Coldie,
does this symbolic gesture of abandoning your bachelor car mean that you will be abandoning your Rush albums and buying in Yes albums instead?
I already have Yes albums, Twisty. 
I was out drinking with a mate last night, and he pointed it out to me that within 4 months of turning 30, I have now bought a station wagon, a DIESEL station wagon no less. That kind of hit close to home.
Einmon, you may be right, it already seemed rather peculiar to have the EU stars with “NL” under it, and the “Laenderaufkleber” (German is so pretty and descriptive :)) in addition to that. Maybe there’s no need to put one on anymore.
TTT, I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think 50megs.com is restricted. Weird.
I just tried pinging for it, but only got ‘request timed out’. 
I would congratulate you on your new car, but since I can’t see any pictures… Well then, gefeliciteerd anyway with your new gas-sucking vehicle. 
Diesel! And it’s very economical with it: 1 liter in 20 clicks, woohoo!
Very nice . . . very nice, indeed!
All right, I’ve had the car for over a week now, and I am very pleased with it. The airconditioning is simply superb, and works better than in a lot of far more expensive cars I have driven. You’ll find the car parked in the sun, and it’ll turn the interior from “desert storm, the sequal” to a nice 20 degrees celcius in about 30 seconds. What a blessing!
The engine is very quiet for a diesel. It’s more noisy than a petrol car when running stationary, especially when it’s cold. And it certainly makes itself audible during acceleration. But at constant highway speeds, it doesn’t produce more noise than the riding wind does. You can easily do 160 km/h without hearing the engine at all!
So far, it hasn’t been as economical as I had expected: 1 liter in 14 kilometers. To be fair, I have been giving it some stick: it’s got a 6 month warranty, and I’d rather find any faults with it now than in a year’s time. 1 in 18 should be easily achieved, with a little more conservative shifting.
Oh, and one of the windshield spray thingies is misalligned. Need to get that fixed, I don’t need a device to clean my roof every morning.
Here it is at a parking area alongside the highway, after I just picked it up.
Nice looking car. Isn’t it the one they were chasing in Ronin?
The windshield spray thingies are consumer adjustable on most vehicles (don’t know about Citroens.)
Variety one is the ball joint sprayer. Stick a needle in the hole and turn the ball more towards where you want it to spray (as a note, you want to make a compromise adjustment. Set it so it sprays at the very top of your windshield and splatters the roof at a standstill. When you are moving at speed it will hit the windshield much lower. If you set it for the middle of the windshield at a standstill, it will be dribbly at speed.)
Variety two is the metal thingie which you just bend.
The windshield spray thingies are consumer adjustable on most vehicles (don’t know about Citroens.)
Variety one is the ball joint sprayer. Stick a needle in the hole and turn the ball more towards where you want it to spray (as a note, you want to make a compromise adjustment. Set it so it sprays at the very top of your windshield and splatters the roof at a standstill. When you are moving at speed it will hit the windshield much lower. If you set it for the middle of the windshield at a standstill, it will be dribbly at speed.)
Variety two is the metal thingie which you just bend.
it
I haven’t seen Ronin in a while, but I believe the car lieu is refering to is actually a Peugeot 406, or a Peugeot 605. Citroen is part of the same group, so there are some similarities in design.
Scylla: it has those pesky ball joint thingies. A bitch to adjust, but I’ll give it a go someday soon.
The last time you ran this by us, I tried to be supportive. Really, I did. It’s shiny and silver, and you tried to tell us that it really wasn’t an “old man” car. Let’s just consider the facts, then.[ul]0 to 60 in 11.6 isn’t very good. It’s actually more time than I’ve spent in a dentist’s chair over the past five years.
It’s going to be hard to keep that color looking good. You’ll have to wash it every day after work.
If you think 200 km/h is fast, you haven’t been in the passenger seat when my girlfriend is driving.
You bought a station-wagon, buddy.[/ul] That last bit is what I can’t forgive.
My girlfriend is making “marriage and children” noises, and you are very much not helping, okay?
Sheesh. You think you can trust a guy.
11.6 is plenty for normal driving. This isn’t a hot rod, it’s an A to B mode of transport. I prefer it economical, rather than fast.
Silver doesn’t look dirty that soon, in my experience. My previous car was a lot harder to keep in shape. In any case, it’s a car, it’s all right if it looks dirty from time to time. It’s a means, not a goal in itself.
200 km/h can be easy cruising in a nice BMW down the German Autobahn, and it can be downright terrifying down a country road. I’ll leave the comments about your girlfriend’s driving as they are.
And hey, since when is it my responsibility to be careful in purchasing new vehicles, lest your girlfriend becomes fertile at the sudden sight of a station wagon?
Look.
If I have to listen to crap like, “why can’t you grow up and be responsible like that nice Dutch gentleman? He bought a station wagon, after all.” then it’s all your fault.
That’s just the way it is.
I watched it last night just for grins. There are of course two significant car chase scenes. The first is of a Benz and an Audi 8 chasing a Citroen (actually several). The second is of a Peugot chasing a BMW. Nice cars, all.
Well, be that as it may, the Xsara was introduced in 1997, and I believe Ronin is one or two years older than that. So my money is on either a Citroen XM or a Citroen Xantia, for the ones in that movie. The Xantia is rather similar-looking to the Xsara. Here’s a Xantia Break, for example.
