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Do I want a Jag XK?

This question has been knocking around for a while. I want something with a V8 and the X100 Series XK8 is certainly a formidable car. But can I handle the issues?

Style

In terms of looks, its a beast! I love the huge 20 inch BBS Split rim wheels and it is ageing very well as a design. It will last longer than the XJS in terms of appeal and should be a well rounded classic in good time.

Issues

OK so here is the big problem, when i started searching for issues I found a lot! Rust is the main killer and after searching for XK rust repair I even found an entire site dedicated to fixing this stuff www.xkrepair.co.uk ….I mean what more do you need to know. If someone runs a business from fixing rot in a car then I think the car is likely to be rather costly to own.

So, do I just let this one go? I was also thinking about a TVR and that could be even more stupid. JLR are not well know for making reliable cars sadly, and that is a massive shame. They have made some amazing cars over the years and the XK8 especially the XK-R versions look like they would be great to own if they worked. Mechanical issues I can kind of accept but being prone to rust is really a problem because it is something that will always be worrying me.

No jag for me…..sadly!

A New Car

It may not mean a great deal to you, the reader, but I have got a new car. This is a very simple statement for most people and for many it means very little indeed. However, for the hardened petrol head and motoring journalist it is a big deal, a very big deal indeed.

What Did I Have Before?

My previous car way a Subaru Impreza WRX Wagon (2002). For those who don’t know the Wagon is essentially a mini estate car. The Impreza has a rather sullied name that is associated with big exhaust pipes and the like. But step aside from that and what you have is a very capable, all wheel drive car that can carry lots of things including a family! The handling is sure footed to say the very least, traction is a given to the extent Subaru didn’t even bother putting in traction control…they just knew the AWD system would handle it. They were right of course! It is also quick! not super car quick but it will do 0-60mph in under 6 seconds and that is not bad at all!

Sadly the miles were clocking up so I had to wave goodbye to this reliable beast!

What Have I Bought?

After many months of searching for a family car that would be faster than the “Scoob” I settled on…well another Subaru. but not an Impreza. I wanted a bit more space so I went for a Forester. Now there is no doubting this is a “grandad” car. It doesn’t look very cool and that’s being polite, it also rides quite high so the rail like handling of the “scoob” is no part of this cars playlist. However, it has symmetrical all wheel drive and it’s fast!

The XT version is all but as quick as the Impreza but I managed to find a rare car that has had some Pro Drive work done on it. This means I have ended up with a car that looks considerably slower than the Impreza but is, in fact, faster but quite a bit! It is lower geared, has a big engine and with the tuning delivers fun by the bucket load. The power is all low down so it takes off like a car half it’s size and will leave all but the most serious competition wondering what happened.

I might do a review of it for my Velocity Torque channel if anyone wants to know more….but it is a great car. I do miss waving at other Scoobie drivers though, they seem to snub the Forester somewhat.

Busy Busy

Yet again I seem to have failed to keep up to date with my own blogging because I am spending so much time doing other peoples! It is a situation I have seen with contacts who run digital marketing agencies where they simple fail to do any marketing themselves because they are flat out making sure their clients are making lots of money. I may not directly make my clients money in the same way as a marketing agency but I am certainly up to my neck in creating content for them. I am also still busy creating video reviews to go along with the written road tests.

I also found myself having no time for karting either but thankfully I managed to get on track during a recent business trip to Spain. The funny thing was I ended up being a mere second under the track record after just 8 laps. I did go back and try again but that second is actually pretty hard to find so don’t get too excited…I’m not that good.

As Autumn arrives I am waiting to get confirmation of a big writing project so watch this space….or don’t because I probably won’t have time to update it!

Where Have I Been?

A question I am sure you are all asking yourselves every single hour, nay minute!

Well I have just been really really busy. The video review work is taking a lot of time and I have had a run of cars in recently for review. This is coupled with the fact I am doing a lot of online content writing at the moment for various companies. This kind of work may not be as rewarding as car reviews but it is fun and because of my work in SEO and digital marketing I am very well placed to create content that not only works for users but also for the mighty Google.

Is content writing the future? Well it is certainly one way a motoring journalist can supplement the sometimes pitiful earnings coming from magazine content. The snag for a lot of people is that they don’t like the idea their name is not on their work though. Personally I don’t really mind. I love writing and writing is what I am doing, whether or not my ego is enriched is neither here nor there if I am doing what I love and getting paid for it!

In the meantime please do have a snoop at my somewhat Partridge esq videos on this channel – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7ktmNvMM_fgg_EO6wubtug 

Bye for now!

 

 

Video Car Reviews

This is a very quick post to show off my first attempt at editing and filming a video road test. Perhaps choosing a car with no roof wasn’t a great idea but it was fun and something I will be doing for most of the test cars I get from now on. I really enjoyed doing it, I just need to get better and planning and perhaps by a mic!

These days motoring journalists need to be able to speak as well as write and oddly that is something I have never had an issue with. I was never that keen on being filmed but doing it myself seems fine.

I hope you enjoy it, get in touch if you want to find out more about this kind of thing or you would like some coverage for a product or car on this site or www.velocitytorque.co.uk 

Which fuel is best for your life or your business?

VW GTE

 

What with the Volkswagen emissions saga, the government championing ultra-low emissions vehicles (ULEVs) and the arrival of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, more and more private and business drivers are left scratching their heads over which fuel to go for. What’s more, people lease or rent all kinds of things these days, from music and films to mobile phones and of course, cars. I’ve been brushing up on company cars, efficiency developments and the pros and cons of leasing, whilst pondering on whether plugin hybrids really make sense.

Residual values of Volkswagen cars may be affected a tiny bit in the short term, but VW owners seem to be a fairly loyal bunch, and cars like the Golf GTD, GTI and R, the Passat, Toureg and Scirocco are prestigious and desirable, so the brand will regain ground. Contract hire/leasing cars aren’t affected by depreciation, making the VW situation less relevant for such motorists.

Which fuel is best mainly seems to boil down to the annual mileage involved. If a car or van will be munching hundreds of miles per week, upto around 18,000 miles or more per year, diesel is still the best fuel to choose. Although cars and vans hardly ever achieve the MPG figures quoted by manufacturers, fuel consumption from diesel engines is typically far better than petrol when it comes to high-mileage use. Some wonderfully economical three-cylinder petrol engines have recently come on the market, but they best suit motorists whose commutes are no more than around 40-50 miles per day. If you live 20-25 miles or less from your office, it might make sense to lease a petrol variant of the model you’ve set your heart on, as forecourt fill-ups, road tax and monthly car leasing rental payments can sometimes work out cheaper.

I’ve learned that diesel vehicles are often dictated to business fleets because of their attractive Business in Kind (BIK) rates resulting from their typically lower CO2 emissions, and it’s clearly not always about the P11D book value. The P11D value of a petrol BMW 320i SE Auto, for example, is lower at £28,675 than a diesel BMW 320d ED Plus Auto, which weighs in at £32,035. However, because the petrol 3 Series emits 129g/km CO2 compared to the 99g/km of CO2 the diesel model produces, it ends up with a 3% higher BIK rate, meaning that many businesses’ accountants won’t recommend one. Contracthireacar.com of Manchester says 85% of its customers still choose diesel.

What about plugin hybrids (PHEVs)? The V60 D6 PHEV from Volvo sounds great on paper, its diesel-electric powertrain only emitting 48g/km of CO2. In the real-world, though, its electric range only provides around 15 miles and the batteries make it heavier and therefore less economical than the D4 and D5 diesel versions. So the fact it costs close to £50,000 and doesn’t tend to meet the quoted MPG figures means it’s a bit of an odd one.

 

Tesla

 

Fully electric cars range from the more affordable Nissan LEAF and Renault ZOE, which have ranges of about 60-70 miles in the real world, to the £55-80k Tesla Model S, which looks awesome and can cover 265 miles on a full charge. Where I live down south, quite a few Tesla supercharges are within reach, but for my mates up north, only a few exist at the moment, making recharging a hassle.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) promise real life ranges of around 400 miles, making them much more useable, but the Mirai from Toyota isn’t cheap at around £60,000 and if anyone decided to ‘early adopt’ one of them or a Hyundai ix35 Fuel Cell, they’d currently be hard pushed to find hydrogen fuel stations.

Petrol and especially diesel will continue to sell the most, for several years at least, partly because the government will soon be reducing the plugin car grant. But with increasing publicity over the polluting effects of diesel NOx on air pollution and for asthma sufferers, it’s going to be interesting to see how things shape up.

 

 

Images used by permission from Oliver Hammond

Race Car SEO

As well as being somewhat of a wordsmith I am also very keen on the wonderful, and challenging, world of SEO. For those of you who do not know what that is, the letters simply stand for Search Engine Optimisation. What does that mean I hear you cry? Well, it basically means attempting to get people to the top of Google search results without paying for adverts. However, nothing in the digital world is simple and there are many ways to practice SEO, most of them are risky and can damage your site. However, if done well and within Google’s guidelines, SEO can change a business forever and deliver solid and long lasting rankings and the resulting traffic; not to mention the enquires if the terms being optimised for are correct.

I am really proud to be working with a small race car preparation and engine building company called Hurley Race Engineering who are based near Cambridgeshire. These guys are a proper, honest and hard working race company with over 40 years experience in motorsport. They do anything from a pre race check to building a race car from scratch, the later I find very exciting. The idea of having a project car and going to them with a budget and ending up with a race car is enough to set any petrol head into a spin. Hopefully I will have a budget to do just that at some point but until then I will satisfy myself with working alongside the team and hopefully going to the odd track day or two with them to check out the cars they have built.

If you would like to find out more about automotive SEO and how having someone who knows about motoring looking at your marketing makes all the difference then drop me a line ade@holdermotoring.co.uk

New Website

I am very proud and excited to announce the launch of a brand new site called www.velocitytorque.co.uk . I have created this site with a highly skilled social media, online PR and general thrill seeking friend of mine who also happens to love cars.

The site will be covering news, reviews and all things engine related including bikes! However, it is not just another motoring site, no, we wanted it to cover products and style too. There is very little in the way of dedicated motoring and motorsport clothing  and when we find some we want to talk about it. We also love watches and tech so we thought we would throw some of that in too. This may seem like a broad subject field but it will all be kept very much in a motoring vein.

…and if all that wasn’t enough Velocity Torque will also be looking at experience and track days. These are often such a great way to experience speed and power when your bank account won’t stretch to owning a supercar so we thought its about time people started reviewing them from a motoring point of view.

We are looking for new writers to come and help so if you do want to discuss writing for this new exciting site then get in touch ade@holdermotoring.co.uk

Good copywriting is not hard to find.

Sometimes I come across some really terrible copy writing; so bad it makes me wince. I am certainly not attacking the people who do their best to write content for their own motoring sites and online shops. No, I am attacking the people that charge small businesses for bad content. Not everyone can write, that is fine, that is also just life. But everyone has the choice in life to be honest and selling themselves as a copy writer, then charging good people money for thier “skills” is essentially theft.

The rise of the internet and search engines has meant many businesses are desperately trying to keep up. Prior to the internet you could run a shop as you saw fit and people responded buy being customers or not. Now many businesses struggle to keep up with online marketing and the amount of content Google likes to see in order for them to rank well. This has lead to hundreds of poor quality SEO and content agencies preying on the innocent business owners under the premise they will improve their rankings.

I am not saying employ me as your motoring copywriter…that is up to you. However, please please check and double check the quality of peoples’ work before you pay them. If you ask for a test piece can often be misleading as it can be written by anyone. You need to ask for live online examples of their work for other companies. If you don’t feel your written English skills are up to proof reading their work, find a friend who can, everyone knows at least one wordy geek like me.

Poor content on your website can lead to you site being penalised by Google, the same can happen if you don’t have enough. So go out and find good people to work with and simply do not tolerate second rate writing. Hopefully if everyone stops paying them they might go away!

The Humble Tyre – The most important part of your car

When you work in the motoring industry and especially when you are a motoring journalist you get constantly bombarded by technology and upgrades. It could be a spec list for a brand new range rover, or it could be the latest Demon Tweeks catalog it doesn’t really matter. The up shot is; there is an almost unlimited range of things you can spend money on to make your car better. I drive a Subaru Impreza and the money people spend on modifications in the owners club is mind boggling. What a great deal of people fail to count when they are thinking about spending money on their car is the humble tyre. People in the performance world understand the value of rubber but that is not a common position, and it should be.

With no exaggeration at all, the tyres on your car are the most important safety system you have. No matter how nice or how fast your car is, a poor quality or worn out set of tyres renders the car largely unsafe. For most road users this fact is not something they have even considered and they really should.

To understand how important good tyres are you first need to appreciate the wonder of the contact patch. This is the amount of tyre that actually touches the road surface at any one time. For most cars this contact patch is about the size of a post card per wheel. So the only thing keeping most cars on the road is a piece of rubber that adds up to about the size of an A4 sheet of paper. Now consider the forces involved in taking a corner at 60 mph… now do that in the wet! Scary isn’t it? It gets worse, just take a moment to think of the last time you braked hard at 70 mph, hopefully have never had too but you will have had to brake hard at some point. The forces involved are immense and very uncomfortable, and the only thing holding it all together is our friend the contact patch.

It is critical to choose good tyres, and it is critical to change them when they wear out. People running on bald tyres are a danger to themselves and others and most don’t even know it. Buying tyres to many people is a pain, it should be a pleasure. It should be like buying new shoes, something to be looked forward too…well OK maybe that’s just me but it should be done whether people like it or not.

My father was a mechanic for nearly 60 years and his advice was simple, when buying tyres go for one or two levels above the cheapest. No need to buy to super expensive ones for normal road use but try and find a few extra pounds to get yourself a mid range tyre. Websites like www.point-s.co.uk are perfect for tyre shopping. You get a chance to read reviews, check prices and then order them to your local fitter. You don’t need to go into a garage and just buy whatever they tell you too. These kind of sites let you take control, and get a good deal.

Be safe, treat the humble tyre with the respect it deserves and you can enjoy driving in all sorts of conditions. Good tyres also help on those corners too if you like to have a spirited drive every now and again!

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