I agree w/ everyone else broseph! If you sell that SRT, you will be depressed & I will be forced to call suicide watch on you. And as far as that debt goes. That is fucked up. Get a GS position on base so you can use the AHS, BX, Commissary etc. But I would move back to CONUS. You made a sacrifice to leave the AF, now its her turn.
We are 'lucky' in the way that Aimee is a nanny and is able to take Lyla to work with her. That helps A LOT! But we are still spending a lot more than we should. Last week was £70 for photos to be done 'professionally'.... nevermind that I have like 50gig of photo's sitting on my HHD as we speak...
I like England itself, it's not that much different than where I live in terms of the land. The people though and the jobs are a different story. The average wage here in the UK is about £23,000, which even with the exchange rate is less than the average in the USA... Whats the killer is the bills and house prices. The taxman here take more money than the USA, though not much difference anymore, and the bills are the same unitwise, which makes the bills here almost double that of the USA. The House prices are the killer. In order for us to have a decent house in this area we are looking at a starting price no less than £250k for a 3 bedroom place. 1 bedroom flats start at £120k in this area. A 3 bedroom place with a lounge, kitchen, sitting room you are looking at over £300k, and this doesn't include much of a garden. The ones with the nice gardens are over £400k. How in the hell could I afford that while making 25k year? I could build a bigger house in the states for £80k...
We dont have the cash to buy another car really. If I put the put the parts on it the car should be good. Bottom line is she wants a new car and I have to sacrifice for it.
Aimee needs something newer than a car 15 yrs old. Otherwise we would keep the car she has. I do all the work myself so fixing things only really costs my time plus the parts. I just did her headgasket, water pump, cam belt and tensioner, oil change, new pads and rotors on the front, new plugs, wires and new cap and rotor for right around £450. Would have been over £1200 at the garage. I told them all when her car broke the last time that we must stick with the car now for a coupl emore years and this won't be the end of it. I was right, now it's the cv boots, radiator, and valve guides (admittidly I thought I should have done them when the gasket went, but money was tight)
She doesn't want to get stranded anywhere, I can see that. We do have a great car for her to drive, but she is unwilling to learn the nuances of driving on the other side of the car so we must get her another one...
I have said that my car is a hobby car, and I would have to find another hobby if it did go, and that it would probably be something like a gutted out mini or old M3, which would cost more than what I have currently to drive and maintain.
Long of the short is her family is pulling strings too and have me backed into a corner with it. They see it as excess and are unwilling to see the facts. Maily because Aimee is their 'baby' and is right all the time.... Ahh I love ranting...
I spent 3 years searching for a car that would fit our wants/needs. This car fits everything at the moment. She says there is not much room in th boot. True the openeing isn't the greatest, but no different than any other sedan. If we went with an estate maintenance goes up a little and gas milage goes down a little, for a bit more space.
We will get her a different car eventually but not through selling my car.
Her cards have been taken away for some time. This is just remenents of the cards.
GS positions are tough to come by and get filled quickly.
It will be a very tough sell. The car is worth a bit, and people with that kind of cash are not really interested in the mileage or insurance anyways and are willing to fork out the additional cash to get something that everyone knows and isn't FWD.
She will have to move back to the States, though my gut feeling now is that was never her intention and I was hoodwinked.
So how is everyone else anyways? I heard through one of my Wife's frieends that they saw a solar yellow SRT running around banbury the other week. Anyon eknow who it might be? It might be they saw an SXT, but this person has seen my car and was insistant it was an SRT.
Might have been a SRTDesign too. To the brits I am sure they look the same since they don't see one all the time and there are so few in the UK as it is.
Yep, we had a decent size house in the UK (rented of course) and it went for £1200/month. 4 bedroom, 2 car garage, garden, sun room, living room, kitchen. 2.5 bathrooms, dining room. I think it was estimated at 1100 sq ft living space (normally doesn't include garage space)
I pay now $1400/month for 1.5 acres, 2 car garage, 3 bedroom, kitchen, 2 bathrooms, bonus room (above garage), living room, dining room, huge deck on back of house. 1800 sq ft living space (same as above, no garage space included in sq footage).
To be honest, she needs to look at what is best for your family, not what is best for her. While I love the UK, I could not live there on the economy. It is too expensive. Prices, taxes, petrol alone is too high. Coming back to the states, while it will be far from her parents, would probably be better for you guys financially. Better paying jobs, better house buying opportunities.
As for the GS jobs, good luck. Took civilian personnel 2.5 years to find my wife a job over there that made any kind of money, and that was with her having placement preference since she had to leave her last GS job due to our/my PCS. The civilian employment office works on a "who you know" basis, not "what you know". If you are an insidered moving from job to job, not so bad, but if you are applying from outside, good luck. That is just my personal oppinion based on what I have seen both at Lakenheath/Mildenhall and here at Seymour Johnson AFB.
Yes in the end the USA is better, not only because of everything being cheaper. We have been offfered the farmhouse (2k+ sqft if include basement) or 30 acres to build our own house on. We would be living on the farm, but it's nice having 300 acres to do whatever the fuck you want. If you want to streak naked for some strange reason you won't have the neighbors eying you funny, unless that is they happen to be using bicnoculars.... not that I condone such behaviour.
You can turn your radio up as loud as you want without fear that po po will come and tell you to turn it down or get abused by the neighbor next door. If I wanted to tinker around with the SRT at 2200 at night, there is no problem with that. Hell my dad used to run his streetstock stockcar up and down the 1/2 mile lane with nothing but headers on! My friends could hear him in town... it's 3 miles away, but hey, still no police =)
I used to be able to step outside with the 12 gauge and watch the starlings fall out of the tree. We have flocks of hundereds and they eat all the seeds. The cats never go hungery anyways. I used to be able to step outside and hop on the snowmobile/4wheeler/dirtbike and dig up the corners at the edges of the fields. I can't do shit here without a license to do this that or the other, and then don't have the land to do it even if I had th cash for the licenses!...
Read in the news today that a guy is being charged with murder for killing a burgler in his house here. One was 14 and the other was 17. The 17 year old was killed with a knife. They said that the legal system is all for defending your house, but not with excessive force. How is a knife excessive force?! the people are trying to steal your shit! And what if someone was home when they came in? Would they survive the incident... Ahh I hate socialism... everyone has this right or the other right, but what about the people that actually follow the laws? Where are their rights? What are you supposed to use? I nerf bat? I know, lets all give everyone happy flowers and put them on the houses, that will keep the evil people away for sure! There will always be people that prey on innocence and trust, there is no getting away from it.
Went to the garage today to help Aimee find out if anyone would buy the car. The garage said they would not even consider buying it because of the rarity. ONe step closer to keeping it....
Fired up now...
Last edited by Vipercar93 : 10-29-2009 at 08:18 AM.
Parts would be the issue. That is why I believe they won't touch it. Rarity though is why I didn't want to bring my car anywhere over there for work too. "A turbocharged Neon from the factory, no way". If you get that kind of an answer going to the race track constantly you know that you own a rare car.
yeah, I like having some land around me at the house for privacy. Didn't feel like that in England with how close the houses are to each other. The entire back yard and sides of the house have trees/woods so it is nice and private. Just the front isn't, but even with that there is a big front yard so it isn't like my front window is sitting on the street/sidewalk like in England as well.
I'll read all the replies in a little bit. But did you want me to look at the RAFM 4 sale boards for cheap decent vehicles? There's a butt load of nice reliable cars for sale.
England is everyone standing on top of each other, each grabbing for the same thing.
Parts are a problem for people too, but not too bad.
Yeah I know what you mean. I get that everywhere I go! Went to donnington 2 years ago with it and the car behind us was having a heated debate on what size engine I had! Arms were going and could tell people were getting very heated behind us. When we parked next to each other they asked. They didn't believe me it was a 4 banger! They thought it was either a V8 or a large V6. They were amazed. Most placed I go people stare and look confusingly at the thing, wondering wtf they are looking at. Some people think it's a hopped up SXT, I just chuckle and say believe what you want.
Thanks for the offer toof, for now we are going to stick it out. I am keeping them at bay for now. I am going to try to pick up a second job. We paid nearly £7k in credit cards/ loans last year. 18k to go in total... I am fighting with everything I got to keep the car. The only thing that is saving it from being sold is that we would have to send it back to the states to be able to make any money one it and it won't get us anywhere in our debt beacuse we would have to get 2 more cars to replace what we have.
Dood! You dont need to fight w/ anyone to keep the car. Its yours. Just keep it and remove your 4 sale ads. Sell the car & I swear you'll hate yourself. And if the wifey insists on selling it still, tell her you'll do her like Ike Turner did Tina!
I will keep it up for £12,000 on pistonheads. We have agreed to not sell it for much less. We won't put it up for auction because they will take 20% of the price, so it's not worth it. Her parents want us 'to cut our losses' and sell it for whatever people are willing to pay for it ASAP ~6,000 is what I would expect like that, not a chance. Thankfully I got through to her and she's listening.
One step at a time =) I do still have to live with her =)
Well Starting up School again in the new year. Can't decide on either a stage 4 clutch or putting in some gauges. IE pyro, oil pressure/temp, wideband.
3" clamps = 4 (hotside in/out, coldside in/out) That should be good I believe
2.25" clamp = 1 (turbo outlet. You could try a 2" clamp but I don't think it will be big enough to fit with the outlet being 2" and then squeezing the coupler in under it as well, hence why I say 2.25")
Thanks =) MP has them all. about $35 for them all.
Well Toof when I went up to you and my MM came undone again it must have gave everything the slip it needed for me to glaze my clutch up. It went from engaging very close to the floor to engaging 1/2 way up the pedal throw, and creeping to the top. It's making a pinging sound from time to time when I put it in gear too. I know I atleast have hotspots on it now, it's not smooth on release now, it's grabs and you can feel it 'catch' then 'release' a little when engaging... When I put the power on now after a few shifts it 'smoothes' out a little, but is very catchy, like it's heating up, feels catchy, but soft at the same time.
The MM is done up with threadlock now, the good stuff that doesn't come undone, but I think the damage is done, should have put it in on the first.
Well Lyla has it in her head that her yellow 'duck duck' is now mine. Anytime I set it down anywhere where she can reach it somehow it comes back to me with the saying 'duck duck' while she holds her 'woof woof' in her other hand.
$700 for a stageIV 6 puck with aluminum flywheel. Going to get a mirror and go through the inspection hole to see how the clutch is this weekend. I don't want to buy a clutch just yet. Problem is from what I have been reading is the factory clutches can only handle about what I am putting through it, with the DSP and Exhaust I may be going over the holding capacity of the clutch...
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Love that.
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