AxWomble

Amazing find! I aspire to have a car with so many dials in the instrument cluster 😍

Nothing like a bit of cheap maintenance to get a simple car up to a good spec. It’ll serve you well if you keep this up! 

1 hour ago, Shirley Knott said:

Yeah, this one's actually surprisingly good from a corrosion standpoint, a bit of hidden gem really.... I'd actually set out to buy a C1/107/Aygo, but within our price range they were all invariably rotten or formally written off (Both in some instances). 

RE plugs, unsure at this stage... I'll confirm shortly though as they're on the 'to do' list along with timing belt and a few other bits.

These Clios are brilliant - we’ve got a friend with a very neglected 2007 1.2 that just will not give up. Never gives a moment’s trouble - she throws it at the mechanic once a year and says “get it through the MOT” and is handed a freshly serviced car and a bill of no more than £300. 
 

Cambelt isn’t difficult either - daft not to for that money

2 hours ago, Crackers said:

Age is on your side Bob 😉

I'm not aware of any insurers that provide this for under-25s, if there was I'd happily pay the extra though! 

I’ve got this on our van insurance and paid an extra £24 to get it up to £20,000 worth of repair or replacement for the car that I’m borrowing too. I’m 25 - it’s rare but still exists! 

26 minutes ago, bigstraight6 said:

But they just kept on plodding along, in the late 1980’s into the early 1990’s my daily drivers were a succession of cheap VW Beetles, latterly I was commuting daily from Plymouth to Newton Abbot and the old nails did me proud and were simple and easy to keep going.

You’re making the mistake of thinking that car manufacturers want to make products that last. Making it unscathed through the warranty period+2 years is all they need to maintain a reputation for reliability nowadays. Some don’t even manage that and folks will still buy them! 

Our first car - a 1995 Citroen AX, bought unseen for £250 from a man near Telford, in Feb 2020. I ignored the ominous oily puffs from the exhaust and handed the man a fistful of crinkled notes. It proved itself almost immediately by jump starting my B.I.L’s car - he’d left the radio on while we sorted out the tax and insurance. 
 

Didn’t use it as planned that summer for continental travel coz COVID, but it proved itself over the next year/15,000 miles of weekly commuting from London to the South Coast and visiting far-flung relatives. Only a 1.0, and a tired one at that, happiest at 63-65mph. 70 felt cruel for any distance (4 gear remember), but it managed 93 on a private test track, once. 
 

Bog basic spec - windy windows, manual locks, steel wheels. It was a ‘Cascade’ so it had stickers and a sunroof - fancy! Nothing electrical ever went wrong, apart from a fan switch. It smoked when cold (valve stem seals I think) and about once every 2 months if you were in traffic it would suddenly engulf itself in steamy exhaust smoke. I didn’t really really look into this but I think it was some sort of very intermittent head gasket leak - never used any water and never contaminated its oil. Used to scare our friends silly! 

I miss the old AX - nice spindly steering wheel, proper weighted steering feel, gutsy enough for most usage and fantastic fun on backroads. With hindsight, the 106 diesel that followed was a far better car - the AX leaked, was rusty, and all the bolts were made of cheese. I’d still have it back if I could afford it! 

18 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

2003 Fiat Seicento Active 1108cc 54bhp

While this was a base car for emissions they stopped using the 900cc engine and all Seicento’s got the 1108cc Sporting engine. Also they chucked lots of kit on it as a run out model so it has power steering, electric windows and central locking.

It is a great engine that revs its heart out yet still has some torque. The performance is adequate to keep up with traffic, but you are not going to win any races. It will cruise at 70 mph and is reasonably quiet. I average 42 mpg and I am told that is very low for the car but I only use it for short journeys and not afraid to push the pedal to the floor.

It grips/handles fine but nothing special. The ride is good for such a small light car.

It is a tiny car and gets the last place in the car park that nobody can fit in, yet has plenty of room in the front. The rear has limited leg room. The boot is short but surprising tall giving a lot of capacity.

My main gripe is the tiny pedals spaced oddly.

It puts a smile on my face and I love using it.

I learned in my dad’s identical 53 plate. It was a cracking thing, and such odd pedal position and clutch that I can drive anything without thinking about it now - everything seems normal and roomy in comparison! I’ve not driven anything since that was easier to park, apart from the two vans we’ve had. 

Cracking job! I’ve never pressed F5 so much across a day before...

Radio faults are my main issue - generally because I only had time/inclination to sling it in the dash using the first switched 12v feed I could find. I haven’t had radio presets for years. 
 

Not having a driveway means that things always get put off at least a week - brakes started pulsing under heavy braking at high speed before the weekend but we were busy so it’ll have to wait till the end of the week to have a look at what’s going on. 

12 minutes ago, Shirley Knott said:

This is the truth.

I'll hold on to it until its either prized from my cold dead hands, or its actually made of more MOT patches than car.

 

Welding patches onto an old car is a never ending but predictable (and cheap) way to keep it running. Far, FAR better than unpredictable and costly repairs to even the simplest modern car. 

1 hour ago, Shirley Knott said:

That's it, exactly right, and still never been welded.

It's done getting on for 190k and achieved 50-60 mpg throughout and is still manages to cover 500 miles a week. As far as I'm aware it's on the original injectors and fuel pump. No DMF/DPF/turbo issues as it doesn't have any of these things.

I'll be very sad to see it go when the time comes 😔 

I started a thread about a week ago in the 'Ask a shiter' section to try to find a spiritual successor, and the conclusion was pretty much that nobody makes a car like this these days (Least of all Volkswagen) Sad times... I'll probably give it a viking funeral in It's last year by running it on veg and playing Pink Floyd's 'Time' on repeat on the CD deck.

 

Or you could be the first person in history  to do a full restoration of a Golf Mk4 SDI! Would probably be cheaper than a modern alternative, but financially responsible, errrrrrm maybe not 

10 hours ago, Saabnut said:

Today it was the turn of another Autoshite refugee, this time the ex @The Moog AX Diseasal

Another pass, a few advisories to have a look at but there is nothing serious so no rush.

That is enough MOTs for this week, tomorrow is a full time day concentrating on house sale so hopefully I can relax and do car bits I want to do this weekend.

Good going! I had two MOTs within 3 weeks of each other and my heart could barely take the strain…

1 hour ago, Datsuncog said:

Feeling your pain, fella.

Take it the garage's new owner has no interest/ confidence in having a go at the necessary repairs?

With a reaction like that, I’d be a bit scared to leave it in his hands. What a shame to lose a good mechanic like that  

On 3/17/2023 at 2:00 PM, Bren said:

Many moons ago when I had a mk 2 cav it was advised to grease pipes to prevent corrosion unless they had been replaced with kunifer.

Our friendly MOT place has advised us to grease the unions with the flexi pipes before - to stop them seizing solid 

27 minutes ago, Scruffy Bodger said:

That was standard fitment on our C reg Subaru Estate so not exactly modern! Why it hasn't been fitted to virtually every car since then is totally beyond me.

Our old AX had that when we bought it - in the form of a very lightweight shell and two sticking calipers 😂

Bonnet open warnings. I can almost always tell if it’s slightly open - it just looks wrong somehow. But I see lots of cars driving round with the bonnet released to the first position, so maybe it’s a useful feature for most

9 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

I don't obsess over MPG but it is sometimes handy to check in once in a while to make sure all is well.  I'm not sure how accurate they are but a general indication is still useful.

 

Nice to see the ‘instant’ MPG readout too, if you want to do some informed hypermiling 

Heated Mirrors - we didn’t even realise our van had them until we were doing a journey from London to Norfolk in freezing fog 😬
 

Thought I’d press the HRW button on the dashboard for the fun of it and the mirrors magically cleared! Prior to this, I’d presumed it was a redundant switch for a higher spec van with glass in the rear doors. Especially as our van is povvo spec and doesn’t even have airbags or ABS. 
 

Not a feature I use more than a few times a winter, but very useful to have in certain conditions 

41 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Yes, you can't really call it driving unless you have to double de-clutch at least once!

I do find this useful for smooth downshifting, in all fairness 😂 and for maintaining speed if you need to drop a cog on a steep uphill

40 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

Yes, you can't really call it driving unless you have to double de-clutch at least once!

I do find this useful for smooth downshifting, in all fairness 😂 and for maintaining speed if you need to drop a cog on a steep uphill

4 minutes ago, JJ0063 said:

I’m saying fuck it, if I can pick up an e70 for 5k and keep the rest in the bank for now, I’ll hire a camper for our wales trip in April then if we miss van life that much I’ve still got 6-7k in the bank to buy a van with later down the line.

I instantly feel more comfortable with that idea 

You’ve got some good mitigation with that plan - can’t go too far wrong, unless it grenades. Keep us posted! 

7 minutes ago, JJ0063 said:

Mrs JJ has just said get an E70 and a roof tent 😂 what a bird.

My in-laws got a Tentbox Lite last year and they go away with it all the time - used to have it atop a Nissan Pathfinder, that went poorly and now they’ve got it on a XC70. He’s done a diesel heater in a box thing so they even use it over winter.  Big estate+roof top tent is a great combo! 

1 hour ago, JJ0063 said:

Sold for £8250, pretty happy with that

Handy to know the going rate for this kind of thing - ours will be up fairly soon, once the new van is liveable. What did you put it up for? 

Or alternatively, a Vivaro/Trafic? Same sort of T5 size but a bit cheaper and might get you a more comprehensive conversion  if you’re lucky. They’re obviously less popular so you’d have to look harder. 
 

Would echo what @cobblers says - a Relay/Ducato/Boxer is really a class above a T5 in terms of size, and will feel a fair bit less like a car. Ours has never met a parking space it couldn’t fit into, but it’s always tight. A T5 would always fit with no extra thought required. 

10 minutes ago, cobblers said:

They're a steel bed, but not crash tested and build down to a price. The seatbelts are attached in the middle of an unsupported 120cm length of 20x20mm box using m10x80mm bolts and a stack of about half a dozen m12 nuts used as spacers. More like something you'd expect in a camper built in the 1970s really.

 

Crumbs. That’s a bit iffy. We’re putting belted minibus seats in our new van but we are at least using the original installation hardware in the same way the manufacturer intended.
 

I guess they’re not testable on the MOT beyond checking that they’ve been installed with some level of good practise - although the gov.uk page on this seems to suggest that unless they’ve been glued to the floor, anything goes 😂 “Additional seats should be fitted securely so that they are likely to remain in place in the event of an accident” 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/converting-a-van-to-carry-passengers-in-the-rear/converting-a-van-to-carry-passengers-in-the-rear