Timmy G

i'm all for power to weight ratio for P platers, but up to 26 is pretty steep. i think it's a good policy and won't cost the govt much to implement. it's very easy for some of you guys to sit back and cry foul and vaguely suggest a magic solution to the problem of young drivers in fast cars doing stupid things, but come up with a real solution and one which won't cost a bucket to implement (like driver training). and also just kept in mind that the daily telegraph is a tabloid and it wants to shock you into buying it so it's probably an exaggeration (i haven't read the article yet).

when i owned my R33 my odo kept playing up - stopping at 49,999 etc. so i'm certain it was wound back but the car didn't have any mechanical problems. i got a new car around this time.. but i was stilll dodgy about that 70km on the clock

i just want to say ben1981 is absoultely correct and is taking a very smart stance on this topic.

it's a disappointing and unfortunate event. i'm sorry for the people involved.

lots more money, but i've give the M5 or the RS6 (and maybe an E55) a go for the family mover

hey franks, i think we are actually agreeing with each other. i've been in a mates 200sx going full bore (harder than i would dare to go), on the edge in every corner and using the whole stretch of road and it's exhilerating, but it's also dangerous (on the road, a lot less so on the track of course). i have faith in my mate's driving, but on a track someone isn't going to walk across the road unexpectidely. so the bottom line for me is that stuff like that might be fun, but it's dangerous. i get a higher fun to danger ratio in my audi than my skyline

franks, i'm sure my skyline would have been more fun on a track, but on the road i still rank my audi better (note the "I" - this is personal preference). the skyline had it in the power department, but when you're going hard in a skyline i think you can safely say you're going at "book me a court appearance" speeds or screeching and sliding around corners. with the awd i can take corners harder and generally stay closer to the speed limit, and it's a different drive. also driving in the wet isn't a dangerous affair, in my skyline with pirelli rubber (225s, rated very well in the wet), i still risked doing 180s around some corners, something *nearly* impossible to do in the audi with quattro and 235 dunlop sport sp9090s and traction control (i'm sure it's possible, but i'm also sure i'll never do it) but this is based on the way i drive. the comparison would not be the same in an R34 which i believe comes standard with TC and a gt-r which is AWD and not RWD.

Autech, Valid points. Just to stand up for "performance cars" which are also family sedans.. 1. For towing a boat, an SS seems like a good *cheap* choice because it has the torque. 2. A lot of people have company cars and budgets can be restricting. You might want a BMW 5 Series, but if your budget is $60k you can only really go for a Calais or something. My friend's dad was in this boat - it was like a BMW 3.18i or a fully specced V6 supercharged Calais (or the equiv Ford). And also, the Calais handles very well. 3. There are performance sedans out there like the BMW M5, Audi RS6 which are considered to be awesome cars on the street and the track. You *can* have a performance car that is a sedan, it's just not traditional. I used to own an R33 GTS-T which was an awesome car, but I have more fun in my turbo Audi A4 (Quattro) which is a sedan.

i'm not really a fan of fords of holdens, but if i had to pick one, ford would probably be it. commodore's (let's leave the fully imported astras, vectras, etc. out of this) are not advanced cars, and until the latest commodore came out with the new engines they had been using very old engines from GM. negative comments from commodore fans about how V8s are the only performance engine are of course going to be biased. ford engines moved away from push rods have had DOHCs for quite a while now (i don't know exactly how long, but obviously longer than holden), and they compete well with the larger and more basic holden engines. but then again, we're all biased. a lot of people here think that skylines are the best car on the planet i think skylines were one of the best japanese performance cars when they were in production, and the R32, 33 and 34 models still compete with the best today, but they aren't the best car on the planet.

buying a car of a boat is an emotional thing to do. cars are liabilities - they cost you money and unless it's something like a ferrari F40 or some limited edition car, it's going to sell for less than you bought it. just keep in mind that when your dad is giving you a lecture, he is doing it from his perspective. he might say buy a good value for money car like a corolla - cheap to run, cheap to insure and relatively in expensive. the decision you need to make (which you have) is that you are happy to forego opportunities the money spent on your skyline would have given you (deposit on a house, etc). i have purchased a relatively expensive car and i don't really own any assets. i have thought about it and chosen to forego owning a property. my main reasoning behind it is that my income will increase significantly over the next 2 years so i will be in a position to more easily afford the car i'm in as well as a property. so i'm sacrificing the capital gain on a property in these two years so i can have the utility of having a nice car now, which in the current sydney market is arguably 0% capital gain, so the net effect for me is not that much. appreciate your dad's point of view, and he will appreciates yours. just agree to disagree about it, but come to the understanding that this is emotional and you wanna have fun in a cool car when you're young.

yeah you have a point. i watch top gear to check out the cars not really for buying opinions.

I like clarkson, he's funny. Anyway, look at Motor/Wheels magazine. They rate Holden Commonwhores and Fords Falcons which SUCK - sorry no apologies for starting this fire! Both cars have good features on paper, but why on earth would you buy one for yourself (fleet cars are okay - you don't always get a choice)?!?!? They are 2/3 the price of an equiv Euro car with similar features but it FALLS APART within a year and just gets worse and worse. My 2c. -Tim

they always pay out on rover, that is english. i have watched a lot of top gear and i've not noticed any british bias. they always treat jap cars as second rate though imo, it's like the "always trying to live up to the big european brother" type syndrome.

hey mcdare, some clarifaction.. 1. yep, we don't have road tax at all! 2. comprehensive car insurance (which covers YOUR DAMAGE if it's your fault) is optional EXCEPT when you get a secured car loan. secured car loan means you are borrowing the money from a bank/etc specifically for a car (as opposed to an unsecured loan which you can use the money for). the reason why people get secured loans instead of unsecured loans is that they have a lower interest rate (because your car is collateral), and obviously the reason you have to have comp. insurance is so the bank is guaranteed to always have that collateral. ALSO, comp. car insurance is always more expensive if you have a loan. don't quite know why, just is. on my car alone, the difference between a loan from a bank and a "non-bank financial institution" (i.e. credit union) was like $400/yr!!! make sense?

i wasn't suggesting not getting insurance, i agree duncan, it is stupid. i am saying don't buy a car which will cost you as much as the car in 3 years. be smart. don't buy a car which will cost you every spare penny unless you are okay with having your financial status in comatose for however long you own your car for. cars are not assets - granted. but don't buy one which is multiple times more costly to "own" than a "normal" car.

man it's crazy to spend 1/3 the value of your car on insurance!!!!! i was 19 or 20 when i got my r33 gts-t, fully stock. paid $3200/yr on insurance and it cost me $26,500. that is 12% of the value of the car. i renewed it 1yr later at $2700 (famous classic) which was okay. but a few months after renewing i sold my skyline. i know how a car works in *theory*, but i have no idea how to actually fix things, so to me, the risks were now outweighing the benefits. my odo was playing up and it became apparent that it had been fiddled with. the car itself was running perfectly, but for how much longer? i wasn't prepared to shell out thousands a year for insurance and probably 1-2 grand a year in the next couple of years in maintenance. that is a total of probably like 3-4k a year. i currently have an audi which is costing me more insurance than the skyline ever did (3700 or so), but it is with NRMA so it's to be expected that it will be higher than average. i figure if i'm going to pay about that in insurance+maintenance i may aswell have a more valuable car! moral of the story: you can afford to BUY a $15k skyline, but can you afford to OWN one? make the smart decision, don't sacrifice your future income on exhorbitant insurance costs which will mean you have to wait till you are like 25 or 30 to upgrade your car because you haven't been able to save cos insurance renewal comes and steals it all every year.

hey mcdare, welcome to SAU. 1. road tax we don't have to pay lots of money in road tax like in singapore, germany, etc. because polluting is okay down here in oz i am speaking from what i pay in NSW it would be similar in QLD. a. car registration approx. A$200/yr. it is illegal to drive without this b. 3rd party insurance, depends on your age/etc but could cost you about $400-800/yr. again, it is illegal to drive without this. if you crash into someone else, it pays for THEIR repairs c. comprehensive car insurance also depends on your age/etc. you can be paying between $1500 to $4000/yr depending on your age and thigns. this is not required, unless you get a car loan. but if you crash into someone and it's your fault, their car gets fixed but you have to pay for your own repair. you can shop around for this and you get dramatically different quotes depending on how big/small the insurance company is and how good your driving record is. 2. petrol is a consideration. we pay approx. A$1/per litre here for the "best" petrol (98 ron), i would imagine prices in QLD are cheaper. 3. depreciation is a consideration. imports are harder to sell than local cars. but your s15 200sx was a locally delivered car, whereas the skyline (well, the decent ones) are imported. hope the info helps you out.

carlo, my old skyline said thrust pty ltd too. did you buy it from north shore prestige?

every new wrx model seems to be faster, with the exception of the 2000 "bug eye" which was slower than the outgoing model, but current WRXs are faster than ever. for a factory 2.0 turbo, they produce quite a lot of torque, about 300nm i think. and their kilowatt output is also high (165kw or so?). their max. torque is comparable to a gts-t and a wrx and skyline both get to max kw/torque at about 6000rpm and the impreza is also a lighter car. both the skyline and wrx are impressive sports cars. i wouldn't bag either one out..

Hey kris, we're swapping places! I am on the Audi forums, went from an R33 to an A4

white is good cos it's the easiest colour to match and is non-metallic so respraying isn't expensive.

the purple r33 gt-r colour is probably the most outlandish colour that skylines come in. all cars should come in conservative colours for resale value. on the flipside, it's okay for holdens to come in lime green, falcons to come in bright orange because they aren't worth anything after 2 years and the car will fall apart before the colour goes out of fashion. i'm such a shit stirrer

You could call Astra (limo company) and I'm sure they would be able to point you in the right direction..

I've seen a yellow Mercialago and Gallardo twice (seperate occasions) out east. and i see a Ferrari (360, 355) 75% of the time I go there. Seeing Ferraris is getting boring! hehe

different strokes for different folks. the main deterrant i have with a 4dr skyline is the risk and wait to import, i'm a very impatient person. i would however, wait 12 weeks for a brand new E55