Passat shite

[Junkman]

Maybe you should buy cars instead of Vauxhalls?

[sierraman]

Don’t buy a diesel. I don’t know where you live but there’s thousands of decent cars at £1000 to £1500 where I live. Go for something common and petrol.

 

My advice is ignore all these bags of shit offered ‘just needing a clutch’ or ‘EML on but runs fine’.

[Split_Pin]

Vauxhalls like to do that to you, same happened with my Corsa.

 

Keep the faith and buy a Renault, thats what I ended up doing!

[Junkman]

Whatever has an EML is not a car.

[richardmorris]

I agree. My Citroen C5 left me with a nervous tick- boing and EML lit up on a weekly occasion.

[richardmorris]

I agree. My Citroen C5 left me with a nervous tick- boing and EML lit up on a weekly occasion.

And what was particularly galling, was that it made sod all difference to the running. Which made it impossible to diagnose.

[egg]

Time of year really doesn't help. Days start getting longer again in 9 days.

 

It is true though, squeeze on real wages mean lots of people are pretty brassic and trying to get a few hundred quid for scrap fodder. I can't blame them in some ways.

[Skizzer]

I think it’s pretty normal to go through phases like that. Hopefully your mojo will return.

[wuvvum]

3-litre V6 Isuzu diesel engines like to do that to you

FTFY.

[richardmorris]

Time of year really doesn't help. Days start getting longer again in 9 days.

 

It is true though, squeeze on real wages mean lots of people are pretty brassic and trying to get a few hundred quid for scrap fodder. I can't blame them in some ways.

That’s all true. I feel particularly demotivated In just trying to get to work at the moment. Rent review today -up by 2.7%. Has my salary gone up that much? No.

Cars aren’t a problem at the moment - merc seems ok after its attack of old age on Saturday.

 

Life, don’t talk to me about Life.

[HMC]

Yeah it's the aftermath of modern Vauxhall ownership plus it's this time of year- awful all round. I prescribe some quality* SD1 time.

[billyboy406v6]

My mojo is the same at the moment, got loads of shiny new bits for coupe, but cant be arsed to lie in the street and fit them. Think I may start collecting stamps or learn to play the guitar ?

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Whatever has an EML is not a car.

 

 

Extreme Monetary Loss as a bloke at a BMW main dealer used to say when the original 750iL was current. 

[Hertz]

Chin up, I agree on the petrol move next. Unless you are doing mega miles there isn't any major saving on purchase price/fuel cost compared to diesel. The only cars I have had major issues with were diesel.

 

Get that V8 you are only here once!

[Bren]

The vectra was the first car in 26 years of motoring that I have punted on due to mechanical failure - I really look after my cars, normally they get shifted when they start looking crusty.

[New POD]

My gran (RIP) used to say, "People only sell cars for a reason. Mostly the reason is that it's got something wrong with it"

I've realised this means you either buy NEW or you buy knowing that the seller is hiding some faults, and no matter how clever you are you won't spot every fault, so you have to factor in potential repairs, or you have to find that elusive "genuine reason for sale"

[sierraman]

You know what as the saying goes 'Never never never give up'. Give up and those faceless bastards down at the Kia showroom have won. Keep going. You've pulled a bad 'un, you've sacked it off and walked away at least with 500 in the hand. Put it towards something else shite and you'll not regret it. 

[SiC]

https://www.arnoldclark.com/new-cars/mg/zs

 

£2.5k down, £167 p/m for 60 months. At the end you own it. There will be still 2 years of warranty left at the end too.

[Rusty_Rocket]

https://www.arnoldclark.com/new-cars/mg/zs

 

£2.5k down, £167 p/m for 60 months. At the end you own it. There will be still 2 years of warranty left at the end too.

 

Halloween was a couple of months back, SiC!

[Sheefag]

https://www.arnoldclark.com/new-cars/mg/zs

 

£2.5k down, £167 p/m for 60 months. At the end you own it. There will be still 2 years of warranty left at the end too.

 

[sierraman]

https://www.arnoldclark.com/new-cars/mg/zs

 

£2.5k down, £167 p/m for 60 months. At the end you own it. There will be still 2 years of warranty left at the end too.

Christ. 5 years of £170 a month to ride round in that. Where’s my wallet?

 

How about £2500 and you own it outright, buy sensibly and you won’t need to be chucking £170 a month out on financing crap cars.

[D Spares & Tyres]

Cars have changed rapidly in the last 26 years

 

The way I see it, currently for stress free motoring you need either a well looked after late nineties Japanese car or a brand new Korean one with 7 years warranty. Anything in the middle has the opportunity to upset you, unless you just buy a £500 banger and just throw it away at the first sign of trouble but have a spare lying around for when this happens

[SiC]

Christ. 5 years of £170 a month to ride round in that. Where’s my wallet?

 

How about £2500 and you own it outright, buy sensibly and you won’t need to be chucking £170 a month out on financing crap cars.

I've already suggested exactly this in Brens Vectra 1.8 thread but never got a response. The car that fitted the bill was this:

http://autoshite.com/topic/30291-honada-civic-22-ctdi/

 

However if you want a mode of transport that is a bit better specified than a Dacia (with arguably a bit better badge prestige), but still good value then that MG ticks most of those boxes. If it goes wrong, you send it off to a dealer for them to sort. After 5 years is up I reckon it would shift on for at least £2k. Fixed priced motoring.

[Datsuncog]

Cars have changed rapidly in the last 26 years

 

The way I see it, currently for stress free motoring you need either a well looked after late nineties Japanese car or a brand new Korean one with 7 years warranty. Anything in the middle has the opportunity to upset you, unless you just buy a £500 banger and just throw it away at the first sign of trouble but have a spare lying around for when this happens

 

Reckon you're bang on the money there.

 

I run my daily £300 Phase 1 Laguna; I'm not made of money but if it goes pop I can probably scrape together the same again to obtain a replacement (which will also probably be large, French and unloved). I've still got its predecessor, a freebie Laguna that ran happily for 3 years with no FTP, as a spares source. But I only really use it to get me to the station in the morning and weekend jaunts further afield, so if it ever baulks at starting, it's not the end of the world.

 

Mrs DC has her Mk1 Yaris, owned from new and has never put a foot wrong with only the odd piece of wear 'n' tear work needed here and there (water pump, sensors, discs) that even a mechanical dope like me can manage. It seems like one of the last 'basic' cars that does without much of the whizz-bang gimcrackery so prevalent on post-2000 cars. It just keeps plodding on.

 

My dad got fed up with a procession of 5-year old cars that kept costing him a fortune in EML head-scratching; a Pug 407 wagon with semi-auto transmission (with the emphasis very much on the semi) put the tin hat on it, and he traded it in for a new Hyundai i30. He still has his Z3 for tinkering, mind, but as a daily he was just sick of the ball-ache. The i30 seems to be warrantied forever but so far has been uber-reliable. If I absolutely needed reliable transport for commuting long distances, that's what I'd be looking at too.

 

So yeah - go new and warrantied (Korean); go basic and reliable (late 90s Jap) or go cheap and disposable (Laguna et al). Sounds like my plan.

 

I lost my mojo with an absolute disaster of a seven-year old Alfa 156 JTD - old enough for absolutely everything to shit itself all at once (leaving me with a broken non-runner even after ££££ spent), but still new enough to leave me a few grand in hock to the moneylenders. An expensive lesson, but I then went back to basics with an old shitter of a Polo breadvan and remembered why I liked old cars again...

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Cars have changed rapidly in the last 26 years

 

The way I see it, currently for stress free motoring you need either a well looked after late nineties Japanese car or a brand new Korean one with 7 years warranty. Anything in the middle has the opportunity to upset you, unless you just buy a £500 banger and just throw it away at the first sign of trouble but have a spare lying around for when this happens

 

 

As I keep saying ad infinitum; Accord, Avensis.....................

 

I've been lucky with my old 3 Series E36 but if I had to buy one cheap older car that would be decently reliable, it would be Honda or Toyota.

[BorniteIdentity]

 just buy a £500 banger and have a spare lying around 

 

Edited your post to what I'm actually doing.

 

My Avensis is a bit grumpy at the moment - but it's got 4 Crossclimate tyres on it so is getting used and abused atm, regardless of the coolant loss/grumbling alternator/iffy indicator/everything else.

 

When the winter's over it'll be exported no doubt and i'll carry on in the Merc.

 

Good luck Bren.

[Junkman]

Extreme Monetary Loss as a bloke at a Big Money Wasted main dealer used to say... 

 

EFA

[Bobthebeard]

Owing to the recent FTP in the Saab 9-5 the 93 Rover 416 has been put into temporary service whilst awaiting the Saab to be repaired.

Feels like a 90's Japanese car (probably because it mainly is...) but with the nice feel of Roveryness. Anyway, mojo returned after using it this morning for the commute to the train station. Started instantly, sensible three dial heater controls that don't require peering at and pushing little buttons like ACC on the other of our cars, light clutch, good visibility and easy to drive.

The lowered/chopped springs are another matter though! On the roads round here suspension travel is a basic requirement. It doesn't have any. Not undriveable exactly, but horribly crashy to the point of it sounding like it is going to break something, apart from my teeth.

Back to standard springs now the mojo is back!

When it stops raining/snowing/freezing anyway....

[Junkman]

I've been lucky with my old 3 Series E36 but if I had to buy one cheap older car that would be decently reliable, it would be a Peugeot 405.

 

EFA

 

Hasn't stillOrange lost his mojo on my ex-GTX with the dangerous number plates?

[loserone]

Try telling that to mine that's been off the road nearly 6 months..