This year's purchase - 2000s crossover epidemic patient zero

[willswitchengage]

Today I have celebrated Brexit by attempting to seal up the Rover's errant leaky water vents (as recommended by 1,000 threads on the R200 forum), then discovered there is another source of water above them that remains totally elusive. I have also tried and failed to remove the stupid cigarette packet holder 'option' in the dashboard. A bright start to 2021.

[vulgalour]

Now you've done the vents, other points of ingress are the rear window seals, rear light gaskets, tired tailgate seal, rubber wiring 'caterpillar' thing at the top of the tailgate, spoiler mounting points, rear number plate/trim panel screw holes, tailgate hinges (there's a gasket between the hinge and body sometimes, they fail).  I can't remember any other leak points off the top of my head right now.  TADTS and Heritage and all that.

[Ghosty]

9 hours ago, willswitchengage said:

I have also tried and failed to remove the stupid cigarette packet holder 'option' in the dashboard.

What are you referring to?

 

[spartacus]

9 hours ago, Ghosty said:

What are you referring to?

 

Yeah, I'm interested too.

[willswitchengage]

This Google image has it

This one does not

Bottom of the centre console, an insert that appears to fit a few fag packets but is annoyingly too small for a wallet/smartphone. I'm trying to remove it. Will go to full dashboard disassembly when it's stopped snowing...

[Shite Ron]

Is it not a cassette holder?

[Shep Shepherd]

That's a cassette holder. I found it quite handy when I owned my 1994 214Si back in the early 2000s, but unless you are a total hipster, it's pretty useless nowadays.

[vulgalour]

I'm a total hipster and used the one in my R8 saloon, still found it to be annoying though because it stores the cassettes end on so you can't see which is which until you pull them out.  I'd expect the insert to just clip in, so you can probably prise it out and then shave off the cassette holder bits so it becomes just a plain box.

[Shep Shepherd]

Just now, vulgalour said:

I'm a total hipster and used the one in my R8 saloon, still found it to be annoying though because it stores the cassettes end on so you can't see which is which until you pull them out.  I'd expect the insert to just clip in, so you can probably prise it out and then shave off the cassette holder bits so it becomes just a plain box.

Haha! 

I too would very often select the wrong cassette due to the way they fitted into the holder. The arrangement was still better than having to store cassettes in the centre console box or in the glovebox like I had/have to do with The Volvo, though.

[Ghosty]

Yeah, tape holder. Can't remember how you get it out. Think it's only late cars that have it but don't quote me. 

[willswitchengage]

This is new and interesting

[willswitchengage]

LOL the Rover is on Rightmove. Can you see it?

 

 

[willswitchengage]

Pro detailing. Had a rust patch beginning to emerge (previously repaired by somebody) so sanded down, rattle canned some Zinc undercoat and it transpires some of my old Airfix paint is the perfect colour...

[willswitchengage]

MOT passed. BUZZING!!! Going to put this up for sale soon... start forming an orderly queue.

[willswitchengage]

It's all been a bit quiet recently in my crap cars life. The Rover was sold some time ago and has been replaced with a boring cheap modern to ride out the recession which has been on the cards for some time now.

Anyway, today was interesting. Had a nice family reunion as my various siblings have not been together as one for many years and with father_WSE's health deteriorating we all went to say hello. My older brother has had an unusually successful career and as a result owns this 1978 Aston Martin V8. We took it for a spin and I let him play with the 2CV on a surprisingly nice winters day. His is an auto and he couldn't figure out the 2CV's gears at all!

[Matty]

2 hours ago, willswitchengage said:

It's all been a bit quiet recently in my crap cars life. The Rover was sold some time ago and has been replaced with a boring cheap modern to ride out the recession which has been on the cards for some time now.

Anyway, today was interesting. Had a nice family reunion as my various siblings have not been together as one for many years and with father_WSE's health deteriorating we all went to say hello. My older brother has had an unusually successful career and as a result owns this 1978 Aston Martin V8. We took it for a spin and I let him play with the 2CV on a surprisingly nice winters day. His is an auto and he couldn't figure out the 2CV's gears at all!

I love them. Proper aston

[willswitchengage]

Currently giving the 2CV its periodic once-over. Including driving it up and down the road, thrashing it, brake test etc. This is interesting:

And was the result of me locking the brakes on the driveway. I only assume one circuit is working more effectively than the other for some reason? I seem to remember brakes are plumbed diagonally but am no expert. The car was MOTd only a few months ago, but is otherwise fine. Car not pulling to one side or anything.

[willswitchengage]

It's been two years since I've owned a 'crap car' and in that period the Mk5 Golf diesel I bought from here proved to be a pleasant and refined break from a decade of not owning a vehicle with fuel injection. With the Golf having a fresh MoT I decided it's the best time to begin surfing the eBay Tat threat, Gumtree, and the rest, and start moving on.

I actually viewed the car twice. The first time I was passing through the area and he wasn't in so I just looked around it on his drive. The second we had a nice test drive around and all was very good. I then had a busy few weeks so we agreed I'd buy it, he took down the ad, COVID-19 unfriendly handshakes were made and I returned today to collect.

The car was located in the leafy suburb of Teddington, that London, so this is also something of an ULEZ rescue mission (note to self: remember to pay tonight!).

This collection was done by bicycle, not the usual train.

It's about 35 miles from my place to Teddington and it was a nice and sunny day so why not. Can you see an aero theme emerging here?

Both of the above probably have similar fuel consumption to my new purchase. Anyway, after much fucking around later with the useless Natwest app, more handshake were held, I forgot to transfer my insurance (which was additionally scary later due to some 'challenging' other drivers on the way back), this is now in my custody:

The floppytop also belongs to the seller and is his new ULEZ-compliant whip.

I've been after a 900 for a while so thought YOLO etc and I should finally actually just buy one. This is relatively low miles (120kish) and is in largely perfect aesthetic condition and low ownership, which for me all tick boxes. Ideally I was after a 3door but I could never find one right for me. 

Anyway, it's wonderful. It seems to drive perfectly other than the following:

• It has an aftermarket 'sigma' immobiliser fitted which is quite annoying and I might disable it as luckily I have all the original documents. Just more electrical crap to cause issues.
• The dash lights are very dim - haven't look yet to see if I can find a rheostat, otherwise I will faff around with a bulb change.
• The engine light came on! This did not do so when we bimbled it around town but at motorway speed it came on and stayed on. However, switching the engine off and on again eliminated it. Puzzling.
• Hard to work out what 'normal' is on the temperature gauge, but it looked to be running cool. The needle didn't go above about 1/4 on the temperature dial. This may be normal, but every other car I've had with a mechanical temperature gauge the needle has been rest to optimally rest at about half or a little under.

Anyway, I'm thinking positive and look forward to many happy drives on the horizon.

[cort1977]

Very nice, looks practically new. Saabs are great, they have a way of getting under your skin, just pleasing to drive.

[Matty]

21 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

It's been two years since I've owned a 'crap car' and in that period the Mk5 Golf diesel I bought from here proved to be a pleasant and refined break from a decade of not owning a vehicle with fuel injection. With the Golf having a fresh MoT I decided it's the best time to begin surfing the eBay Tat threat, Gumtree, and the rest, and start moving on.

I actually viewed the car twice. The first time I was passing through the area and he wasn't in so I just looked around it on his drive. The second we had a nice test drive around and all was very good. I then had a busy few weeks so we agreed I'd buy it, he took down the ad, COVID-19 unfriendly handshakes were made and I returned today to collect.

The car was located in the leafy suburb of Teddington, that London, so this is also something of an ULEZ rescue mission (note to self: remember to pay tonight!).

This collection was done by bicycle, not the usual train.

It's about 35 miles from my place to Teddington and it was a nice and sunny day so why not. Can you see an aero theme emerging here?

Both of the above probably have similar fuel consumption to my new purchase. Anyway, after much fucking around later with the useless Natwest app, more handshake were held, I forgot to transfer my insurance (which was additionally scary later due to some 'challenging' other drivers on the way back), this is now in my custody:

The floppytop also belongs to the seller and is his new ULEZ-compliant whip.

I've been after a 900 for a while so thought YOLO etc and I should finally actually just buy one. This is relatively low miles (120kish) and is in largely perfect aesthetic condition and low ownership, which for me all tick boxes. Ideally I was after a 3door but I could never find one right for me. 

Anyway, it's wonderful. It seems to drive perfectly other than the following:

• It has an aftermarket 'sigma' immobiliser fitted which is quite annoying and I might disable it as luckily I have all the original documents. Just more electrical crap to cause issues.
• The dash lights are very dim - haven't look yet to see if I can find a rheostat, otherwise I will faff around with a bulb change.
• The engine light came on! This did not do so when we bimbled it around town but at motorway speed it came on and stayed on. However, switching the engine off and on again eliminated it. Puzzling.
• Hard to work out what 'normal' is on the temperature gauge, but it looked to be running cool. The needle didn't go above about 1/4 on the temperature dial. This may be normal, but every other car I've had with a mechanical temperature gauge the needle has been rest to optimally rest at about half or a little under.

Anyway, I'm thinking positive and look forward to many happy drives on the horizon.

Welcome back to skinned knuckles and frustration. Car looks spot on.

[willswitchengage]

Fortuitously there was recently a '900 buyers guide' thread on here recently. I'll admit that the poster who mentioned the car's annoying pedal positioning is correct - the pedals are all shifted to the left by some distance which takes a little getting used to, and the pedals are a little narrower than I'd like (I have massive feet). Also, it has the same issue that my BX seemed to which is that the pedals are all in line with each other - unlike most cars where the accelerator is one or two inches behind. It just makes everything a lot easier!

But yes, lovely to drive. It's just a shame the local roads are currently in a state of being potholed to oblivion so driving (or cycling) anywhere in anything is relatively unpleasant right now.

[willswitchengage]

Golf sold this morning in a very convenient way (Gumtree), pleasant family buyers drove all the way from Glastonbury with the additionally amusement of bringing their disabled son who had a wee in my flat while we were sorting out all the paperwork stuff!

Autoshite sticker transferred to the Saab this morning. Also noticed it is leaking a LOT of oil - but also that the oil has been overfilled quite a bit, so hoping this explains yesterday's and today's dramas...

[willswitchengage]

First drive today. Tip run in the rain. What a time to be alive.

Drives well after you've figured out where the pedals are. No more check engine light after I drained some oil to bring it between the max/min marks. Discovered the radio probably doesn't work, or I just can't figure out how to switch it on. It's very refined to drive. Almost too refined!

[willswitchengage]

Today's discovery: it's possible to photograph your whip while squatting one out on the driveway.

Christmas has been mainly polishing, the bumpers are next and I have never cleaned one up before so that will be an exciting new year adventure.

The more I drive this the more I love it despite its quirks. The engine sound is a smooth, deep grunt which my ears are increasingly tuned to and it steers brilliantly. It's just great, despite apparently being designed without people over six foot tall in mind. 33 smiles per gallon on the first fill up isn't bad either especially in crappy winter start stop driving.

[willswitchengage]

This is new. MoT failed on no beam pattern?!

The garage have tried swapping bulbs out to no luck and fiddling with the mounts etc but have basically recommended I need whole new units. WTF?! They are the originals (Hella) from memory, glass, in good condition. I am very confused. Any advice welcomed please before I spend £1,000,000 on some replacements.

[Marina door handles]

That seems weird as glass headlamps usually last well, have you had a good look at the pattern on them to see if there is any sign of the pattern fading/wearing out? How are the reflectors, could be they are pitted and not projecting enough light forward? It might be a case of take them apart, clean internally and maybe re paint or cover the reflectors? 

[willswitchengage]

Yes it's an old school glass headlamp - probably the original. No I haven't looked but one has a small amount of water ingress, the other does not. Very strange! It's not like photons wear them out or anything. Good job yesterday was payday.

[Six-cylinder]

56 minutes ago, willswitchengage said:

This is new. MoT failed on no beam pattern?!

The garage have tried swapping bulbs out to no luck and fiddling with the mounts etc but have basically recommended I need whole new units. WTF?! They are the originals (Hella) from memory, glass, in good condition. I am very confused. Any advice welcomed please before I spend £1,000,000 on some replacements.

My Sigma failed its MOT on lack of sharp cut off on dip beam. Glass lens, just a bit brownish on the flat area of the reflectors. I had to replace them and on that car they had to come from Australia.

[cort1977]

The reflectors go and so do the adjusters.  If the reflectors have lost their lustre then some better condition replacement lights may be the easiest thing.  Any rechroming or replacement of the reflector would probably require a non-autoshite budget.  If it's just the plastic adjuster things that have gone there are 3D printed replacements and various repair kits available.

 

[busmansholiday]

I had that a few years ago. Turned out the bulbs that had been fitted were the cheapest possible Chink made ones possible. Fitted some decent ones and it was ok.