Worryingly modern French yarmouth for wifey. NOW collected.

[Hendry]

I had a 206 and hated it. Was only 4.5 years old with 33K on it but the trim rattling did my tits in, as did the Saxo-esque tiny pedals all too close to each other and the steering wheel being off centre felt like my back was being twisted, the shitty 1.4 8v mpi engine didn't help and the horribly rattly noise that all small French cars engines seem to make even my 09 Clio when itd only done 17K.

 

Things I did like:

- the huge electric sunroof

- the colour - light sapphire blue

- the glovebox being the same fabric as the seats/door trims rather than plastic

- looked stylish back then but shit other than that

[Asimo]

I don't understand the Yarmouth referance.

 

Am I being dumb / old / naieve?

[Talbotman]

Like Mr breadvan we bought an imported 206 cc from new back in 2001, ran it for 4 years and apart from a replacement passenger seat frame it behaved impecably, no leaks,no breakdowns no stuck roofs. Replaced it with a 307cc which we still have after 8 years, apart from an exhaust and a wheel bearing still no leaks no breakdowns or stuck roof. I still find it amazing that people treat these with such suspicion when contemporary Vw eos's are on there 3rd redesign of seals for leaks,Focuses and Meganne ccs can leak like a cheap argos tents. Even my 306 cabriolets are as dry as bone inside when my girlfriends 911 turbo s cabriolet which she bought new has a near Olympic size swimming pool in its rear footwell after anything other than light drizzle. Pug cc's are about as safe a bet for a good value cabriolet these days.

[The Moog]

As expected the alfa was a FRO from SWMBO.

[Cavcraft]

Did we get a for sale thread for the 156?

[The Moog]

yes here http://autoshite.com/topic/15995-alfa-romeo-156-sportwagon-v6-veloce-for-sale-bonus-dirty-photos-now-with-clean-but-crarp-pics/

[beko1987]

As expected the alfa was a FRO from SWMBO.

Gah. I'll throw some more scrunched up newspaper at the box tonight then!

[Guest Breadvan72]

I don't understand the Yarmouth referance.

 

Am I being dumb / old / naieve?

 

 

Yarmouth bloater - motor.

 

156 NEEEEEEEEEEWZ.  I  might take an offer, or even a payment plan (Autoshite Finance Terms and Conditions apply).  I am not kidding -  instalments poss, as I am self employed and know what it is like to have rubbish cashflow and/or to be Borassic.  With me, it's boom, bust, bull, bear and bollocks.  Do I plan, hoard, and save when the good times roll, so that I can tough it out when the bad times close in?  Do I fuck.   My dad says I 'm a daft cunt, and I hate to agree with my dad, but he is right.

[Doctormop]

Please buy the Alfa someone, I expressed an interest by pm from the for sale thread and whilst I would absolutely love to buy it I just can't make the figures work.

 I feel really bad for wasting Breadvan's time, he pm'd me full, honest details about the car and was even prepared to bring it oop North whilst collecting his wife's new car. I honestly would not have hesitated to buy this car sight unseen but, as I say, finances just won't stretch to an Alfa V6 at the moment, I just know that this is one of those cars I will regret not buying for years to come.

[Guest Breadvan72]

You didn't waste my time, chap, so no worries.  Maybe get that two litre twinspark that is on Dollwob's thread instead?  Less money to buy, less thirsty, and less likely to chew up ts front suspension?   Some people say that the twinspark handles better than the V6 because it is less nose heavy.  

 

Or Dave's spiffy and uber cheap red 147?  Not sure if that is still for sale.  There is another 147 for sale on here at present.

 

Bleedin' Obvious Bill says:  The truth about Alfas  (and indeed 206s etc):  they are no more and no less reliable than any other car of their age.  Ditto no more and no less rusty.  They are, er, cars.  Some are good.  Some are dire.  See also : all cars ever.  

 

Feeling the steering UJ near pedals?  Yes, you get that a bit on some motahs.  No biggie, I reckon.  

[Guest Breadvan72]

Thanks to the appalling VirginShite train internet (bringing the discerning Shiteist that mid 90s internet experience to match his motoring pleasures) it has taken me until now to post this LIVE AS IT HAPPENS update on today's crud collection caper.

0749 from Thame to Marylebone (I now have three cars scattered at two stations because of recent collection craziness), lazy fat boy cab to Euston (for dodgy excuse, see below), and 0930 Euston to Glasgow, to change at Preston for Accrington, Lancs. Currently stopped at Wigan. Can't see the Pier.

As I have managed to throw in a sneaky client visit in Stafford as part of the day, this shebang is going to be tax deductible, and so it's a pre booked first class floppy haired posh boy ticket with the free Virgin greasy breakfast and 10 day old meeting room coffee, nom nom.

Houses rolling past now look a bit like Corrie. Hope my passport valid up here in Northernshire.

Seller of Pug almost blew my cover yesterday when he rang while I was lunching with wife and child to bang on about how he's lost the code for the aftermarket Clarion PHAT choonze box.

To maintain plausible deniability I told wifey that I was off to work for the day in Manchester and I put on a suit, which also helps me blend in with the corporate bingobrains here at the posh end.

35 minute agonising mobile phone call to insurer to sort out cover (should have done that at leisure last week, but was too rubbish to do so). Got totally bummed on premium but not in a position to argue and may chop and change a bit later on, so screw it. Why do these dudes make it so hard to actually give them money?  He insisted that the Data Protection Act means that he has to read me the Bible backwards in Latin before I can say yes and here's the fookan cash. I demurred, and he decided to give me a lecture on the course he has just done on the DPA. As the DPA happens to be one of my areas of professional excitement, I told him he had failed the course and eventually we got to the dirty cash bit.

Forgot my sunnies so bought cheap and ultra camp shades at Euston to enhance hairdresser look. Planning to drive south with top down, if it works.

Oops, Preston, must dash.

[Guest Breadvan72]

No picture of the breakfast as would not wish to excite you lot with too much sausage, but if it is sausage noshing that you crave, here are my very heterosexual cheap-ass sunnies.

 

[The Moog]

you must be bringing the good weather with you as it was pissing down this morning, but now Mr Sun has come out to play.. .

[skattrd]

You are a busy chap sir, good luck on the journey home ... then collecting ALL the motors which are now abandoned around Oxfordshire train stations.

[Guest Breadvan72]

Didja notice the very metatext shot of a certain beige forum going down on my lappy screen? Pop will eat itself, eh?

 

Preston is a windy shithole, as far as I can tell from the station. Stood near info/ticket office to ask about next train to Accrington (Virgin staff only deal in posh tippy over trains and shun all questions about mere branch lines) . Large lady behind counter shouts at me for not standing in right place. Suppress urge to be all southern and sarcastic and ask very politely for info. Currently on platform watching shrieking harridan in red jacket ordering people onto some train going to Manchester. Train looks like it was designed by Robert Stevenson and hasn't been washed since then.

[Guest Breadvan72]

Now on train to Accrington. Quite posh with purple velour seats.

[Guest Breadvan72]

People looking at me a bit funny. Perhaps it's cos I am taking photos of the train seats.

[Guest Breadvan72]

Arriving Accrington. If am to be murdered by seller and made into pies, hope he has factored in that I am too fat to fit in the boot unless he keeps the top up.

[DeeJay]

Take the sunglasses off.

[320touring]

Sounds much more riveting than my day so far! Luckily I'd rather be forced to stab myself than have a 206 of any flavour, so the chodurge is low.

 

I hope the glovebox has a red suited screaming conductor to keep you sane on the ling trip home.

 

Btw, worry not re collecting your stationbound shite, I have repatriated them to sunny shiteland:)

[The Moog]

Arriving Accrington. If am to be murdered by seller and made into pies, hope he has factored in that I am too fat to fit in the boot unless he keeps the top up.

Well something has to go into Hollands Pies!

[michiel]

Why do we always get blamed?

[beko1987]

Its not very live at the moment...

[DeeJay]

He's in a pie.

[hairnet]

the visa expired and he left hurriedly

[The Moog]

More likely to be in a pie .. .they love pies round here ... .

[hairnet]

hyndburn - no best not go their

[Guest Breadvan72]

Pie report:   I am no sylph these days, but I have to say that the seller looked as though he enjoyed the odd pie, whether home made and of dubious provenance or not.  Although not a shiteist, he was a decent chap and showed me lots of comforting bills for stuff done to the car in the year he has owned it.  He is off to Israel to do some Holy Stuff, him being a bit of a God botherer and stuff. I probably pissed him off by being some Southern rationalist who believes in science 'n' shiz.

 

BTW:  genuine reason for sale, apart from going off to serve the Lord:  someone told him the car was a bit gay, and this bothered him, whether for doctrinal reasons or not.    I ain't kidding!  Question: which part of a 206CC is just a BIT gay?   

 

He threw in a pretty nifty sat nav as part of the deal, and although I thought we were off the edge of the map, near the "Here be dragons" bit, it turned out that the dragons were only whippets, and the device plotted me a course back to the known world.   

 

Off I went, although with the top back up after a short while because the weather crapped out.  No lunchtime pie for me. Ginster's Buffet Bar of gourmet delight, and coleslaw on me tie.  

 

The car at almost 13 years old and 104,000 plus miles drives pretty much like the brand new one that I first tried in 2002.  It's quick, quite noisy, and reasonably chuckable in a girlie sort of way.  Suprisingly for an apparently well cared for car, it has comedy tyres from Wan Hang Lo Enterprises, but they may not be staying long.  

 

Now the car is at a local garage for some bits and bobs and an MoT, and I got Canadian Bob the local taxi dude and restaurant critic to run me over to the station to collect one of the stranded jamjars.

 

Some fotoes-

 

VELOURTASTIC train seats.  Would look ace in many shitewagons I can think of.  

 

 

Oop north.

 

 

I have decided that all of my forecourt shots should also qualify for inclusion in You park like a cunt dot com.  Note also mega shitbag Rover with the world's most skanky Lidl alloys.  I just missed getting a snap of a truly minging B reg VW van with no two panels the same colour, but some crusty got in and drove it off in a cloud of smoke.  

 

 

 

Clox.  Note strange choice of oil temp gauge but no oil pressure gauge.  

 

 

 

 

Levvaaaaaa, innit.

 

 

 

 

 

Lastly, car at garage awaiting fiddlage and testage.  Wanker briefcase included, as might as well aim for some sort of trademark apart from shit parking at pezzer pumps. 

 

 

[Guest Breadvan72]

PS:  Proof, if proof be needed, that high miles good, low miles bad - this car is, I reckon, a better drive than my ex wife's 2002 206 CC that has under 40,000 on the clock since new, and spends weeks without turning a wheel. 

 

PPS:  Re 206s in general, I have only ever  driven a couple of these two litre 206 CCs, and they seem pretty OK to me.  They might perhaps count as very late 90s cars, before the real modern rot set in.  I count my 2001 Alfa 156 as a 90s car, really.  

 

PPPS:  the seller's dad seemed a pleasant old bloke.  Like my dad, he worked his way up into BL management from a start on the shop floor.  He was a lecturer at Haseley Manor, BL's training college near Warwick, in the mid 80s, but just missed being a colleague of my dad  (and so his liver escaped the 200 pints of Guinness a week experience), as my auld feller taught at the college until just a year or two earlier before moving on to another management job in a Unipart subsidiary.  

[stuboy]

dont look too sad..