Chris - honestly, you should see the state of my car after the end of an average day, I'll try and take a pic but its normally covered with at least half a dozen separate bird shits. They're not little ones either, I swear half the birds round Southampton have got diahorrea!

Its like I said above though, modern carwashes are fine, I used the same one for a couple of years on my 206 and there were no marks on the paint whatsoever. I have better things to do, frankly, than spend half my weekend cleaning the car...

yes the seagulls here are pretty horrific, they have luftwafer air raids periodically!
I know, I spent an hour and a bit washing my car the other week and i honestly cant be arsed to do it too regularly.. im trying to convince myself that it looks cool when all dirty lol

Every once in a while I will clean it by hand but, apart from the wheels, I find the car wash does just as good a job. It also costs so much more to clean the car by hand too. You know, by the time you've bought your car shampoo, car polish, wheel cleaner, tyre cleaner, back to black stuff, interior wipes, screen wipes and all the other nonsense it adds up to like well over a year's worth of car washes but only lasts half as long. Buying the posh brands, Meguiars or whatever, is even more expensive too. I've got better things to spend my money on as well!

buying all those products would be expensive, but why bother when you can get your girlfriend to spend hours washing it and washing it and washing it lol. (thats a joke naturally).

anyway.. you forget, mine is a company car, so I can buy the shit hot stuff then charge it back to the company. as long as I attach the receipt

they pay for even products to clean it?!?!

I'd love a company car... One I can use to get to and from work, they pay all the servicing / tyres, and my ST mileage would stay low mmmmmmmmm

yes they pay for anything to 'maintain it' in a reasonable condition. so screen wash, shampoo, polish, sexy girls to rub it down (oh maybe not..) lol and tyres (£120 a corner aren't they?), insurance, servicing.

ill shut up, maybe im making u sick lol

i do have to pay out more income tax though..

Sweet. Yeah. My manager has a company car, and he says that it's well worth it, as he does even more miles than me!! About 30k a yr... Drives a Scenic diesel. He said if you hardly do any miles, then you would lose out, but because he does mega miles, it works out better for him.

yeah, I mean the thing that makes it good value for me is that due to doing 26k a year I need a new car, I cant get a used car cos mileage would be horrific by the time I got to like the 3rd year (have to keep co cars for 4 years) and of course they pay my insurance, which despite my ncb, on the ST would be in the region of £1k a year. Then there is the no hassle of worrying about budgeting for tyres (which I get through at an alarming rate), brakes and so on. If I take the car cash allowance - that is £300 p/month (net) , plus Id save £55/60 a month in tax to gordon brown.. so 360 a month to buy a decent car, maintain it and insure it, is pants! so its a good deal. plus if I do crash, my company pay my insurance excess so..