Just to add the perspectives of a new user. I appreciate single sign on isn't that easy to achieve, but having a consistent header across the top of the different sections of the site, containing what appears to be a single login prompt and registration button makes it really unclear what's going on and it's not obvious that there is more than one thing here to log in to.

Therefore if we can't have single sign on then it needs to be clearer to new users where the boundaries between the areas that need different accounts are. Alternatively a bit of extra information in the following places might have helped eplain what was going after I'd registered but still couldn't get into the forum:

- welcome mail from the garage should say that you'll need to register for the forum separately

- the "you have used x number of your 5 logins to the forum" message should say something about garage logins not being valid here and you must register separately