The Focusaurus :) ... May Contains traces of Ford!

[steve_earwig]

Easy, it's a box.

[Bailes1992]

Easy, it's a box.

Well done... you win an apple

[highlander]

Eaton manufacture superchargers, I believe - would that happen to be an Eaton M45 Supercharger kit?

And if so, wanna help me out and fit one to my 2.2 Coupe? I say "help me out and fit one" because I ain't got a bloody clue how

EDIT: Actually, they do diffs, hoses, and gears too, so I reckon it'll be something less exciting than a supercharger

[Bailes1992]

Eaton manufacture superchargers, I believe - would that happen to be an Eaton M45 Supercharger kit?

And if so, wanna help me out and fit one to my 2.2 Coupe? I say "help me out and fit one" because I ain't got a bloody clue how

EDIT: Actually, they do diffs, hoses, and gears too, so I reckon it'll be something less exciting than a supercharger

It might be an M45 Supercharger Mr Highlander

[Welly]

*rings the insurance company*

[Bailes1992]

*rings the insurance company*

Weather I'm going to fit it is another story.
Got it for free you see ;)
Could build another engine with a lowered CR, cams, ported polished head, uprated valve springs, arp head bolts and bottom end boplts etc etc.
It would be a monster.

But I still want a 406

[steve_earwig]

*Resists urge to correct spelling mistakes*

Cheers for the apple, I'll add it to the brown ones in the bowl

Words of advice that you will ignore: Sell the turbo, stop spending money that you will never recover, start saving it so you can buy a house. This is not your dad speaking, this is the voice of experience.

[Bailes1992]

*Resists urge to correct spelling mistakes*

Cheers for the apple, I'll add it to the brown ones in the bowl

Words of advice that you will ignore: Sell the turbo, stop spending money that you will never recover, start saving it so you can buy a house. This is not your dad speaking, this is the voice of experience.

I got given it ;)

[steve_earwig]

How about the rest of the engine that you'll have to build to go with it, the suspension that you'll have to change, the brakes that you'll need to upgrade, the special insurance - will someone give them to you too?

Pfft, what do I care? Go for it! All too soon you'll be as hard up as the rest of us...

[Bailes1992]

How about the rest of the engine that you'll have to build to go with it, the suspension that you'll have to change, the brakes that you'll need to upgrade, the special insurance - will someone give them to you too?

Pfft, what do I care? Go for it! All too soon you'll be as hard up as the rest of us...

I'm 18, I'm in full time education and most of my money goes on Petrol and Food. I'l be in uni for 5 years now. I have no money to save for a house. Might aswell enjoy myself

[highlander]

I'm 30, the Wifely Person and I both work, and we can't afford the deposit on a house. According to official government figures, the average couple must save for 14 years to afford the deposit on the average house at current rates (I saw an article on this on BBC Breakfast toward the end of last year).

When I was in high school, house prices were around £40k - £60k. Nowadays, that won't even get you a deposit on a 2-bedroom flat in most UK cities.

No wonder, though - so many people in the 1990s were buying houses and doing them up to sell on at a profit, or to split into flats and rent out, that estate agents are pricing houses as commodities rather than, y'know, places for people to live. There are flats going up in Aberdeen for the £250,000 mark. For a damned flat! I see perfectly ordinary town houses going for up to £1m. Used to be you could get a mansion for that much!

What a sh*t time to live in, economically. Sky-high house prices - banks that pretty much only say "No" when asked for a loan/mortgage - fuel/electricity prices rocketing - VAT going up - most businesses fecking off overseas to explo...er... employ overseas labour at slavery rates - the government's broke cos of two wars in two separate countries - and now the fecking Tories are back in charge.

[steve_earwig]

My nephew has the same problem, there's no way he'll ever be able to afford the deposit on any sort of house. It's different here, my 4 bedroom detached house cost about £60k, but then there's not so much demand and there are actually houses standing empty. This is mainly because a) the stupid kids all want to move into Zagreb because it's a "happening" place (I've no idea what's meant to be happening, apart from the odd mugged tourist) and b) because the tradition in small towns and villages is for the kids to get married and build more rooms on to their parent's existing houses, so generally there's two or three generations living in the same house (which offsets the appallingly low wages here).

I don't know what the answer is but I do wish I had all the money back I wasted playing with cars as a lad

[FarmerPug]

im not really at the age for buying a house either, so i just want to enjoy it on my car, theres no booze which at 19 does save a lot of money.

[waue1978]

I'm 30, the Wifely Person and I both work, and we can't afford the deposit on a house. According to official government figures, the average couple must save for 14 years to afford the deposit on the average house at current rates (I saw an article on this on BBC Breakfast toward the end of last year).

When I was in high school, house prices were around £40k - £60k. Nowadays, that won't even get you a deposit on a 2-bedroom flat in most UK cities.

No wonder, though - so many people in the 1990s were buying houses and doing them up to sell on at a profit, or to split into flats and rent out, that estate agents are pricing houses as commodities rather than, y'know, places for people to live. There are flats going up in Aberdeen for the £250,000 mark. For a damned flat! I see perfectly ordinary town houses going for up to £1m. Used to be you could get a mansion for that much!

What a sh*t time to live in, economically. Sky-high house prices - banks that pretty much only say "No" when asked for a loan/mortgage - fuel/electricity prices rocketing - VAT going up - most businesses fecking off overseas to explo...er... employ overseas labour at slavery rates - the government's broke cos of two wars in two separate countries - and now the fecking Tories are back in charge.

My nephew has the same problem, there's no way he'll ever be able to afford the deposit on any sort of house. It's different here, my 4 bedroom detached house cost about £60k, but then there's not so much demand and there are actually houses standing empty. This is mainly because a) the stupid kids all want to move into Zagreb because it's a "happening" place (I've no idea what's meant to be happening, apart from the odd mugged tourist) and b) because the tradition in small towns and villages is for the kids to get married and build more rooms on to their parent's existing houses, so generally there's two or three generations living in the same house (which offsets the appallingly low wages here).

I don't know what the answer is but I do wish I had all the money back I wasted playing with cars as a lad

I have a separate theory with regards to house prices. If you look back at prices 10 years or so ago, then yes, you will find that you could get a house for £80k, but the wages were also proportionally less so most people still had the same problems as they do nowadays. The only thing that makes the present even more difficult is that the banks are now also more reluctant to lend the money so.

However, my theory on how the houses got so far out of reach is rooted back in the days of buying your own council house. This resulted in masses of people buying £60k (at the time, but now worth £150k+) houses for £20-30k - the mortgage on that was normally a lot less than people were paying in rent. Once these homeowners had stayed in the house for the required time, they all started taking that extra equity & buying up all the nicer houses like mad, pushing the prices up as they went along. This also helped to create the shortage of social housing which left council houses being saved for immigrants/homosexuals/single unemployed parents/mentally retarded etc. & leaving the average working people private renting instead. Due to private renting being substantially more expensive than council rent, these people were now even less able to save money for a deposit. Meanwhile the councils & housing associations managed to scrap the "right to buy" scheme & replace it with the "right to acquire" - the key differences being that the selling price was based on the open market selling price (as opposed to the stand-in value of "right to buy") & the discount a fraction of what it used to be.

For example:

My parents house would have cost them £25k under the "right to buy" 15 years ago.

The houses where they live now sell for over £160k & the cheapest they could buy for under "right to acquire" is about £130k. It may even be more now.

Unfortunately I can't even see there being any kind of lifeline for first time buyers who don't have family on the property ladder as the houses will still be out of reach for those who won't be getting bequeathed a house (or a share of the value of) from their parents as those who inherit will carry on the cycle of house prices going up as they will be using their inherited wealth to either move onto or up the property ladder, thus creating the demand that will push the prices up.

The price crash that economists always predict will only come when a) the inherited wealth has passed down a couple of generations & is split amongst enough siblings that it doesn't give them so much of a wealth boost or b) massive unemployment which will leave people desperate to sell to pay the bills & hardly anybody with the means to buy.

[Welly]

I've been lucky with houses and that's why I always liked Tony Blair because I felt he helped me succeed

1993 - Mortgages first house @ £45K
2000 - Sells above for £68K and Mortgages bigger place @ £80K and borrows extra £17K for improvements.
2001 - Sells above for £195K and 'pockets' £120,000.00 in cash
2003 - Mortgages a new build house worth £180,000.00 with a Mortgage of £62K
2011 - Place should be worth about £280,000.00 now

Year 2000 to 2006 was when all the prices shot up as the buy-to-let market became huge.

I do feel for the younger generation though, pretty much stuck renting a place