Mondo

As I said to him this afternoon, I wish someone had been able to come and have a look at my first Zed with me before I bought it!

Looks like Scott is a new Z32 owner now! We went and had a good thorough look at this one in Middlesbrough this afternoon and it's a nice clean car. A few issues, but nothing insurmountable. The biggest issue both I and Jimmer had (I rang him to pick his brains) was the asking price. So Scott and I went to talk to the sales guy with a view to reducing said price, but he outright said there was no movement whatsoever. One of his reasons for this was somewhat comical... He said, and I quote, "Once these cars hit 25 years old, the Americans buy them all!" I didn't have the heart to put him straight about how Americans already have plenty of LHD ones to choose from over there, but it said to me that he didn't know a great deal about them at all. :lol: Anyhoo, Scott decided to buy it and I left him on the verge of parting with his hard earned. Hopefully he's not buying a mutt and he'll have a hugely enjoyable drive home when he collects it. Welcome aboard, fella. :) As an aside, should anyone be interested in the silver LWB that the dealer also has advertised for £8k... forget it! It is unbelievably tatty!! The pictures make it look nice, but it's anything but... steer well clear!!

My laptop is currently on charge (so I can put this Zed on Conzult tomorrow) and I've arranged to meet up with Scott so we can both have a look at this car and see what's what. :thumbup1:

I can be available if need be. Drop me a text on 07860679243 and we'll sort something out :thumbup1:

If you need someone to have a look at the car for you, I'm pretty local to Middlesbrough. :thumbup1:

I'll say I'm in. :)

I had to drive to Burnley this morning (purple velvet-related... long story!) so I decided to drop my rear centre panel in to Phutumsch's gaff so he could redo my logo as the red has gone all marbley (technical term). Had to come home via the Lake District as one of the roads in Colne was shut by the police and, for some reason, the satnav wouldn't offer any alternative route! Glad I didn't take the Zed for such a long trip....

Not another Ugandan businessman this year, was it...? :lol:

Mine don't block my armrest at all, Jay.

Joel, why do you never seem to take your roof off?? What horrors are you hiding under there....? :wink:

Did you upgrade to larger intake piping or not, Tom? I can't remember.

Depends on the rail used to mount them. I have the factory Recaro rails on mine and they do sit lower than the standard seats. I have absolutely no issues with the wheel being close to my thighs whilst sat in the Recaros. They're only a pain to get in and out of due to the bolsters (both upper and lower) being far more pronounced than the stock Z32 seats.

I've just watched this vid and I have a genuine question... How on earth have we been relegated to a smaller stand than last year when the Nissan Figaro (are they even any kind of classic car??) gets a huge stand comparatively?! Surely, as the Z32's profile rises (thanks to shows like this, Joel's tireless magazine features and the recent article that Jimmer contributed to), we should be getting more stand space, not less! I'm genuinely interested in the reasoning behind this. Can anyone shed any light at all....?

Has Funky bottled it cos there's water on the roads...?

Darren put far too much time and effort into that car to start cutting it up, I'd say. Plus there are very few wide SWBs in this country, and certainly none with the Twinz kit on. So sell this, buy a Shortie and then butcher it to fit the fibreglass. But please!!! blend the kit in, rather than leaving all the rivets on show - standard fitting looks absolutely horrific! :thumbup1:

3" expansion downpipes and a full 3" system, Selin dual intake, Godspeed intercoolers, 15 psi jets and a John Dixon chip in the ECU.

I'm happy with that. Quicker than standard and hasn't cost me a small fortune to achieve either. :) It's certainly the first time she's been flat out to the redline in 4th during my ownership... quite nerve-wracking to watch, to be honest!

Today I popped my dyno cherry! Went up to Washington and stuck the old girl on the rollers to see what sort of power she's making. Given the mods, I expected around 380 or so at the flywheel. What I got was 371 at the wheels (calculated up to 405bhp at the flywheel) and a healthy dollop of torque to go with it! Pretty happy with that, to be honest :biggrin:

Thanks for the birthday wishes, gang :biggrin: I had a short(ish) day in the workshop and now Mrs Mondo and I are preparing to go out and eat our own body weights in steak! :lol:

As AF are nothing more than a registered user on here, should "they" even be posting about insurance and what they can potentially offer...?

Did I read somewhere that some Zeds came with a blanking insert, rather than a third brake light...?

There's an aspect that's coming to light in all of this that I find a bit... bizarre, and that's when people are suggesting that this is some small oversight that should in no way impact upon his reputation. In business, you are only ever as good as your last job. So it matters not one bit whether Lee used to be the Second Coming for Zeds, because all of this has come out. Case in point: if I don't follow through on my group buy and just pocket the deposits, will people be saying "Don't forget Mondo's done some cracking retrims over the years!" or will they be baying for my blood?? I've a sneaking suspicion it'll be the latter, and rightly so... What has transpired with Tom is theft, pure and simple. It's not an oversight on anyone's part or anything "innocent" like that, so people honestly need to stop trying to pretend that it is. The unhappy customers that are now making their voices heard have within their ranks some long-standing and big-spending customers - when you alienate your repeat customers, you may as well just shut the doors and sign on...

We already know what happened. The blanks have been filled in and all the dots have been connected. Using Tom's situation as the example: Lee decided to fit a secondhand propshaft that he'd stolen from a friend and customer to another customer's car. A customer who had paid for and was expecting a brand new steel prop. He then placed an order with Jimmer for a brand new steel prop and made a joke about "having to replace one he'd borrowed" which would go on Tom's car. Instead of the alloy one he'd bought for his car. He then decided not to pay Jimmer for the prop, leaving him out of pocket for no good reason and an old Nissan two-piece prop was fitted to Tom's car.. When Tom found out that he had a Nissan prop on, Lee had a choice: hold his hands up, or lie through his teeth. So, when Tom asked him where his alloy prop was, Lee told him it needed repair and he'd get it sorted. When Tom said that he would sort that instead, Lee told him that his unit was messy and he couldn't find it... When it all came into the public view, Lee goes to ground. No attempt to explain, either here or on Facebook. He's happy to lay all the blame for this at his ex's door, except she didn't hold a gun to his head and tell him to steal from his friends! The list of disgruntled customers seems to be growing larger, even now. Did Lee used to do decent work? I'd have said so. Did he have a vast amount of knowledge about these cars? Um, it appears not. Hell, he was getting his own Zed worked on by Zedworld a handful of years ago, which is a bit like me having another company trim my car... As I see it, there is no witch-hunting going on at all. He's obviously happy (or prepared) to let people discuss his failings as a mechanic and a businessman and, in the absence of the man himself, that's all they're able to do!

You must attend some really peculiar gatherings.... :blink:

Seeing as people are chatting about AF... When I bought my first Zed back in 2013, AF wouldn't insure me because I "had no experience of such a powerful car." Coming from a 200bhp Celica, I concede they had a point. When I changed to my current SWB and the cover was up for renewal, I tried AF again for a quote. Weirdly, I still had "no experience of such a powerful car!" When I pointed out that I'd been driving a Z32 for over a year already, the reason changed to me "not having enough experience of such a powerful car"... Over 4 years of driving Zeds later: no issues or accidents or anything along those lines. Wonder if I have enough experience yet....? :lol: