'91 BX Estate - 06/07 - End of the Road

[vulgalour]

The rot is something to be aware of.  I paid £250 for a T&T'd 20+ year old car from the internet on the strength of a few pictures that showed it honestly, I knew what I was letting myself in for, just not the extent of it.  Money no object I would have totally restored this one and kept it forever, but if money really was no object I'd've bought a better one to start with.

 

Don't let my cautionary tale of the past few pages put you off buying and owning a BX, they're one of the best cars I've ever experienced and I say that of a bad one with an undesirable engine.  Just be aware of where they rot and how quickly it can get out of hand if left unattended.  I probably could have repaired it but the extent of the work would have easily spiralled into thousands of pounds or man hours depending on the route I went and I just didn't love the car enough to want to make that serious an investment in it.

 

But do go out and buy one, or just try one, because it won't be long before they're hard to find and expensive to buy, especially the massively useful estates.

[vulgalour]

@DW:  I didn't get any final pictures, I must admit.  I didn't want to change my mind at the last minute in a fit of misplaced sympathy for the old thing.  I didn't even get any pictures of the extent of the rot like I normally would, it was all rather disheartening when I realised the scale of the work that needed doing to what appeared to be a mostly solid car.  You'll have to remember it through the better pictures, I think.  This is only the second car I've ever had to scrap, the first being a supremely rotten Ford Sierra held together with hope and filler.

[hairymel]

Any monocoque is going to create tricky-to-repair issues. That's why I'm going back to separate chassis stuff!

 

 

1986 Citroen 2CV Dolly - 192,000m

.....

.....

1993 Land Rover Discovery 200Tdi - 179,000m

 

i think you might be doing it wrong

[Lacquer Peel]

Ah well, least I didn't fuck the diesel pump by running it on chip fat like a cheap cunt. Neither did I stuff it into a ditch or drive it uninsured.

 

Life's troubles, what?

 

I once fucked a Lucas injection pump running on veg, out of ignorance. It hasn't fucked any Bosch injection pumps apart from a couple of Isuzu TDs, which might have just been clogged - my friend's Corsa TD had similar issues running on veg and just needed some petrol run through the pump to clean it out.

 

Anyway, the rest is correct. I have driven uninsured, by accident, because I'm not very organised, and stuffed a car into a ditch. WGAS?

[Bren]

You were brave for taking it on and brave for deciding to bail out - it's no good being sentimental with a car, sentiment usually equates to bankruptcy.

 

When I realised how rotten my SD1 was I thought about stripping it and sending it over the bridge to get my money back, however I knew if I did this there would be no more projects as my other half would have said "No more".

 

Carrying out large scale metal repairs on a £250 car really is'nt viable.

 

It goes to show how much better the body work is on the xantia - even 20 year old cars seem to only need minor repair sections to be let in.