garycox

The not-round bits in the picture of round things are the screw covers for the window winders, if you were wondering... I think at least one was missing from the Maestro BASE and they're pretty impossible to find in brown!

This has been sitting without an MOT for ages; I took it for a test in December and it failed reasonably badly as the rear inner arches are non-existent (plus quite a bit of other stuff). It still looks pretty smart and everything works including the electric roof. I wish I could afford to get it welded up but it's not going to happen any time soon and it really needs to go. Looks the same as in the pictures above except a bit dirtier and it now has a mismatched driver's door mirror (from a hatch, which I didn't realise were slightly different) after mine went missing while parked. Now on about 90,000 miles. S346JEC for the MOT details: https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/ I don't really want to scrap it as it seems too good for that, or at least has a load of good convertible-specific parts which are hard to get hold of. £180?

2 please!

There are not many bite-free areas...

Made it home in about 11hrs. Many thanks to Saabnut, and everyone else. Is there a prize for the most insect bites?

Sounds good, let's organise a thing! I'm almost always free... Forest Row (if it's still going)? I can't remember which week of the month that is.

No idea what the colour's called - I thought it was the same as my old 5dr GLS TD but actually it looks lighter than that (I don't know what that was called either).

Just realised that this was the most expensive of my last 10 cars! That's everything since the Simca, which I bought in about 2010. The most I paid for any of those was £300 though... Jesus, I buy some rubbish.

Case closed. The Astra seems like a pretty good conversion actually, like it's been designed a bit more nicely than the usual 'hatch with the roof cut off'. All the bits seem of pretty good quality and when the roof is up it's quiet and well insulated. Most importantly, it doesn't have a horrible roll bar thing, which instantly ruled Golfs and a load of other stuff off of my shortlist. Astras in general are not particularly exciting, but they're a good car in a dull-but-dependable way and feel much more solid than many of their contemporaries. The separate roof cover is a little annoying but really not that much hassle, and if you're just doing a short journey in town or whatever it can just be left off. Rear visibility is pretty terrible but I don't think that trait is exclusive to these. It also says "Bertone" all over the place so you can pretend you're driving an Italian sports car. It's not the best convertible by a long way, but certainly not the worst.

I never really intended to buy an Astra. I was sort of half-looking for a cheap 4-seat Convertible but I do that nearly every year. I've only actually bought one before, which was an absolutely horrible Mk5 Escort. This Astra turned up at the right price and time and looked alright from the fairly low quality pictures. I spotted the ad on Sunday, rang the seller and made arrangements to collect on Thursday. In the meantime he'd already reduced the price by £45 without me asking, as I was coming a long way... I agreed to let him know when the coach got to a certain point, so he could come and meet me (he lived about 20mins from the drop-off point). I'd been keeping him updated throughout the journey and messaged him when we got stuck on the M6, to say I'd be late. He responded saying he was already there as he thought it'd be best to get there a bit early. Oh. Half an hour later (the coach hadn't moved in this time) he called me, and I answered assuming he'd be slightly annoyed... he'd gone home again, wasn't bothered at all and, as the car didn't have much fuel, he'd put half a tank in for me. I like this guy. The seller and his wife each had a modern car (BMW and an Astra estate) and this was just a 'spare' car for occasional use. They'd recently bought an early 'new' Mini so this had to go. When I arrived, he showed me a few things that he'd neglected to mention in the advert. These being the 4 recent Continental tyres, and new back box which cost about £100. He was genuinely very apologetic that he'd forgot to say about the small split in one of the front suspension top mount rubbers, which was an MOT advisory a couple of years ago. I had already checked out the MOT history and there were some advisories on there for sill rust. Although it hadn't been mentioned on the last couple, I assumed it might need patching up before too long. I didn't mention it, but before I left he came back out of the house to tell me they'd both been replaced with full genuine new sills a while back. Seems to be a neat job too. I managed about half of the 260-mile return journey with the roof off, until my neck got so cold I thought my head might snap off if I needed to glance at a door mirror. Roof up, it's very civilised in there and like a normal car; much better than the Escort was. It's quite a heavy car, so with the 1.6 it's not very quick. It'll cruise at 80-odd OK but takes a while to get there. Drives fine though, and everything seems to work... Only thing I've found so far is that, with the heater on, the temperature gauge doesn't get above cold. With it off, it behaves as normal. Presumably that's not what it should do. Also, should the heater controls illuminate? Mine do not. The roof is electric and works fine, the cover for when it's down is a bit of a fiddly faff but I've done it a few times now and I'm getting quicker at it. Rear visibility is not great with it up or down. It has a few rust spots, round the fuel filler being the worst but a bit on the arches and stuff, but I'm pretty happy with it overall - have some more pictures.

I've just realised that it was actually 17 hours.

HOME 16hr round trip for an Astra. Sixteen hours. Was it worth it? Unsure yet, but it seems alright actually. I'll have a proper look tomorrow.

IS IT SUMMER YET?

I ARRIVED!!!

Correct, they are not.

A Probe would be much more interesting. I have still not arrived.

Shit, this is not going well... We're supposed to arrive in 30 mins! FFS.

I was specifically looking for something that was not a Mk5 Escort (I've had two and neither was good) or an estate because I'm not really intending to replace the Mondeo any time soon. So it's neither of those things. Only 1.5hrs to go! I think this trip may actually be worse than work. I hope this car gets me back to Brighton...

I can do seats...

Is it already night time in Wigan?

2.5hrs to go! Er, it's a 1.6 petrol and not very interesting. Seemingly rarer than I thought though, as on EBay, Gumtree and Auto Trader I could find only one other of the same body style for sale (and it was 3x the price of this one)

I'm bored of this coach now

It's slightly shorter than the horrible coach trip from Brighton to Middlesbrough to collect the BX from JohnK, but not by much... I would've got the train today but they wanted £112

London achieved, food and coffee consumed. Only 5.5hrs to go (plus the return journey)... I was planning to check out my stats, but the August 1998 issue of Car doesn't have my car in the list of "every new car" as it'd already been replaced by its successor...