid on it. That is all off of the top of my head at 4:22am in the morning so I apologise if anything is inaccurate.

Deposit paid.

So when can we see this application John? I did one as well but watched it back and it was so shit I bored myself. Needless to say I never sent it in. Kudos to you for actually applying for what I considered to be my 'dream' job. Now that I've seen the actual show I'm glad I never applied. A poor imitation of the UK show. Hopefully it will improve - the UK one was pretty crap for the first few seasons. About the only positive thing I can say about Top Gear Australia is that at least the cars are stated in AUD, kW, kmph, kg and Nm.

Put me down for it. Might need to buy my own helmet before hand. The ones there were a little rank last time. At least I have a small head and the small ones seemed to get used less often.

I disagree with you there. Do a search in the Forced Induction section on rebuilds or blown turbos, they are numerous. Dohmar is a classic example of someone who has not had any serious trouble with his GTR yet still has spent a fair bit of money on it without really modifying it. I've owned 2 R32 GTRs, I've had an R33 GTR at my house for over a year and I have a lot of friends with GTRs. I stand by my earlier statement - GTRs EAT $. As for rust on GTRs you need to look in the wheel arches and under the car but I believe rust is less common than the faults I listed earlier. Weezy - you've only had your car for 4 months. I've owned mine since April 2004. Come speak to me in 5 years time if you still have the GTR and we can discuss problems in more detail. However I hope your luck continues and you have many years of problem free GTR ownership. I'm not trying to scare people away but I think too many people can afford to buy GTRs now-a-days and too few can afford to maintain them properly. Most new buyers seem unaware of the costs involved if something does go wrong.

Why? So you could stress about the oil pick up design fault, the ceramic turbos that are 20 years old, a gearbox that is probably losing 4th or the internals that may go bang on a proper launch? If I had my time again and was buying an R32 GTR again I would buy one that looks stock but has steel wheeled ball bearing turbos, forged internals and corrected the oil problem. As for the OP - without knowing the exact prices of these things I would go the most modern car that you can - either a R34 GTT or the V35. Potentially way less things to fix in the short term and at a much lower cost than a GTR or RX7. Remember kiddies - GTRs EAT $. Seriously! Think of them as a Pac Man eating your payslips. That is reality. Ask the many GTR owners on this forum. They will, or previous owners would have, sunk lots of $ into their cars. Either that or they are doing cheaper, short cut, temporary repairs that are less than ideal and will likely create more problems at some stage in the future.

Clearly the driver was following the white arrow painted on the road (right lane on the left hand side of the road). They just failed to realise there was another one just ahead.

I'm keen. My GTR is only driving the rear wheels atm and also feels ~200rwkW instead of ~350rwkW. Hope fully I'll have it all sussed by 15 August in time for Mallala on the 25th. Do R32 GTRs have to pay the extra $ considering we can just remove the fuse prior to the event and there is no need to drop the front driveshaft?

Ruby please change your avatar. I'm soooo sick of that homo comic male thrusting his groin on my screen that I skip all your posts and the ones directly above and below it. It's worse than the blue mesh... at least I don't see that in my own home.

I'll have one of these please! http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...bayphotohosting

Deposit paid today. Looking forward to it! Don't know whether I'll be in the ~350rwkW R32 GTR or the ~62fwkW Peugeot 205 GTI. Bit of a difference between the cars but it will be fun no matter what I'm driving.

Huh?With my injuries the only golf I can play is mini. Carts for me.

Definitely interested but don't know if I'll have my GTR back by then. I could always take my Peugeot 205 GTI as a back up.

Spotted a silver R34 GTT 4 door with a GTR badge on the back last night on South Road O'Halloran Hill ~7:30pm. If you're on here get rid of the GTR badge. You have enough stickers etc on the back of your car already and even if you have an RB26DETT under the bonnet (which I doubt by the sound of it) it's NOT a GTR!

I just had a phone call from the insurance assessor who had never contacted me previously. He wants to come and see the car and look at some of these faults next Wednesday. It means another week of inactivity but at least it appears that someone is listening to my complaints. Now I have to draft a letter to the organisations that link their name to the crash repair workshop. This is not a small back yard repairer. They have been in the industry for over 25 years and have a large workshop and the latest equipment. It was because the repairer is RAA, SGIC, CGU, Volvo & Lexus approved and has won multiple industry awards for quality of work and customer service that I went there in the first place. I feel justified in letting these places know about the quality of work and customer service that I received and hope that no-one else has to go through the same ordeal. Perhaps some of the insurance companies will re-evaluate their recommendation.

So are any of you guys playing Dream Team or Super Coach? I tried to get a SAUSA league last season but only had a few people interested. This year I entered in the BigFooty division 2 leagues but am doing shite in both - too many injuries to my squad. As for tipping I'm on 50/72 - not too bad but well down from the leaders.

Today I wrote an email to the insurance company's National Claims Manager which I have copied and pasted below. Again I have used **** instead of naming the repairer and used [ ] where I have made edits. "[insurer] Motor Vehicle Insurance National Claims Manager RE: Claim #xxxxxxxxx Nissan Skyline R32 GTR Hi [name], [Editted - unrelated to this claim] Last Thursday I settled my account at **** and finally collected my Nissan Skyline R32 GTR. From there I drove it straight to Manta Racing in Richmond for an inspection and change of oils and filters. On Friday afternoon I settled the account with Manta and finally took possession of my vehicle. However it is far from finished! Steve Cramp from Manta went over the work performed by **** and completed a report listing 16 faults. I have included a scan of this report and have listed them below: (Please note that I have reordered them so that relating items follow each other) [Editted - see my post #40 on page 2 of this thread for the list] To these I would add: 17. Despite the a/c & heater being switched off hot air is blowing into the cabin at all times. 18. The front headlights do not line up evenly with each other or the bonnet. 19. The rear right guard is slightly bent just above the tail-light. 20. The rear right wheel guard rubs on the new Kumho tyres when driving over mild bumps in the road and is already doing damage to the tyre. The front right wheel guard also rubs against the tyre but does not appear to be doing any damage at this point in time. Please note that I do not hold **** responsible for this as I was unaware that my previous guards had been rolled. I have attached some photos displaying some of these faults. After a discussion with Steve he stated that Manta can fix faults 1 – 13 and 16 & 17. Faults 14, 15, 18 & 19 would need to be corrected by a crash repairer and fault 20 I can have corrected by the Mag Wheel & Tyre Centre for $92.50 per wheel. http://www.mwtc.com.au/ I have completely lost faith in ****. Their lack of professionalism is evident by them being unable to find second hand Skyline parts and BBS wheels despite them being in the industry for 25 years. I found this information by looking in the Yellow Pages and using Google. They also failed to meet 5 deadlines which they set. Their customer service has been appalling as evident by their refusal to respond to my repeated requests for them to acknowledge my emails, contact me and update me on the progress of my car. The quality of their work is substandard as evident by the numerous faults listed above – especially numbers 1 & 10 which could have resulted in a serious accident if the wheel had come off and caused further injury to myself, other motorists and more claims for [insurer] to deal with. Shortly after the accident occurred in June, 2008, [insurer] gave me the name of a repairer in Port Adelaide that is familiar with Nissan Skylines. I did not contact the repairer at the time due to the distance from my home which I now regret. I would be much more comfortable for the remaining repairs to take place there and have no further involvement with ****. I sincerely hope these faults can be corrected as soon as possible and I can once again enjoy driving the car I had dreamed of owning since 1991. Kind regards. David"

None of the problems were paint related. 1. No front intrusion bar fitted. 2. No engine under tray fitted. 3. Front brake ducts secured with cable ties. 4. Brake ducts missing screws and screws mismatched. 5. Poorly manufactured intercooler brackets. 6. Intercooler clamps poorly fitted & 1 hose clamp needs replacing. 7. Front bumper poorly grafted around intercooler. 8. Left fog light not working. 9. 2 wheel nuts missing from front wheels. 10. Rear right wheel nuts loose - 2 only finger tight & 1 held on by only half a thread! 11. Bonnet latch not adjusted correctly. 12. Rear muffler missing 1 support rubber. 13. Rear of centre muffler split. 14. Side skirts secure with silicon. 15. Left hand inner sill panel damaged and bent. 16. Vehicle not clean around engine bay or underside of vehicle after body repairs. It was covered in fine particles from being left uncovered in the paint room for months. To these I would add that despite the a/c & heater being switched off hot air was blowing into the cabin at all times.

Well the car is finally in my drive way - although it has to go back to the repairer and back to Manta for further work. Steve from Manta went over the car today and discovered 16 items that the repairer failed to fix/fit properly! So now the process starts again. Oh what joy...

When comparing girlfriends and cars it should not just be about $ - otherwise we should be comparing hookers and cars. There is also the smile per mile and the cringe per winge measurements to be included. Everytime something goes wrong with your car - ie a winge - how much does this cost in $, deprivation of smiles and emotional damage? Everytime your girlfriend is unhappy and lets you know it what is the total cost in $, deprivation of smiles and emotional damage? Whenever your car is running perfectly and just purring along how happy does this make you feel? Likewise whenever your girlfriend is happy how much of this gets passed on to you and plant a smile on your face? I haven't worked out the formula yet but I will get back to you after consultation with a mathematician, a mechanic, a sex therapist, a psychologist, my GTR and my ex. It already sounds like a complicated formula.

I don't have the car back yet. I have to settle the account before they will release the car. The alternator died on my Peugeot last Wednesday and is getting a new one today. I will collect the GTR on Thursday, drop it off at Manta for the inspection and service, and then collect the Peugeot from the auto-electrician. Assuming that Manta find nothing significant and just change the fluids and filters then I will hopefully be able to collect the GTR on Friday evening and have it for the weekend. The final part of the saga will then be to try and get the insurance company to cover the costs incurred at Manta. I'll have to wait and see how that pans out but they (the insurer) already have the quote from Manta. Fingers crossed it all goes well.