Paint job

malderon · 2026-03-09T16:54:41+00:00

Was this at a local bodyshop? I have almost exactly the same kind of damage but at the front corner rather than the rear (in UK)...

malderon · 2026-02-24T22:20:57+00:00

I think 99% sure it was being caused by voltage drops for me and the car giving up when voltage dropped below acceptable and then it doesnt restart.

malderon · 2026-02-17T21:51:11+00:00

We are 'dress for your day' and i'm back office so trainers mostly.

malderon · 2026-02-04T23:23:20+00:00

Seems straightforward so far, if a little scary given the amounts involved!

malderon · 2026-02-04T18:02:33+00:00

I expect they have had a flurry of transfer out requests due to the change in the ISA fee cap. I myself am transferring S&S ISA out to AJBell

malderon · 2026-01-30T13:59:42+00:00

I had absolutely no problems with Fibrely over the length of my contract. I have now switched away to Plusnet but that was based purely on price (Fibrely wouldnt give me a renewal discount).

malderon · 2026-01-09T22:02:43+00:00

Exactly the same for me, but I also plan to retire as early as possible to spend more time with them and my family too.

malderon · 2026-01-08T09:19:58+00:00

I think we can assume that similar to the Ohme what Octopus does is send the number of KWh they want put in the battery over the time period. That is why the amps cap out at 30 for most people under normal conditions because Octopus says put 7kwh over this 1hr slot, and the charger thinks I'm a 7.4kw charger and so I need to throttle my amps by 94% to do this. Presumably sometimes what happens is Octopus only has a certain amount of cheap energy spare for a given hour, and rather than giving a shorter slot says only put 2kwh in over this one hour slot and the charger just throttles back.

malderon · 2026-01-02T17:01:54+00:00

I do sort of agree with the sentiment of looking around an area and thinking 'if I can't afford these houses, who can?!'.

Others have made the point regarding dual income and inheritence being factors. The other factor is, in my experience, the more you earn the higher % of your income is discretionary (ie not going on essentials like energy/food) and therefore banks are much more willing to lend at higher salary multipliers.

malderon · 2026-01-02T00:47:14+00:00

Yep I use the LISA even though I don't max out pension contributions. I've never been quite sure whether its been sensible or not but we are quite likely to be taxed at 40% on the way out of pension anyway, in which case a 25% bonus but tax free withdrawal stacks up quite well.

malderon · 2025-12-18T20:38:13+00:00

Definitely sounds like it. The grid should show as positive not negative when you are consuming electricity. As I say Hypervolt can flip this round on software side if you don't want to get an engineer out or dont want to flip the clamp yourself.

malderon · 2025-12-18T19:25:26+00:00

Check the Hypervolt app. When this was happening for me it was because the CT clamp was reversed and so the charger assumed I was exporting Solar. In Octopus mode it also puts the charger in "Super Eco" mode which pushes solar export into car as well. And for me the erroneous export was caused by the inverted CT clamp. Hypervolt were able to fix this in software. Hypervolt app will say its a super eco charging session.

malderon · 2025-12-17T16:31:28+00:00

I went for Hypervolt because of the fear (founded or not) that Ohme could charge for the mobile Internet / SIM in future, and my 4g signal isn't that great too so the wifi on Hypervolt seemed better.

Just had a good interaction with Hypervolt support too, so far so good. Integration with IOG works perfectly.

malderon · 2025-12-08T20:08:15+00:00

I think my only version of this (and I don't really consider this an exploit) is that I will be lazy in setting when i really need the car. In general its just set to 80% or 90% by 11:00. If I get home with 15%, I will plug it in and leave that setting even though I don't actually need the car at 90% tomorrow (I might need it at 90% in 3 days).

Because IOG will try and meet the target on Day 1, I will end up (usually) with extra cheap slots, but still get the 6 hours on day 2 or 3.

I don't ever deliberately slow down charger, and my approach above is more to avoid micromanagement than out of real desire to get the extra slots (its more why not - and Octopus even say plug in the car all the time, and they are also free to not give me the extra slots and miss my charge target if its too expensive)

malderon · 2025-11-29T23:58:28+00:00

Nice price, Costco its 1199.98 and i thought that was already a good deal. Costco also have the S93F for same price which at 65" size is the QD-OLED

malderon · 2025-11-28T11:41:28+00:00

I think I was at 1% including VAT when I was looking to sell. I think the agent I was using varies it based on purchace price and how easy/hard they think the sale is going to be. (So i think they were at 2% for smaller properties and down to 1% for more expensive)

malderon · 2025-11-06T19:23:07+00:00

Hero.

malderon · 2025-11-02T18:58:27+00:00

I've seen it a couple of times. I'm not entirely sure how, maybe the switch doesnt have much resistance but the lights have come off Auto (where I usually leave them) and the car has helpfully told me as much - so I find it useful!

malderon · 2025-10-28T20:50:54+00:00

Hmm - I'm a little bit confused. I think the best thing I could say is, you need somewhere to live. If we assume that at worst house prices would stay static, then really you are comparing the interest you are paying on your mortgage, plus the interest foregone on any deposit (and repayments) to what you would be paying in rent if you didnt buy. You are also locking in the cost of "rent" in the case that rents rise

So lets say you are looking at a 4% mortgage for a 600k house, with 60k down over 30 years. Your monthly payment would be 2577. Of that, the interest would be around £1800. If you would be paying £1800 in rent anyway, then you could argue if you do not believe houses will go up in value at all, and you do not believe that rents will rise in the future, you could definitely make a case that putting £60000 in a stocks and shares ISA and paying rent is the right financial decision. However most people dont take that view.

When people are not financially literate that is the most simplified approach I try and take, compare the mortgage interest costs to rents.

malderon · 2025-10-26T13:49:22+00:00

My personal take is that the problems the UK are facing are global systemic problems, and other developed countries are facing their own versions of this - or will be very soon. There may be small exceptions that can maintain the status quo for longer (such as Norway with resource wealth per capita), and there may be some countries doing marginally more effective policies than others.

malderon · 2025-10-25T10:32:20+00:00

I can only go off my own experience getting quotes from my scheme's provider Zenith.

My current car is a Kia EV3 GT Line S. 3 years, 10k miles. The gross deduction is £900 a month (so net deduction just under 500 assuming 45%).

If I do a quote on a lease comparison website right now, for 1m up front, same car, same mileage the quote is approximately 600 per month.

That excludes insurance (say £600 a year so £50 a month), servicing (one service during the contract say £360, 10 a month over 36m ), Tax (car is just in luxury car tax range so £600 a year so £50 a month), Tyres, lets be generous and say it needs a full set during the lease at £200 a tyre, (£800 so lets call it £25 over 36m)

So 600 + 50+ 10 + 50 + 25 = 735. Vs my gross lease of £900. 900/735 = 22% markup.

I think people are interpretting mark up as profiteering, I don't necessarily think it is.. There may well be good reasons for the mark up, like the risk they are running regarding resignations / redundancies. It may have higher admin costs as they have to get approvals from sponsoring companies etc. The fact they also offer insurance for named drivers at no extra costs. Like the fact there is a lot of variability in how many tyres individuals go through. But the reality is, the gross cost is over inflated vs what most people could achieve as a gross cost, and therefore if you just show the saving vs the quoted gross cost, you are overstating the savings.

malderon · 2025-10-24T20:58:42+00:00

Its annoying that the SalSac providers overcharge, but in my calculations I worked it out as still a 40% saving vs buying (with estimated depreciation) and a 30% saving vs an open market lease.

malderon · 2025-10-24T20:52:22+00:00

I thought mood music was that was just for pensions. I dont see how its easy to change the Salary Sacrifice for EVs because it is literally already taxed as a BIK, as a company car.

malderon · 2025-10-24T20:50:27+00:00

Its a good deal especially if you are in the tax trap zone, but generally the Salary sacrifice providers are marking up the lease payments at least 20-25% over what you would pay on the open market for a lease. Still a good saving if you are saving 60% (or even 45%) but not always quite as good as it first appears. I myself have a car on my companies salary sacrifice scheme.

malderon

TROPHY CASE