Aphrodite finds her feet

[Aphrodite]

For some time now I have been considering giving up my car:
I now live in the city and rarely use it;
I figure with the cost of rego, repairs petrol etc I could catch taxis and still be ahead on the financial side;
I don't have a garage so it's parked on the street and it has been broken into 3 times;
The public transport around here is fairly adequate;
and last but not least
I bloody well need the exercise

Rego is due next month and if last year is anything to go by I will be up for $500 in repairs then $500 more for rego... but if I put it up for sale I would probably only get $1000 for it (it's a rusty bomb)

So last night - fate stepped in.... I would like to extend my eternal gratitude to the wankers who stole it!!!!
They made it to the end of the street before crashing it into the gutter and instantly being picked up by the police.
They buckled the front axle enough to have it listed as a "write off" by the Insurance company :D

So now I walk !!! with a spring in my step and $5000 in the bank

The Little Princess reckons I should get a moped so that I can still take her to Girl Guides.... anyone got a moped for sale??

[Bostonmess]

Lol! Who's a lucky lady :D

[kré]

:)










write off

[utopian]

equally cursed and blessed.

get a moped, they're very classy. and teach the daughter how to ride it too.

you can teach her in the privacy of your back yard
http://www.lol.is.co.za/images/lol.gif

[Aphrodite]

I may not be able to ride it round my backyard - but i will be able to keep it in my (new) shed and thus it won't get stolen !!

[Farbs]

That's bloody great! :D

About the moped however... how long will it be before the Little Princess decides that she doesn't want to be seen getting dinked by her old lady?

[C0V3R]

If your car has a front axle that would explain why they crashed it so soon, lol! ;)

Anyway youre lucky to be better off as a result... when we had our bomb stolen we ended up about $1k backwards in the end, despite the insurance etc.

[Aphrodite]

Originally posted by Farbs
how long will it be before the Little Princess decides that she want to be seen getting dinked by her old lady?

She's 12 - so I figure I get about 2 years before she decides it's uncool...

Originally posted by COV3R
If your car has a front axle that would explain why they crashed it so soon, lol! So shoot me for being female and ignorant about cars but don't they have a front axle - isn't that the thing connecting the 2 front wheels?? *Thinking back to my lego building days*

Originally posted by COV3R
we ended up about $1k backwards in the end, despite the insurance etc How come??

[Nandragon]

Damn!

What luck!

A moped would be ok to her atleast until she wants to drive it!:p

My FB has a Honda Gold Wing, I know it's not a moped but he and his daughter go everywhere on it weather permitting!

[kleph]

Originally posted by Aphrodite
So shoot me for being female and ignorant about cars but don't they have a front axle - isn't that the thing connecting the 2 front wheels?? *Thinking back to my lego building days*

but you know what a radiator is, don't you? :p

[Aphrodite]

Originally posted by kleph
but you know what a radiator is, don't you? :p
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA :D :D
the only thing I know about a radiator is that it costs $700 to fix one.... and do u remember the mechanic telling me that the manifold was going to fail in about 6 months? well 6 months has passed and I still don't know WTF a manifold is :rolleyes:

[kleph]

i knew the end was near. i'm actually sad to hear your tale though, i was rather fond of the beast after what we all went through.

[utopian]

the manifold is the anti theft device ;)

[Nandragon]

Correct me if I'm wrong but the manifold is part of your exhaust system. And if memory serves, you don't really need it. Especially if you like your car LOUD.

[StygiaN]

Originally posted by Nandragon
Correct me if I'm wrong but the manifold is part of your exhaust system. And if memory serves, you don't really need it. Especially if you like your car LOUD.

Doesn't it link the exhaust and the cylinders together?

[Nandragon]

The manifold is what is inbetween the mufflers and the motor.

[Aphrodite]

Update: well the insurance came through and my Mastercard is now IN THE BLACK for the first time in 13 years. (I will enjoy this debt free feeling for about 2 weeks until the next round of school fees is due) I even get a refund on my Green slip and rego!!

<rant>
fucking Insurance company does not give refunds, so I have paid my premium up to Sept for a car I no longer have. It's not a huge amount but it's the principle of the thing!!
Let's say u have just paid $900 for comprehensive insurance and two days later your car gets stolen - you are not entitled to get one cent of the $900 back. Is that fair/ am I just a whinger?
</rant>

So now I start saving for a moped, but in the meantime I have rescued my pushbike from exile... dusted off the cobwebs, oiled the chain, tightened the brakes and pumped up the tyres. After a wobbly start I made it to the Reebok factory to purchase a new pair of shoes (for walking). I jump back on my bike after making said purchase and the chain promtly snaps!! I push the #@%$ bike 3kms home.
I figure I am not such a useless female who can't put a new chain on a bicycle (how hard can it be), however with the instructions in Chinese/English and the new chain ending up 10cms too short, I decide I AM a useless female after all...
So I drag out the Yellow Pages and look up bike shops - all of which are at least 5kms from my place and NONE of them do a mobile service.
So if any unemployed geek wants to set up their own business and corner the market - start a mobile pushbike service centre.

saga to be continued.........

[utopian]

that's pretty fucked that they won't refund the money for the car.

[Maestro]

On the one hand it is kind of hard to understand - if the car's not there anymore, it can't get stolen, so why should you pay?!?

On the other hand, I've just realised that there's also an important principle of contract law behind it. Contracts work by give and take - "quid pro quo" and other wanky shit - so you need to understand it as: you paying money so that they take on your risk. If they lose and have to pay you, and on top of that give you back your money as well, you've really given nothing in return for what they've done. It's called "illusory consideration" (which I think is also the technical term for when David Copperfield thinks really hard about something).

[Aphrodite]

The Green Slip is also insurance - third party person.... and they give u a refund. I just don't see why they need to charge a full years fee for only a few months cover. If I buy a new car tomorrow, I can't transfer the existing policy over... I have to start a whole new policy from scratch - essentially paying for 2 policies for one car.

plus the excess fee of $450 was deducted.... I think they are just being greedy...

[StygiaN]

Originally posted by Aphrodite
plus the excess fee of $450 was deducted.... I think they are just being greedy...

They are being greedy. I was told by my insurance company that you are entitled to a refund pro rata.

I'd call back and complain.

[Maestro]

Originally posted by Aphrodite
The Green Slip is also insurance - third party person.... and they give u a refund. I just don't see why they need to charge a full years fee for only a few months cover. If I buy a new car tomorrow, I can't transfer the existing policy over... I have to start a whole new policy from scratch - essentially paying for 2 policies for one car.

plus the excess fee of $450 was deducted.... I think they are just being greedy...
Of course they're being greedy - that's what they do, and especially since they've now got wars and terrorists and other things playing on their risks. I don't want to defend them, but that's how it works.

Insurance is not a service. It's a distribution of risk. That means that if you pay your insurance for a year and your car doesn't get stolen, you have essentially lost your bet that something would happen - and you certainly wouldn't be able to claim your premium back. Equally, if your car was stolen the day the policy came into effect, the insurance company would be liable, even though you may not even have paid your premium yet.

If you bought a new car tomorrow, you would be asking the insurance company to take on a whole new risk - remembering, of course, that they "lost the bet" on the last risk they took from you.

You can't transfer the existing policy over because it no longer exists. The term "written off" here means that the contract has been discharged by execution of its terms and the parties start all over again.

I'm not exactly an insurance expert, but you'd probably find that if you had made a claim under your CTP you wouldn't get a refund there either. If, however, you never made a claim on either policy, you probably could have gotten at least part of the premium from each policy back.

I could of course be wrong and you might be entitled to some form of refund - all of this stuff centres around what the actual terms of the contract are - but these are more or less general principles of contract.

[Aphrodite]

APHRODITE'S NEW WHEELS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.zgeek.com/albums/uploads/bike.jpg

It's been 13 years since i have been on two wheels - does anyone know of a good CHEAP refresher course in Sydney??

[sagit]

Holsters new(ish) Ford pwns your moped, but the mope looks cool.

[kré]

Originally posted by sagit
Holsters new(ish) Ford pwns your moped, but the mope looks cool.

i'd still rather ride the moped :cool:

[That Bloke]

I found my feet, they were attached to my ankles.

So now I walk !!! with a spring in my step and $5000 in the bank


I do alot of walking, I once walked 110km non-stop(Bathurst to Lithgow & back again), took about 12 hours, I did it because I was bored & depressed, at 4am it seemed the slightly more correct of the 2 options I had in my head.

[scathing]

Originally posted by Nandragon
Correct me if I'm wrong but the manifold is part of your exhaust system. And if memory serves, you don't really need it. Especially if you like your car LOUD.

Well, depends on which manifold.

With no exhaust manifold, you don't need it. Especially if you just want your engine's hot exhaust gases to fire straight from the block and not get filtered and ducted anywhere. Which means it accumulates in the engine bay, and your car cabin's air vents then duct it into your car, either gassing or burning you to death.

I'll refrain, at this point, from continuing that line of thought to its obvious conclusion.

There's also a manifold on the intake side, and without one of them you won't get clean air into the engine in a controlled manner, so chances are your engine won't run at all, and if it does it will quickly blow up from all the contaminants in the air.


Just in case you actually care :D

[kleph]

i don't know if it's the same situation with you, aphrodite but when i came to peru i changed my insurance to nothing. i wasn't able (nor did i want) to cancel my coverage so i just changed the policy to simple liability in case it got stolen. i still had to pay a little bit for the rest of the coverage term but not nearly as much as if i had the full coverage. perhaps you can do something similar?

[Aphrodite]

Originally posted by kleph
i don't know if it's the same situation with you, aphrodite but when i came to peru i changed my insurance to nothing. i wasn't able (nor did i want) to cancel my coverage so i just changed the policy to simple liability in case it got stolen. i still had to pay a little bit for the rest of the coverage term but not nearly as much as if i had the full coverage. perhaps you can do something similar?

Yeah - I WISH !!!
I have just done the rounds of insurance companies.

I've had 4 bikes and 3 cars in the past 24 years. I have had continuous 3rd party, Fire & Theft insurance on all the vehicles for over 20 years and have never made an "at fault" claim - NEVER.
So you would think I would have a NCR (No Claim Rating) of 1 giving me 60% off the premium.

NO... in all their wisdom, the insurance companies TFT policies don't count towards NCR !!!
So I have a rating of 6 - which means i pay full price - $579 !!!

That's more than I paid for my friggin car !!

:swear: :swear: :swear:

[pleed]

Insurance companies sux0r. :swear:

My gf had a 93 Pulsar (auto) and it had done 30000km's.
Some wank drove into the back of her, pushing her into the car infront.
The insurance company said it was a write off :swear: because it would cost 6K to fix.
They offered her $4500. She said no and they offered her $5500.
She got an assessor who looked it up in the book, for a good one that's done 120000km's, she should have gotten 8K, because her's had only done 30000km's he said it was worth $10500.
She sent this to the insurance company, and after about 5 phone calls to them, they sent her a settlement at 10K :cool:

They didn't refund the insurance money (which she had just paid :(, but she did get her rego back :))

[Holster]

Originally posted by Aphrodite
Yeah - I WISH !!!
I have just done the rounds of insurance companies.

I've had 4 bikes and 3 cars in the past 24 years. I have had continuous 3rd party, Fire & Theft insurance on all the vehicles for over 20 years and have never made an "at fault" claim - NEVER.
So you would think I would have a NCR (No Claim Rating) of 1 giving me 60% off the premium.

NO... in all their wisdom, the insurance companies TFT policies don't count towards NCR !!!
So I have a rating of 6 - which means i pay full price - $579 !!!

That's more than I paid for my friggin car !!

:swear: :swear: :swear:

Hmm, I would do some shopping around, i have only had insurance for 2 yrs and 2 months (and that was third party insurance) and i just got full cover at a rating 3 with my new insurance company

[Drakin]

Originally posted by Aphrodite

It's been 13 years since i have been on two wheels - does anyone know of a good CHEAP refresher course in Sydney??

Ahh i notice you mention CHEAP.

I run several refresher courses real CHEAP.

Course 1) Surry Hills $10 - bandaid included
This course involves taxi's, pedestrians and a hill.
Navigate oxford st then descend foveaux st.

Course 2) Newtown $15 - Coaster included.
This course involves winding thin streets with oncoming traffic, newtown pedestrians (slightly more adventurous than surry ones)
King st and followed off by two advanced sub courses: Navigation, this course takes place in erskineville all you have to do to pass is enter from erskineville road and exit at king st.
Control, this course takes place at either the town hall or the sando, to pass this course you must drink 12 schooners of beer then outrun two cop cars)

Course 3) Edgecliff $20 - taxi to hospital included.
This course is an advanced course. Descend ocean rd with no brakes.

PM me if you want to take up any of these :)

[crescent]

For refresher courses, have a look at www.stayupright.com.au, or www.rightstart.com.au. Both do the pre-learners and pre-provisional training, as well as advanced skills and private tuition.

A cheap course to get back into the swing of things would be the pre-learners - two days, cornering, braking and some practice with the clutch all off the road for about $60.

Or get some private tuition, but this is around $85 per hour - it all depends on how rusty you feel your skills are on the bike. Hope this helps as a starting point.

[Al]

Originally posted by Holster
Hmm, I would do some shopping around, i have only had insurance for 2 yrs and 2 months (and that was third party insurance) and i just got full cover at a rating 3 with my new insurance company

On my bike I paid 700 the first year, this dropped to 550 this year. I'm 23 and have only been riding a motorbike for 1.5 years...

I don't even want to think what insurance for my 600 will cost!