Uninspiring chod purchased / for sale

[wuvvum]

As mentioned in the News 24 thread, I was up at the crack of sparrow-fart this morning to get the train from Norwich to Mansfield.  The journey there was completely uneventful, although my attempts to catch up on kip on the train were thwarted somewhat by the driver accelerating like a mong away from every station.  I never knew a Class 158 could get off the line that quickly (and noisily).

 

Anyway, the purpose of my journey was to pick up this beauty.

 

 

It's a 2004 Daewoo Kalos 1.2S in a fetching shade of metallic red.  It's perhaps a sign of the times (...er, 10 years ago) that the base model of a small car from a budget manufacturer has electric windows, central locking and twin airbags, but there you go.  It also has a Sony CD player, although whether this was original fit or not I have no idea.

 

It drives pretty much as you'd expect - completely inoffensive and undemanding.  The clutch is very light, as is the steering, which is quite low-geared and doesn't have a great deal of feel.  The gearshift is rubbery, although I get the impression from road tests that this is par for the course on these.  It's actually more spacious than I was expecting, and is adequately comfortable, although the seat cushion is slightly too flat and short for my lanky frame.  There's no clutch footrest, but there's enough space to the left of the clutch pedal to allow leg-stretching.

 

It ain't quick though.  The engine supposedly has 71bhp, but either the car weighs more than I'd thought or the horses are rather feeble.  A Mk2 Golf with 75bhp feels far livelier.  To be fair to it, it'll keep up with dual carriageway traffic if you don't mind revving it, but I don't know what effect that has on the fuel consumption.  It doesn't really handle as such either - it gets rather wallowy if cornered too hard, although the flip side of that is a comfortable ride for a car of its size - certainly better than most modern superminis I've been in.

 

It's done 85,000 miles so should have a fair bit of life left in it.  The clutch biting point is fairly high, but not overly so.  It also has a bit of a noisy wheel bearing at the front (not intrusive yet though) and a bit of transmission whine at certain speeds and when accelerating (not sure if this is a common trait on these).  Also it recently had a new tyre on the nearside front, and I'm not convinced the wheel was balanced very well as there's a bit of vibration at certain speeds.  Wipers are a bit slow and creaky but they get the job done; EML comes on and off but doesn't seem to affect anything - if I can be arsed I'll get my code reader on it and find out what the fault is.  It managed the 135 miles home without anything untoward happening, and the temp gauge sat at just below half all the way.  In fact the only interesting thing about the drive home was that I saw a white MG6 on the A47 near King's Lynn.

 

As I said before, I'm still not entirely sure why I bought this, and I don't really have any use for it at the moment, so if anyone wants to take it off my hands for £300 they're welcome to do so.  It's tested until mid-July; tax is out but as always I can tax it if need be.  Buy it, stick Chevrolet badges and a private plate on it, and all your neighbours will think you're driving around in a 2008 car. 

 

If nobody wants it I'll hang onto it until the V5 comes back and then chance my luck on Gumtree.

 

Here's a couple more pics:

 

 

[eddyramrod]

Absolute bargain, somebody buy it!

[garethj]

It's definitely a car.  No more, no less.

 

But amazingly cheap motoring, I dread to think what kind of Polo or Fiesta you'd get for that money

[warren t claim]

Polish, new ticket and a £695 price tag on Gumtree should see you right.

[Bobthebeard]

The interior would be hard to live with unless obsessed with circles and the colour* grey. Sort of reminds me of the surface of the moon as viewed from Earth in a way..... Grey with brighter bits of grey and some grey bits surrounded by darker grey. The coloured bits on the (grey) seats being just reflections from Earth possibly? The odd red bit being sun spots or something.

That apart. Probably well worth the money!

[Cavcraft]

Right in my radar that but sadly no real available folding. GLWTS etc.

[ProgRocker]

Bit of a 'circles' theme going on with the interior. GLWTS Wuvvum!

[Mr Livered]

It's just what I need this year, because I have a 16 year old daughter for whom I intend to purchase a small car like that for her to learn to drive in. That looks ideal, and a bargain.

 

Unfortunately, in the post-festive anticlimax period I have quite a bit of work on and a 0% chance of getting over to Kings Lynn. So, GLWTS and in the event that you've still got it when I do get a day off, I'll have it.

[greengartside]

Bugger! Just what I was looking for, but now I've bought a Hyundai Matrix (very similar in shite-ness) - these are a good little car to pizz about in and for 300 notes you really can't go wrong. GLWTS etc.

[CortinaDave]

Wow thats appallingly dull and uninspiring, and yet a massive bargain for 300 sheets. I doubt you'd have much problem turning a reasonable profit there

[Pillock]

Congratulations on making it out of Mansfield.

 

So many circles inside! Although ingeniously, the electric window switches seem to be fitted onto some afterthought lump of plastic which is glued over the hole for the winders, you can still see the circle where the winder would go

 

It's nice. Can't imagine many new teenage drivers would want to be seen in it but that looks like perfectly fine transport for the money.

[Cavcraft]

I'd be taxing that and shoving it on Bumtree and FaceAche for £695 ono. Give it a few weeks (Chrimbo just over/skint/people thinking about holidays) and it'll go.

[wuvvum]

Well the EML turned out to be a low input to the camshaft sensor circuit (whatever the fuck that means).  I got to try out my new £9.99-off-eBay code reader, which read and then cleared the fault (although it may well come back at some point, it hasn't yet). 

 

I've been roaring around in the car all day, and bugger me if the bastard thing isn't starting to grow on me.  It's just shit enough to make it a little bit interesting, what with all the daft pointless circular bits inside and the way it wallows and bounces round corners like an old Cortina.  It also seems to be reasonably good on pez, having done just over 70 miles on a tenner, which included a fair bit of caning.  I even treated it to a new rear wiper blade this morning.  It still won't be taking up long-term residence in the fleet though.

[dollywobbler]

An interesting read for sure, even if the subject matter isn't all that interesting. Daewoo did go in for Sony stereos. My Matiz had one, which looked like it had come straight from the Halfords store. Fitting as I bought the car at a Halfords store. Those were the days!