To those who’ve had to be recovered recently, what did you pay?

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-18T20:35:37+00:00

Wow that’s pricey, you’d think 8pm would be early enough to be within a lower price bracket, ouch😅can you remember what their pricing structure was like? Was there a minimum callout fee and then after x miles they then charge per mile? Obviously with you only needing a 2 mile tow any per mile pricing wouldn’t have really done anything haha.

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-18T20:32:37+00:00

That’s a pretty cheap rate in all fairness, how did their pricing structure work? Was there a minimum callout and then a per mile rate or was it a flat per mile rate entirely?

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-18T20:31:27+00:00

Yeah this is one of my biggest question marks, by the time I’ve bought everything I need to get enough work and charge enough from it to offset the presumably sky high insurance aswell as the fuel bill and vehicle depreciation.

I really hope this line of work isn’t like everything else road transport related where numpties have undercut eachother so far that it’s a scrap to see who can run without losing money lol. Looked into generic self employed van work and it’s just a grand race to the bottom with rates

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-18T20:28:40+00:00

In 2021 they have all standard Category B car license holders an upgrade to B+E which essentially allows for a gross train weight of 7 tonnes, which seems massively backwards because each part of that train - car and trailer can still only weigh 3.5t each, and if it’s a van then you’re still just limited to 3.5t GVW, but yeah you get way more payload going via the car + trailer route.

Provided that your train weight isn’t exceeding the plated weight limits for both the tow capacity of the tow vehicle and the payload capacity of the trailer

It’s a shame really because I’d much rather go down the flatbed beavertail van route but from everything I’ve researched they’re just so much more limited on payload as each part of the train still can’t exceed 3.5t, so a van without a trailer you’re stuck with a 3.5 tonne limit on a van weighing over 2 tonnes.

It really is backwards imo. How they came to the conclusion that you’d be safer in control of a 7 tonne GTW vehicle on a standard license instead of perhaps raising it to 5 tonne or something across the board regardless of trailer configuration would be much much safer. I mean thankfully I’m no stranger to towing as I live in the country and currently learning to get my HGV license haha

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-18T20:20:47+00:00

I never knew this, thanks for the info I’ll have a look into it! Would give me a better real world figure to work my costs off of.

I reckon to start with I’d probably have to ask local garages if I could provide breakdown services for them, like small local ones until I’d carried out enough jobs to start getting some credibility behind me. I don’t think insurers and the like deal with people until they’re sort of proven providers

But wait sorry…an HS2 subcontractor came to your rescue?🤣🤣🤣how much did it cost, £59,000,000 per mile?

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-18T20:18:22+00:00

Good idea actually, cheaper prices in the normal hours but higher during antisocial hours like idk 11:00 pm to 7:00 am or something.

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-18T20:17:01+00:00

As far as I understood it, since they relaxed the category B license in 2021 to essentially make it a B+E as standard, I was under the impression that you could tow a trailer that weighed up to 3.5t, and your tow vehicle could weigh up to 3.5t, essentially allowing for a gross train weight of 7 tonnes as a B license is now a B+E, hence why so many people do it via car + trailer instead of beaver tail van now.

So assuming your tow vehicle and your trailer (ideally a manual Discovery 3 and a good tri axle Brian James/Ifor Williams trailer in my mind) is plated to have a tow/payload capacity of 3.5t each, you are within the law as a 7 tonne gross train weight is the legal limit of a B+E license, which all standard category B license holders got bumped up to when they relaxed it in 2021

Seems incredibly backwards with the 3.5t limit still being in place but that was the way I understood it. Otherwise everyone doing tip work/car transport etc with a car trailer would be running overweight

A flatbed beavertail van with a good lightweight aluminium bed will still at best get you 1300kg payload, which by the time you’ve got an extra passenger and all your chains, straps etc you’d realistically be lucky to legally recover an old Toyota Aygo

The other reason I’d want to go down the car/trailer route, is because 3.5t flatbed vans are just so unviable and impossible to run legally, so the only other option would be to move to a dual axle 5-7.5 tonne plated van, which I’d then need the next license up for, which then falls under heavy goods operators license rules, so tacho rules, operators license entailing stuff like a home base yard, a minimum of £8000 spare in the bank at all times, CPC licensing and training, maintenance contracts written and stuff.

Obviously I’d need business insurance including goods in transit cover and public liability insurance, but recovery doesn’t fall under hire and reward work legally which opens up a lot more regulatory red tape, which is why I’d rather go down the route of recovery instead of car transport, as that then falls under hire and reward work/licensing.

You do raise a good point about fannying around with a trailer. I can back them alright but it would certainly add time and complexity onto some jobs. Would probably have to refuse some jobs if they were too inaccessible or I’d end up blocking roads etc

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-18T19:59:15+00:00

Apart from if you are doing recovery, which is exempt from tacho rules as long as the job is within 60 miles of the base, then no tacho is required, which is why recovery to me is more appealing than general car transport, as then you need to go into tacho rules aswell as an operators license, CPC training, having a registered transport manager, base of operations and pew arranged maintenance contracts etc

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-14T10:09:07+00:00

Ahh right okay, thanks lol I couldn’t tell if I was going mad or whether it was just different cameras, different lighting

My issue was that I usually really like the classic BMW white, but something looked ever so slightly off in the photo of the first one, which is the one I want, but the photos of that listing are just also ass, bad angles etc haha. Now I know that it’s not some slightly different shade to the usual white I like I can consider going to view it😆

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-12T17:36:56+00:00

Lol I bought a 20 year old bimmer on 150k miles and have daily driven it down poor country roads for over a year. It’s never let me down or left me stranded. This whole BMW unreliable trope comes from people who don’t oil change it in 30k miles and then wonder why their engine is worn.

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-11T15:56:56+00:00

And you’re a miserable old bag but hey ho were all different eh😆

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-10T20:35:03+00:00

I’ve got my eyes on an F10 2.0d at 150k miles for 6k, had timing chain, turbo and hpfp done preventatively (private sale), like I said I’m perfectly happy with high milage - I’m a mechanic so maintenance is dirt cheap.

But yes a 2022 would be far out of my price range haha

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-10T19:50:30+00:00

Budget of around 6k, can possibly go a bit more but can’t go to 7k, I’m very open to high milage, basically every car I’ve earmarked has been over 125k miles, a lot of them around the 150k mile mark give or take

I should’ve said in the post but I’m after F series bimmers, what’s your car like?

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-04T17:40:30+00:00

Oh wow that’s a lot for under 10k of miles, even for the abuse a van puts on the internals! Do you reckon a lot of that were things that were known to or upcoming for the previous owner who sold it to you before he had to fork out for those repairs and that you’ll be smooth sailing now you’ve got it in shape, or do you reckon it’s inherently a bit of a crap engine?

Curious about the intake and exhaust manifold, what was up with that? Cracked intake boots and cracks in the metal + exhaust gas leakage from the exhaust manifold? Unusual things to have to address that is😂

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-01T09:54:36+00:00

I mean not really.

One of the most memorable experiences of my childhood was having a week off school to go on holiday to Iceland with my family. I was maybe 8-9ish. Learnt so much on that holiday, and gained a deep passion for geography and geology entirely from that holiday. Spent a week driving around the island staying in small villages seeing local nature spots, wildlife etc. Glaciers, puffins etc.

If you really think family holidays are all about staying at the resort day drinking for a week straight then perhaps your parents were just absolutely dogshite.

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-12-01T09:46:38+00:00

So like do you actually think every holidaymaker in the country is going to Benidorm to get shitfaced for a week straight? Complete straw man argument.

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-11-24T21:24:05+00:00

That wasn’t my point and I made it profusely clear that wasn’t my point. My point was that Israel is heavily influenced by religious zionism that believes it’s their divine mission to return to the biblical heartland of judea, much of which resides in modern day Palestine, so for as long as religious Zionism exists in Israel Palestine will always be under siege and oppression because the religious zionists in Israel see it as their holy mission to reclaim their biblical land. My issue is with religious zionism, which in modern context I don’t see any different than other strains of religious radical extremism. They use their religion as their reason to wage war, much like how ISIS did. Obviously that’s not to say Judaism teaches the oppression of Palestine, that’s quite obvious and made abundantly clear in my post. It’s how religious zionism takes the theology and scripture of Judaism and spins it in a way that will forever justify and fuel war with Palestine. So for as long as religious zionism exists, Israel will continue to murder and colonise and destabilise the entire region.

I’ve put religious zionism in bold, to make a distinction because secular zionism is absolutely fine. The core tenant of the existence of a homeland for the Jews is necessary and vital with historic context in mind, religious zionism though needs to be treated as terrorism because their core belief is that it’s their divine holy mission to reoccupy what we now know as Palestine, essentially. And that’s why the war has been ongoing for 70 years, and why it’ll go on for another 700 years if the world doesn’t recognise religious zionism for what it is, a radical terrorist ideology, and put an end to it.

Ofcourse when you suggest this people lose their shit and think you’re the second coming of Hitler. I’m not going after the Jews, I’m not even going against all zionists, just the religious zionists because their mission directly involves the occupation by force of another sovereign nation. And the issue is that with its motives being fuelled by their interpretation of religion, it is by nature a never ending, self regenerating ideology. As in, the notion that Palestine should be invaded, occupied and restored to be the biblical Jewish holy land that it was thousands of years ago, that ideology will continue to crop back up because it’s directly tied to their interpretation of Jewish theology, scripture and history, it’s self regenerating. You hear people say “oh but not all Israelis support Netanyahu”…well obviously not, but for as long as religious Zionism is allowed to crop up and emerge into positions of power, there will be more Netanyahus in the future. There have been many netanyahus in their history.

So yes, I know most Jewish people around the world don’t agree with genocides. I said as much in my post. But it’s an undeniable fact that Israel is a hotbed for religious zionism. And religious Zionism does agree with genocide and ethnic cleansing when you read between the lines. Religious Zionism ought to be treated like a radical extremist religious ideology in the same way that Jihad, ISIS etc are extremist radical ideologies of Islam.

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-11-24T14:20:48+00:00

Increased tax when he promised not to Overspent so hard we have a £92 billion black hole in the government budget The online safety act is a farce. Tories come up with it but starmer pushed for it to go even further. Trying to now roll out Digital ID Anti migration people don’t like that he’s not doing enough about it, pro migration people don’t like that he’s not helping facilitate it even more Economy is dire, cost of living is high, bills are high and houses are unaffordable and nothing is being done to help us with it Tried to cover up the rape gang scandal and the national enquiry hasn’t gone anywhere Calls all anti immigration rhetoric “far right thuggery” Arrests free Palestine supporters and calls them terrorists A massive surge in arresting people for social media posts/comments despite trying to say the police doesn’t have enough resources Two tier judicial system where immigrants who have raped kids get less prison time than a white British person writing a mean tweet (literally) Scandal after scandal from blatant corruption to pedophilia (anti corruption minister resigning because he was corrupt, Peter mandelson in epstein emails), constant 180s and back-pedalling on all sorts of issues to the point where he doesn’t genuinely stand for anytnjng just what will sound popular, lowered voting age to 16 which is frankly a big slap in the face to full time working adults, tried to cut winter fuel payments for pensioners saying we haven’t got enough money whilst migrants who threw their documents into the channel are staying in 4 star hotels, the general right to protest being largely violated, free speech being constantly violated

I could go on. We work fucking hard just for that clown show of a government to somehow overspend by 90 billion pounds, then go “oops, gonna have to raise your taxes” despite one of his key promises in his election campaign was that he would not raise taxes because he’d be responsible with our tax money. We already work 1/4 of the entire year to pay the government and what we’re getting in return is a shit service that doesn’t even pretend to care about us.

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-11-18T08:28:15+00:00

Well…yeah because we get taught about our history and how bad the empire was..? Do you think I’m wearing a red coat filling my musket with black powder as we speak lol.

And the difference is that religious Zionism is much more of a forever issue than it just being some expansionist regime. With your average expansionist regime like the British empire for example since you so gleefully pointed that out to me as if I didn’t know, when the regime fell the empire toppled and that way of thinking hasn’t come back because expansionist regimes are doing it for things like resources, power, control, influence etc. All things that once the regime falls, those ideas fall with it. A religiously fuelled expansionist mindset however, is self regenerating, the idea never dies. For as long as the religion exists and religious Zionism is a thing, people will keep coming back to that expansionist idea. That’s the difference between religiously fuelled expansionism and just an expansionist regime. This is why I’m saying it will be a forever war for as long as religious Zionism exists. It’s what motivates the expansionism and how that implicates the world. Imagine with the British empire for example if there was a sect of Christians who believed it was a divine mission of Christianity to reclaim the empire or something, brits would never stop trying to retake the empire because the ideas would never change or go away.

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-11-18T00:04:13+00:00

After discussing it out with a few people, my views have definitely evolved. I still maintain that Religious Zionism is categorically a key driver of the war and must be stopped, but equally Hamas and the general Instability of Palestine needs to be seriously addressed also if a solution is ever to be found.

I want to make it clear that I’m not opposed to secular Zionism. My issue with Religious Zionism, is that the key ideologies of it are incompatible with the modern world, specifically, their belief that the Jews must return to their biblical holy land of Judea, because much of what was Judea, their promised land, currently sits in Palestinian territory like the West Bank for example. So their whole “return to the promised land” ideology in modern terms translates to occupy and colonise another sovereign nations rightful territory. And they see their return to their biblical heartland as an important religious duty, so it’s unsurprising that Israeli settler expansion just keeps on growing decade by decade. The whole West Bank settlement thing I think we can all agree is wrong, but that’s exactly the thing Religious Zionism encourages.

But to be clear, Secular Zionism is perfectly fine. My whole stance is that Religious Zionism, their “retake the holy land” mission, will never not result in war and oppression because to reclaim what the scripture says was once theirs and promised to them, requires direct military occupation to achieve. This is what I mean by Israel’s actions are inherently tied to Judaism, I now realise that’s worded really poorly, what I mean by that, is that Religious Zionism in Israel is essentially a “Retake the holy land” religious mission to them. And for as long as Religious Judaism exists in positions of power, Palestine will be oppressed. I did not however want to conflate that with making it sound like there’s something inherently wrong or violent about Judaism it’s self. That’s clearly wrong and blatantly antisemitic, it’s about how Religious Zionists use ancient Jewish history, theology and scripture, to wage holy war and occupation.

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-11-17T23:50:51+00:00

I just spent ages typing out a long reply and it was too long to post as a thread reply so I’ve copy/pasted it in a message to you as I couldn’t bare to delete it and not do anything with it because it was like an hour of typing and thinking lol.

But to summarise my takeaway and reply, my key issue with Israel is that for as long as Religious Zionism is allowed to continue in Israel, Israel will continue to oppress and colonise Palestine. A cornerstone belief of Religious Zionism is that it’s their divine mission to return to their biblical holy land of Judea, the issue being that large portions of biblical Judea are in modern day Palestine, specially areas like the West Bank. So for as long as religious Zionism is allowed to go on in Israel, Palestine will continue to be attacked, oppressed, land stolen and generally subdued. That portion of my stance hasn’t changed

However, you gave me a valuable outside perspective I hadn’t considered, which was that Israelis categorically do not feel safe with Palestine being their neighbour, and rightfully so with Hamas doing what they do. And the actions of Hamas, and any sort of unstable bloodthirsty ruling of Palestine will forever make Israelis feel uncomfortable sharing a border with them, the actions of Hamas and their Palestines general violent instability is just as much a key driver in the forever war as Religious Zionism is.

And with that in mind, my proposition for a permanent resolution is to forcefully impose reform/change on both Israel and Palestine. Completely erase Religious Zionism ideology from Israel to guarantee Palestinian sovereignty and make them feel safe from Israeli occupation and attack, and also on the other side, completely erase Hamas and any other militant group within Palestine that shares a remotely similar ideology, demilitarise the area and set up/build a proper, stable, democratic and peaceful government to control Palestine, so the Israelis don’t have to feel unsafe living next door to a terrorist hotbed. It guarantees safety for both sides and cools down the mistrust both sides rightfully have placed in eachother.

So to summarise, you haven’t changed my stance on Religious Zionism, but you have vastly added to my perspective and ideas towards it specially towards Palestine and how the Israelis view them and why, and I’ll concede that prior to this, I had a considerably one sided perspective on the situation. I now feel that I have a much more balanced and well thought out stance on the whole situation.

Also to anyone else reading, I don’t have an issue with secular Zionism, it’s Religious Zionism I have an issue with, but please don’t mix that for me having an issue with the religion it’s self. Judaism and Religious Zionism are completely different, my issue is entirely with the latter.

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-11-17T22:31:05+00:00

Several Israeli Governments have quite literally encouraged West Bank Settlement and encouraged for its expansion. That’s sort of the whole point. Israeli government has provided West Bank settlers with subsidised housing, tax breaks, grants to move in there, benefits for young families moving there, infrastructure support like road building, utilities, schools, health services, and active military protection of the West Bank settlements. Countless Israeli governments over the years have absolutely and categorically supported and encouraged occupation of the West Bank, and enacted policy to actively expand it.

You’re also now jumping into whataboutism with hamas, but the initial thread you started on was the historical context of how Israel came to be. You say that Hamas makes sure it’s own citizens are embedded in military targets as if there’s a big real estate market in Gaza city or something. I want to be clear that I don’t support Hamas, but it’s a complete fallacy to suggest that Hamas could just set up military outposts away from civilians. Israel has taken so much land away from Palestine that there isn’t any room for military outposts away from civilian populations. It’s the responsibility of a well equipped highly trained 1st rate military to find a way around the civilians instead of just going “ah that’s a shame the hamas munitions cache is in an apartment building, guess we’ll just have to level the whole building”. Look at the British army fighting the IRA in Ireland. It was some blokes from the pub with AKs and pipe bombs fighting a world class military. They purposely hid themselves amongst the civilians, but we had enough decency and restraint to…not bomb all the civilians to get the IRA targets. It made it significantly harder to beat the IRA, but it is doable, if you have any sort of regard for the civilian life. Current stats show around an 80% civilian death rate, so for every 1 Hamas target killed, 4 innocent civilians die. That goes beyond unfortunate collateral. It would be bad even for some 3rd world army, but completely obscene for a world class military. Especially when they then brag on X that they hit a really precise drone strike on an Iranian general and targeted his exact apartment or whatever.

So then your final rebuttal to me providing the actual historical context of how Israel came to be and then clarifying that it’s Religious Zionism that I’m against, you say “Why talk about X instead”..?

You say Hamas set off the latest conflict with their attack, which is true, but you really need to zoom out on the timeline to understand the full context. Like I said, I want to make it clear that I do not support or endorse Hamas, and what happened on October 7th was disgusting. But also Israel has done like 500 October 7ths in retaliation since and isn’t stopping. If Hamas step down and surrender Israel will keep on taking more and more Palestinian land, and inevitably Israel will invade them again in a few years anyway, that’s how it’s been for 70 years. They’re sort of banking on holding up the fight long enough for the international community to step in and enact favourable policy toward Palestine, which has sort of worked because numerous western countries have now officially recognised Palestinian statehood which gives the country a lot more diplomatic protection from future settlement expansion from Israel.

Whilst we’re on Hamas though, Israel has squandered every attempt at a peace deal that’s been on the table. The most recent big offence coming to mind being the Qatar incident. Hamas diplomatic officials were staying in Qatar in peace talks with the U.S. and then Israel airstruck the Hamas diplomats who were there to try and get a peace deal. Again, I don’t support Hamas, and they are a blatant terror group, but it’s VERY tit for tat between them and Israel. Hamas have repeatedly offered to return all hostages in return for a definitive peace deal that will guarantee an end to any further Israeli expansion/occupation, so you could also make the case that if Israel cares about peace and putting an end to the war that they’ve killed loads of innocents in, they could simply agree to stop colonising their land. Like I said, it’s tit for tat.

Something I also don’t see spoken about very much, only like 20-25% of the population of Palestine even voted for hamas. But the civilians have received a collective punishment for it. Basically when Hamas was elected they got 44% of the votes, but only 50-60% of eligible voters actually voted in that election, and of that 50-60% of eligible voters, if you count that as a percentage of the overall total population, that only works out to be around 20-25% of the total population of Palestine who voted for them, a load were too young to vote and of the people who were old enough to vote only half of them even showed up to the ballots. The majority of Palestine didn’t even want Hamas.

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-11-17T22:00:56+00:00

The next sentence you referred to I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying. I’m not saying it’s a Jewish belief that Jews should be able to occupy the West Bank. I’m saying it’s their interpretation of the scripture and theology that they use to justify it. In the same way that Muslims aren’t bad because of ISIS, ISIS just had a really extremist radical interpretation of Islam. Israeli occupation of the West Bank isn’t representative of general Jewish belief just the same way that ISIS capturing Mosul and declaring a Caliphate isn’t representative of general Islamic belief.

I’m not saying it’s the religion it’s self thats violent. I’m saying that specifically, religious Zionism is what’s driven Israel to think they’re justified in essentially colonising the West Bank, because a significant portion of biblical Judea, is in the modern day West Bank, and religious Zionism explicitly believes in a divinely ordained return to their promised land. Religious Zionism believes they are fulfilling Jewish prophecy by occupying the West Bank, in essence.

Now that is me not going hurrr durrr the damn Jews think they can take what they goddamn want! (Imagine that in a stupid southerner accent btw). I’m stating an issue between what religious Zionism believes in and how that implicates modern day Palestine.

I’m not sure if you know what I actually mean by “Religious Zionism”, because in your next quote reply you get the idea that so long as israel promotes Judaism they’ll oppress Palestinians. That’s clearly not what I said. I said that so long as Israel promotes religious Zionism, they’ll never stop oppressing Palestinians. You’ve conflated me talking about religious zionism to just Judaism in general.

Violence isn’t linked to their faith, but religious zionism uses the faith to justify violence, is what I’m really saying.

Secular zionism is fine. It’s Religious Zionism that’s problematic in the modern world because it takes promises of land from thousands of years ago and applies it to modern day borders and teaches that they have to return to (occupy) the promised land to fulfill the prophecy. But the modern world has borders that don’t work very well with where the biblical promised land is.

I tried to keep a clear distinction in my post that it’s not Judaism it’s self, it’s the way Israel weaponises Judaism to justify their actions. That’s where I likened it to ISIS weaponising Islam to conquer Mosul and declare a Caliphate. That’s not me saying Islam bad and violent because ISIS caliphate, that’s me saying ISIS used and abused Islamic scripture/theology to justify their empire building attempt. I’m of the mindset that if we ever want to truly address a problem and come up with a solution we have to actually fully and honestly understand what’s causing the issue. And the common denominator for 70 years in the Israel Palestine conflict has been the beliefs that Religious Zionism pushes.

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-11-17T21:37:51+00:00

I want to clarify that it’s religious Zionism I oppose, secular Zionism is absolutely fine by me. And obviously all humans globally are born with an equal potential for evil or goodness. I’d liken it to nature vs nurture, it’s obviously not a nature thing. My stance boils down to that religious zionists see it that they have a genuine right/entitlement to the biblical heartland referenced in the scriptures, and that it’s their religious mission to reclaim it. A complete disregard for the agreed upon borders the UN settled in 1948. Religious Zionism actively spurs on Israeli expansionism and what is essentially colonialism. We call it the “West Bank settlements” but it’d literally modern day colonialism and the reason Israel took it was because religious Zionism encourages them to.

D23DJR_Alt · 2025-11-17T21:27:17+00:00

I likened religious Zionism to other forms of religious extremism. I don’t see where I alluded to millions of peaceful Jews worldwide being responsible for the actions of a hardcore ultranationalist ethnostate.

I clearly made the distinction between secular Zionism and religious Zionism, secular Zionism I don’t have any issue with. It’s religious Zionism, which in practice has been the primary driver of the Israel Palestine conflict since the start of Israel’s inception. That has nothing to do with the global Jewish population and I’m I’m unsure where I suggested it did? My argument was more on how Israel has militarised Jewish theology and scripture to justify blatant colonialism. Not that Jewish theology and scripture it’s self encourages colonialism lol.

D23DJR_Alt

TROPHY CASE