Decline in our standard of living, when will it stop?

Graham_Devon

ukcarper wrote: »

Where did you get your figures did you use wage inflation

1d in 1960 is equivalent to 18p in now I don’t believe bread was less than 2d. In 1966 I worked part time in a garage a petrol was 4s 10.5d which equates to £7.12

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1633409/Historic-inflation-calculator-value-money-changed-1900.html

I used the standard RPI on measuring worth.

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-1633409/Historic-inflation-calculator-value-money-changed-1900.html

I used the standard RPI on measuring worth.

No good using RPI for affordability you have to compare to wages

lostinrates

StevieJ wrote: »

Just checked, I was paying £321, March 2007 renewal (Direct Line), this year I am going to switch to LV their quote is £265 (also available was an AA teaser quote of £188), BTW it is the same car, insurance group 19 (9). DL wanted to charge me £410 last year :mad:until I had a word with them, current quote is £ 355.

Stevie, not sure how old you are, but have made educAted age range guess...

It would be interesting if you could compare yours with other age groups from your family. E.g, its interesting comparing my insurance to my parents, becaus ei know their driving history etc. having dh on the car insurance changes stuff drmatically...especially since his crash. But even with out him i might see what my car insurance would be now. Atm its more than i paid for my first car. I just do not know how kids do it.

Do they still advertise new cars with a year or three years free ionsurance? See,s to me would be worth it these days for many!

chewmylegoff

StevieJ wrote: »

Just checked, I was paying £321, March 2007 renewal (Direct Line), this year I am going to switch to LV their quote is £265 (also available was an AA teaser quote of £188), BTW it is the same car, insurance group 19 (9). DL wanted to charge me £410 last year :mad:until I had a word with them, current quote is £ 355.

my quote went up from £850 to £900 this year, until i stuck it into an internet comparison website and the same company quoted me £550 through one of their other brand names!

michaels

Graham. Apparently not having a diesel particulate filter is not an mot fail nor against regulations so if it breaks it is cheaper to have it removed and have the ecu remapped to compensate - apparently you will also get better mpg without.

John_Pierpoint

geoffky wrote: »

I thought i would save some money and buy my windscreen wipers and do it myself..tried to do it for two hours yesterday and gave up..The old ones are still on....moneysaving fool

Assuming you have the standard windscreen wipers, that "click" in position into an arm with a hairpin bend formed on the end of it to hold the wiper; the fitting is somewhat counter intuitive the first time you do it.
A bit like those "puzzles" in Xmas crackers made of bent steel rod or nails.

The secret is to do one wiper at a time and make sure you have understood the replacement and got it ready before removing the old one.

Now is the time to realise that perhaps you have a car with a long wiper in front of the driver and a shorter one in front of the passenger.

I've been running around with a Focus blade on a Mondeo, but it is not 100% satisfactory because the spring on the Mondeo is too strong for the shorter blade in intermittent drizzle conditions - tends to judder.

Graham_Devon

michaels wrote: »

Graham. Apparently not having a diesel particulate filter is not an mot fail nor against regulations so if it breaks it is cheaper to have it removed and have the ecu remapped to compensate - apparently you will also get better mpg without.

Thanks Michaels. I knew you could take it off, but thought it would be an MOT failiure? I've also heard you would be acting fraudulenty as you would be paying road tax for lower emissions, but pumping out higher emissions?

Funnily enough, just as we were talking about these issues, this came up on the Guardian website, discussing the "turbo charged costs" of diesels these days. Due to all the technology going into them to make them more refined and hit Euro targets, high (hundreds of pounds per repair) repair bills are becoming the norm. (Real story starts half way through).


http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/mar/02/turbo-charged-cost-of-diesel-cars

ess0two

If you do remove the particulate filter?make sure it dont throw up an EML on the dash,new rules from this year will result in a failure.

http://www.carcycle.co.uk/faq/84-new-mot-rules-abs-eml.html

StevieJ

lostinrates wrote: »

Stevie, not sure how old you are, but have made educAted age range guess...

It would be interesting if you could compare yours with other age groups from your family. !

Not easy because they are always having accidents and I have never had one (well, since I passed my driving test ). My point was not about the actual costs of the policy but the fact that you can generally get it cheaper if you shop around, see Chewy above.

geoffky

vivatifosi wrote: »

Is it worth mentioning at this point that you can borrow Haynes manuals from many libraries. Even if they order in the cost to borrow is far, far lower than the cost to buy. Lots of people borrow these to do their own basic servicing. Sorry you had so much trouble though geoffky.

The wipers came with three different connectors but not the one i had on my car..land rover wanted £80 to supply and fit ,i got mine from costco for £18 the pair but fitting is not as easy as i thought, my dad tried to help but gave up after five minutes...looks like i will have a look on line for fitting instructions as the one that came with them is useless little pictures..:mad: