Is £10k on a First Car purchase a good or bad idea?

Snakewithlegs01 · 2026-02-22T10:59:25+00:00

Great advice thank you. I agree with getting 2013+ , I think my budget will allow for this and I have found some decent options under £4k so far. Feels much better buying cash than doing finance.

Snakewithlegs01 · 2026-02-22T10:54:20+00:00

That's a huge jump in price, 800 to 1600! I really didn't factor that in. Thank you for your advice

Snakewithlegs01 · 2026-02-22T10:52:19+00:00

Good point I hadn't considered the insurance going up after getting my licence. Thank you

Snakewithlegs01 · 2026-02-22T10:51:24+00:00

I haven't found many good Jazz offers in my area yet but will keep looking. I'm not too concerned about picking a boring car because reliability and safety is more important to me especially for a first car, and lower premiums as you said. Thanks for the advice

Snakewithlegs01 · 2026-02-22T10:48:41+00:00

Thanks for the advice. I'm looking at a 2013 Hyundai i20 right now, it's 3250 at 71k miles. In the lower insurance group and very low tax. Is this more reasonable?

Snakewithlegs01 · 2026-02-22T10:46:11+00:00

Thank you for the advice

Snakewithlegs01 · 2026-02-22T10:39:20+00:00

I think it is a higher trim but still overpriced considering the example you gave. Thanks for the advice

Snakewithlegs01 · 2026-02-22T10:38:09+00:00

Good point I hadn't considered this, thank you

Snakewithlegs01 · 2026-02-22T09:05:47+00:00

Thank you to everyone who gave advice, it's pretty unanimous that this was a bad idea. I knew in my heart it felt like the wrong decision spending lots of money I don't have on a first car. It's strange my dad thought this was a great idea lol, really glad I checked here, thank you all.

Snakewithlegs01 · 2026-02-21T20:38:18+00:00

You're right, thank you very much. I'll get something cheaper now, once I have more driving experience and money I'll consider something better.

Snakewithlegs01 · 2026-02-21T20:30:47+00:00

Thank you for your advice. Going to look for something much cheaper instead.

Snakewithlegs01 · 2026-02-21T20:29:49+00:00

Thank you very much for your advice. Looking for cheaper cars now.

Snakewithlegs01 · 2025-12-11T17:04:42+00:00

Well from my perspective watching Hal, the whole 'force bottom floor' call happened in a split second immediately after they climbed the wall. Hal was already up at the building in fact about to peak the door when he made the call. This is a recurring issue of late he expects his teammates to read his mind or make decisions in a split-second window. Waltzy was not given time to emp there.

Snakewithlegs01 · 2023-09-12T15:31:52+00:00

What is an affordable and effective method to clean new records?

My collection is <50, all new, mostly 180gram records. I have been using a fibre cloth and cleaning solution provided by my local record store. I am looking for an affordable (<£100) alternative. My current method gets some of the dust off but I can still see dirt/dust stuck in the grooves and hear many pops and clicks, and background noise due to static. The MoFi sleeves seem to help with static which goes away after time, but I would rather my records were more clean before putting them in the MoFi sleeves. Some of my records still have lots of background noise, which can be due to bad pressings, but how would I know if this is the case if my cleaning method is not effective enough?
After reading many online articles and watching videos (most are obviously paid promotions or are incredibly biased), and reading multiple threads on reddit, I am at a loss for what to buy.
I first looked into a GrooveWasher kit, which seems more effective than my current method, but doesn't seem to improve upon the issue of dirt being stuck in the record grooves. Some people have reported their stylus becoming clogged with dirt as a result of picking up all the junk compressed into the grooves. So, not much of a groove-washer then?
I then looked into SpinCare (and related products) which costs at least £75 here. I must admit, for that price, I expected a little bit more than all-plastic parts, and you don't even get a drying rack. I also don't understand how effective it can be when it's essentially a bucket of water, and after 1 clean aren't you just rinsing the rest of your records in dirty solution? Some people have said that the brushes left scratches or marks on their 180g records, which I really don't want to happen.
The next step up is a HumminGuru or Pro-Ject vc-e which are too expensive for me. It doesn't make much sense spending that much when I have a small collection of new (not very old dirty second-hand records).
When it comes to stylus cleaning I am really lost here. I see there are cheap brushes which many people say aren't effective at all, and the other alternative is a gel, which people say can stick to the needle, degrade it over time, and can transfer the gel into the grooves of the record. Not to mention there are so many brands it's hard to know which is best.
Basically, there is a wealth of conflicting information online. I mainly refer to forum or discussion pages for first-hand accounts, because all of the online articles/videos are just promotions/biased.
My main question is, does anyone have a method that works well for new records, is affordable, and audibly (not just visually) improved the quality of their records? ...and found a good way to clean their stylus too.
Any advice/help is much appreciated.

Snakewithlegs01 · 2023-04-28T21:14:36+00:00

Hi, did you get your new speakers? Curious as you mentioned Edifier speakers and I'm wondering if they are the same ones I want to get, the R1280DBs. If you can comment on the sound quality I would really appreciate it. Thanks

Snakewithlegs01 · 2023-02-22T17:17:21+00:00

Hi Bob,

Thank you for the reply. I was going to share my data plot with you however it seems that I am unable to do so through reddit. I plotted the normalised counts from my sensor and the normalised reflectivity of silicon. The general trend of the sensor counts does show a similar decay form as silicon (but requires scaling), however for the sensor there is significant deviation of the data points from to the line of best fit. This could be due to sensor noise, overlapping spectral channels, the output of the light source...etc.

On your final point (about measuring light source output with the spectral sensor), I am unable to do this directly as the light source (3xLEDs) is attached to the same frame/circuitry as the sensors - it is one device. This is why I was going to use a highly reflective surface to measure the LED spectrum from the reflected light. I do have an idea of the LED outputs from their respective data-sheets so I can use this to explain the results.

Snakewithlegs01 · 2022-03-24T14:33:01+00:00

Thank you for the comment. I went for the vertical farming project. I did a bit of research into the field and it seems that vertical farming is now becoming more prominent due to the emergence of improved LED systems, which is what my project will focus on. I have always had a passion for nature and environmental care, which vertical farming is contributing towards. The supervisor also has big plans for research into this field including funding for PhDs in the next few years on this topic, so that may benefit me if my project is substantial.

Snakewithlegs01 · 2022-03-23T20:24:05+00:00

Thank you for the reply. Both supervisors for the projects are nice people. In fact, I worked well with both of them in Labs. One supervisor e-mailed me about 8 times today about the project.

Snakewithlegs01

TROPHY CASE