United Arab Emirates

stickyfiddle

You don't have to do a test for driving if you have a UK licence. You can drive on an international licence (£6ish from the UK post office) while you're on a tourist visa, then get transferred to a UAE one when you get your proper visa just by turning up to the relevant office with with your UK card, passport, letter of "permission from sponsor" (which you tend to need in some form or other for almost everything) and £50 or so. 

Driving is a bit mental. Thankfully almost all the shit drivers are in  Land Cruisers, Cayennes and Audi Q7s, so they're easy to see coming. Unfortunately that accounts for about 50% of the cars on the road...

Car buying itself is fun. We bought new because they were doing mega deals and finance is way cheap. Our car will cost us about £18k over 3 years, which is £7k less than the cash price for the same spec at home. There are always loads of 2-yr old cars going as well, as there is such a big expat turnover. The major reason we decided against that route was the warranty. The heat's pretty harsh in summer and we didn't want a bill for broken AC on top of the fact that the AC has broken!

axisus

I thought this wuz an Arsenal thread.

Handsome_Chris

axisus said:

I thought this wuz an Arsenal thread.

@Axisus, why?  I don't think anyone has mentioned firearms or the storage of on this thread.

Handsome_Chris

I've had a look on Dubizzle and there are some splendid cars on there.  I am really liking the Shelby Ford Mustang for under£14K. :-S

stickyfiddle

Mustangs are everywhere here. And AWESOME.

If I didn't need a proper boot and 4 seats for when we have visitors it'd have been a Mustang or Toyota GT86

badlydrawnbanjo

My mate has a V8 land rover discovery, it costs him £20 for a full tank of petrol.

Handsome_Chris

You hear stories about drunk British chavs getting arrested for acting like they are in Blackpool on a weekender. Are these tales true?

stickyfiddle

Yes, absolutely. But you'll never get arrested just for being a bit tiddly unless you're also being a muppet. Almost every arrest for drunkeness is linked to people being cunts to cab drivers, or having sex somewhere stupid, then they add on the drinking charge to prove a point.