mercturbo

With job security becoming a thing of the past, incomes dropping or at least stabilizing, (Coalition IR laws), interest rates up a bit or stable at present, share market booming at record highs, property values stabilizing on average, commercial investment property returns appear low, what is everyones "GUT FEEL" for the future ie: where would one be investing into at present? as it appears quite tough to call at the moment, dont worry disclaimer: no legal action for any opinions here refer to "gut feel" Cheers Rob

Make no mistake little Johnnies reforms are designed to slash wages and conditions and destroy unions and maximise profits for buisnesses and corporations, there may be a few more low paid 70 hr/week jobs but we'll all be working longer, harder, have more stress, no protection from ruthless bosses if less than 100 employees, and have a much lower/worse living standard. This is Jonnies present for "all" Autralians so that we can be "more competetive" Will the cost of living now decrease? to compensate for lower real wages? Will your electricity and gas bill and groceries be cheaper cause labour is now cheaper? No FCKEN WAY. Penalty rates are gone, public hoilidays are going, pay rises will be a thing of the past. Forget about redundancy packages there will be no such thing. A strong union could negotiate many things but are also the cause of some problems. I wish everyone luck in Johnnies new world. We all have a chance at the next election to decide if this is the Australia we want for our kids, a carbon copy of America

I doubt very much any new or 5km on the clock GT will be anywhere near 48k more like 56-58k runout BA 1 or 2. Phoon seems to be able to be sold 10k cheaper for some reason maybe clutch issues have devalued it early and/or much cheaper to build, I would have to say at anywhere around 50k a BF phoon 6speed auto would be a good pick cause the GT it seems will be 10k dearer regardless and if they can run the ba phoon out for that then the bf will be run out for similar in a year or so, that would be my pick and would drag me back into the hot falcs.

So who is for and who is against these reforms and why? Be extremely interested to hear everyones opinions as there is a quite diverse bunch of good people here, people from both extreme ends of the economic scale. So is cutting real wages Johnny style good for us and Australia?

Bulges, badges, stripes all over the place and that rumble and road presence, quad exhausts for similar money I'll take the 6 speed auto GT every time, and it will be rapid in colour. I can list prolly 20 cars that are quicker round a race track and if that's your priority then good luck to you. The 2 BA phoons that I've run up to 100 and 160kph, indicated a different performance story.

Wont buy into this other than saying B U L L S H I T!!!!!!!!!!! no turbo 6 has ever or will ever sound anywhere near as good as a V8 PERIOD! NO IFS BUTS OR ANYTHINGS. Just keep dreaming that dream

I'd come over for the cruise Al but I'd need 20 grand for fuel. Hows the GT? Rob

Well that's good then they should sell a few. I just hope the drive train/quality/warranty is up to the marketing suggestion that it can be blasted around a race track every second weekend somehow I think it won't, as is the case with most Aussie stuff.

Yeh George good to see you're ok best wishes for a speedy recovery and into a new BA Cheers Rob

If its a harsh day to day driver, and loses creature comforts such as air cond, for an extra 10k I think the market will be small. Will the warranty cover "track work" or when they start turning up at the dealers for warranty with broken gearboxes will they yell"abuse" "you are not covered for that" my HSV friends have many horror stories with their cars never seeing a track, I can only imagine the issues if a 70k Aussie banger (HSV or FPV)is blasted around a track every weekend as the suggestion is that this is what it can do. I believe it will have the ugliest resale of any HSV yet. The idea is good, hopefully the cash will go into the drivetrain cause that's where I believe it will be needed.

Next to BAGT, Monara PRE that shocking bonnet nostril crap, was/is second best looking Aussie built car, underneath is typical average Aussie quality but a good looker she definately was, hats off to the pre nostril garbage designers

Congrats mate know how you feel without the "p" though, the sound, the look, the instant grunt the relative uncommoness. Auto or manual? stripes or no stripes? I just love em to death as well, chuck on a few pics

I upgraded from the Pioneer vsx908 which I had back for repair a few times but sounded ok to a Denon 3805 7.1 auto cal job this amp is pretty awesome in stereo and 7.1. So much better than most pioneer stuff I've tried. I also liked the Marantz stuff very warm sounding, this is $2+k level but worth auditioning if you can stretch the budget in my opinion. Not a fan of Yamaha at all.

good news Al, hopefully it will all go without drama, mine still uses no oil at all, have they figured out why some use oil? Cheers Rob

Chatting to local Alpine bloke couple weeks ago, think he said around $799 for that unit then you need the vehicle specific adapter for maybe $250 for BA still some weeks away maybe month or 2. Said he's seen prototype on BA screen looks sensational just pug your crap in and away you go, dvd player, game consoles other crap on your front screen. The vehicles information gets somehow superimposed over what you're watching when you change a setting. You/they need to connect the handbrake wire for motion disabling of the unit (law). Initial price is stiff considering you still need to buy dvd players and other source devices/voltage inverters and theres still no screen for back seat passengers, they will most likely do deals if you package a bunch of gear, but the good thing is knowing Alpine it should be good quality and thoroughly tested. that's what he told me anyway.

I would love to have bought the Pioneer specifically for the reasons stated above, even at the $1000 premium, however when comparing the panels (inc the Pioneer 43") with identical high def high quality sources and interconnects, the latest Phillips simply had the better picture quality, and by a fair margin, no tuning/adjustments/swapping of cables/components by me or the sales guys could alter what we all agreed on. All of us, me the most found it quite unbelievable but nothing could explain what we were seeing with our eyes

Top advice thanks. For anyone that's interested, after spending around 12 hours at various shops I ended up being able to compare Pioneer 43 inch HD, Pana 42" Viera, and the Phillips 42" Ambilight HD pf9966 side by side with the latest Toshiba dual hd tuner/160gb HDD STB/PVR with HDMI output. The Pioneer and Phillips both had the HDMI inputs and thus the Pana was disadvantaged from the start, as it had no digital input. The results suprised me, the Phillips had simply the better picture quality than both the others in all digital tv modes and channels tested, on all types of programmes. The sales guy tried everything to disprove what we were both seeing and improve the Pioneer to match the Phillips to no avail even going to analog connections, component etc but the Phillips was just better. The HDMI Toshiba produced amazing pictures and was simply stunning on the Phillips, and very nice on the Pioneer. In the end I got the Phillips Plasma, the Toshiba STB as above and a Phillips DVD recorder with Ilink and a High quality HDMI cable for $5.8k. The Pionner was going to be around $1000 dearer and with no recorder.

Chris, Simon, Brian, Ivan, Alex and everyone else, outstanding feedback and information, have come to expect nothing less from this wonderful bunch of Ford fans Thankyou. Have much more of an idea now, so will others I'm sure. Cheers Rob

Thanks heaps for the Plasma replies but I'm also interested in a noteook, I've been told Dell are one of if not the best quality/value brands around but I'm a bit concerned about backup as they come direct from Malaysia, they told me that if I dont buy their 3 year warranty for $350 then I'm basically on my own after a year Anyone have Dell? Is there local backup after warranty? anyone have bad/good service/backup with other brands? I'm happy to buy anywhere but Dell have great online deals that dont seem to be able to be matched by the locally available brands other than maybe Acer/Optima, sort of "lower" type brands. Any replies extremely much appreciated. Are these good deals I'm thinking of the first one? http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/topics/top...en&s=dhs&~tab=2

Good luck to FPV. Never expected them to match much less beat them given their customer base, production capability, marketing, etc. Nice news at least for a month or two until they throw buckets of discounts at their range. http://carsguide.news.com.au/news/story_pa...5E21822,00.html

Top stuff gents, thanks yeh Simon you got great info on your thead, thought I'd run one of my own, such helpful informative advice here, top blokes, after giving my local HN dealer the sh*ts this arvo viewing and connecting various plasmas and cables STB's DVI dvd players, one Toshiba "personal HD video recorder" which records actual HDTV to its 160GB hard drive and has HDMI output, I connected this PVR to the Phillips "Ambi light" 42" HD plasma via the HDMI connection and saw the best most beautiful picture by far of the lot including the Pioneer and Pana, this combination has to be seen to be believed and I cant get it off my mind, only trouble $6.5k the lot inc a high quality HDMI cable. The Phillips and its "pixel plus" technology have a hell of a picture when fed a decent signal, just need a nice dealer who will give it to me for around my budget. Cheers and thanks Rob

I'm in the market for a nice plasma. Anyone have or can give opinions on the best value HD 42" inch Plasma in the $5k bracket. My sole criteria is picture quality in SD and HD and DVD'S and it needs DVI-D and/or HDMI inputs, what amazes me is that the new Panasonic Viera plasmas dont have either, any comments at all are much appreciated. The new Samsung HD looks nice with HD on DVI or HD componend, and can be had for just over $4k. Thoughts anyone? Thanks Cheers Rob

Shuddup Rob ....7 month's to go.... <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Till what Darren? Are you joing the club?

Ok here goes: Quality: Quality is about on par with series 1 maybe a smidgen better as far as the interior goes. The seating feels and looks a lot better and more expensive than what the XR6 Turbo had and the luxuary pack really fills out the dash nicely. Love the starter button too Pre Delivery: Customer service from the dealer wasn't exactly great. Had to do a lot of chasing up to see when the car would actually arrive. But since the car arrived, they have been very good. Problems: Only real problem to mention is when the car went in for it's rust proofing, paint protection, interior protection and window tinting, the guys managed to break the bonnet release off the fuse box I have no idea how they managed that but Ford are going to fix it free of charge at it's first service. The only other thing is the drive line clunk but I think most people have accepted that as normal. It only happens if you don't shift super smooth. Not really worried about it at this stage. If it starts to bother me, I'll report it. Drivablitiy: This is probably the biggest difference that I have noticed. With my XR6 Turbo, when the revs were low you always felt like it was a bit sluggish. I don't know if this was only because it was auto or this is normal for them. The GT though pulls beautifully down low and really starts kicking at around 4000rpm. The other big difference that I have noticed is that the turbo really didn't accelerate that quickly between 100 and 200 kph. Not a great issue on the road but when doing track days was a bit annoying. The GT just keeps pulling hard even at high speed. Head Turning Ability: It turns heads like the XR couldn't. When driving on the highway, people just move over for you .. it's great The car has an awesome presence on the road and I just can't get enough of it!! The car now has nearly 500km on it and is getting better everyday. Don't know if I could go back to a stock XR. It would have to be modified to get me back in one I would think. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Thanks, dont you just love the note? One of the spine tingling things that one never gets sick of or bored with or used to is that big V8 roar, another thing I love is watching my wife come home or pick me up in the GT seeing and hearing it turning a corner then coming down the road, its/they are just such sexy tough looking beasts, I just can't get enough of em, I just love em to death, hopefully your's will continue to perform well, congrats again and good luck, welcome to the defectors club!!! hopefully you'll stay a while Cheers Rob

Give us an initial review of quality, pre delivery, problems, drivability, how many heads has it turned so far etc, what do you think of the torque, sound etc. Just the other day I had 3 monkeys in a magna hanging out the window at 100kmh on a freeway taking photos with their cameraphones from all angles, anyone'ed think they'd never seen one before.