not much point either because even if the car is fully maintained it doesnt stop the muppet behind the wheel having an accident anyay

^ Especially when its a cheque-book car.

And only being able to get someone else to do any modifications will leave it open to high prices/price fixing - no learning for the enthusiastic,just modified cars handed only to those who can afford it.

People have been modifying cars for over a century and i dont think such vehicles have ever been the main danger on our roads.

Surely if its a cheque book car you know exactly how much money you have in it. Probably more than most home-brew cars so you'd be less likely to bin it. Cause its cost you and arm and a leg to build and it'll cost and arm and a leg to fix if you bin it. Where as home-brew, you bin the car, just get in the garage and start again.

I've got some background in the microlight industry, which is a little bit more relaxed than light aircraft. I've built 2 or 3 from scratch/kits, done rebuilds on 4 or 5 crashed aircraft, and done lots of engine services/small repairs. I'm not a fully qualified engineer (though i did study aircraft engineering at college), and all my work had to be signed off be a fully qualified engineer. any mods to structure or systems have to be submitted to the caa or bmaa for aproval too. some get turned down purely because the engineer in question doesnt see the benifit, even if everyone else does.

although its a ball ache it does make sense for aircraft, its weather it'd be practical for cars.

I'm pretty sure most peeps have noticed they've not done somerthing right, or missed a step (like forgetting to tighten wheel bolts more than finger tight, ill admit I've done it!).

and theres the extra expence, i couldnt pay an engineer hundreds of pounds to check my car over after id done a mod.

So does that rule out changing a wheel yourself on the hard shoulder? Its a regular job for the AA,afterall.

Heartagram,i can see that. But money is easy to some,and is insurable. Cracking your knuckles open a few times is a bit different. I know that i care more for cars I've put blood,sweat and tears into than those i haven't.

no cut an shuts.

minuite you cut out anything structural(not sill skins, a-pillars and bulkheads an shit) vehicle should be scrap, however with landies, bulkheads are replaceable... depends on quality of work i guess...

no m5 ute then

I know you love that thing, if not you are gay.

The story I read said that the car was modified as he used it for off road. But they said on the news probably the major cause for the accident was mis-match brake callipers on the front and on of them would snatch making the car veer to one side.

The only Land Rover front brakes I've done were drums,but they were a pig because there were two cylinders on each wheel to replace. It took some working out to get them on the right way around too,with the unions at angles.

But with some time,thought,care and effort the job was done properly and correctly.

We dont ban alcohol because of a few alcoholics and I'm damned if I'm gonna let a few retards take my freedom to play with sticks and stones.

The system works ok as it is, even the retards rarely kill anyone with their home brew contraptions. Most projects taken on by the incompetant dont get to see the light of day anyway.

Soon we will be like the rest of europe though, where your car has to be totally bog standerd when you take it for test every year.

Or even worse like france where you need written permission from the authorities every time you want to drive your classic car on the road.

Most projects taken on by the incompetant dont get to see the light of day anyway.

mines on the road!

sometimes...

no cut an shuts.

minuite you cut out anything structural(not sill skins, a-pillars and bulkheads an shit) vehicle should be scrap, however with landies, bulkheads are replaceable... depends on quality of work i guess...

no m5 ute then

I know you love that thing, if not you are gay.

i DO love the M5 Ute... but its been built PROPERLY. designed, and fabricated with skill and time. those rear beams to the rear turrets are art. the words "no expense spared" spring to mind.

i'd be happy to drive that, however if soemone told me they replaced 2 sills and an a-pillar on their BL rotbox...err no.

also, WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND MIS-MATCHES CALIPERS?

Edited 23 December, 200817 yr by Jackblack

Big fat American Nascar racers so they dont have to brake and turn. Just lightly apply the brakes and it turns for you

I had to have an engineers report for my 205 for the insurance company. Took it to the garage, paid them MOT price and they gave it a thorough check over, ensuring all the modifications were safe and sensible.

Of course they were, and that meant I was 100% happy, the insurance company was 100% happy and everyone is 100% happy!

there should possibly be a note on the mot of all mods, but again that would only be once a year!

adrian flux wanted proof my mods had been done by a competant person, i said i did them and sent them a copy of my aerospace qualification. tbh it was the first time id done full suspension change (to somethin different from what i took off anyway).

aerospace qualification isnt proof you know what you duin on cars :p

wonder if i should send mi license off haha

aerospace qualification isnt proof you know what you duin on cars :p

thats kinda my point. sounds like i do tho! lol

i used to work in a garage (so i do vagley know what I'm doing) and the foreman thought all suspention mods threw the geometry out and made the car dangerous (true if not set up right). so in his eyes my car shouldnt be on the road, doesnt matter that its safer than when i got it with shagged bushes and shocks!

for someone to know that a mod was safe, they'd need to know what they were lookin at.

i know of a compulsory safety mod on a type of microlight that in the eyes of the pilots who fly them is dangerous and unessesary. but it has to be there for them to get thier certificate of airworthyness.

as a qualified mechanic i have modified every single one of my cars (10) and have never had a problem . the thing is i have a mate with a mk1 polo and he`s trying to do all the work on it him self to keep the ever rising costs down , he dont understand how all the systems work so he has a go . now he has said to me in the past he dose not do things up to tight so he can fix them at the side of the road , which shocked me quite a bit . i try and do thing for him for free . he asked me to look at a knocking on the front , tested the ball joints and one nearly fell out . on closer inpection he had lost the bolt and replaced it with one that did not have a shoulder on it . i had to explain why it has to have a shoulder and how dangerous that was .

the guy that killed his kid`s was bound to crash as anything 4x4 is dangerous on the road (big tall heavy fally over things) and the fact he did not have a clue at putting it together

rather than retesting cars that have been modded , they should improve driving standards (top gear finland) 3 years to get a full licence

Thing is,your mate angers me,even though i believe in having the freedom to practice in your own garden - its not our garden under these socialists.

Because of his school-boy politics,and mentality. All nuts and bolts have a set torque to be tightened to,and his idea of making breakdowns easy is why we have to have laws for retards. Show him this message,please.

Because,thanks to a few houses being burnt down,i cant even fit a plug socket in my flat. I'm an electrician,or was before you needed to be Corgi to do anything,but now I'm relegated to fitting batteries thanks to idiots who wont do their homework.

A ban on vehicle mods isnt a threat,its being pushed hard into parliament as we speak,but has alot of problems currently being ironed.

Thanks to fools like him.

he has said to me in the past he dose not do things up to tight so he can fix them at the side of the road

OMFG seriously

Theres some simple people about.

he has said to me in the past he dose not do things up to tight so he can fix them at the side of the road

OMFG seriously

Theres some simple people about.

the topmount bolts on my mk2 were pretty much hand tight, even the drivers side drive shaft bolts was pretty much hand tight and were one by one loosening, good job i spotted it all when i did(previous owners handy work).

Edited 24 December, 200817 yr by xcore

The other thing is that some garages can leave your car in that state,too - I've bought cars with fsh in an almost 'time bomb' state,thanks to things not put together properly.

That's another subject though,really. I think when companies offer a modification,they tend to do jobs properly.

Unless anyone has experience of any different?

anything 4x4 is dangerous on the road (big tall heavy fally over things)

Any 4x4? I dont think I can handle these morons any more.

What about my Justy? should I scrap it on account of it being unsafe???

So if SUV's are too big and tall what about vans???? And if thats your attitude towards SUV's you must crap yourself when you see a wagon?

Why must people blame the vehicle and not the retard driving? You drive within a vehicles capabilitys, if its a big heavy motor you drive steadyer. Lighter more nimble motors can often be driven with a little more confidence.

So now I suppose you could argue that Vans and wagons are there for a purpose, justifying it all, and you would be right. But so is an SUV, its there to do a job. If its been purchased to take the kids to school and go shopping in then thats not the cars fault. Once again its the retard driver!

It dosent seem like anyone is allowed to do anything these days without a damn good reason, and 'because I wanted to' Just isnt good enough. To the government a modifying a car is potentially dangerous, and it serves no real purpose to them, so they are bound to make it harder to do.

I dont want to start any arguments, but I feel this sort of stuff should get discussed more often. Little is said about the future of our hobbies and livelyhoods.

Edited 25 December, 200817 yr by Tommo32

my mum has a scooby dude i did not mean to slate everything 4x4 , maybe i should have said land rovery type motors , as i very well know that one of my dream motors is an audi s1 .

the thing is that the land rovery type things do not handle like a car , so when an idiot changes from a mondeo to a land rovery type thing , they chances of crashing is higher .

if its a big heavy motor you need to know that , which lets face it peeps are not clued up !

dont scrap you motor it looks fun !!!

and yes my mate works on his car rats style so he calls it , its scary !

Edited 25 December, 200817 yr by polo d

the question is were would they draw the line, in school we had a lecture on the danger of modifying cars from the fire brigade and the police due to the amount of car fires caused by dodgy wiring of spot-lamps and some of the examples used were shocking with people just piggybacking off headlamp wires to run spotlamps and upgrading the fuse to cope = retard with burnt out car.

I've followed cars with daft exhausts on, displaying white lights at the back, interior lighting that is visible to the outside (i have been pulled once myself after leaving my interior boot lights on).

An MOT is only technically valid until you drive it out of the test garage, you can put your catalyst on for the test and then the second you get home remove it. While we all run the risk of being pulled by the police at any point and our cars checked over what makes the police officer qualified to state what is unsafe or not? Is he a trained MOT mechanic (probably not), what is his background in basic car mechanics? Would he even know how to change the light bulb in his own car?

We are all responsible for our own lives and our passengers while driving our cars but what this bloke did was about as retarded as you can get, mis-matched calipers being only the start of the issue, his mods changed the entire spec of the vehicle and raised his centre of gravity severely on a vehicle that already has a high centre of gravity but he then added all the extra weight high up as well with the frame.

But when you look at the pictures except for the external cage and lights it looks like a stock land rover with bits bolted on.

But tragically his off-road "performance modifications" and his poor driving ability cost the life of his own kids, i dont think he needs prison as living with what happened will torture him enough.

Edited 25 December, 200817 yr by Cymro

The miss matched calipers thing buggs me, Gresh was a clued up bloke and its crazy to think that he would do that. I can only imagine that he had a caliper off a 90, a range rover, or a discovery, fitted on one side, whch are smaller than the 110 ones.

You cant moan about his choice of vehicle though, what else are you supposed to drive if you have 7 kids? Just the was he maintained it which is discraceful. And I am sad to admit that this sort of thing probably happens more often with land rovers than any other vehicle.

I dont think it is fair to blame what he did to the vehicle, more how he did it. Nearly every land rover going has a lift kit and some big tyres, its what you do. I also dont believe if he didnt modify it the accident would still have happened. It sounds like bad driving was the fault (originally the news said that a transit van was coming the other way on the wrong side of the road that he swerved to avoid, but this isnt mentioned now, perhaps it was found to be nonsence) But if the brakes hardly worked or pulled to one side who in their right mind would go beasting it like he apparently did with all his kids in the back??????

None of it makes any sence, and I dont trust anything the press say, especially when they cant even spell calipers.

But it is a sad lesson for us all.