Post a pic of your car here!

[epoxi]

^Yeah I hear despite having the best weather for cars, California is the worst place to modify a car in the whole damn world (which is a bit counter-intuitive for me because of the lowriders in LA stereotype etc.).

 

Visionist, ignoring the fact that it's a legal requirement, I would still put some sort of discreetly-placed small red reflector on both sides of the rear your car (as specified in MOT). If you parked on a street there is a much higher chance of someone bumping into it at night since it's virtually invisible, and if someone were to bump into it, it would technically be your fault.

 

By the way: doy_day_sunrise, wouldn't the 'red tail lamps' regulation fall apart for cars like these?

 

 

[sivispacem]

By the way: doy_day_sunrise, wouldn't the 'red tail lamps' regulation fall apart for cars like these?

 

The red relates to having a certain portion of the rear light (50%) glow red under braking or when the lights are activated. White/crystal rear lights will glow red when the lights are on, lights tinted to the point of complete blackness are quite unlikely to.

[Andrew]

My correctly spaced plates are made by a highstreet company to legal specifications. The tax I paid on my registration keeps the courts running. Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

The law on registration plates.

 

 

SUMMARY: What is required and permitted on UK road-legal number plates

 

Required:

White front plate (to British Standard BS AU 145d)

Yellow rear plate (to British Standard BS AU 145d)

The registration number of the bearer vehicle in the mandatory font (black ‘Charles Wright 2001’)

Spacing of characters and character groups in accordance with the measurements specified in the regulations. Variation is not permitted

 

Permitted but not required:

3D variation of the mandatory ‘Charles Wright 2001’ font

Coloured, non-reflective border

National emblem: English St George Cross with “ENG” legend, Scottish St Andrew Cross with “SCO” legend, Welsh Dragon with “WALES” and “CYMRU” legend, British Union Flag with “GB” legend) or Euro Stars symbol with “GB” legend.

 

No additions or variations are permitted. Common illegal variations are:

Fancy or decorative typefaces

Bolts placed in such a way as to alter the appearance of characters

Adjusted spacing between characters or character groups

Altered characters

Additional logos or symbols, such as sporting emblems and religious symbols.

 

 

Yours would fail on the green side strip and Mitsubishi logo. They are illegal. The argument that you paid tax is pathetic, they'll just laugh that out of court.

 

You're acting like you know all, and are above the law. They don't care if you stop paying tax because they took your car off you, they'll put you in the statistics of another uninsured illegal driver off the road.

[epoxi]

Ah right, thanks.

 

On the number plate issue, although technically illegal (regulation about non-standard tag and the wrong shape for a non-import) I don't think any reasonable person would enforce it. As visionist has said it is a perfectly legal font, with regulation spacing and correct dimensions for a motorbike plate. As such anyone can read it easily, and any road camera will pick it up clearly, so I can't see why anyone would want to complain.

 

I can't even imagine someone enforcing the dimensions law though especially: if British manufacturers design a car (i.e. Discovery) which requires square plates or non-standard shaped plates (e.g. Rover 75), why can't any British citizen?

 

 

Compared to some of the atrocities you see on the road, it would be silly to make an example of visionist because of the number plate.

 

Edited September 9, 2011 by epoxi

[Andrew]

You'd be very surprised that if you come across a copper who has to meet his numbers for that month, or is just a twat then they'll enforce it. Like I said, my sisters car got done for the logo being illegal, but the lettering was legal, and this was 11PM at night, in a quiet estate no reason for the police to be on there.

[epoxi]

Not that you can do anything about it, but I must say that is pretty unfair because (as I have posted) there are far worse things to do to your number plate, and at the end of the day these regulations are to serve the community: making the plates legible, and making cars safe for other members of the public. In this regard I think banning non-standard number plate tags is completely unnecessary, rather if anything it makes a car easier to recognise.

 

Anyway, I have chosen not to dabble in plate modification, but if I did I would get black ones. It's a shame how they are not legal on new cars but legal on old cars. All in all, many of these regulations don't really make any sense to me.

Edited September 9, 2011 by epoxi

[Andrew]

I believe its done to stop arguments and any possible offence should someone choose to display an offensive logo, and arguments the whole well he's got this, why can't I have this argument.

 

Hardly any regulations make sense, it seems to be all about making the car much easier to identify via its plates, since ANPR and other technology only works on specific format, so a slight change stops that from working.

[sivispacem]

 

I believe its done to stop arguments and any possible offence should someone choose to display an offensive logo, and arguments the whole well he's got this, why can't I have this argument.

 

Hardly any regulations make sense, it seems to be all about making the car much easier to identify via its plates, since ANPR and other technology only works on specific format, so a slight change stops that from working.

This, basically.

There are exceptions to the plate rules that are listed as acceptable for certain makes and models where fitting a standard sized or shaped plate isn't advised- the Rover 75 odd-shaped one (the bolt spacing is wrong) and the Disco "import" style one (resizing it would require moving it it-and the rear number plate light too) are two that spring to mind. I imagine that there are others, as well, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

[Benzoboy]

I believe the Jag S-Type has a unique numberplate shape too, or it could be the X-Type

[Rebel]

Got a new car a couple months ago Peugeot 206. Touch wood its all be great. Its second hand from a local dealership quite a bargain to, £1,500. I think when we bought it, it had done about 50-60K miles on it. Again pretty good considering its 5-6 years old I think. I forget. Anyway, we used to have an old Clio. f*ck is this so much more faster. Love taking over cars in this thing since it hits the deck pretty f*cking quick. Its a 1.4 petrol. We removed the CD player though since the 6 disc changer in the boot was broken which sucked, but replaced it with my CD player so all is good.

 

It has some slight wear on the paint, but you can hardly notice unless you really look. Steering wheel was faded to hell though, hence the cover for it. Oh, love the automatic wipers to for when its raining pretty nifty.

 

 

 

[3niX]

Well...

 

Are those zip ties? On the wheel covers I mean...

 

Anyway, the 206 seems to be a decent car overall (yours looks in good nick as well)... though quite cramped inside.

[Illousion]

Here's the Volvo in it's current sad state of affairs.

 

 

Now featuring a right-side mirror! Non-functional though, can't adjust it so that I can see anything of importance through it. Suspecting that it came of a later model Volvo. But hell, at least it looks better than the one that was on there before, that was broken of at the foot.

 

Also starring this not working antenna. Someone had drilled that hole before I got the car, so I had to buy something to fill it up with. Looks decent I suppose, now I just need a radio so that I have some use for it.

 

Thinking of getting a radio along the lines of this. If you checked the radio-option at your local Volvo dealer in 1967 you'd get one of these beasts on your dash.

[BooostFlare]

Sold my '11 Suzuki Alto and got this '11 Corolla.

sorry for the big images!

[matthew1g]

Two completely identical cars. Left one belongs to my workmate who got it 2 weeks ago.

 

[Lurch]

One on the left looks a whole lot better. Something about the front end treatment on the Skoda is too upright. Not raked enough. And the gunmetal color doesn't look like my toilet bowel after a night of Taco Bell like the green one on the right does.

[matthew1g]

you're still going on about my Rallye green colour? It looks great under the sun, And at least it's not boring beige/black like 99% of the cars on the road. Both cars have the same angles on the front, mine just has a bigger grille and has a boxier roofline which might give you that impression

[Lurch]

Possibly. Something about it makes the whole front end just look too big for the car. Like it would be more appropriate on a midsize or normal compact.

[matthew1g]

It looks Ok in person to be honest - it's very functional to say the least. The radiator Fan almost never goes off, even with AC on in midday since it pretty much has an open front. The polo which has the same 1.2l Engine gets much hotter and has had the rad go off the moment it's stationary.

 

My only gripe looks-wise is that it's a bit too high off the ground. Although in practicality, it's been more than useful Whenever I've had 5 people in the car/1 overweight guy/3 people + a sh*tton of stuff in the boot as well as one instance where I had to pretty much drive offroad where had it been any lower I'd have bottomed out (we were driving to a remote location next to the sea to camp for the night and see the sunrise the next morning - don't judge )

Edited September 11, 2011 by matthew1g

[sivispacem]

Possibly. Something about it makes the whole front end just look too big for the car. Like it would be more appropriate on a midsize or normal compact.

I agree with this completely. I love the current Fabia, I really do- the Polo chassis is fantastic and some of the engines are great, particularly the twin-charged 1.4 and the 1.2 turbo, but the front-end styling leaves me cold. That said, for some reason it works on the vRS, perhaps because everything's that little bit more butch and less effeminate.

[epoxi]

To make it look more like a vRS matthew could take off the rubber side strips, repaint the wheels black and get a black vinyl for the roof. However the vRS has a different front bumper, so it'd never look exact, but should look much better anyway.

 

vRS Projector lamps would also be a good way to go once the car gets a bit older, then you can find them in scrapyards.

 

 

@BooostFlare: How come you sold an '11 car to buy such a similar other '11 car, doesn't that lose you a lot of money?

Edited September 11, 2011 by epoxi

[matthew1g]

 

To make it look more like a vRS matthew could take off the rubber side strips, repaint the wheels black and get a black vinyl for the roof. However the vRS has a different front bumper, so it'd never look exact, but should look much better anyway.

 

vRS Projector lamps would also be a good way to go once the car gets a bit older, then you can find them in scrapyards.

 

 

@BooostFlare: How come you sold an '11 car to buy such a similar other '11 car, doesn't that lose you a lot of money?

 

I was thinking of Getting the monte carlo kit since it uses the same bumpers, but only once the warranty comes off which is in 5 years time.

 

[Lurch]

Can someone do a photoshop and make the bottom of the hood on that thing bodycolor. And just remove the whole badge part. I think that would improve the looks of it tremendously. That's what's throwing it off for me. Especially the one in chrome. It's breaking up the lines of the hood and grill too much. Yuck.

[leik oh em jeez!]

 

Can someone do a photoshop and make the bottom of the hood on that thing bodycolor. And just remove the whole badge part. I think that would improve the looks of it tremendously. That's what's throwing it off for me. Especially the one in chrome.  It's breaking up the lines of the hood and grill too much. Yuck.

A few minutes in Paint.NET yields an idea of what it would look like with the trim piece molded onto the rest of the hood. I really need to reinstall photoshop though.

 

Looks a little better to me.

[AndrefromEstonia]

Why did you ruin the great looking car? I don't get why you think Fabia base model looks ugly? It doesn't. Looks fabulous. I would say that Polo next to it is one ugly and dull car. Fabia is cheaper and better actually. The quality seems to be top notch as i read from a test that was done, car had to drive 100 000km, then it was taken apart to see what was broken.

 

Anyway that Monte Carlo one looks really good, reason being those nice rims, black headlights and that useless frontbumper. VRS looks better cause its more natural. I know a guy in Estonia who has one of those, he only says good things of that car. And that chrome fits there perfectly.

[stinomontana]

made a little slideshow of my sol

 

[leik oh em jeez!]

Why did you ruin the great looking car? I don't get why you think Fabia base model looks ugly? It doesn't. Looks fabulous. I would say that Polo next to it is one ugly and dull car. Fabia is cheaper and better actually. The quality seems to be top notch as i read from a test that was done, car had to drive 100 000km, then it was taken apart to see what was broken.

 

Anyway that Monte Carlo one looks really good, reason being those nice rims, black headlights and that useless frontbumper. VRS looks better cause its more natural. I know a guy in Estonia who has one of those, he only says good things of that car. And that chrome fits there perfectly.

Because the front end looks like it was taken off of an English sedan while the rest of the car looks like a typical fuel efficient car that's trying to also be sporty. Other than the grill, I don't see any chrome anywhere else on the car. It might look like the rest of the car matched the front end if it was a sedan and had chrome door handles or something, but to me right now it looks like a horribly thought out front end clip.

[sivispacem]

The quality seems to be top notch as i read from a test that was done, car had to drive 100 000km, then it was taken apart to see what was broken.

Not to be rude, but your only experience with cars seems to come from magazine tests and old episodes of Top Gear, so no-one is listening to you particularly much. That said, the Fabia is good- though one of the reasons why it's cheaper than the Polo is because until the facelift they weren't offering any of the most modern VAG engines- like the 1.2 Turbo, for instance. That and the interior is woeful.

[AndrefromEstonia]

The quality seems to be top notch as i read from a test that was done, car had to drive 100 000km, then it was taken apart to see what was broken.

Not to be rude, but your only experience with cars seems to come from magazine tests and old episodes of Top Gear, so no-one is listening to you particularly much. That said, the Fabia is good- though one of the reasons why it's cheaper than the Polo is because until the facelift they weren't offering any of the most modern VAG engines- like the 1.2 Turbo, for instance. That and the interior is woeful.

Blabla...

I'm not old enough or rich enough to drive different cars. You can't judge my knowledge by some random answers in this forum. Knowing different people who have had a colorful list of cars i can say i know quite much about everyday cars. And whats wrong if i just quote something from a magazine wich has thurally tested car in question?

 

 

And that chrome fits there perfectly, compareing it with an english sedan...wtf. You don't have to have chrome all over the car, if one detail is brought up it's not like you have to dip the bloody thing into the chrome bath. It's a nice touch. If it's black it looks good too, but then all the rims and other details are black. That makes it quite sporty, but as a normal car wich has a smaller engine and is used a everyday transportation it doesn't fit. Most of the cars today have at least some chrome at the front grill...nothing wrong with this either.

[leik oh em jeez!]

To further explain my point, this looks like a front end that in my opinion, belongs on an English sedan:

 

While the rest of the car:

Looks like a typical Japanese car.

 

That front end with the rest of the car just doesn't look right to me.

[AndrefromEstonia]

Everybody has theire own opinion...

And you think that side looks like a japanese car? Well the roof line was inspired by the latest Suzuki Swift.