35 posts does seem a lot to access PMs to me tbh.
I can understand restricting access to for sale threads, but not PM's. Can take ages to make 35 posts, not everyone's car is a project so won't have a project thread and they may not want to jump straight in with discussions in the lounge, takes a while for people to understand whether the forum is full or banter (as it is) or whether its full of easily offendable people (I say because I made the mistake on another forum and am no longer welcome there haha). So after a welcome thread it can take a while to get up to 35 posts, unless they start spamming 'nice car' in other projects which I'm sure we all find boring! I'm sure there is a reason for it, just doesn't make a lot of sense to me lol.
I can understand restricting access to for sale threads, but not PM's. Can take ages to make 35 posts, not everyone's car is a project so won't have a project thread and they may not want to jump straight in with discussions in the lounge, takes a while for people to understand whether the forum is full or banter (as it is) or whether its full of easily offendable people (I say because I made the mistake on another forum and am no longer welcome there haha). So after a welcome thread it can take a while to get up to 35 posts, unless they start spamming 'nice car' in other projects which I'm sure we all find boring! I'm sure there is a reason for it, just doesn't make a lot of sense to me lol.