Mike_B

All true, of course, except that a lot of people it's not really the last resort. They look at the 'low monthly payments' and don't bother to investigate alternatives or, as others have rightly said, think of the full cost over the years.

RIP indeed. The papers do the same with anything involving a motorbike too - without any particular regard for the actual circumstances, they always drop in comments like '1000cc', 'capable of over 180mph', 'high-powered sportsbike' etc etc even if the crash happened because a numpty pulled out right in front of a bike doing 30mph. Just makes the article more readable, in a Daily Wail sort of way.

This was on Watchdog a few weeks ago. It's not unusual, it would seem. They love to remove motorcycle entitlements too.

How is it coming up? Haven't been round there in a while so haven't seen how far its got...........was supposed to complete this year originally, but now it's been pushed back to early 2010 and wouldn't be surprised if it goes back a bit further - although no bad thing for us as it means we don't need to pay anymore money but what we have paid is still earning interest It's coming on quite well now. I think it's now reached as high as it's going to, because they have stopped going upwards and are now building what appears to be a final roof support structure closer in towards the centre of the building. Most of it is now clad in the black glass with the funny long upright coloured pieces sticking out at 90 degrees. Of course, I can't tell what's going on inside, but there are lots of people doing stuff on each floor (must be about 10ish floors) all the time, so I guess the purpose of glazing the exterior is to let them work on the inside as well as the main structural stuff at the same time. There is a stripe on one side which isn't glazed at all, I think they are using that section to get larger items inside using the crane to any floor they want. Actually - looking at the website, the unglazed section is the bit that will have clear glass, looking out over Westminster bridge towards parliament. Will be very smart when it opens!

Ah, I did wonder if it might be that building. I'm looking at it right now from the office window, and have been watching it slowly go up for the last 18 months... :) Just to clarify one point from a couple of posts ago - you don't have any names on the VAT registration. Your Ltd company will be registered for VAT - there is no personal stuff on it at all because VAT is only applicable to the company's accounts and not yours personally. MacRS200 - only telling the accountant what you want him to hear is poor advice... If the accountant advises you wrongly it is YOUR fault because you mislead him. Tax (or VAT) evasion carries a jail term. You won't even be able to give 'I took professional advice' as a defence because the paperwork will show you knew different at the time you spoke to him. That's why it would be classed as deliberate evasion and not a mistake - not a good move! If there's one set of government people you really want to avoid stirring up, it's the VATman. :o

Paid 97.9 at Shell in Tunbridge Wells over the weekend. Still cost well over £60 to fill up though. Anyone else noticed that Shell is now often the cheapest fuel around? It's the same, if not cheaper, than the supermarkets round here, and several pence per litre cheaper than Jet (which was always a byword for cheap fuel!!)

As Colin says, make sure your aircon is switched on. Mine does this too, though I must admit it's never so bad that I think it's going to stall. Switching on the aircon raises the idle revs from ca. 600 to ca. 750, which is enough to make it completely smooth.

VAT doesn't really work like that mate. If you are VAT registered, you must charge VAT on your sales (unless, and only unless, the goods or services are VAT exempt). You don't have to register for VAT solely because hotel rooms are VATable sales. You only need to register for (and charge) VAT once your turnover hits about £60k a year. I'm not sure quite how it works with hotel rooms but I would imagine the hotel operating company would charge VAT on the rent of the room to the customer, and then pay you the agreed proportion of that, but not add VAT onto that price. One other piece of advice - think carefullly before jumping into business with friends (and I'm assuming it is friends, you don't really say!) What will happen, for example, if one of you wants to keep using the room for himself and therefore making it unavailable for rent? That will hit the rest of you in the wallet too - and it will get annoying. What if one of you wants to leave? How will you handle it if some of you want to use the company for some other business? What if someone decides to ignore the law and start using company funds for his own purposes (eg extract 20% of it 'because I own a fifth of the company' to buy a car?

I set up a Ltd a couple of years ago and was pleasantly surprised how easy it was. I used a 'company formation' company to make the process easy - they were called UK PLC which I'm sure you can find on Google easily enough. Whilst it's true you pay a little more (it wasn't that much, something like £50) it was done in a day or two and they sent me the proper paperwork in a few days. That was a Certificate of Incorporation, the Memorandum of Association (which has a really wide scope, I can do almost anything without needing to change them) and they also sent the initial share capitalisation stuff. You will need an original CoI in order to open a business bank account, so it's a false economy to not get one up front. Once I had those I was able to register for VAT, which officially takes about 2 or 3 months, but in practice I had a VAT number in about 3 weeks. You can also use this time to go and talk to banks about setting up company accounts. Out of laziness, I went to Lloyds since I bank with them personally and to be honest they're not too bad. I know what you mean about the charges though - it's a completely different game compared to personal banking. I have a hard time hearing people whine about personal bank charges (which are almost always self-inflicted one way or another) when compared to the charging regime of business banking. That said, if you don't put many transactions through, and don't expect much in the way of interest, you can get the banking service very cheaply indeed - a few pounds per year maybe. I know you're part-way through your accounting course, but you do need to keep on top of accounts at all times. Running a business has implications beyond what you might expect; full annual personal tax returns are mandatory for all company directors and people with large proportional holdings in companies. Also you will need to check your contract of employment where you work now, technically you might be forbidden from operating another business (though this is unlikely, in reality, to be much of a concern). The business itself needs to provide VAT returns either quarterly or monthly depending on size, you may or may not be eligible for flat-rate VAT, and you will also need to keep and file every scrap of paperwork and receipt. On an annual basis you will need to file business accounts and also provide a return to Companies House to provide up to date details of all company officers. This all costs money, and it goes on costing each year - perhaps more than getting a solicitor to draw up some sort of contract between you and your associates? But it's fun being able to put 'company director' on your car insurance... ;-)

My bike does 5500rpm at 70mph. And that's in 6th...

Moved house yesterday, from my little one-bed flat into a proper house with 3 beds, and garden and a driveway! Well happy... Only problem is the garage is a wreck - no door, a big hole in one wall, and the brickwork above the main doorway is cracked to the point where the old door frame is the thing holding it up! A nice summer project though...

Apart from the considerable expense, it should be OK I'd have thought...

Nope, not that daft... From some forums in the US, where these cars are a lot more common, it looks as though it might be a servo motor at fault. Which is a big problem, as it needs the dash to come out to deal with the drivers side one! Though that might be a slight red-herring, since obviously the cars those guys are talking about have the steering wheel on the other side, and I'm not sure they I think I will have it regassed anyway, it might be that the temperature difference has always been there, it's just that now the gas is low, you really notice that it's not as cold as it should be. For £50ish, it's worth a try. I've been testing and testing it this afternoon, and there is a noticeable difference no matter which point in the temperature scale you set things. Eg if you set both sides at 30C, the air coming out the left is cooler than the right, and remains slightly cooler no matter what temp you set, all the way down to 16C (lowest possible) when the left feels properly chilled and the right 'a bit cooler than ambient'. Something I did find out though - there is a diagnostic and check mode on the aircon system (hold the Auto and fresh/recirc buttons down, while you switch on the ignition. The first thing that comes up shows you any error codes, then if you press the Auto button again, it runs repeatedly through a testing cycle which switches the fan speed up and down and cycles through all the vents. That cycles all the servos around their travel.)

For a few weeks now I've noticed that my aircon doesn't seem to be as cold as it should be. So I thought I would just take it into Kwik-Fit or wherever for an aircon service. Yesterday, however, when I got back into the car and it had been sitting in the sun all day, I noticed something really odd. The temperature coming out the vents on the passenger side were ice-cold, but the ones for the drivers side (ie right-hand of the two in the centre, and the one between the door and the steering wheel) were not cold at all. It was just as if the 'dual' button had been pressed and differing temps set for each side of the car!! So now I'm thinking that there's probably nothing wrong with the compressor/refrigerant system at all, and it's simply that I've never noticed that the air is only properly cold coming out the passenger's vents. No wonder the missus couldn't understand it - "feels cold to me, what are you on about!!!" :duh: Anyone come across this before - is it likely to be something really simple or something horribly expensive? :o :o I'm not sure where the two temp sensors are, obviously there must be one for each side I guess?

Probably not, though. If the alloy was designed for a 225 tyre then you might just about get away with a 235, but going up 2 whole centimeters in width is going to pinch the sidewalls in and cause a bulge in the centre of the tread.

Looks like you've made a superb job of that mate, well done! When I get round to it, I may do something similar. There's a Kenwood system which looks quite similar to what you've got that I quite fancy...

The only realy big problem is a common fault on the Mk2 GS models and that is the brake master cylinder £2000 plus fitting from the main Lexus dealers I have just had to replace mine at 88525 miles but they don't usualy go until 100.000 miles plus, just something for you to consider because unless it is already faulty you will not know.. I bought my car at 87575 miles and it was working fine and only did just over 700 miles and it packed up so no alternative but replace it because it is not saleable in that condition. When it is ready to pack up you will get a buzzer going off with VCR-VCR off and ABS lights showing. Norman This is only a problem with the pre-2001 facelift cars. They changed the master cylinder after then and the newer models don't seem to suffer from this fault.

Bike magazine ran a feature over a couple of issues earlier this year. They took a standard Triumph Daytona 675 and fiddled with it until it ran properly on ethanol. It took a lot of fiddling (a new ECU so they could fully adjust the fuelling, and it needed a new injector setup that could deliver double the amount of fuel) but it certainly bumped up the power considerably. The main problem was that fuel consumption rocketed to the point that the standard fuel tank would have been hopeless!

I got a Vax over 10 years ago. It was, and still is, an excellent machine. I reckon you just got a duffer - when mine does eventually go, which it shows no signs of doing yet, I'd happily buy another one.

You get more minutes and more texts than ever before for your money, and mobile phones aren't getting any cheaper to manufacture, because they are getting more and more complicated. So something had to give - that's why you now have to keep it for 6 months longer...

They work on the principle of there only being 4 or 5 of them, and you will keep switching round. I think they are all as bad as each other, to be honest. I remember the good ol' days of Orange in about '98-'99, where they would answer the phone after just a couple of rings with 'Hello Mr Xxxxx, how can I help you?' Those days are looooong gone... :-( That was when the MD was a guy called Hans Snook, who knew how to run a company properly, and unfortunately left after Orange was bought by France Telecom.

They stick a vacuum pump on the low pressure side of the air-con system, and suck out all the existing (or 'remaining'!) refrigerant and lubricant. The very low pressure also allows any dissolved water vapour to boil out, which is then removed by vacuum also. Once the whole system is cleared, fresh refrigerant and lubricant is added to the correct pressure/quantity for the system. They then run the system to check the temperature of the outlet air is cold, like it should be. If you or they suspect a leak then they should run a test with some flourescent dye to see where the leak is. However, if your car is a few years old, it's probably not actually leaking it out fast, and just needs a top up. Depending where you go and how much you pay, they may also clean the evaporator unit with an antibacterial spray. Since the evaporator is covered in condensation most of the time, the damp makes it go manky and smelly...

How did it go with Kwik-Fit? I think mine needs doing too, as it's not as cold as it used to be... And the local Kwik-Fit in Epsom has a board up outside advertising an aircon service for £45.

This might be why?

You used to be able to buy little boxes with a powerful magnet on the back. The idea is that you stick a spare key in the box, and the attach it via the magnet to some hidden spot up under the bumper or chassis somewhere. You can probably still get them I should think, Halfords would be a good place to look...