2.5 Million Families on £100k/year Don't Feel Rich

Graham_Devon

lostinrates wrote: »

Or you could do both!

I'm still thinking about getting a smart roadster

I did do both at one point.

But it becomes tricky when you get to about 27 years old. The emotions you go through trying to decide which car to go to work in, the one that costs 3x as much to get there or the old beaten up crapper!

Crapper starts becoming first choice

Spirit_2

In the past Mr Spirit has had new/expensive/fast/status cars ..........usually (but not always) company cars. He liked them.


These days one of our vehicles is a split screen camper.........everyone loves it, strangers speak to us, smile, take photographs...........it is officially Cool.

Honest to God it looks so cute.

pig to drive though.....

nickmason

lostinrates wrote: »

PN, really, it is very possible to mix outside income bracket....I'm sorry for anyone who doesn't really: either because they don't realise and are dull of wit, or because they do realise and are narrow of mind.

Just popped in to read about people's PBR thoughts, but was once again struck by the wisdom of so many - especially LIR's post above. "If you can walk with kings, nor lose the common touch" and all that.

nickmason

mitchaa wrote: »

You dont spot any rich or famous stepping out of beat up old rust buckets do you?

If you want to see Nick Mason climbing out of a beaten-up rusty old golf, with 150k on the clock, which cost £1k 5 years ago with 80k and has had no more than £500k repair since, then head to Dorset. (Although I must confess it won't be the Ferrari driving one from Pink Floyd )

Danstar_2

JonnyBravo wrote: »

Quote from BMW Mini assessment

Child occupant
The passenger airbag can be disabled to allow a rearward-facing child restraint to be used in that seating position. However, information provided to the driver regarding the status of the airbag is not clear. The labels warning of the risks of placing a rearward facing child restraint in the front passenger seat are not sufficiently clear. In the side impact, the restraint of the 3 year old dummy rotated, placing the dummy's head outside the protection offered by the side of the restraint. In the same test, the head of the 1½ year old dummy contacted the interior trim. The resulting peak acceleration recorded by the dummy indicated a risk of head injury. The presence of ISOFIX anchorages in the rear seats was not clearly marked.

"Paramount" you say?

I have an 07 Cooper S and in July I was involved in an accident, I spun off the road due to a loss in traction on a bend because of mud on the road and - given the mud - driving a little bit too fast, if it was a clean road I would have been fine as I drive down the road everyday I know it well.

I smashed into a metal fence at around 60mph and then a tree. The whole left exterior of the car was wrecked but the inside was fine and I walked out of the car unharmed. Try telling me a Mini isn't safe. If it was an N reg Polo I think it might have been more serious. The new Mini is built like a mini-tank and was back on the road in just over a month. The front airbag can be easily activated/de-activated by turning the metal part of key in the passenger side door and there is a lighted up display saying the airbag has been deactivated in the drivers field of vision.

PasturesNew

nickmason wrote: »

If you want to see Nick Mason climbing out of a beaten-up rusty old golf, with 150k on the clock, which cost £1k 5 years ago with 80k and has had no more than £500k repair since, then head to Dorset. (Although I must confess it won't be the Ferrari driving one from Pink Floyd )

Never heard of him.

nickmason

PasturesNew wrote: »

Never heard of him.

Sadly that's what I said when someone asked if we were related. Which left me a social pariah for the rest of my school days.

As for the real;) Nick Mason, well if you've not heard of me, then I must be... no, not rich either (certainly not by the scales of this thread). Although yes, I do wear Church's shoes.

PasturesNew

nickmason wrote: »

Sadly that's what I said when someone asked if we were related. Which left me a social pariah for the rest of my school days.

As for the real;) Nick Mason, well if you've not heard of me, then I must be... no, not rich either (certainly not by the scales of this thread). Although yes, I do wear Church's shoes.

Church?
Never heard of them.
I will assume it's a shoe brand, not one particular person's cast-offs.

neverdespairgirl

mitchaa wrote: »

I doubt it is safe, I certainly would not be ferrying my child around in such an old car. Perhaps safe at its time, but times and technologies have moved on.

Crumple zones, protection bars, seat belt pretensioners, ABS,ESP, all round airbag protection and so on and on.

This video is 5yrs old already but highlights the points that i was raising about car safety. If you were in the solid heavy old tank of a volvo, you would have undeniably died, had you been in the renault, you would have survived.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ygYUYia9I

Ask anyone the outcome before seeing the video, they would have said the volvo would have come off better and the renault would have been crushed into a molecule. Ahh, how technologies have changed

I'd feel very embarrassed about driving such an old car, but forgetting that, point number 1. Safety is paramount, especially when you have young children.

NDG, you live in central London, im surprised you even own a car? Maintenance/tax and insurance costs to consider when most of the time you can just jump on the tube?

I looked at the NCAP thingy for our car, and it's fine on safety. Not as many stars as some modern cars, but actually a better safety rating than quite a few made in the last 3 years, surprisingly.

Why would you feel "very embarrassed" about driving an R reg car? What is possibly embarrassing about it? It works very well, has needed remarkably little work, and is nippy and quite fun to drive, too.

We don't drive a lot of miles a year. You are right, we drive little in London itself.

neverdespairgirl

JonnyBravo wrote: »

For you appearance and "cred" has played a part in your decision, in NDG's it was saving money presumably.

Not so much saving money, as not wasting it, if you see what I mean. I don't see any point in shelling out thousands for a newer shiny lump of metal when the older shiny lump of metal is fine.