When does it become a one way ticket?

[chaseracer]

I tried very hard with the 300E, but it beat me in the end.

[SambaS]

Four head gaskets and two engines.

[neil1971]

170,000 miles, huge cloud of blue smoke in the mornings, oil consumption of a litre per week, the clutch it left the factory with (high bite, not slipping yet but probably won't be long) and 6 weeks MoT left, not optimistic about the emissions test....

 

Still doing the daily 40 mile commute and would trust it to get me wherever I needed to go as it has done without fail for 8 years and 125,000 miles in my ownership

 

2003 Nissan Almera, for sale thread to follow at some point   please form an orderly queue

[Captain Furious]

Scrapped my Mondeo 2.5 V6 Ghia X estate when my mate crashed it into a grass verge and mullered the underside, then proceeded to try and drive it back with the bottom half of the rad missing and borked the engine too. I was quite upset about that because it was an excellent car that I'd got it for an absolute steal a few years earlier, moon mileage but it just kept on going faultlessly.

 

Also scrapped a rover 600 that a friend and I bought to make into a hilarious* charity banger....idea went cold and it never happened. It was actually a pretty tidy car, not long out of MOT and the engine was incredibly sweet (Honda 2.0) offered it up on a few forums at £100 to the 'that needs saving' brigade, no interest at all so bridged it for £120, scrap was quite high at the time.

 

Any serious welding or bodywork issues have me running for the hills because I suck at it, mechanical or electrical woes I'm much more competent with.

[Mr A Lawrence]

When the next shiney new pcp deal comes around.

[overrun]

Mk1.5 MR2's.

[vulgalour]

For the ex-dollywobbler BX estate it was when we couldn't find any good metal to cut back to for welding.  It's various mechanical maladies could all have been resolved but it needed far more bodywork than I expected in the end.  For the orange Princess it was much the same story, it could have been saved but would have meant all four arches, rear screen surround, boot floor, rear valance, inner and outer sills, chassis rails, front valance, bonnet, floor pans and inner arches being repaired to do it.  It was more valuable as a breaker and saved at least three other cars in the process.

[The Old Bloke Next Door]

My last spare car was T-boned, still runs and drives though. Awaiting me finding the time to drain the fuel tank, remove the stereo and and swop the almost new tyres onto my latest spare car.

 

 

[rainagain]

I've only scrapped one car, the 206 I originally bought for my OH. Between us we put over 100,000 on it. It had just over 200,000 on the clock when I managed to drown it in a big flood. It would only run on three cylinders so it looked like a con rod was bent. Given the mileage it wasn't worth fixing. I did feel sorry for it as I limped it to the scrappies. All the other cars I've managed to sell on.

[sierraman]

I wouldn't feel sad scrapping a car. If it's starting to cost me a lot of money it gets baled. Where bangers are concerned you have to be ruthless

[cros]

I've scrapped one car (205) but karma has been maintained by the purchase over the years of two which had already been weighed in. The sacrificial 205 was needing a clutch and engine (early petrol) and the sun had eaten its interior.
Previously I'd come across a Renault 12 estate in Reddens of Wellingborough which looked perfect. £40 with knackered engine, a very easy fix with a motor from another car.
This 12 and a previous one I owned suffered from the mysterious 'curling speedo needle' but went on to give good service- excellent cars.
I bought an Ami 8 from a no-longer-there scrapyard in Brigstock. To digress, an unusual feature of this breakers was that a bloke otherwise unconnected with the place lived in the back of a small van in amongst the wrecks, and had done so for years. His skin and clothes were completely black with oil and grime and his tea and hot food were prepared over a noxious pile of smouldering tyres. 30 years on he could have hosted a top rated BBC cookery show.
I grabbed the Ami before 'Black Jack' had taken his afternoon nap in it, also for £40. The car was crudely made into a pick-up and shifted a lot of stuff over the next few years as I was doing up my first house. It's not what the threads meant to be about, but fuck it.