irf

volvo lovers may not want to view the first part of this thread, i warn you now

As a lot of you know i'm an employed chauffeur ie. dirty p**i minicab driver. over the last couple of weeks we (the company i work for) have had some chinese tv crew over to do some filming for the olympics. very pleasant people and i enjoyed it.

anyway, they all went back today so after i dropped them at heathrow i needed to get back to our base, give the X5 back and get back into "my" merc.

so i go upstairs to get the keys but that mercs being driven by someone else. no problem, just give me another one. errr, no mercs. so a search is done and some volvo keys are found. cool. get given the keys, its a 12 plate S80, nice! find the car, its feckin BRAND NEW!!! 11 miles on the clock!

if proof were needed





the X5 in the background




anyway, one of the reasons for this thread was to wind some of you volvo lovers up. so, when i got the car it was a little dirty so what did i do?

thats right, put it in a car wash, something like this




dried it with one of those squeegee things too

and just to rub it in, if i wash my 12 year old jap bucket, it gets washed with two buckets and a washmitt and i'd kill someone if they used a squeegee or chamois on it!


second part of this thread is just a general rant on these new executive saloons. nothing to do with driving hard,, just general driving.

the X5, fuck me, when i got into it i thought i was in for the height of luxury. but you know what? my accord on coilovers is more comfortable!! i'm presuming its cos of the 20" wheels but who cares, its bloody uncomfortable!

the 520D has 8 gears. eight thats right, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. seriously, 8 FUCKING GEARS!!!! step on it from some trafiic lights for example, the car lurches forward,your head goes back, inside you think yeeeeeah, except, after 5 feet the car changes bloody gear again and you nearly headbutt the feckin steering wheel cos it comes as a shock.

its also nearly impossible to stop without a slight lurch! in the merc i can stop smoothly enough that you'll find it a little difficult to know when we've stopped, in the 520i fluked it twice. embarassing!

you know those scenes in fast and furious where a quarter mile race takes minutes and they have 35 gear changes? yep, maybe they have the same blasted gearbox!

it also had 18" rims which arent big for these modern big saloons but you can tell the way it reacts to certain bumps that its affected by the rims. dunno if it had runflats.

the merc E220d, how can they make a car engine sound so shit? the BMW engines actually sound nice once moving, genuinely nice, nothing to add along the lines of "for a diesel". the 3.0d even sounds a bit gurgly which makes me horny. but no, take the merc slightly beyond 2000 rpm and it sounds painful.

and how have mercedes managed to make a car that however old i am, it feels like its made for someone 20 years older then me?  nothing to do with pace, just general feel, i've driven plenty of C, E and S classes.

the volvo S80. okay, genuinely, i'm not saying this cos i'm on a volvo site but the general ambience of the car is just bloody lovely! the seats are just soooooo good. to drive, it doesnt feel as pure as the bmw and merc being front wheel drive but the steering does feel weighty, the wheel thick but numb but you know the one thing that just fucks me right off?

its something to do with presumably the throttle mapping. lets say you accelerate away from lights, not hard but not like a cyclist either. lets say you give 10 percent throttle, it'll accelerate away normally in first, change into second and without altering the accelerator it feels like the throttles been pinned down!

i havent played with this, i always let go but fuck me, how annoying! and how has this even been let through???

thanks for letting me vent

the new weapon of mass destruction!

the wifes "new" car.

you can see my atr behind the almera and the merc i drive for work on the drive. all feckin silver!




big thanks to mo, was through him i got it. does mean that if anything breaks in the next 7 years i get to make him feel guilty

have to say though, for a 1.2 its a bloody good drive!it actually made me question why i have the flipping ATR. it's not quick by any stretch of the imagination but its an enjoyable drive, good throttle response, longish but crisp gearchange (you can even heel and toe!), lovely meaty steering and most important of all....... this 1.2 is quicker then mos' 1.4 polo

i wouldn't have had to wake up at 0345 on a feckin day off!

you know how it is, big day planned so you need an early night, get into bed early and you cant sleep. Then when you do fall asleep you're waking up every hour just to see if it's time to wake up. Then the alarm goes and you think "oh man, i need more sleep".

Anyway, get up, get ready and then flipping realise that the timetable you had worked out for getting anywhere was based on a weekday (extra traffic) and not a fecking weekend (ffs!)

Get out of the house, drive up to chesham to pick up .............. drum roll............ the Don

seeing as i've got the owner of this site in the car i drive verrrrrry carefully. Last thing i want is a horses head in my bed the next morning. With the mrs there it'd start looking like a farm! (shhhhh, lets keep that one quiet shall we. please?)

anyway, get to castle combe and IC is already there, have a chat and some breakfast (thanks Don. sorry, The Don) and wait for the retards.

Tim, Ashok, and Mo duly arrive and start getting the cars ready, do the signing in and briefing bit and wait to get out. i was there driving afzals S40 which in case you dont know has just had a gripper diff fitted. done a few miles on the road but still far from comfortable with it.

andy (redbrick) also turned up for a little chat before he had to go to work.

something to bear in mind, i hardly took any photos and any i have taken were from a phone.

IC, ashok, afzal and my cars with some bloke running around like a ant with its arse on fire getting everything ready





i went to get afzals car noise tested and, whats that? its the cars the circuit people themselves use!





Hondas baby


sit in the queue, look in the mirror to see what else is gonna be out on track......




i pooped a little.


Anyway, eventually get out on track and what a blast!

afzals car is pretty sorted but has a couple of weak points which made themselves pretty apparent. one is an oil cooler, 5-7 minutes of using the car hard and the oil temps would get too high. lessen the revs and it would last longer obviously.

the other thing was the rear tyres. federal RSR's up front with uniroyal rainsport 2s on the back. have to admit, i've been pretty impressed with the uniroyals on the road, decent grip in the dry and very good in the wet. Get them on track though and with the grippier tyres up front and its a recipe for oversteer

it would show up most noticeable on the chicane, first one way then the other. when the back lets go one way accidents normally happen when the person over corrects and you end up going off the other way as the built up momentum can make the car quite snappy.

the first time it happened, i think i controlled the car before it had to go the other way. after that i actually started getting the hang of it until one moment where i had a BIG slide. i do have a video and am trying to get it up on youtube so watch this space.

cars on the circuit










we also had lawrence over from MRG driving a V50. 1.6R doncha ya know




was cloudy pretty much all day with some rain but never enough rain for there to be any puddles but also never fully dry so you could go maximum attack banzai mode.




coming to the end of the day and a certain cars speed exceeded tims talent......





with the gripper the steering can pull you in different directions, going a bit close to the grass on the outside (as you do) contact was made with the grass, goodbye any hope of staying on the tarmac.


some welsh bloke also turned up with his lovely mrs, i think she was raised in a farm by the way she talks........


oooh, you sexy shmexy!




oh, i nearly forgot (honestly). the S40 couldnt take the abuse i gave it so i got the honda on track a little as well

tosser by nature!!

cant remember exactly how it came about but me and mo recently put some coilovers on both our cars and engineer kindly offered to do the alignment and maybe do some corner weighting.

we were both supposed to go today but it was gonna be mo first and his shitty volvo then if there was time then i'd get mine looked at otherwise i was originally booked in for next week.

then i get a text from mo last night saying he's feeling really ill, doesnt know if he'll make it and he'll text me in the morning. so i wake up and eventually get a text saying he's fucked. result!!!   means my car gets looked at rather then his   sorry mo

anwyay, i wanna avoid traffic so leave quite early. As i'm a fatty i need some sustanance so have to stop for healthy cereal type breakfast. couple of egg muffins please!



get to garys, in case you dont know, the old git drives a jaaaaaaag, not any old jaaaaaaag but an S type (fake) R. 400bhp of supercharged goodness




size of the engine.......





anyway, get told to drive in and this is waiting for ME (not mo, haha)









Now, book weight for the accord type R is 1300kg. with half a tank of fuel on board, but no spare wheel in the boot we got





now, i dont really know what any of this means but gary was saying that its pretty much spot on and doesnt need anything doing






so alignment time, first a track rod end that needed to be changed got done then a whole load of measuring. if you say to me that the front is toed out by say 1mm i can understand that no problem. But gary started telling me about the rear being this much toe in/out and the front is this much, divide by this much, minus by this much, something about the relationship between front and rear. lets just say i nodded politely but didnt know what the fuck he was on about!

let them carry on with it and took some pics



you sexy bastard




ooh some sexylicious camber (-2.5 degrees)

not especially noticeable from that angle but from certain angles it is very obvious.




in between everything going on was looking around. those at combe will recognice this pile of shite




nope, no camber to see here





probably a reminder for gary to keep his fat arse away from the car to prevent dents

i've tried and failed many many times. been smoking since 14 or 15 and now 40!

tried reading allen carrs book (very good), no joy. tried patches and enjoyed the double dose of whatever i was getting from the patches and a cigarette

phoned the doctors up but they're shite, this was before christmas and was told to phone after the 3rd week of jan. now been told that the nurse is on holiday

i'm basically a hardcore smoker but do truly want to give up for many different reasons. had one at 5.30pm yesterday and thought fuck it, no more. just succumbed to one 5 mins ago.

i've heard about some drug that a doctor prescribes where it makes you feel ill if you do smoke? zybax maybe?

fed up of smoking tbh, it's as if you're only living for your next smoke. need to and want to give up!