Dippy

I don't understand how to make money on cars. If I buy one & park it up for ten years it will likely be rotten & no longer run. Unless I rent a dry garage to keep it in & have it MOT'd and or serviced/MOT'd regularly - & I'd have to tax/insure it to be able to do that. Rent + MOT + service + tax + insurance + regular fresh petrol = I've spent a shit load, that I'd have proably been better off bunging into a regular saving product - as chances are no-one will still want a Mazda 121 bubble or similar 'investment' in 2030.
 

It's because interest rates are low. If they were 10% again, people would keep their money in the bank, but as the interest they receive doesn't even match inflation they go out shopping fo Ford Escorts and 80s hot hatches instead.

He's done good!  It's even a decent match given the state of the rest of the car and the likelihood it has already been repainted at least once before.

Went grab a chocolate malt.

Everyday car. Drove it to work today, ahead of the pending bad weather.
 
Phil

Just finished reading this thread from the start, its great to see somebody doing right by a car and not just a quick bodge and move it on.
Looking forward to reading the updates.

What did you drive on your last day before tomorrow’s house arrest!
Me, I moved the Alfa 156 V6 out of the way so I could take the Maestro for a run.
I went for a drive to @Slowsilver house as I knew he had a treat for me, but I will leave that for him to explain.
Taking the Maestro gave me the chance to park side by side with slowsilver’s Maxi.

Prompted by a comment on the how many cars do you own thread I thought I should start a thread to make a contribution to the forum, if there is any interest I will try and update now and again.
Work on the cars has almost stopped due to work, house renovation and slow progress on building a garage. I hope to be able to have all my cars at home when the garage is completed but still need to get the floors done. Current state below:


 

Below is a picture of the inside of the garage in the top picture, the upper floor will hold five cars above the garage in the second picture with the door half fitted. There are now five cars in a row where the estate is in the below picture.

We started a few cars for the first time in a while to swap some garage doors the weekend before last.
Only the Jag  and two Cortina’s were started and driven, the others were pushed!

Heard a funny noise  coming from the gas fire today and it turned out to be a Coal Tit  stuck in the flue.
Spent a couple of hours stripping fire down so it could get out which ot eventually did and gave a nice tweet as it flew past and outside via the conservatory.

With the Volvo in bits and the wifes car on loan to my daughter and the Princess not taxed I had no choice but to use the Jensen 😁

I suspect a lot of the issue is that cars have become too reliable and need so little maintenance compared to two generations ago that people now ignore stuff.
When a car needed an oil change, points cleaning/gapping, plugs cleaning/gapping, carb twiddling and a general sunday afternoon fiddle-with at least every 3000 miles, and at a service actually needed things like grease points lubricating etc.etc, people realised that cars need maintaining.  You simply couldn't drive a car without either knowing something about what you were doing with it, or had a friend/spouse/whatever who did.  If you ignored little problems, they very very quickly became show-stopping problems.  Even tyres.  In the 60s and 70s just about everyone had to change a tyre on a regular basis due to punctures.  If you couldn't change a tyre at the roadside, you were going to be stuck for a fair while on a regular basis.
Now you can leave a car for 20k miles between services, and even then they don't need 80% of what a car i the 1970s needed.  If you miss that service, it will probably keep going for another 20k miles before anything actually happens that causes you an issue.  Leave a set of plugs in for 100k miles?  They'll probably still work.  When it comes to a service, everything is sealed-for-life.   And when was the last time you changed a tyre at the roadside?  I've not done one in years.
I even heard a few years back, when some dozy moo got her Renault Megane stuck having parked it on some wet grass, say "I thought modern cars didn't get stuck".  Sums it up really.

Why spend money on something that won't get the girls wet at the McDonald's car park? Preventative maintenance? Too many letters in two few words for most of the people who leave cars in this  state!
I have followed what my dad used to do when it came to cars. He'd look at the area code to work out whether it was a shite hole or not. If it was a good area he'd go and view the car. He'd look at the kind of tyres on the car, if they were in pairs. If they were then he would say the car was well looked after. Cheapo things or different brands on each corner, not so much. But then he'd haggle like mad to bring the price down - usually successful - and he'd then proceed to drive the car in to the ground. I don't follow him on that, I look after the cars doing what I can when I can.

With the Volvo in bits and the wifes car on loan to my daughter and the Princess not taxed I had no choice but to use the Jensen 😁

Heard a funny noise  coming from the gas fire today and it turned out to be a Coal Tit  stuck in the flue.
Spent a couple of hours stripping fire down so it could get out which ot eventually did and gave a nice tweet as it flew past and outside via the conservatory.

Heard a funny noise  coming from the gas fire today and it turned out to be a Coal Tit  stuck in the flue.
Spent a couple of hours stripping fire down so it could get out which ot eventually did and gave a nice tweet as it flew past and outside via the conservatory.

Finally managed to tackle the failing LCD displays in the CX:

 
Trouble is that the heating/cooling over the years causes the LCD polarising filters to leak out, so you end up not having a black background for the digits so the displays become unreadable. Also the plastic casing goes brittle, so the screws lose their grip. Cannibalised bits from three half-broken units to make one good one:

The PCB itself is quite robust and doesn't seem to fail.

Anyhow, some fiddling with superglue and screwdrivers later and we had normal service.....

....although it now looks like the ambient temperature sensor thing has failed, giving me a temperature fit for the Equator rather than the 8 or 9 actual Celsius. Must locate the temperature sensor - someone told me it's mounted on a headlamp.

Still, all good for now.

Heard a funny noise  coming from the gas fire today and it turned out to be a Coal Tit  stuck in the flue.
Spent a couple of hours stripping fire down so it could get out which ot eventually did and gave a nice tweet as it flew past and outside via the conservatory.

Heard a funny noise  coming from the gas fire today and it turned out to be a Coal Tit  stuck in the flue.
Spent a couple of hours stripping fire down so it could get out which ot eventually did and gave a nice tweet as it flew past and outside via the conservatory.

Heard a funny noise  coming from the gas fire today and it turned out to be a Coal Tit  stuck in the flue.
Spent a couple of hours stripping fire down so it could get out which ot eventually did and gave a nice tweet as it flew past and outside via the conservatory.

Heard a funny noise  coming from the gas fire today and it turned out to be a Coal Tit  stuck in the flue.
Spent a couple of hours stripping fire down so it could get out which ot eventually did and gave a nice tweet as it flew past and outside via the conservatory.

Heard a funny noise  coming from the gas fire today and it turned out to be a Coal Tit  stuck in the flue.
Spent a couple of hours stripping fire down so it could get out which ot eventually did and gave a nice tweet as it flew past and outside via the conservatory.

Heard a funny noise  coming from the gas fire today and it turned out to be a Coal Tit  stuck in the flue.
Spent a couple of hours stripping fire down so it could get out which ot eventually did and gave a nice tweet as it flew past and outside via the conservatory.

Heard a funny noise  coming from the gas fire today and it turned out to be a Coal Tit  stuck in the flue.
Spent a couple of hours stripping fire down so it could get out which ot eventually did and gave a nice tweet as it flew past and outside via the conservatory.

Heard a funny noise  coming from the gas fire today and it turned out to be a Coal Tit  stuck in the flue.
Spent a couple of hours stripping fire down so it could get out which ot eventually did and gave a nice tweet as it flew past and outside via the conservatory.

Heard a funny noise  coming from the gas fire today and it turned out to be a Coal Tit  stuck in the flue.
Spent a couple of hours stripping fire down so it could get out which ot eventually did and gave a nice tweet as it flew past and outside via the conservatory.