I hate London!

[Atik]

[rant]
Never liked travelling to London. Find it too hectic, busy and expensive and yesterday cemented my hate for it even more!

I went into Central London for a company meeting/training session. First of all, we are based inside the congestion zone, so bye-bye to £8 there! Some of the work staff park their cars in a carpark only minutes from the office, expensive but convenient. The carpark is open 24h and is manned by security 24h a day! So I thought I'd park in there which I did.

Then in the evening I return to find that some dirty chav [insert other expletives here] decided to try to steal something from my car. He broke the driver side rear door glass, got in the car and took... ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! :huh2:

He took my suitcase only! Which had one shirt, jeans, underwear and my toothbrush! I found all these items tossed away in the stairwell!

So I go to the security room and report that 'my car has been broken into and I'd like to report it'. He replies to me with 'no it hasnt'. 'Um yes it has! My car has a smashed window and that means its been broken into', says I. To which he replies to me with 'are you sure?'
/hammer Stupid retard! After showing him the damage he asks me 'when did this happen?' Check the fecking tapes!!! But he cant due to some data protection bullcrap so I have to wait for the police to ask for the video first!

In the end, I filed a police report which I will get a response in the next 72 hours :thumbsdow reported to the car park, asked for a copy of the security tape, and now having to arrange a replacement glass which is turning out to be a pig of a job cos I have such a super ultra cool, ultra rare car that NOBODY stocks glass for!

Autoglass wanted £430 to fit me a plexiglass temp and a proper one later when they source the glass! Fook that. Went through the insurance windscreen procedure and had to pay a £60 excess. Now waiting for the temp plexiglass to arrive and be fitted and then for a replacement glass to be ordered.

I think the only positive from this was that because I had to take my stereo out to ensure the vandal didnt return to finish the job, when refitting it, I managed to get all the wires tucked up properly under the stereo which has stopped a really bad annoying rattle which is audible from 1000rpm to 3500rpm!

So, yeah, I hate London! Took me an hour to get out from Central to the M1 today too! Thats a joke! No more VR4/London missions ever again!

[/rant over]

[elnevio]

Gutting mate. /grouphug


Silver lining that the damage wasn't worse I suppose, but still a complete ball-ache.

As for the car park staff... /dunce :quasi:

[scc]

The security guard sounds a bit suspect....

[AlanDITD]

and you wonder why i put mine up for sale. It would be on bricks every week.

London is the only place im grateful for crappy british public transport

[stuey]

It is getting worse down here... Week after I bought my first VR4 3 years ago someone smashed my front passenger window whilst parked on Waterloo bridge..

Hope the window gets sorted.

[mesobitchy]

i hate london to!
stuck for two hours in traffic!!!!

**** sake, made us use fuel, but garry did burn up... try to anyways a man with no penis.... sorry ferrari driver.... /pan

vr4+london=FAIL

[PaddyB]

anything + london = bad.

Lived there for 3 years. Something about that place that makes people act horribly toward each other. Give me the north any day.

[mesobitchy]

anything + london = bad.

Lived there for 3 years. Something about that place that makes people act horribly toward each other. Give me the north any day.

ditto, i love the north!

[Atik]

Drivers in London are a whole different species of human! Pulling out, in undertaking, overtaking, cutting corners and god knows what else!

Cabbies! OMG! Bus drivers! I just kept my distance from EVERYTHING when I drove through!

Cyclists! Suicidal maniacs! Bikers too! Complete lunatics some of them

[PaddyB]

post office van drivers in london take the prize.

Hope you get it all sorted soon & make sure you get the correct tint.

[Atik]

Thats a worry of mine now too. The replacement glass will be standard plain glass, and its going to be hard to match the shade of tint on the car already!

[Wodjno]

Thats a worry of mine now too. The replacement glass will be standard plain glass, and its going to be hard to match the shade of tint on the car already!
Sorry to here this Atik.. Feckin retards !!

I got some rear door glass if you want some ?

Just let me know ..


Cheers

Wodj

[pitslayer]

Rule 1 of driving in London, never drive in London
Rule 2 of driving in London, always pull out on black cabs they will stop, iirc they cant drive with a damage car and have to get it fixed

[mesobitchy]

rule one of driving in london is good to me!
garry wont let me driv in london, im a nasty pice of work as it is behind the wheel of the car at the best of times, god knows and god fears what i would be like/do if i was to be mixed in london traffic in the vr4!!

hope you get it all sorrted tho :)

[pitslayer]

Go to London just drive like Londoners, they wont hit you they will move

[mesobitchy]

dont wanna take the chance!
best if i stay clear, an its not like we go london all the time.....

[Atik]

It's inherently not it my nature to drive like a retarded halfwit. I show the same courtesy to others that I would hope for myself. But in London, I simply cannot risk driving like a tw@ as it may end up my fault for some collision.

Even the people tend to not show any gratitude. I was approaching a junction where there were a few people waiting to cross the street. As I approached, I stopped and I waved them across and not one of them raised their hand or nodded an appreciative thanks.

[mesobitchy]

que guns appearing form grill....
we had the same, tho i was telling garry "oooh look human skittles!!!" /haz

i wonder how many would have bounced!!

[pitslayer]

It's inherently not it my nature to drive like a retarded halfwit. I show the same courtesy to others that I would hope for myself. But in London, I simply cannot risk driving like a tw@ as it may end up my fault for some collision.

Even the people tend to not show any gratitude. I was approaching a junction where there were a few people waiting to cross the street. As I approached, I stopped and I waved them across and not one of them raised their hand or nodded an appreciative thanks.
I london just drive like a prick its the only way. Get past the he might hit my car part, and its fine, although the best vehicle is a van for London

[Atik]

I london just drive like a prick its the only way. Get past the he might hit my car part, and its fine, although the best vehicle is a van for London
My brain simply cant do that. I like my car the way it is. I've spent too much effort, time and money on it to risk having some idiot drive into it. I'd rather take my time, drive safely and get to where I want to go in one piece. If that means giving idiot divers the space to push in or maneuvre somehow past me then so be it. He can then continue and crash into someone else for all I care.

[elnevio]

It might sound stupid, but Kyle's right in this case, in my experience.

I've visited London by car on numerous occasions over the years. However, that has always been in vehicles of more common heritage! I.e. if I were to have a smack, replacement panels, etc, wouldn't be a bother - and to be honest, I usually wouldn't have been too fussed about getting a different car at the time!

And that's the difference I think. Too much of a risk to get the pride and joy dented - not least due to the rarity factor of replacement parts.

And if you are not quite 100% committed to driving in the required local style, it's a recipe for disaster!

[stuey]

You do have to drive like the locals in central London if you want to actually get anywhere, but I think it's worse in the suburbs personally. This is where the true 'driving license from the cereal packet' drivers tend to be....

It's natural to start to drive agressively just to make progress, but the main thing I dislike is over the years you realise that your highway code driving standards are suddenly non existant.

And yes there is a major issue with pedestrians and drivers saying thank you for letting them cross/pull out. This is usually because, without trying to be blatantly rude, most people living in London now are not from countries with a courtesy culture.

[Nick Mann]

Bummer Atik.

As per my text, if assistance is required it is available.

[Atik]

Had the glass-fitter come around this morning armed with a glass panel for a UK spec Galant estate... ie. not privacy glass!

My car has the standard privacy glass and had a film-tint applied on all the rear windows. This glass now sticks out like a sore thumb! Decided to get it tinted to match, and applied a film of limo-black to the new panel. From outside it looks fine, as they reflect similar, but from inside, there was a chalk and cheese difference! The new panel has a green tinge to it, while the old ones are all blue/purple! This is something I couldn't live with, so I decided to re-tint all the glass!

The original film-tint came off very easy, leaving a light residue of glue which came off easy with a sponge. So I now have limo tints all around the car, and although the colour of the tints match, the one glass that was 'white' is a touch brighter than the rest! I will leave this for a while and if it bothers me too much, I will look into sourcing a Legnum glass for it and replace it myself! I was watching the fitter with eagle-eyes when he did his work!

So, in case anyone was wondering, this is how the VR4s glass came out of the factory (well mine anyway):
front windshield; clear white glass with blue/green sunstrip
front driver and passenger: clear white glass
rear doors (incl quarter window); privacy glass
side back windows (side of boot space); privacy glass
rear tailgate; clear white glass

Note for anyone replacing glass at any point, the Galant estate glass will fit, BUT will not match your privacy tints and/or your Jap specced film-tints.

[elnevio]

The windscreen and front door glass should actually be slightly tinted (perhaps to 5/10%) from the factory, AFAIK.

I believe there were a variety of options for the rear windows from the factory, which, unless they were almost untinted (i.e. about 10% or so), were tinted with a film. My rear quarters/doors are about 95%, whereas the rear windscreen is about 85%.

I'm guessing you had a few tick-box tinting options on the original order form in Japan. The rear window may have had options of 10%, 50% and 85%, whereas the rear quarters/doors may have had options of 10%, 50%, 65%, 85% and 95%.

These figures are guesswork from the number of varying levels of tints I have seen on VR-4s.

Think my sunroof glass might be 85%. :sunny:

[Turbo_Steve]

If you speak to Mitsubishi dealer, they should be able to find out your window tints, as Mitsi keep a record of it.....in Japan :( It took 5 weeks from our original claim for a rear window to receiving the replacement.

[White Lightning]

Interesting ... the rear windows in my (white) car are the same as the fronts. i.e. no (or minimal) tint. The purple one that I am collecting tomorrow has tinted rear side and rear windows. And it's a film applied. I assumed it was an aftermarket tint applied but having read this thread I guess it could have been a factory fit option?

[elnevio]

Yes Wayne, I am fairly certain that it is. If you look at the film, it is applied to a very high standard, but exactly the same for every VR-4 I've seen and been able to look at it on!

Also, have a look at the window etchings on all the windows, and tell me what you see... ;)