scathing

I've found Meguiars' Bug and Tar Remover to work wonders on this type of adhesive.

If its populated by NS.com people, I wouldn't go there for serious advice on anything other than candy paint, neons, street racing, or how to misspell words. Really? I thought they were Silvia and Skyline (respectively) based. Its just that all the ns kiddies jumped on the drifting bandwagon a lot harder than most, and ran with it.

A1 GP is a single-make series. Lola makes the chassis and Zytek make the engines.

OK, so what do you guys do to consider yourselves a "team", as opposed to just a "group" or a "club"?

With the right tyre profile you can go lower. People run 9.5 / 10.5 with +22 offsets for the wheels in the stock guards. If you're running an inch narrower wheels, you can afford to drop 5mm off those offsets and still be safe.

I don't know why they bother. Its not like they know how to drive the car the way it was meant to be driven, anyway.

A lot more cops are wired up to record your conversation when they pull you over. They do give you a warning of it. You could conceivably stick a sticker on your car warning them that they're being filmed, like they do with other warning signs.

Queensland wants to stop its P platers from driving Falcodores? That sounds like political suicide.

Public carpark, driveways, etc. Yes, you can get busted for road rule infringements in carparks, or any place not technically on public roads but are used by the roadgoing public.

What about your rims got you done? Its amazing how many cops don't know the law when it comes to rims. I think everyone with big aftermarket wheels should print out the RTA's Vehicle Standards Information #09 - Guidelines for Alternative Wheels and Tyres and leave it in their car. There's no rule about diameter changes, just width and offset, and diameter of the tyre. I quote: Which means you can run an offset 12mm lower than the stock wheel while retaining compliance. (Emphasis added) The VSI's used to say that you can only run tyres 26mm wider than the widest available on the placard too, but it doesn't anymore. You can run 20" rims on your R32 if you want, as long as they're no more than an inch wider than stock and you get tyres with a low enough profile to match the original outside circumference, and as its a "minor change" it does not require registration with the RTA nor an engineer's certificate. Highlight those bits, and make sure you do the calculations on paper to prove your new rolling stock is with 15mm circumference of what's on the placard.

Cops look after their own. Unless the cop does something completely out-of-culture (like interfering with children), it won't matter what the cop does. His colleagues will rally around him since they realise it could be them one day, and "take care of things" in any way they can. If that sounds like something mobsters or gang members do, well, you know.....

I went with a mate to pick up his Polo GTi, after warranty work was done on his gearbox. They were really courteous and attentive, had free coffee available in the waiting room, and knew who he was and what car he was there for without him needing to say anything. The car was ready to go, and they served the prior customers pretty quickly and got his car pretty quickly too. When he called VW up about his gearbox problem, they didn't d1ck him about telling him there was no known issue or that his "hard driving" was causing it, and said they'd have a look to determine if it was the case. Contrast that with my last trip to Nissan for servicing, where I had to wait for ages because they had to "road test" my car half an hour after they called me telling me it was ready to pick up. Asking for a glass of water earned a long stare. I also asked for my backing plates for the rear pads, which I told them on the phone when booking the service and when I got there to drop the car off, which was duly noted on the job sheet....but they'd thrown them out anyway. Don't even start me when I went to see them about the 2003 350Z's known "tyre feathering" and "rear axle clicking" issues.....

Hence why I said "since they require it to be submitted anyway". And counsel means advice, not command. The dealer could go in there with a PSP and play Burnout while Nissan "counsels" them about the final price, then go back out and call the customer a f*&kwit and then tell him insults are a part of the sales process.

Z-Tune. :-)

Its not just that. The insurance company will go after him in court, wins, and gets awarded a bucketload of cash this guy has got no chance of paying off. So he declares bankruptcy, to get out paying the entire debt. Once that's on your record, try getting a business or home loan (especially now that no bank in their right mind would do a subprime home loan), or any loan for that matter. Either you're paying off hundreds of thousands of dollars, or you're never getting a loan again. Some jobs, especially in the financial sector, will also ask you if you've ever declared bankruptcy....and if they're asking, an affirmative response won't go down well. Then there's the issue of being convicted of a crime for injuring someone. If you're driving unlicensed, the DPP or Police are more likely to go after you and have you charged to "make an example of you". Chances are you'll end up on the front page of the newspaper, given our current climate, which means people will know. Get convicted of a criminal offense, and there's something else you need to declare when applying for a job, loan, or a visa to visit another country.

.....lose?

If he's wearing P plates, the cops will pull him over to check his license. Once they work it out, given the negative hoon stigma in the media and law enforcement, they'll ream him. On another note he's driving a car he's not licensed to operated. In case of an accident, he's got no insurance (including CTP). So if he hits someone and puts them in hospital, he may as well declare bankruptcy. Risking financial ruin, and leaving a black mark on your record for the rest of your life, sounds pretty f*cking stupid to me.

The road user's manual also states that it doesn't cover every road rule out there, so just because you didn't cover it on your L's doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I'm pretty sure doing something like that, where you don't have both hands on a vehicle control because you're doing something distracting, would be illegal.

That bit is just bullsh*t. Being a franchise has nothing to do with it. The world's most famous franchise chain, McDonalds, has its menu prices fixed anywhere within its country of operation. It doesn't matter if you're eating in the CBD of Sydney or at a servo in the middle of nowhere, the prices are the same and determined by head office. They control everything the franchisees do, to manage their brand. And, at any rate, there is something Nissan can do to prevent marking up. Sell dealers the cars only when they put the paperwork through (since they require it to be submitted anyway), and if they mark it up heavily then refuse to sell them any more. Its not like there's a shortage of dealers wanting access to the car, so burning one dealer isn't going to mean it won't get sold. That customer will go somewhere else and still buy it, and get it at a lower price. Nissan USA still gets their sale, the customer doesn't get ripped off, the only person who "loses" is a greedy-as-f*&k middleman.

Nissan Australia would probably tell you that you caused the fault and so its not covered under warranty, and try to charge you for fixing it....while still having no idea what's wrong or what they're doing about it.

I didn't even wait that long. I stayed with the stealership for 2 years because of fears of the warranty, but after their constant f**king around I decided that it wasn't worth it.

Some more photos of the Garage Defend car: http://www.gtr.co.uk/forum/upload/93896-ga...gtr-gt-ps3.html

Yeah, right. Because people have never had cops defect them for stuff that's on engineer's certs. And if I'm doing nothing wrong, the principles of a free society is that I shouldn't even get targetted. There used to be a presumption of innocence, not of guilt. Do they enforce "the" rules, or "some" rules? When was the last time you saw someone get booked for not keeping left unless overtaking? When was the last time you saw some pedestrian get pulled up for jaywalking? You get in trouble for driving in a manner dangerous to pedestrians, but pedestrians can walk in a manner dangerous to themselves without repercussion. The law is meant to be consistent, and so therefore should its enforcement.

Most of the Z33 customers I know, even those under warranty, have f*&ked off the stealerships for servicing. With the R35 that's not an option with all the specialised equipment needed. I'd say the GT-R reputation is going to get screwed even further when this car goes on sale. I can't see Nissan changing their stealerships' (lack of) culture in the next year. Carlos Ghosn made a choice to launch the GT-R as a global brand under Nissan, rather than as an Infiniti. Maybe he hasn't realised how bad the Nissan stealer network is in some countries, but its possible that he's screwed the pooch with that choice. They're launching Infiniti in Europe, and there are rumours of the brand re-emerging in Australia, so maybe they could have fast-tracked those launches and had the GT-R launch as the brand's flagship. The Skyline going from Prince to Nissan didn't diminish either nameplate. Shifting the GT-R from Nissan to Infiniti should also have worked.

I once took my own engine oil (Motul 300V Chrono) to Nissan once, for them to put in the car. Given how the oil performed at the end of its life compared to subsequent changes when I watched the guys put it in myself, I'm pretty sure my nice synthetic oil was powering some 1st year apprentice's nugget. When I had the non-Brembos on I was chewing through rear pads at every service interval. I asked them to give me the backing plates so I could get sports pads cut (or at least matched). It took them 2 attempts to follow my repeated instructions, and the second time I told them to go dumpster diving when they told me they'd thrown them away again. I've taken my old man's entry model BMW in for servicing once, and considering that car was cheaper than mine and its not the "halo" model, its another reason why I'll not buy a Japanese car as a sensible vehicle now.