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What would you recommend?


Hendry

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To truly become a shiter, you need to embrace shite. You appear to be shunning the simplicity that brought you here. I suggest sackcloth, itchy underwear, a diet of bread and warm water, which might go some way to educating you in the "Way of the Shiter". 

Now you see I have gone the other way - minimalist - if it doesnt have a purpose in life then its got no place in my life.

I generally get by with three or four items of clothing  - trousers, T shirt and Jesus boots. Underwear only serves to complicate things as do socks.

I own a 1940's Gillette razor, pay pennies for razor blades dont buy shaving soap, use Alum for antiperspirant and so on. Dont get me wrong Im not  a tree hugging hippy, I just like to live life as uncluttered as possible.

 

Generally I find to embrace shite you need to forget complexities in life like air bags and sat nav.

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Mk3 Astra gets my vote - You can get them with as many or as few features as you like and the 8v engines are wonderful as long as you change the belts & water pump according to the schedule. Mk3 Cav is much the same.

 

You could also go for a Daewoo Lanos. Astra drivetrain and they're buttons to buy.

 

A lot of the others I'd suggest like a 306 have already been mentioned, so I won't bother repeating.

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Peugeot 306 is a good suggestion, I like the look of them but are they not infinitely more hassle than they are worth?

 

What's your thoughts on a mk6 Escort? Will they all be rotten to the point of needing reshelled like most Fords of that era?

 

Rust is the least of your problems on a mk6/mk7 Escort. I've been driving shit cars for over 25 years and stuff went wrong on my Escort that I have never experienced before or since- and the Escort wasn't even very old.

 

French cars can be made reliable but getting them that way can require a lot of fettling.

 

These threads never go well unfortunately. People seem to take it personally when their suggestions are rejected.

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Pug 306, hassle?

I really don't understand posts like this. Why not just write something like

Can you suggest a car for under £500, ideally it should have 12 months MOT and 6 months tax, have every factory fitted extra with all of them still functioning perfectly, zero rust, no blemishes, I would like 60 plus mpg and 150 mph. However, it must also be certain type of pearlescent blue as any other colour offends me and it must only have been registered between jan - feb 1996 because any other date holds bad memories for me. I did see something advertised that fitted the bill perfectly but unfortunately it was over 10 miles away so much too far to travel.

There are an infinite number of suggestions to your given brief but I really can't be arsed!

Perhaps I should've been more specific, I've heard numerous stories about the wiring into the doors is like cheese even by French standards and I have zero clue about electrics.

 

You guys seem to have me all wrong, I'm not looking for some perfect showroom condition car, just something that's going to be reliable (mechanical stuff like springs, shocks, pads, discs, bearings, track rods ends, drop links, ball joints etc i can live with but nothing that's going to be massive like head gasket, gearbox etc basically stuff I can fix myself) and something that's still made of most of the metal it came out the factory with.

 

I've seen some of the gems you guys have picked up for sub £500 and it seems to me the older the car gets you can buy a big comfy well specced thing like a Mondeo Ghia for less than a similar aged Fiesta LX ( because everyone wants small cheap to run economical cars these days thus pushing prices up) and given the choice I'd take the bigger car every tim

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Mk3 Astra gets my vote - You can get them with as many or as few features as you like and the 8v engines are wonderful as long as you change the belts & water pump according to the schedule. Mk3 Cav is much the same.

 

You could also go for a Daewoo Lanos. Astra drivetrain and they're buttons to buy.

 

A lot of the others I'd suggest like a 306 have already been mentioned, so I won't bother repeating.

Would have another mk3 Astra in a heartbeat if I could find something in half as decent nick as my old one - good suggestion

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Large and unloved (a bit like me) or small and Jap then for reliable, dependable and lots of other words that end in "ibble" for that sort of money.

Have you considered something like a Scorpio?

motoring-graphics-2_842461a.jpg

 

250px-B7Scorpio.jpeg

Not this one though...

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I've seen some of the gems you guys have picked up for sub £500 and it seems to me the older the car gets you can buy a big comfy well specced thing like a Mondeo Ghia for less than a similar aged Fiesta LX ( because everyone wants small cheap to run economical cars these days thus pushing prices up) and given the choice I'd take the bigger car every tim

Have you really studied Dollywobbler's thread about his W124 Merc?

A very fit looking example of an excellent old barge that's fully functional as a car with very few issues at all worth bothering about.

You'll get it on classic insurance, bits are cheap from GSF/Europarts and I'm sure he'd listen to offers around the £500 mark.

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Large and unloved (a bit like me) or small and Jap then for reliable, dependable and lots of other words that end in "ibble" for that sort of money.

Have you considered something like a Scorpio?

motoring-graphics-2_842461a.jpg

 

250px-B7Scorpio.jpeg

Not this one though...

A Scorpio, that's epic, it's so ugly it's almost pretty, and it'd be mega comfy.

 

Thing is though, will there be many left? Can't imagine that many were sold to begin with.

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Your going about this entirely the wrong way, you need to think of the exercise of buying shite in the 'Swiss Tony' manner ie " a lot like making love to a beauiful woman"

Drink copious amounts of alcohol and hit the first thing that the beer goggles make look vaguely acceptable,......you can live with the shame in the morning ( it's better to regret the things you have done, than the things you havn't)

Following that mantra i bought this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140973791176?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

You can get a lot of car for £500 notes if you use the power of booze/boredom/the need to fill the hole in your life that bitch left.

Check this sexy mofo http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/130924966027?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

The benefits of this purchase are

1) You'll be driving a car that cost less to buy outright han most peoples monthly finance payments on showroom korean shit

2) you can pretend your an 80's drug dealer/pimp/yuppie (or a modern day latvian)

3) you will gain the acceptance of your autoshite peers

There are negatives though.

1)  The acceptance of your autoshite peers is a fickle and short lasting thing that will require future purchases of worse chod at much greater distances

2) You'll spend a lot of time at petrol stations

3) You WILL need to keep a shitty stick within arms reach of you at all times, to beat off the vast zombie apocalypse-esk hordes of clunge.

Failure to do this will result in a life spent at garden centres......wearing crocs.....and having a penis like a button mushroom.

I fully expect to soon hear of your purchase of an e32/xj40/classic range rover.

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The point I was rather ham fistedly trying to make is that it's fairly pointless approaching the purchase of a sub £500 motor in this way. Just go on eBay or wherever and do a search for all cars up to £500 and see what's out there and buy solely on condition, and whether you want it, not whether it has PAS, or is or is not Japanese. Then post it on here and indulge everyone!

 

If its not going to be your main car you may as well get something interesting, be it a barge of some description or something with sporting pretensions. I missed out on a golf vr6 last week by a tenner as I fell asleep! Went for £510, which wasn't mega cheap anyway because no one wants them anymore. Yes it was probably pretty well shagged, but for 500 notes, you pay your money...

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What about insurance?

Ok, there are shitloads of sub £500 cars out there but, I believe, the fella is 26 and, I suspect, any kind of luxury car or even a 2.0 Mondeo is going to cost a fair few bob to insure.

A £500 VR6 might cost you the same again to insure and you have to question the wisdom of shelling out a left bollocks worth of money to insure a pile of shit that is already halfway over the bridge.

He is better off finding something less fashionable and therefore cheap.

There is a stonking car for sale on here and it ticks all the autoshite boxes. He has the space and the money for it but what he ideally wants he probably cannot afford or it will turn out to be a money pit of crap.

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I'm 26, a trade policy costs me £1100 a year to drive anything up to a value of 5 grand (I probably buy/ resell maybe 6 cars a year, I very rarely make much money, just do it as a hobby), so it needn't be.

 

However yes, that cav meets all your needs and is stonkingly clean, don't know why it didn't sell the 1st time.

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The answer is, and always has been Retrogeezers Greenbird.

 

It doesnt matter what the question is. That car is the answer.

 

+1.

 

Love your username by the way!

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However yes, that cav meets all your needs and is stonkingly clean, don't know why it didn't sell the 1st time.

 

Probly hasnt got pas?

All the cool kids demand it.

Or has it? Either way:

Eat streak, buy car.

Improve upper body strength.

Proffit.

 

+1.

 

Love your username by the way!

 

Thank you. had to switch it as was beeing persued by bees.

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I'm only 28 and the 735i costs £422 fully comp with breakdown cover, legal etc and thats with commuting. It would probay be half that with a classic policy (the cortina was £108 on a classic policy with all the mods declared). Plus i live in L40 and commute to BB24, which seems to be like living in syria and driving to iraq.

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I'm only 28 and the 735i costs £422 fully comp with breakdown cover, legal etc and thats with commuting. It would probay be half that with a classic policy (the cortina was £108 on a classic policy with all the mods declared). Plus i live in L40 and commute to BB24, which seems to be like living in syria and driving to iraq.

You have two years on the OP which, in insurance speak can be a fair wodge of money.

Well thats two lovely cars that are stupid cheap that would fulfil most peoples shite criteria.

As for the O.P, I have a feeling that he will still be looking for something six months down the line.

I wait to be proved wrong.

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I'm waiting for the "Other end of the country/bus doesn't go past the end of his road/too far to drive (this one always gets me.. it's a fucking CAR... designed for travelling long distances)/Would have had it but my next door neighbour's Sister's Milkman had one that colour and it got stolen/ooh, I really wanted alloys too/But it's a Cavalier and they once had Japanese engines fitted, weren't you READING my post!??/Oh, what a shame, I haven't got any money I was just talking bollocks to look big.... etc.

 

Pardon my cynicism, but those that know me, know I don't hold back. I also don't tolerate wind-up merchants. Get yer wad out. This is the car for you.

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OP

Just buy something you think you may like. Why the fuck it needs to be reliable, well-specced etc when it's a second car thats meant to be fun I do not know.

 

Oh, I do know. You have a Renault Clio. Lol

 

And we will take none of this too far, too French/Japanese/Italian/modern/old. It doesn't work on here. You're speaking to owners of shite, some of whom have bought cars in foreign countries sight unseen and turned up with nothing more than the cash, a debit card and a booked ferry.

 

Now buy the bluey.

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I'm trying to think of a £500 car I've ever purchased that hasn't had some sort of foible. Nope. Can't do it. Even my stupendously awesome £450 Nissan Bluebird had an odd running-cool issue that I never got to the bottom of.

 

Yes, Peugeot 306s can have iffy electrics, specifically the loom going through the door. Mine used to unlock as soon as you tried locking it. Fun! On a £500 car, I'd live with it (and probably disable the central locking or maybe even fix it) as I'd paid getting on for £10,000 for it (once finance and outstanding finance on another car had been considered - I was an idiot back then) I got angry instead.

 

When I was looking for the Merc, I just did what has been suggested in this thread - checked Ebay and classifieds for cars up to my budget (£600 or so). Rejected a lot of cars, went on an epic collection trip to collect a misfiring Mercedes automatic. It was hilarious. (car is now working properly!). Do I care that it only does 27mpg at best? No, because I drive diesels when I need to get somewhere cheaply. It's a second car (well, ok, a fourth car at the moment) and I bought it because I thought it'd be fun.

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£500 will get you  a Volvo with a dodgy hearse conversion. Get on it. 

 

Or advertise that you're doing a charity banger rally, get something donated, pocket £500. Then change the specs of the banger rally to "I'm going to navigate to a Little Chef for a spaghetti bolognaise".

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