Skeater's Blog

The latest trend for car manufacturers is to use a tiny engine with a hefty turbo on it, to keep CO₂ emissions down.

The VW family have the 1.2 and 1.4 litre petrol turbo engines, and even BMW use a 3.0 litre twin-turbo to replace their 3.5 litre engine.

In fact BMW are the clear winners with this technology, they've got a 2.0 diesel that only produces 109 grams of CO₂, which means your road tax is £20, but it still does 0-60 in about 7 seconds, which is pretty quick - about the same as a MINI Cooper S.

I've driven the Skoda 1.2 turbo in a Roomster, I was quite impressed, nippy enough at low speeds and quick enough on the motorway. It kind of felt like a 1.8 petrol, and did around 40 mpg across a mixture of motorways and country lanes. It's supposed to do around 50, but it's hard to hit the manufacturers claimed figures unless you live on the motorway.

Ford's next addition to this turbo charged frenzy is a three cylinder 1.0 turbo engine, expected to produce a choice of 98 or 123 bhp and return over 55 mpg! These are silly numbers from such a little engine.

The only 3 cylinder engine I've driven is the one in the 1.0 Corsa, and I'd describe that one as practically dangerous. It launches you onto the road and then runs out of power, deciding not to accelerate you up to any reasonable speed.

The Skoda engine is better, but that still has problems accelerating when you're already moving. Without the turbo or the bottom end torque, the Skoda engine struggles to do anything - mid range power is lacking.

So it will be interesting to see how this new Ford engine drives. In the end if you're getting the 55mpg from it, you wont be going quickly. If you are using 123 horse power your consumption will be rubbish, but maybe it's all about having then choice... And keeping the manufacturers name "green".

There's more about the new Ford engine here: Auto express review

This entry was posted on November 15, 2011 at 3:17 PM and has received 111 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

I had a dream sometime last week, and it's taken me a while to get around to writing it up, but it was really rather entertaining so I thought I'd better still post it.

I can't remember how it all started, as is often the case with a dream, but I remember I was lucky enough to have been stupid enough to just go ahead and get myself a Vauxhall VXR8 on finance. Which was excellent.

It was a shiny Bathhurst S edition, in white with the black, off-center go faster stripes. It was a lovely sunny day, and I was picking up Alex Long to go down to Brighton with him, for Mark and Marie's flat warming.

I decided to share my good fortune and give Alex the first drive, after all I'd get to drive it loads. In reality, I wouldn't let anyone else drive it, that would be stupid.

Anyway, so Alex jumped in, put his foot to the floor, made loads of smoke from the back tyres and immediately started trying to do hand brake turns.

I become instantaneously furious and begin punching him right in the face from the passenger seat. Alex told me to stop punching him, I told him to stop driving my car so badly - that was my job.

After quite a lot of punching, I told him to pull over and get out. He exited the car, I climbed over to the driver's seat, and Alex got in the passenger seat.

We set off again for Brighton, but after a couple of minutes I decided it was necessary to continue punching Alex in the face, so he decided to do the same back to me. With all the punching, I'd forgotten to pay attention to driving.

We were now doing 140 MPH going down Langshot Lane in Horley towards the Farmhouse Pub.

Alex and I decided to make our own way to Brighton separately. I parked up my car, and started walking to work (apparently I was no longer going to Brighton). After I'd taken a few steps away, I turned and looked at the car, pleased that I finally owned one, but one though rang through my head. "Shit. Holly's going to kill me".

I walked to work, got to my desk, and sitting on the desk was a scale model, about 2 feet long, of my car. Except it wasn't a model, it was my actual car. That was my car, it was just only 2 feet long.

My colleague Alex Kenny came in the room, looked at the model and said "Have you finally bought one!". To which I replied yes, and then asked for a lift back up the road to collect it, because I'd accidentally parked it somewhere that wasn't at work.

So, mainly this dream doesn't make sense, apart from the fact that I want a VXR8. And sorry Alex Long, for dream punching you. You punched me back too! So maybe you deserved it!

This entry was posted on November 8, 2011 at 3:11 PM and has received 109 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

So I've been after a VXR8 for many years now. In fact I think for the last 3 or 4 years, my mother has asked me what I've wanted for christmas, and I give her a list that always ends with "Vauxhall VXR8". Every year, she fails to by me one.

I've also failed to convince Holly that we should be buying one as a family car. I've also failed to convince my bank account that I actually have enough money to buy one.

Fair enough, they've jumped up from £35,000 to between £45,000 and £49,000, but I think that's a bargain for an enourmous boot which can easily fit a buggy, spacious and comfy front and back seats for the family to sit in, a heck of a lot of extra features such as sat nav and electric seats, over 430 PS and a 0 - 60 time of less than 5 seconds!

It's what every family car is supposed to be. And it's made by Vauxhall, a respectable, well priced car manufacturer.

Anyway, as if my argument wasn't good enough already, look at how amazing the Vauxhall is at smashing it's manufacturers fuel consumption figures!

http://cars.uk.msn.com/news/unlikely-vauxhall-v8-wins-mpg-marathon

That's a 50% increase in figures. Everyone should get one. And one person should give it to me*

_{*and then pay for the massive insurance bill, and set up a direct debit to contribute towards the ridiculous running costs. I'll need 2 new back tyres a month.}

This entry was posted on October 25, 2011 at 3:23 PM and has received 95 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

Ok, I'm supposed to be going to bed 'coz I is well tired m8.

But I just wanted to have a quick rant about Johnny English Reborn before I go.

I've just been to see the aforementioned film in the cinema with the right hon. Lady Skeater, and we both very much enjoyed it. We both like Rowan Atkinson, and we both like cars. Holly especially likes Aston Martins, so she was very pleased.

Anyway, you may notice when you watch it a slight bit of Apple branding. There's a lot of iPhone 4 (or was it a 4s!), quite a few Mac books, AND ABOUT 18 MILLION BLOODY IPADS!

Seriously, there are a lot of iPads in the film. There's a heart rate monitor at the end of the film... on an iPad! So you got many close up shots of just the iPad showing the heart rate. There's a control room with like 50 massive screens and computers in it, however one guy is peering down at his FUCKING IPAD IN HIS LAP!

My favourite iPad plug was one just standing up on a table in the back ground, sort of facing towards the camera a bit, just behind Rosamund Pike when she's analyzing Rowan Atkinson (I should probably use character names, but anyway). I like this one most, or hate it most, because they're not even using it. It's just there.

Anyway, there's a lot of Apple plugs, and a lot lot lot of iPad plugs. I think it was always the iPad 1 as well, not even the 2. The silliest thing is, it's supposed to be a cool high tech spy film, and most of the film is great IMO, the car has a laser cutter on it, there's a rocket launcher umbrella, a very versatile dyson and a minigun/golf bag in it.

But the iPad? They're not high tech! I mean I do love my iPad, it's awesome, but it's no V16 Rolls Royce super car. Issy can use the iPad, and she's not even 2 yet.

So any way, if you like the first film, this one was better. It wasn't too cheesy, just the right amount of cheese/Rowan/spying/hot girls/silliness I reckon.

But there is a lot of Apple sponsorship in there. A lot.

Oh and Gillian Anderson is still hot. And that wheel chair is amazing.

This entry was posted on October 14, 2011 at 2:56 AM and has received 121 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.

And while we’re on the subject of “updates” as you choose to call them, I may as well date you’re up while we’re here.

Me ladies

So first of all it’s probably worth mentioning some where in here that I’m now bringing up a baby and about to move in with my girlfriend somewhere in Bristol… assuming Kingsley Thomas pull through and prove that not all estate agents are complete morons… so far though they’ve all proven to be some type of moron, even if they started off well. So Kingsley Thomas, please, please prove me wrong.

Anyway, Lady Skeater, as she’d like to be known on the site, will now be blogging along side me at lady.skeatermedia.co.uk so pay attention to that, she’s very clever and funny and has a wonderful way with words.

The little baby will not be blogging, currently she has trouble sitting up on her own, and if I do manage to get her balanced up right it’s likely that she’ll squeak with joy and topple her self over.

And my other lady…

Moving on now to Sabine. My BMW 320i SE. To many people, she may appear to be nothing special. To my mother she’s known as Bob, but Sabine is not Bob any more. She is Sabine, named after Sabine Scmitz, she’s a fast german lady so it seems appropriate. I’ve got a bit of a thing for cars as many people know, and Sabine is the quickest car I’ve had to date. She’s my first BMW. But over the last 18 months she’s started to fall apart on me.

The electric windows failed, the suspension was squeaking, clunking and rattling, the alternator died, and on top of all this there was no room in the boot for the buggy for the baby. I was sad, despite recently fitting my 2m kayak in the car (from parcel shelf to dashboard) it seemed like I was going to have to get rid of her or part ex her for something cheaper to run and with a bigger boot.

But within the last month or so, things started to look up! The incredible Matt Leach managed to find the problem with the electric windows and sort those out with a tiny bit of solder. This week I got the suspension sorted out at the garage next to my work, they said “the left side is squeaking, the right side is clunking, and it sounds like the heat shield is rattling”. So they fixed the squeak and the clunk and now Sabine is a smooth and pleasant drive and I don’t have to grit my teeth when reverse parking! There is still some rattling, but I’ll find it. There’s a bit of rust, and it needs a polish, but I’m good at sorting that stuff out.

So my current theory is… make Sabine all shiny and new, and then see what inspiration I can take from here…

I GOTTA SHINY PHONE

I’ve been trying to work out how I can get my hands on a Nokia n900. I used my faithful n95 as a satnav, for browsing the web, checking my email, taking notes, listening to music, I used it all day long for lots of tasks as well as the usual phone calls and SMS stuff. Oh and it had an awesome camera. I don’t like iphones… or apple at all for that matter, and I don’t like the stupid little ball on the Nexus One and the Desire.

I really really liked my n95, and the n900 has awesome reviews, plus it’s running on linux and I’m a techie… so I did a quick bit of maths and decided if I get £70 for my n95 from envirophone, and £200 for my laptop on ebay then there’s little difference between those 2 and the n900 at £330 on ebay. So I bought it!

I’m yet to get the money for the other 2 items I told myself I’d trade in… but I’ll get there!

The n900 is bloody awesome though, I’m pretty much glued to it all the time… it’s really bad I’m constantly communicating via the internet in some way now, and I have to resist the temptation at work to pick it up and play with it, but it does everything for me. I should probably write a proper review of it on LUUUX.com instead of just ranting generically about it. I’ll try to do that soon…

Where are my dreams?

Anyways, it’s getting quite late and I’m rambling quite a lot. Something I’d like to point out is that I’m not having as many random crazy dreams as I used to, I think becuase I’m too tired from commuting to reading and back and trying to sort my life out at the moment, but hopefully in a month or so when I settle to my new home… where ever that may be… and stop traveling so much I’m hoping the cruise ships, aliens, monsters, battles and adventures all return.

This entry was posted on June 2, 2010 at 1:48 PM and has received 60 views. There are currently 0 comments. Print this entry.