Hello from Perth

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Discussion

Munki

Original Poster:

38 posts

245 months

Friday 25th June 2004
quotequote all
Hi fellas, great site you have here!

I'm John, an Yorkshireman living in Aus, a member of the ls1.com.au forum (John0) and the webmaster from this great but slightly bizarre Holden site - <a href="http://www.g3wc.net.">www.g3wc.net.</a>

We pride ourselves in owning non-HSV Commodores yet modifying them considerably to blow any HSV off the road hence the club slogan "HSV, i don't need one". heheheh. We run the odd track day and go down the drags quite frequently. Some of our cars are supercharged, have LS1-edited MAFless tunes etc etc and some run 12 second 1/4 miles. One of our ex-members owns a black Monaro with a head & cam job and a Whipple PD supercharger that runs low 11's!

Anyhow, I used to live in Hull before i left 2 years ago, and i used to get my mates in Perth to send me the Autotrader every month or so. I spotted the car i wanted whist reading the mag on the flight over, then bought the car 2 days after i got here!

I'm not sure if you have any of these over there but its a 98 VT SS Commodore, which is basically Holden's fast sedan without all the HSV bits. Its not the 5.7 LS1 but Holdens older 5 litre V8 that they phased out in 1999, with an Eaton M112 positive displacement supercharger bolted on and loads of other goodies. It produces 306KW at the moment, runs a low 13, has buckets more low-down torque than the LS1 but not as much top end....yet. Some would say they prefer the old aussie V8 but both engines have their pros and cons. If anyones interested i have a page with all the mod info and pics here:

<a href="http://solidstate.fws1.com/car/commodore/blownvt.htm">http://solidstate.fws1.com/car/commodore/blownvt.htm</a>

Its great to see you guys driving these wonderful cars around the UK. God how i wish i could bring mine back for a day just to give it a blast down the M62 and whoop some cocky BMW drivers butt heheh. Don't you just hate 'em?

My sister has turned into a Holden freak too, and would love a VU ute but she doesn't want a V8. I notice Lindens have a nice red one in stock but she wants a v6 unfortunately. I'm not sure if they ever imported any 6's but if anyone knows otherwise could they let me know please.

Well i thought i'd just say hi, and if i can help anyone with finding parts etc please ask and i'll see what i can do. I'm also good mates with V-Car on this forum so between us i'm sure we can do someone a few favours. I'll be back in the UK for a couple of weeks in July so can bring stuff over if need be.

Thanks and Cya
John



>>> Edited by Munki on Friday 25th June 11:57

>>> Edited by Munki on Friday 25th June 15:51

jagsy

1,462 posts

258 months

Friday 25th June 2004
quotequote all
Eh up John lad.

Thanks for joining us. Let us know when you are back as I get down to Hull for work.

I'm a proper northerner to, Yorkshire lad born and bred now in the lad of magpies- Geordies hehe..

Anyway great to here from you, sorry but most of us are HSV drivers, but that can't be that bad!!!!

As for parts let the forum know a wek before you come home

Richard

ps
nice car - who is that gadge looking in the bonnet spoiling the pic?

>> Edited by jagsy on Friday 25th June 19:32

Munki

Original Poster:

38 posts

245 months

Saturday 26th June 2004
quotequote all
Hi Richard

I'll be in Hull from the 11th July to the 21st. Its just a quick visit just to keep the old lady happy lol. I'm hoping to get a brochure for the Vauxhall Monaro while i'm there to give the boys back here.

We've spoken before on ls1.com.au about insurance a while back. My nick on there is john0.

No harm intednded towards hsv drivers by the way, its just over here they can sometimes be as cocky as bmw drivers so it great fun to see their faces when they get thrashed by lesser models. We have a couple of hsvs in our club too. We just figure that its more fun and usually cheaper to mod up a cheaper model than buy the real thing. Some of our cars are even the pov-pack executives with the ls1 engine! An even better way of annoying them is to beat them in the old 5 litre as there is a big 5.0 vs 5.7 rivalry almost as bad as the Holden vs Ford thing. Crazy really but its a good harmless fun heheh.

Thanks for the warm welcome

countzodoffski

33 posts

245 months

Saturday 26th June 2004
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Midshires Motors at Coven near Wolverhampton had a red V6 a couple of weeks ago. 01902 904204

Tell your sister to try them as they used to import them

Munki

Original Poster:

38 posts

245 months

Saturday 26th June 2004
quotequote all
Mate you're a legend, its still there! Its a 2001 VU S 3.8 V6, 14,000 miles. He's asking £13000+VAT. I gave my sis the details and she's going to have a look soonish i think. Many thanks for that!(Thats the wrong phone number by the way lol)

OK, so i'm just wondering how you guys go for servicing and getting parts. Do Vauxhall supply them or is it a case of phoning dealers in Aus? And who does the best insurance deals? I hear Tesco do insurance these days.

Cheers
John



>> Edited by Munki on Saturday 26th June 15:39

slippery

14,093 posts

246 months

Sunday 27th June 2004
quotequote all
Try Direct Line for insurance. They were about half the price, of the three other quotes I got, for my VX SS. I have been using Linden for servicing/parts and to be fair, Mark certainly knows his stuff, but I am doing 600 miles a week and it's a major disruption getting the car to them. For that reason only, I am trying Vauxhall for the routine stuff with the first oil service booked for next week, so I will let you know how I get on. There seems to be a bit of a lack of knowledge at the moment, but I am hoping that will improve as they sell more Monaros. Shame they don't appear to have the passion for the Monaro within the dealer network though, you would think it would be a real treat for them to be associated with something like that, but most of the staff still think it's a van (Movano)!

Munki

Original Poster:

38 posts

245 months

Sunday 27th June 2004
quotequote all
Yeah i agree about Vauxhall dealers, they were never too flash when i had my Omega. That made me laugh about the Movano hahah. Well it must be a GM thing because Holden dealers aren't up to much either. I fitted Monaro headlights into my VT SS despite the dealers saying they wouldn't fit because they were the wrong shape. They are in fact the exact shape and fitted perfectly! Duh.

I tried an online quote on Tescos website but only the GTS and the GTSR came up. No sign of the ute. So i tried her for a GTS and she was quoted £978 with 5 years no claims. Not bad for a 28 year old. I'll try directline tday. Do Lindens just supply parts or do you have to go there to get your car serviced. My sister is in Hull and she gets her car serviced by this reaaly good mechanic but his workshop is in the middle of nowhere near the east coast. She won't take it anywhere else! Don't blame her though, good mechanics you can trust to do a good job are few and far between these days.

Many thanks for the info, hopefully there'll be a new Holden owner born shortly

V-Car

225 posts

245 months

Sunday 27th June 2004
quotequote all
[quote] I'm also good mates with V-Car on this forum [/quote]

Tell them about our thrash of the AWD Adventra's last w/e Munki!



>> Edited by V-Car on Sunday 27th June 06:48

Munki

Original Poster:

38 posts

245 months

Sunday 27th June 2004
quotequote all
nah mate,i'll let you tell em We did have some fun didn't we :lol:

slippery

14,093 posts

246 months

Sunday 27th June 2004
quotequote all
[quote]Yeah i agree about Vauxhall dealers, they were never too flash when i had my Omega. That made me laugh about the Movano hahah. Well it must be a GM thing because Holden dealers aren't up to much either. I fitted Monaro headlights into my VT SS despite the dealers saying they wouldn't fit because they were the wrong shape. They are in fact the exact shape and fitted perfectly! Duh.

I tried an online quote on Tescos website but only the GTS and the GTSR came up. No sign of the ute. So i tried her for a GTS and she was quoted £978 with 5 years no claims. Not bad for a 28 year old. I'll try directline tday. Do Lindens just supply parts or do you have to go there to get your car serviced. My sister is in Hull and she gets her car serviced by this reaaly good mechanic but his workshop is in the middle of nowhere near the east coast. She won't take it anywhere else! Don't blame her though, good mechanics you can trust to do a good job are few and far between these days.

Many thanks for the info, hopefully there'll be a new Holden owner born shortly [/quote]




Linden will send you parts via courier no problem. They seem to keep just about everything on the shelf. When my car got broken into, Auto Windscreens were having all sorts of problems locating a side window, but when I referred them to Linden, they got it the next day. Any parts it has in common with the Monaro will almost certainly be cheaper from Vauxhall though.

countzodoffski

33 posts

245 months

Monday 28th June 2004
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Hi Mate

Sorry about the phone number it should be 01902 791346

Don't know much about Midshires other than they imported most of the Utes around.

Another importer is Australian Utes in petersfield Hampshire. Nice bloke but only sells new imports.

Count

Munki

Original Poster:

38 posts

245 months

Monday 28th June 2004
quotequote all
Thanks for the info fellas. Looks like i'll be visiting a few dealers with my sis when i get back.

uk hsv

1,692 posts

260 months

Monday 28th June 2004
quotequote all
"countzodoffski" do you have a number or more details on the guy in Hampshire.............

uk hsv

anniesdad

14,589 posts

245 months

Monday 28th June 2004
quotequote all
God how i wish i could bring mine back for a day just to give it a blast down the M62 and whoop some cocky BMW drivers butt heheh. Don't you just hate 'em?

anniesdad

14,589 posts

245 months

Monday 28th June 2004
quotequote all
Ooooopps ....we're not all bad !!!

Munki

Original Poster:

38 posts

245 months

Tuesday 29th June 2004
quotequote all
uk hsv said:
"countzodoffski" do you have a number or more details on the guy in Hampshire.............

uk hsv


try here

www.holden-utes.co.uk/index.htm

Munki

Original Poster:

38 posts

245 months

Tuesday 29th June 2004
quotequote all
anniesdad said:
Ooooopps ....we're not all bad !!!


hahahah yeah ok, maybe a few exceptions.

countzodoffski

33 posts

245 months

Wednesday 30th June 2004
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Munki

I took a few pictures of the V6 when I tested it.

tell your sis to email me and I will mail them on

count

Munki

Original Poster:

38 posts

245 months

Thursday 1st July 2004
quotequote all
can you send them to john@ssr-media.com please? thanks.

By the way, i didn't realise you'd test driven it. Can you remember how much tax and MOT it had? I forgot to ask the guy when i rang. He also said it had a slight dent in the side? Did you notice how bad it was?

Cheers