SMOKEYV35

I rocked up at about 10.45 - there was about 15 lambos, mostly late model Murcies and Gallardos parked up the street just idling. I had to drive between a lp-640 double parked on one side of the street and a gallardo double parked on the other - I was watching my corners like a mo fo!!! Think they must have been doing a drive day. Wish I could have stayed longer to meet n greet but I literally had to walk in, do a lap, and leave. But awesome effort was put in - well done SAU vic.

I'd say its a relay that's shot. Do they flash if you turn the hazards on?

Ahahahaha - love it. Yeh pretty much, except that one is about 1:200 scale. No miners buying their kids tonka trucks anymore - shts gettin real, yo!

The stuff in the ground is only worth as much as people are willing to pay for it right now. Otherwise they just leave it there. No demand, no high price, no profit margin, no incetive, no jobs. My comments will seem ironic if you knew who I work for - ill give you a hint - we distribute machines that are big and yellow. And I can tell you now - the brakes are well and truly ON - we are looking at sales and demand figures that we haven't seen since deep into 2009, and they are free falling. Mining is going to be v quiet, at least for the foreseeable future.

All I hope is that they put some money away because when the gravy train grinds to a halt, they're going to be 20yrs old with a thumping great big debt little in the way of transferable skills. Cheap second hand land cruisers anyone??? Lol

Thanks Sean, pics of all the cars in here if you can be stuffed: http://s16.photobucket.com/albums/b25/matVL30/

1 - 1988 R31 Skyline - hand me down, first car, you know how it is ;-) 2 - 1988 R31 Skyline - 1 owner grandpa car, ended up painted, turbo'd, R34 brakes, coilovers, work wheels etc 3 - 1988 R31 Skyline - death trap - forged RB30ET with GT35/40 and manualised auto w/3k stall. did a 12.6 and but nearly killed me one night as the stock brakes were so bad I went straight through a red light intersection trying to pull it up. 4 - 1994 Lexus LS400 - VIP'd with coilovers, deep dish Leon Hardiritt's and Jap exhausts 5 - 2001 Stagea RS4-s - Good mods, good suspension, good wheels, great car - BAD fuel bills. 6 - 2001 BMW 525 Msport - awesome car, looked great, rode nice - but no power and stressful to own wondering what was going to break next! 7 - 2008 Mazda MPS - 200kw atw and over 400nm of torque through the front wheels. Little rocket ship that surprsises everyone. But close range 6 speed is a nightmare in traffic - currently for sale. 8 - 2006 V35 Coupe......that's the plan!

about time it all evened out anyway - sick of seeing people who i know dropped out of school and are as thick of 5 bags of sh*t earning 150k and buying Range Rovers just for shuffling around in the dust at a mine site, while i worked my @ss off at school so i could spend 5 years at uni and have a massive HECS debt and a long climb up the corporate ladder ahead of me........<RANT>

Could be your long lost African cousin, heir to the fortune!?

So powerskids are off the table......?

They set up a booze bus outbound on dandenong rd tonight. At 5pm. Traffic was royally f'd. Unbelievable. Seriously, who is drunk at 5pm on their way home from work on a Wednesday. Waste of resources and money by Vic Pol.

They run a GT35/40R - so would go pretty good on an RB25! Acknowledge he has an RB26DETT from the looks of the sig pic....but I had one on an Rb30ET and it ran a 12.6 My vote is on an e53 X5 3.0D - although in your price range you'd be looking at one with around 200km on it. The petrol V8's are a beast - you could pick up a 4.4is or a 4.6is (which is a stroked Alpina motor ) and fit a tow kit and an X-pipe in the exhaust and you'd have one sweet cruiser that sounds mental and does a 1-100 in 6.1 seconds. Bonus is they have self levelling rear air bags, so great for towing. They will drink, approximately 20L/100km, but because they're thirstier than the diesels you can pick them up for the 25k mark with much less km's than a diesel generally, and then you can get a liquid vapour injection kit fitted for 5k which rounds you out to 30k nicely. I know all this cos i've been looking at buying one recently and spent hours upon hours trying to make the numbers stack up but in the end i do too much commuting to justify the running costs. PM me if you're interested in this idea though because I can tell you what to look out for when inspecting. http://www.carsales.com.au/private/details/bmw-x5-2002-13440699?base=1216&vertical=Car&cr=11&eapi=2&__N=1246+1247+1252+1282+1216+246&num=15&silo=Stock&Range=Price:Min,30000~0.5&items=[Make:BMW,Model:X5,BaseEnabledBadge:IS STEPTRONIC]&sort=default

unfortunately i have had a couple of experiences with this process, but I do have good news. Firstly, your rights in terms of your parts fitted, like your pedals and shift knob are : if it's NOT declared on the policy, then you ARE allowed to visit the wreck and retrieve the parts but you MUST replace the parts with the original stock items. EG. you remove your shift knob, the factory shift knob must be replaced in the car. I know this because I used to work in the salvage department of one of the largest auction houses in the country and we constantly had to escort people to their car to retrieve their head units etc. Hilariously, most people would just throw the stock head unit in the back seat - it doesnt have to be installed or working - just physically present. All you need to do is to contact your insurance company, say you need to retrieve personal items and then ask for the storage location of the salvage. Contact the storage location (most likely a panel beater, but could also be an auction house), book a time to go and visit the car, and then retrieve your items. It was my day to day job to manage the transition of vehicles between the owner, the insurance company, and the auction house - so I know this for a fact. The assessment value was based purely on market value and does not take into account things like your 'rims' or your 'body kit' - it's just a number from a big book, so unless your mods are factored into the policy (and thus your agreed value) then you won't be getting paid out on it anyway, and as such they have no right to it - but you do. Obviously a storage location may not be happy with you jacking a car up and taking wheels etc off due to OH&S but smaller items are fine. **** Secondly, in terms of your pay out figure. If you are not happy with the figure they have offered, you can ask to have your car independently assessed. The inedpendent assessor may give a more honest figure reflective of the car's condition which gives you some power to negotiate with, but at the end of the day the insurance company does not have to honor this. You can offer to buy the wreck back and as has been said, they will come to a figure (usually what the assessor put down as the salvage value, ie. what they expected to get for it at auction) and deduct that from your payout. However, if the vehicle has already been moved to a salvage location (read: auction house) then there is very little chance of you getting it back - it will be 'in the system', and they will probably say no. You can buy it back at auction, and you can ask the insurer to tell you where it is and contact them to find out when it will be auctioned - but you'd be competing against other bidders, you may come out on top, or you may lose. Finally, if you don't like the above, you can chose to WITHDRAW your claim. Again, it depends on the location of the vehicle and how far along they are in the process. From what you've said it may not be an option. But if you can, you're allowed to WITHDRAW your claim and if you're 100% not at fault, you can confidently pursue the other party's insurance company for damages. This is a risk, but I have done it before and was successful. (My car was t-boned and i was not at fault - my insurance company offered me next to nothing for my car, so i had it independently asssessed at a figure 3 times the initial valuation, i sought legal advice and they pursued the other party for damages and legal fees. The car (a 1988 R31 Skyline) went from a 2k payout to over 6k payout plus 3k of legal fees, plus i got to keep the wreck. It took 6 months, and it was a lot of running around - but it was my first car, I was at uni and had plenty of time - so it was worth it!) A long post, but i hope that helps - i think it should! Good luck! Cheers Mat ****(Note: this is why you NEVER let your car get towed from the scene of an accident directly to a panel beater. ALWAYS ask for your car to be towed home, it gives you time to take off parts and avoid all this butt hurt).

Thanks fellas - that's positive then - hopefully leave some money in the tin for some tidy mods, after insurance that is - these things seem to be frighteningly expensive to insure! The 2006's on carsales seem to all be mid 25s.....so hopefully can snag one for less. Pretty sure it's a buyers market - i know it's not a sellers market because my MPS isn't shifting as quickly as i'd like! As for buyers guide, I was sort of looking for something that can help me to identify common problem areas - like areas to look for rust - common issues like i'm reading about the CD jamming, door locks, A/C control issues and fuel senders playing up, and VVT rattle.

Yeh the 2006 models have the projector bi-xenons. I'm a big fan of lighting....if there is such a thing....i've done a couple of retro-fits before. For those who don't know what that is, it usually means taking the projector housings from another model car, opening up the headlight housings and inserting them into a reflector bowl housing, or replacing an existing projector with a better performing one to get higher output and, wider beam patterns and sharper cutoff lines. i get most of my parts from www.theretrofitsource.com I was thinking i could just buy a <2006 and do a retrofit. But a) it's not ADR legal - and b) it's a bit of stuffing around and having already investigated the prices of second hand reflector beam housings for V35's it could be an expensive 'experiment'! I'd rather get the factory fitted units straight up, and the infiniti projectors are some of the best available. importing is probably a process i can't be bothered going through. once the MPS sells i'll have to move on a replacement pretty quickly because i'll be driving my girlfriend's car in the interim. I don't think I could wait on a lengthy and unspecified import timeline. Think a v36 coupe is probably beyond my budget as i'm trying to get something on the road for the 25-27k mark - but will admit they are an amazing looking car and a lot nicer inside and out than the v35. can anyone point me in the direction of a 'buyers guide'? common things to look for?

Thanks guys - I'm definitely after a coupe. I know my demands are fairly high, and have looked at some importers sites (j-spec) already - but it seems as though their prices are as high as sourcing something landed. I know it might make it easier to get what I want but I get some comfort from speaking to an owner who has had the car landed for a while and has started sorting out the bugs. I bought my stagea off a guy who had owned it for 6 years since importing, and it was such a well sorted car and never gave me any trouble - if only it didn't use 23L/100km..... My main reason for wanting a 2006 is the headlights. But i guess if the right <2006 came along I can do a retrofit. All the links in the 'Hot Topics' section seem to be broken, which is frustrating cos it's all the info I need! Any mods got a fix?

Hey guys, I've been a member on here for a while - i've had a couple of skylines and a stagea rs4-s which i sold 12 months ago - but defected for a period and bought a BMW 525 M-Sport and now own a 2008 Mazda MPS - which is currently for sale. I do a large commute to and from work in peak hour Melb traffic and the short ratio's in the MPS make for a tiresome trip of constant gear changing and clutch balancing. So i'm looking for something auto, a bit more luxurious, but still unique. Had never considered a V35 until i came up with that criteria! Ideally I'd like a low km pearl white 2006+ premium with sunroof. - and happy to wait for the right car. In the mean time i'll just be here to soak up as much info as possible! Cheers Mat

Item: Enkei RPF1. 19x8.5 +42 (5x114.3 PCD) (fail fitment for a skyza....but fits Mazda 3, 6, RX8, IS200, Hondas, EVO and more...) Price: $1100 Reason for sale: Bought these for my Mazda MPS but have since decided to sell the car. Want to buy a V35 coupe and these will not fit that! Condition: Used. I bought these rims online. When they arrived, one had a nick out of the lip so I dropped all four off to have the nick repaired and to be stripped and prepped for paint. I got a call back saying 3 of the 4 had waves in them. As a result, they have now been professionally re-rolled at WheelTech – I have a receipt for $300 of work. Cosmetically, they are not perfect condition rims, but I have cleaned them up and they look half decent again. There is some paint missing in areas from the re-roll, but you could get away with running them as is. These are very light rims – they weight in under 10kgs each - these are not your cheap Bob Jane specials! The cheapest I have seen these rims selling new is $2500. Yes, there is some paint missing from the re-roll but these are (now) 100% straight and honest. Consider these with a couple hundred for a repaint in any colour you want, and you’re getting an awesome set of wheels for half the cost of replacement. Comes with all four Enkei centre caps, and Enkei valves. Location: Melbourne CBD - Can arrange postage if required. E-go.com.au does the best rates I have found. Dimensions are as per the rims – 19”x8.5” – weight 9kgs each. Contact: via PM or O419 336 116 more pics available.

oh man this thing is amazing - looks like an episode of Chip Foose! bump. gl with sale!

220rwkw is about the limit of the auto box, so you're about on the edge with 200awkw. might have to start looking at a stronger box from another car and shift kit it, or rebuild the current one with upgraded bands and valve bodys

oh man this thing is amazing! does it have diff rims on it now? because they look like autocouture's.....? game is a little bit rich for me at the moment, but i'll be watching for the price drop!

everything has sold EXCEPT the front lip which is now on ebay Stagea Front Lip everyone else - your items have been posted and on their way! thanks again. SCRATCH THAT: Grill is back up for sale due to a time waster.

everything has sold EXCEPT the front lip which is now on ebay Stagea Front Lip everyone else - your items have been posted and on their way! thanks again.

great rims. look exactly like my BBS LM copies - but with better sizes etc.

it's been reinforced so it will take a beating. do society a favour and bulldoze the roads! haha.