InsolentMinx

but just for a company car...? i'm thinking of a car you can use for work and not worry about parking in a dodgy side-street or have strangers trapsing muddy shoes on the carpets, where you won't mind too much if the alloys (or hub caps) get scuffed in a hurried parking maneuver..... keep the celica for your own enjoyment outside of work hours

could the allowance stretch to cover a 5-6 year old Golf or Fiesta/Focus? Low insurance, low tax, good fuel economy, relatively inexpensive upkeep, & kinda roomy with 4 doors...

can't you keep the Celica and use the car allowance to buy a car for company use? You might not want all those business miles to take their toll on your pride and joy's engine, tyres, bodywork... do they pay for insurance, road tax, etc etc.? i'm not 100% sure how a car allowance works.

suppose you could go for some kind of saloon which might get a good mileage. Can't really think of any models off the top of my head. If you're giving clients lifts, maybe a 4 door?

sounds like my kind of company car!!

much easier and cheaper to buy a car out there to be honest. Plus you can probably get some 'nice' cars for the cost of just shipping yours out there. If you'd have put a serious amount of cash into your car or if it was a rare one, then it might be worth it... otherwise you're better off buying out there. Check out newcelica.org if you want to find another Celica to buy while you're out there

maybe bleach the current ones and then dye them? not sure if the bleach would affect the fabric strength or not though...

storm blue... blatantly.

no worries. It's a nice bit of fun for the young at heart. if i could afford a 190 i'd possibly have got one. Dunno... past that bridge now i've got my 140. the 190 should be a nice option for you though to enjoy lift when you want it, and the standard car as standard. shouldn't cause you any trouble with insurance either at your ripe ole age! i'm not sure about 'webuyanycar' for their prices, but the adverts are enough to discourage me from ever using them! Try advertising it on here maybe, and autotrader... or seeing if you can part ex for a t-sport from a dealer who's selling one.

how about spending £1000, maybe £1500 max and going for a 75bhp shot of Nitrous make your 140 something special when the little switch is flicked, and a still great looking, but very economical car when the switch is off. i imagine insurance might be cheaper on a 140 with Nos compared to a supercharged 190

nice looking example 'grats.

parked in a residential side-street, so alas no CCTV. i won't be parking there again! Dave REWORX was actually in the area today and popped round to take a look at it. I knew he had many skills, but didn't know he was a qualified panel-beater too! Had a lovely chat with him, and I'm gonna take it for him to play with once he gets his new unit up and running in Thurrock. So she should be good as new (and with a few extra shiny bits too), before the month is out! Lepu maybe, but only if Bernie is keeping a close watch!! I don't want it to come out looking like this:

cheers Mr. Yellow Chinaman. Kew's not too shabby actually. I work in Hammersmith/Shepherd's Bush, so i'd be able to drive it round and pick it up without too much difficulty. Thanks for the £250 quote. I'm just in the process of getting as many quotes as possible, so will get back to you

Ah well those are reassuring posts regarding prices. I never know how much anything costs for repairing or parts for cars. thanks guys it does suck. Something like this is really not want i want to be spending my money on right now; but £250 is a 'good' amount, as it's the same as my excess, and not quite as bad as i was expecting. Don't mind spending a bit more to have it done properly. *sigh* pain in the feckin arse, but as my dad said "if you want to make sure you never get any dents or scratches... don't drive it". guess it comes with the territory of having a car and using it. Coulda happened anywhere and at any time, be it parked in a side road, parked on a busy road or parked in a car park... it's just a pain to have to fix and spend money on that i'd rather be spending on other stuff Hopefully it's an easy repair. Will let you all know how it goes.

After a generous chap/lady kindly felt that they should leave an imprint of their car in mine, I'm in need of a few bodyshop quotes to find out how much it's going to cost me to repair the passenger rear quarter, and probably knock a few dents out of the door. obviously, no note was left, so i'm gonna be footing the bill for this. It'd be nice to find out if it's worth involving the insurance company, or if it can be done without breaking the bank and without raising my premium. rear quarter door As far as i see it, the rear quarter will need the most work, i'm not sure if it's repairable or if they'll have to put a whole new section in there... Probably need a new petrol door. And the passenger door looks like it's just a couple of dents which shouldn't be too tough to get out, and a slight scratch which i could probably touch-up myself. I'm well pissed off.... this is not the start to 2011 that i was hoping for :lol:

Errr, basically: where the cigarette lighter connects to the wiring under the centre console, there's a green wire. This is the 'headlight' wire. Tap the red wires from your footwell lights into the green wire, and then the black wires into the black/white striped wire. This will enable the lights to come on when you turn the lights on. I then just put a switch on the red wires of the lights, so that i can turn the power on/off. more in depth: Unless the LED strips have red and black wires, you'll need to find out which is positive and which is negative. Use a 9v battery to find out which of the wires comming out of your LED strips is the +'ve, and which is the -'ve wire. Touch one to the +'ve terminal and one to the -'ve terminal of the battery. Do the lights come on? Yes, then you've found the right wires. No? Then the one touched to the +'ve terminal is the -'ve wire, and vice versa. You can then mark which is which with a black pen on the -'ve wire You'll probably need to attach some extra wire too as the ones provided are never long enough. I like to solder and heatshrink the connections as it's more sturdy than twisting wires together and using electrical tape you basically connect the 2 red wires from the driver and passenger footwell and connect them to 1 red wire.... then do the same with the black wires from each side to 1 black wire. Then put a switch on the red wire so that you can turn the power on and off.... then just attach the red wire to the green wire out the back of the cigarette lighter, and the black wire to the black/white one out the back of the cigarette lighter. the gearknob just unscrews, then the gaitor comes off by just pulling the plastic surround up off the console... diagrams and text to help from my mod thread: I pulled the carpet down around the centre console so i could feed the wires through the back, and removed the gear surround to install the wiring and the rocker switch. One strip of LEDs tucked under the back of the glovebox, and the other sat under the steering wheel, both cable tied in place. For the passenger side, cable ties fit neatly beside the hinges of the glovebox, but for the driver's side i had to drill 2 small holes to feed the cable tie through. under the glovebox under the steering wheel (please excuse the gormless facial expression) I bought an illuminating red rocker switch which i have wired up so that the switch lights up when the footwell LED's are lit... just for a bit of fun really and to test my wiring skills, but this way i know if i've got the footwell lights on or off if driving around with the sidelights on during daylight hours. This switch needed a 20mm hole drilling, and i decided to stick it discreetly by my knee so it didn't look 'aftermarket' on the centre cosole. I only had an 8mm bit though, so it meant gradually 'eating' away at the plastic until i had the right size hole. Then cutting a little notch with a stanley blade so the switch won't rotate. I recently bought some heat shrink too for another project, so decided to put this to full use to insulate all my soldering, as it's much tidier than using electrical tape to wrap all the connections. Here's the switch wired up: a final check that everything works before i commence operation "wire management" feeding everything through the hole switch in place, and footwell lights off switch lit and footwell lights on

had chats with bike cops about this when i put LEDs on my motorbike. as long as the coloured lights don't point forward or backward, and as long as the bulbs aren't visible, then it's fine. the reflected glow is perfectly legal as long as it doesn't flash or strobe, or attempt to imitate an emergency services vehicle. footwell lights are fine. I'm pretty sure mine aren't even visible for other road users unless it's a tall vehicle right beside me looking down into my car. I've got mine wired to the headlights, with an additional switch so i can turn them off completely if need be

the amber LED is a pretty much spot on match to the amber LEDs in all the stock facelift dials. If you take a scotchpad to the actual ring itself to scuff it up too, it makes the light a lot less of a distraction when driving in 3rd or 5th at nighttime.

very nice Sam

within feet of a fisherman fishing on a lake/broad/river? i'm guessing you mean he's on the shore and not in a boat

very nice! clean car too

i think he lost them in an unfortunate smelting accident

nice work then

great job there Sam, it looks very well done. Gonna hit it with a few layers of clearcoat?