240 General: New (to me) 1980 Volvo 244

[Laird Scooby]

Originally Posted by Othen

I've told my mate with the Z4 that he should reverse into the garage - and to start and run the car once per week - and to park with the electric parking brake off ... about 100 million times (it seems). Not to worry, I'll probably get the car going this afternoon. I didn't fancy blowing up the alternator on the Skoda by risking jump charging a battery with very low resistance at 30A for half an hour yesterday, otherwise we could have ended up with two dead cars at a remote lock up garage.

I've fixed that Z4 quite a few times, and I've told my mate this is the last time I'll rescue it. If he isn't going to use the car then sell it as soon as I get it going (particularly as he has just lost his lock up garage). It won't last long parked on the road.

I'm not a BMW fan. I bought a brand new 318 touring about 30 years ago (tax free, I was being posted back to Germany). I'd ordered it at short notice over the phone and showed up at the very swish showroom at Park Lane to collect, only to notice the car didn't have a radio fitted. I asked the suited salesman where was the radio, and he explained that I had not specified one so they had not fitted it, but I could of course purchase on of their BMW (re-branded blue-spot) radios that started at only £400 (a lot of money in about 1991). It had not occurred to me that I might have to order a radio separately for what was quite an up market car - I'd bought a couple of new Mazdas in the years prior and they came with everything as standard (certainly radios, A/C and electric windows all round). I took the car away somewhat in disgust, bought a pretty good Kenwood radio for less than half the price BMW had wanted in the NAAFI when I got to Germany. I've never bought a new (or used) BMW since - I just don't like the company's way of doing things (and they seem to be driven by pretentious people that often insist on overtaking my Porsche whatever the risk).

Ho hum, time for Bob's first walk.

Alan

PS. We don't need the robot vacuum cleaner, but it is just so cool.

I always find reversing into garages is easier than driving in. Firstly you have door mirrors you can use to see where the rear of the car is in relation to the sides/back of the garage, secondly it's easier to turn in small spaces in reverse (think of a fork lift with rear wheel steering), thirdly it's physically easier to drive out and less chance of an accident with other vehicles that haven't seen you trying to reverse out of a garage you can't see naything out of, fourthly the cold, steamy exhaust fumes won't be obscuring your view as they would if you were reversing out - i could go on as there's a few more reasons too.

Good call on telling your mate to sort the Z4 out, it's not doing him or the car any favours not being used.

I think BMW were very poor back in the 90s with equipment, as you say, too much missing as standard that other marques already had. Also i had a couple of 728s way back when and both developed serious problems very quickly, that put me off them for life.

Originally Posted by loki_the_glt

I'm with the Laird - I had an iPhone 4s many years ago, mainly because a good friend worked me a good deal on the contract, but kept it only until the contract lapsed, at which point I reverted to a BlackBerry and have stayed with BlackBerrys(ies?) ever since, currently using a Key2. I find Apple treats users like children, forever admonishing them to "back up this phone. It has not been backed up in the last two weeks" even though you haven't altered any of the data in that period, whereas the BlackBerry assumes you're an adult and will back it up as and when you have to.

I had a BlackBerry once, for about 3 days! The buttons were too small for my fingers so sold it on ebay and got a Samsung Tocco instead, bought off ebay. Many moons ago i also worked on Apple computers and didn't like their engineering methods so have always swerved their products. Also known many people who have had reliability problems with their phones which was my experience of Apple computers.
As for back ups, the Android system tends to back up most of the stuff automatically but a back up can be forced (for example when you're about to change your phone) so the data can all be downloaded to a new device or simply to perform a factory reset without losing all your personal data.