The Shite you most regret Weighing in....

[mk1_4dr]

I've scrapped a fair few in my time but only one I regret G539 EHG a BA3 Prelude 2lt EX. Beautiful car, perhaps the nicest driving car I've owned. Bought for £400 with full TnT and had every intention of keeping hold of it for awhile. Did service stuff, fitted a nice period JVC and 12disc changer, removed the towbar and some awful aftermarket alloy and replaced them with stock steels and 4WS trims. Then the cambelt snapped and bent some valves. At the time it was beyond me (both in difficulty and financially) stipped and sold what I could then had it carted away to the bridge. Probably broke even on it but I really did love that car.

[RobT]

Of the 29 cars I’ve owned, I’ve scrapped five so that’s a 17% strike rate.  I’d say another five or so were just one more owner away from meeting their maker.  Slight regret at having scrapped a Rover 114 SLi as it was a bit of a survivor and took me and the missus all over the country.  The CVT ‘box gave up in the end and maybe I should fixed it, as I’d not long spent a chunk of money getting the HG sorted.

 

Two I wanted to scrap on a regular basis were a Mk2 Golf GTi that I’ve moaned about before on here, and a Mk5 Escrote that tried to kill me in the end with a blow out at 80 on the M40.  Ended up selling both for the price I paid so managed to pass on the pain to someone else!

[HH-R]

Not scrapped anything, but my old 75 came up for sale about a year ago and I nearly bought it. Looks like it didn't sell and got bridged, because it's not on the DVLA site any more.

 

Shame, as it was perfectly fine when I got rid (just wanted a change) and was giffer owned after that, I used to see it regularly. Still feel bad about not buying it.

[RayMK]

Before weighing in, my usual tactic is to park the mechanically or bodily embarrassed car on the driveway in the hope that changed circumstances may promote car fixing ahead of new kitchens, washing machines etc.. The period of storage varies from a few weeks for a car I have lost patience with, to several years for cars I really loved. In the latter category, OVY729T was a blue Citroen Dyane.  I simply could not afford to get its rust sorted out and with a heavy heart drove it* to a local breakers after storing it in my garage for 5 years. I was overjoyed to see that someone had rescued it a few months later and continued to see it around for a further five years in the late 1990s. Another sad demise was a Volvo 66 BLE527S which looked smart and drove well.  Underneath was a different story.  It was rotten in some expensive to fix areas and was duly collected by a scrappy after a couple of forlorn years on the driveway.  That did not deter me from keeping a spare transmission unit and engine from an earlier, much rustier Volvo 66 estate that I once owned. I finally got shot of the spares a decade later, having discovered that I did not need them and apparently no one else did either. C75UNV was a silky smooth BMW 520i.  Its only offence was that its engine management started ad-libbing.  It was driven to a scrappy, still with an MOT, simply to make way for a newer car (Nissan QX - equally smooth and an automatic, but totally devoid of character and was initially unreliable).  Finally, the one I regret most, a Skoda 105S E275UWA scrapped in 2007 after 3 years on the driveway.  I misplaced a nut when working on its carburettor and searched everywhere. Assumed it had gone under the car into the loose pebbles; found a replacement nut and started the engine with a bang. It must have been on a butterfly and then made its way to a piston after wreaking havoc to a valve.  I'll add photos of the last two when I have rediscovered how.

 

 

 

* Private roads all the way, honest gov.

[RayMK]

Photos: see my last post.

[I_am_Diesel]

I am personally responsible for the deaths of many, many late 70s to mid 80s BMW 3 series motor cars Used to buy them at the auctions for pennies, my son and his friend next door would rip them apart (and sell all the bits on that new fangled eBay - this was back at the turn of the century) and we would collectively race them on a Sunday. A good one would last two events... but then there was often four of us driving them. On the way home, if the BMW was now fucked it would get dropped off the trailer at Quarry breakers and money would be collected by my good wife when she went to Sainsburys later in the week!

 

Fun times....

 

Also, back when I was a dedicated biker and lived up North, I tired of riding my bike in the snow and ice and started  buying bangers to get me through the winters. First year I bought a MK2 Cortina 1500GT estate (a rarity?) with bubble arches and huge banded wheels. It was taxed and tested and the paintwork was truly horrid, but, it cost me £15! I brush painted it bright green with some stuff called 'Re-paint' and it came out beautiful Eventually, I sold the huge wheels for about £20 'cos the tyres were rather devoid of anything that resembled tread and stuck a load of standard sized things on from Eva Brothers with good tyres and after much fun and games with it, burnt out the clutch towing my MK10 about 8 miles. It was scrapped at Evas who gave me £30 for it!

 

Second year I bought an Austin 2200 landcrab out of the paper and it cost me £75 - the bloke had it up for £125 but was so fed up with areholes who never turned up he took my pittance. That poor car got hammered for about a year not only taking me to and from work, but also towing a trailer with three race bikes in it, five blokes and all the kit, spares, fuel for meetings all around the country.

 

It went everywhere, flat out.

 

Eventually it started smoking a bit (maintenance? What's that?) but being as big a prick back then as I am now, I never opened the bonnet let alone checked the oil.... so inevitably it started knocking. After that it did get the odd gallon of used black stuff thrown in but it carried on gamely for about another 3 or 4 months all the while knocking like a set of drums being beaten by a chimp on acid. Finally, I think the clutch went so it was off to Evas for it. They had a rule back then that if the car drove they gave you 'X' for it. It drove, just and I got about £20 for it. I was truly sad to see the heap go.

 

Eva Bros, you must be a veteran of Sunny Scunny. I spent many a happy Saturday morning ferreting around in there. I bought a TR7 from Waggys but never got it on the road.

[Capri 3.0s]

Same as a few others I've never as such scrapped anything. Stuff either got sold or just died and as we had a garage I didn't car as there was always another free* car.

 

 

 

AEH250Y Capri mk3 cabaret. Left it to die on the drive after dragging it out the garage thinking I would fix it. Sold it to some knobs for about £350 about 2010. It was nowhere near as rotten as I though now I can actually weld and I'll never own another. Does show as still alive on the dvla though

[Capri 3.0s]

AEH250Y is alive and well, it's been restored and now has a 3.0 Essex.

[MikeR]

only ever sent one car to the scrappers ,

 

that was that dammed Meriva ,

 

I had a party when it went as opposed to being upset , all my other cars have managed to get passed or sold on , even if just for spares !!!

[andy18s]

Totally regret getting rid of my last Manta A488JWM,the 1 that got stolen then I found 12mths later

When it was returned it had loads of damage from where it got shifted around a yard with a forklift

I'd put it into storage as I'd lost interest in it,eventually selling it to a breaker for its Redtop conversion parts.....

[fordperv]

The mrs red fiesta mk2 957 pop, this was her first love car wise, in 2008 when we were moving from the house that we had space comfortably for about 18 cars and space left, we were going to a smaller place and couldnt keep all the cars we had so she made the hard decision to send it over the bridge, I will get her another

 

I got rid of a g reg mk2 sierra, k plate rover r8 3 door and a h plate 3 door 2.6 petrol Isuzu trooper

[AlabamaShrimp]

AEH250Y is alive and well, it's been restored and now has a 3.0 Essex.

Yeah I had seen before they changed the mot site again that it had been tested in Lincoln.

 

I said on the day it went (after being nagged for ages) that the rust wasn't that bad. If you know the owner, or can contact them, I've still got its boot liner, headlight surrounds and some of its paperwork if they want it.

 

Shame it's had the engine changed but then it seems to be the fate of so many Fords.

[alcyonecorporation]

 

I regret weighing in my 605 S1, but I had bills to pay, it was terminally rotten and I was sick of illiterate dick heads and entitled boomers trying to bag it for fuck all.

 

People say XUD11s are worth money. They're not.

I went round and twisted every panel slightly with a peen hammer before it went so as to make them useless to anyone who needed panels.

A horrible thing to do, but I hated my 'fellow enthusiast' with a passion at that point.

 

Any car worth less than three ton gets weighed in automatically now. Life's too short. The scrap man turns up and pays money, rather than filling your inbox with bullshit.

[Capri 3.0s]

 

 

AEH250Y Capri mk3 cabaret. Left it to die on the drive after dragging it out the garage thinking I would fix it. Sold it to some knobs for about £350 about 2010. It was nowhere near as rotten as I though now I can actually weld and I'll never own another. Does show as still alive on the dvla though

 

AEH still lives, I bought it last year, has been restored and is now a 3.0s (sort of)

[djoptix]

Most regret scrapping a BX GTi 8v. I was at a very low ebb mentally and needed it gone at the time.

 

Sorriest to see go (don't regret it exactly) - my first Synergie which some fucking peasant pyro from Southmead set on fire in my drive.

[Talbot]

Not for a little while now, but I've bridged many many cars.  Not too many that I regret, but there are a few that I do wonder what my state of mind was at the time to decided to break for spares and then scrap rather than do the (fairly simple) repairs that were needed.

 

The list is mainly french chod.. several talbots of various flavours (including an express), 405's, 309's, a few renaults, numerous citroens, including a couple of utterly fucked CXs.  You can regret any of them, but if you've no space, or there's no value in the car, it's in the way and you could do with the £100, what else do you do?  can't keep 'em all.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

Mrs had a lovely 1 giffer owned 1300 facelift, 33,000 miles, rear seat never sat on.

 

We stuck a clutch in it (because giffer), I lay in the snow fitting a full exhaust and copper brake pipes from front to rear, it wanted nothing when we had it.

 

Gave to younger brother because he was stuck for wheels.....had a hard life with him (because gardener).....

 

He bridged it after a year because it needed a pile of work (much of which could have been prevented with actual maintenance)

 

So long story short I regret letting him bridge that car.......

 

Sent from my SM-A510F using Tapatalk

[sierraman]

Absolutely agree with weighing in stuff when you are talking a few hundred and you get endless nonsense questions like 'does it have full service history'. All you want is someone with actual money to turn up, make a reasonable offer and go away.

 

Not all bad news with the Capri, its back on the road hopefully being enjoyed. Something like that's a lot more enjoyable anyway with a 2.0 or a V6 in it.

[Zelandeth]

This one.

 

Though I wasn't really involved in the decision.  It went over to a friend of my parents at the time to see whether it had another MOT left in it - and was condemned as the rear suspension arms would need replacement.  Never came back.

[clayts450]

My first three cars - didn't have the skills necessary to keep them on the road because young and niave.

[timolloyd]

I scrapped a Mark 2 Escrote in 2000-ish. Bought it for £75 with a few days' ticket, but was well rotten. Thought I'd use parts for a kit car project. Didn't. If I had endless storage etc...

 

I really do feel bad about scrapping a 205 SDLT (?) a few years back. It looked rough but ran well and had been cared for. But I was going through a stupid, short-lived, bangernomics phase and the price of scrap seemed high at the time.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

 

I regret weighing in my 605 S1, but I had bills to pay, it was terminally rotten and I was sick of illiterate dick heads and entitled boomers trying to bag it for fuck all.

 

People say XUD11s are worth money. They're not.

I went round and twisted every panel slightly with a peen hammer before it went so as to make them useless to anyone who needed panels.

A horrible thing to do, but I hated my 'fellow enthusiast' with a passion at that point.

 

Any car worth less than three ton gets weighed in automatically now. Life's too short. The scrap man turns up and pays money, rather than filling your inbox with bullshit.

 

 

 

Strip 'n' weigh is my only method off vehicle disposal.

[AlabamaShrimp]

Found a picture of it

 

 

I see its no longer a caberet 2 edition. Doesn't look the same colour and of course the seats have been changed. Still not mine so nothing to do with me

[skoda_fan]

I have never weighed anything in though I did once strip an Estelle for parts. I got it with the intention of saving it, but it proved to be terminally rotten having sat in a decrepit damp garage for years. That said, I may just as well have weighed my cars in as selling them always seems to be the kiss of death. Of all the many cars I've previously owned, only two are still on the road, neither of them Skodas.

[They_all_do_that_sir]

I'm about to scrap a running mot'd focus because it's worth £200 max.......

 

Just not worth the hassle, it's less work to strip a few bits off, stick it on bricks and call the HIAB man

 

Sent from my SM-A510F using Tapatalk

[sierraman]

I sold a £175 Focus some time ago, I was inundated with requests for holding it until the giro came in, did it have service history? Would I swap it for a Xbox?

 

I was about to take it to bits when some Polish turned up paid cash, didn't chat rubbish and took the fucker away. These people know how to buy a car, they've money in their hands, generally are knowledgeable and are usually pleasant decent folks.

[Pillock]

VW 1303S

 

Not because it'd be worth a mint now - it's the ugly stepbrother of Beetles, which themselves are the ginger cousins of Campers, so prices haven't really exploded in the 14 years since I sent it to live on the farm.

 

But it was giffer owned from a year old.... first owner in 1973 sounded like a bit of a boy racer, he specced the car with Mag alloys and spotlamps. Then someone called Gladys or something had it from 1974 until I bought it in 2001, and she collected every single receipt and invoice. Tyres. Battery. Bulbs. Inspections into funny noises. 

Sadly she was taking it to some chancers and the work was to such a low quality it needed an entire body-off resto by the time I got it. The heater channels were made of bathroom sealant, the framehead was like lace, and me using it day in day out on the motorway was taking its toll on the rest of the body. It had already had new barrels and pistons but it was like putting a plaster on a missing arm.

 

So after I left uni, I was skint and barely keeping it in fuel let alone new metalwork on the entire lower 6". I salvaged anything I could unbolt in a morning and off it went.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I sold a £175 Focus some time ago, I was inundated with requests for holding it until the giro came in, did it have service history? Would I swap it for a Xbox?

 

I was about to take it to bits when some Polish turned up paid cash, didn't chat rubbish and took the fucker away. These people know how to buy a car, they've money in their hands, generally are knowledgeable and are usually pleasant decent folks.

 

 

YEH BUT THEY TAKE ALL ARE JOBS 

 

I've sold BMW bits to Poles, Romanians, Russians etc and not had a problem. Romanians love to haggle, Poles don't really bother.

[sierraman]

Haggling I can live with, sob stories about your dog dying and 'forriners' taking your job at the pit I'm not interested in.

[fordperv]

Found a picture of it

 

AEH250Y-0.jpg

 

I see its no longer a caberet 2 edition. Doesn't look the same colour and of course the seats have been changed. Still not mine so nothing to do with me

Sometimes it's the only way cars can survive