For Sale Mk3 Cavalier CDi £150

[KruJoe]

Ah crap.

[sierraman]

Didn't richy Edwards from the manic street preachers have a similar example?

[RobT]

The new owner collected this tonight and is around Ipswich about now I'd have thought (no it's not Trigger), but you can probably guess who..

[trigger]

I know who it is now! Hello Dave!

[KruJoe]

Wuvz?

[RobT]

That's the chap! Collected him from the station in the Rover of Win and then had a chat about shite before he made tracks.

[trigger]

You bought his Sierra of him didn't you? Now he's buying your Cavalier of you! Funny ode game this Autoshite business!

[KruJoe]

Phew! It wasn't me after all.

One of these days you're gonna get me Rob... the quality and value you offer cannot be resisted indefinitely.

[RobT]

If you were closer Joe, I'm sure you'd have succumbed by now. Your turn next for the 220 BTW, probably won't be for a while though!

[wuvvum]

Pez station shot.

 

 

More tomorrow.  Sleep now.

[HMC]

Glad to see it on the forum and safe. When rob said it was going to a serial shiter, I didn't realise it was THE serial shiter. Good save wuv!!

[wuvvum]

Well this wasn't the most eventful collection mission I've ever had, which was good as I was quite tired.  Didn't go entirely according to plan though.

 

I got the 4.30 National Express bus from Norwich to London straight from work.  The bus takes a fair bit longer than the train, but it had three advantages from my point of view: 1) I can see Norwich bus station from my desk, whereas the train station is on the other side of the city; 2) the bus goes to Victoria, which is where I needed to catch the train from to get to RobT's, and 3) it was a fiver.  Unfortunately it was also 45 minutes late into London due to getting caught in the mother and father of all traffic jams on the M11 / A12.  The interminable crawl was livened up slightly by a modern Lexus ISsomething in the next lane - not interesting in itself, but I had a bird's eye view of the not unattractive female passenger and her low-cut top.  Then later on we were crawling along beside an early (1977) Lotus Esprit, and I was amusing myself by trying to spot where the first bit of steam would come from.  It didn't, though, and eventually it disappeared between the HGV's - we passed it again on Victoria Embankment though, so it obviously made it through the jam OK.  No photos of either though sadly, because I R FAIL.

 

Anyway, eventually the bus driver got pissed off and turned off round the North Circ and headed into London another way.  Got to Victoria Station and there was a train for Orpington leaving two minutes later, so that saved a bit of time.  Rob picked me up from the station in the ex-bo11ox / Phil-lihp Rover 220.  After a corned beef sarnie and a chat about shite, I hit the road.

 

Took me a while to get out of London, but I didn't get lost once, which is unusual for me - I'd been a twonk and forgotten to take my sat nav.  Rob gave me directions, which were basically "keep turning left until you hit the South Circular", and this appears to have worked.  As Rob had said, the idle on the Cav is a little uneven, so it needs a bit of gas to pull away smoothly, but it does launch itself off the line with a fair degree of enthusiasm if asked.  Once I was clear of the endless traffic lights and speed cameras, I was able to wind the speed up a bit, and eventually even get it into fifth gear (which is seriously tall).  The M25 was clear, and as it was getting quite late by then I decided to get a bit of a move on. 

 

The Cavalier behaved itself, the only noticeable untoward noise being the fart from the manifold gasket under acceleration.  The brakes did their "thing" a couple of times, but it was never a worry - I've driven a lot worse.  I'll have to get it looked at at some point.  It seems to go round corners OK too, although the steering isn't the most communicative.  Also, at a slightly brisker cruising speed on the motorway, the steering gets rather light about the straight ahead and the steering wheel does a strange gentle wobble - not enough to make the car sway around, but definitely noticeable with my usual two-fingers-on-the-wheel motorway driving style.  I might get the tracking looked at at some point.  Then again I might not, as I'm not likely to get up to those sorts of speeds on a regular basis out here in the sticks.  In fact the only thing that's going to need immediate attention is the headlight aim - over 80mph on dipped beam was interesting.

 

Overall I'm quite impressed.  It's a very relaxed motorway cruiser at normal speeds, the driver's seat is comfy and it seems surprisingly good on fuel so far.  My bike fits straight in the back with the seats folded too - it actually goes in easier than in the Carina.  The plan at the moment is to sort the headlight aim and chuck a bucket of soapy water over it, then put it into service as a rainy day backup car for going in to work - it should save a substantial amount in fuel costs over the Delica, and whilst it won't be as good as the Rover of Doom, at least the bike will stay dry.

[HMC]

I think the old giffer from whose estate rob bought it off had a nudge at the front. I know 'k' was a cross over year but the repairers took that a bit literally and the nearside front lights are pre facelift, and the offside post facelift.

[Cavcraft]

Welcome to heaven.

[wuvvum]

I think the old giffer from whose estate rob bought it off had a nudge at the front. I know 'k' was a cross over year but the repairers took that a bit literally and the nearside front lights are pre facelift, and the offside post facelift.

 

D'you know what, I hadn't even noticed that until you pointed it out.  Isn't it the other way round though?  The offside lights look pre-facelift to me.

[wuvvum]

I went to a mate's in the Cav this evening, and as it was quite late and the roads were empty I treated myself to a bit of a hoon on the way home.  The steering may be over-light at 90 on the motorway, but at 90 on a winding B-road it's actually quite nice and firm.  It's also one of those cars in which you always find you're travelling a lot faster than you thought.  The Delica is the same, but that's because you're sat about 8' in the air.  In the Cav I think it's the gearing that does it - 3,000 rpm at 90 is seriously tall gearing for a 2-litre petrol engine.  In theory it'd pull 180 without running out of revs.

[Rusty_Rocket]

The CD's had the wide ratio gearbox (F16w if memory serves) so you get a lovely relaxed cruise in these 

If you want to put the headlamp right, you can just swap the glass over from a knackered 2nd hand bit- the rest of the light unit was unaltered.

Lovely car and a proper contender in its day!

[Cavcraft]

I remember going for a test drive in the Mk2 SRi I ended up buying. Whizzing down a stretch of bypass notorious for speed traps and just assumed I was doing about 50mph. Looked down at the speedo and I was a fair way past 80.

[RobT]

That's why I posted my first ever sub-3 hour trip to Worcester when driving this, sat at 90 most of the way on the M4/M5 which might be why the manifold started to parp. It's better suited to the roads where you live Wuv as I barely managed to get it out of third around here, I found keeping to 30 in fourth tricky! Maybe the auto will be better in that regard.

 

It has the variable headlight aim thing if you want to use that in the meantime, not that it changes it that much though. That's what I did on dark roads rather than actually fix it properly.

[wuvvum]

Right, I'm going to have to put this back up for sale.  It's pretty much exactly the same as when I bought it off Rob - the exhaust manifold may have got slightly fartier, but that might just be me imagining things.  It still does the brake thing occasionally - it's never actually lost braking completely, but sometimes the pedal will go further down than it should before the brakes kick in, which can be disconcerting until you're used to it.  It hasn't done it recently, but I very much doubt it's actually fixed itself.  It probably needs new master cylinder seals - I haven't got the time to look at it myself, or the money to pay someone else to do it.

 

It's still taxed until the end of the month and tested till October.  It's been completely reliable while I've had it, and it's also bloody good on fuel on a run.  Comfy too.

 

As it's got two months' less T&T than when I bought it, I've dropped the price to £120.  Ideally needs to go before the tax runs out at the end of the month.

[HMC]

**paging Joe Clelland**

 

Ex works cavalier on the market

[KruJoe]

Luckily, there are no cheap Cav tow bars to be found on eBay. Hnnng..

[lisbon_road]

If I needed a car, I'd be straight there.  Looks really good, hope you get a good buyer who will appreciate it.