The new news 24 thread

[xtriple]

I am currently in charge of three cars and yet I have nothing actually parked here. The Skyline and the Bentley are both at the painters and Kyle has borrowed the Honda to go and see his Mum.

 

Finally went and got the Insight back this morning (lunchtime as I couldn't be arsed before) and it looks great, usual good job. Singing the praises of this particular main dealer (Speedwell Honda Newton Abbot) is getting boring! They always do exactly what they say they will, always on time, always give me a brilliant discount ('cos I is gud customer see!) and a courtesy car.

 

They have two Insights in the same as mine (ES-T) and both are more money than I paid for mine a year ago. One is a grand more and a year older with 4Kmiles more on the clock... I offered them mine back and I think, when they sell one or two of the three they currently have, a deal will be struck. Still not sure about selling it, but two cars both of which are expensive, is silly. I would rather have a 'cheapy' as a back up and more fun and less worry.

 

To throw my pearls of wisdom (   ) into the ring re the 3K cars, I have to agree with the others. Go cheaper (and get a Honda) or more expensive (and get a  Honda) but £3K cars are death to the bank balance. There are a few good buys in that range (Honda) but they tend to be a bit older.

 

I was talking to my son about cars last night: he's bored with his Skyline - he's had it quite a few years now and seems to have lost the love for its hard ride and tragic fuel consumption. He's talking about getting an old Volvo estate! He wants one of the last rear wheel drive ones... insanity does run in the family!

[DeeJay]

Captain, does anybody on here have a loan car that could tide you over till your back on your feet?

[Eddie Honda]

blah blah blah...Honda...blah blah blah...Honda...blah blah blah...Honda...blah blah blah...Honda...blah blah blah

Captain_70s, I think xtriple is saying "Honda, Honda, Honda, Honda"

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X3vPNZZrCo

 

It's the perfect antidote to spannering bloody cars all the time. Lose the surplus doloshites and get reliably mobile.

 

"Honda, Honda, Honda, Honda"

 

For added shiteness: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/171962464785

[the judge]

No, although as Dad pointed out I don't have £700 to spend on a car anyway. Pretty much all I can do is put down a deposit on a £80 a month car.

I had to borrow £3.5k from them to pay off the Corsa's finance under the assurance I could use the Triumphs as reliable daily transport but I fucked it up and now have a maxed out overdraft, no working car and owe my parents a third of my yearly income...

 

To be honest the 1300 has been costing £300 a month in vital repairs with a lot of DIY and bodgery and is all set to fail it's MOT on the 17th. The rear if one of the sills has developed a hole and the rear shocks and springs are knackered, most of the engine compression is in the crankcase and it spits oil everywhere.

 

The 1850 is in worse shape as my attempts at fixing it have lowered it's value and rendered it immobile and it's now been sitting by the sea for months.

 

I've really cunted this up...

Righty. I have a Mitsubihi Spacestar,2003,passed its MOT last week after receiving a new cv boot. In good nick,98000 miles,and like a swiss watch. New cambelt at 78k. It was going on Gumtree for 550,but you can have it for 450,or 6 monthly payments of 75 quid.

 

Its Jap,reliable and one of those motors you know will never die. Only problem is it is in Cheshire. Feel free to tell me to piss off,but just a suggestion.

[twosmoke300]

If I were in your shoes captain 70s I would look for a fiesta 1.3 or ka with a long mot for a couple of hundred . Assume it's rotten and scrap it at the end of the mot when you might have sorted yourself out . Hell the scrap price may have shot up and you may turn a profit .

The other option is a 90's jap but parts can be hellish expensive . Those old fords just keep rattling on and rust kills them off .

[Mr Lobster]

Might also be from the same bunch of shitehawks I tried to hire a Jensen from a few months back. Sounds like Mr Lobster had a good day though so glad he got a good experience!

 

Yep, its a rental and I had to give it back. 

 

On the plus side, all it cost me for the day was £25 for the insurance waiver so that was good news - I was booked on one of their events which they cancelled and rescheduled for 2016 but they did say I was welcome to pop down and take a car for the day.  And whilst Redditch isn't normal 'popping' distance from Burnley as I had a hotel booked then a day of walking up sleepy villages with a noisy Capri was how it was to be.

[Mr Lobster]

Stuck at the parent's place with a car which needs push starting and lacks a functioning clutch.

 

They are dead set against the whole "shite" thing, in Dad's words "You need £3k to buy a good car. Cheap cars are cheap for a reason". Words have been said, Scotland is crap for cheap cars that aren't rotten and at this rate I'm going to end up back on finance...

 

It's grim times for sure.

 

I'm going to go against popular opinion here.

 

Given your financial circumstances I think you'd be better off with a C1 / Aygo / Sandero / whatever on a tiny deposit / £99 a month deal.

 

Yes they aren't exciting and a good '90s car would be better but with anything older you do have to allow for the fact that things might go wrong and need fixing. I wouldn't normally say that financing yourself into a new car is a particularly good idea but I reckon it could work for you.

 

- It gives you reliable daily transport

- You've got a fixed cost and won't have to spend anything else on it. This gives you the ability to pay off your debt and save some money to fix the Triumph(s) which I guess is what you actually want.

- Once you get back to a decent financial position then you can sell / hand the modern car back and run something more interesting as a daily.

 

A £3k car could be great or it could be terrible. Equally so could a £500 car. They are at that point in their life where a lot could potentially cost money and its too expensive to throw away so you end up committed to fixing it. Plus it sounds like you'd end up borrowing money to buy it anyway, if you are borrowing money to buy a car then you'd be  better off at least buying something newish so it shouldn't go wrong given your circumstances.

[twosmoke300]

Mr lobster is right too ! I've always thought that those little 99 a month cars are the only ones that make sense on finance . You are paying for reliable economical transport and nowt else .

A 3 grand car is a noose around your neck in my opinion . Your in too deep if a major failure occurs .

[dollywobbler]

I'm off to a Vintage Sports Car Club trial near Knighton today. Free entry. I probably should have mentioned it earlier but might be a bit of a laugh watching rickety old tin being hurled up muddy hills.

[dollywobbler]

Postcode is LD7 1NL and the action kicks off from half twelve.

[dave21478]

A while back I dug an old set of 12" mini steel wheels out of the scrap pile at the farm for use on the Metro.

 

Yesterday I blezzed them with the knotwheel and painted them up. They came out looking rather smart, I reckon.

 

I also did the standard Metro wheeltrims. They were kerbed and scraped up quite badly. I repaired the cracks by "plastic welding" using an old screwdriver heated up with a blowtorch to melt the cracks back together. I then sanded them down and sprayed them gloss white as they were originally.

 

 

In other news, bloody rodents are playing havoc in the garage. Every time I open a cupboard I find they have eaten stuff and shat everywhere.

[Sigmund Fraud]

Due to total fleet fail, I'm in urgent need of a daily driver... I shall therefore be spending the weekend resurrecting my hideous Lupo, which I rescued from the frag machine six months ago and which has been sitting in a field untouched since then... Expect a long, anti-VW rant later today !

 

Well, it actually hasn't been bad so far... The knackered gearbox is out and I'll hopefully be bolting a replacement gearbox on today. This is out of a Polo 1.4 and has the completely wrong ratios, but I've always* wanted a VW with the equivalent of a 4+E box. Mmm, performance* !

 

Once the thing drives again it will need four legal tyres, an oil change and then it should be ready* for daily use.

 

Pictures of a scruffy, multi-coloured, odd-wheeled pineapple mobile on the hard shoulder of the M27 coming soon...

[purplebargeken]

These are special French rodents who have been assigned especially to harass the english person. They sneer at traps and so on. 

 

They can be encouraged to go and find another victim by the use of garlic and camembert as bribes. Maybe. 

[purplebargeken]

Siggy, get a bloody variomatic on the road man!

[Sigmund Fraud]

Siggy, get a bloody variomatic on the road man!

 

Ena is almost* ready.... Unfortunately it will be no good for my 100 mile commute, especially at 30MPG

[tooSavvy]

I just purkased a 'filteur olio' for MrSavvy, off Amazon, £5 delivered... for a fiat & other $hite.

Will meld well with 4L of fully-syn got @ Homebase.

 

 

TS

[Lord Sterling]

Was browsing eBay when I happend upon a Mk2 Rover 825 SLi at a scrapyard in Birmingham. The reg seemed familar but I couldn't place it:

 

 

Now I'm sure I've seen the car somewhere in Birmingham, however when I stuck the reg into Google I found that the car had previously appeared in an episode of 'Midsomer Murders' (and yes I know, that 'Bergerac' bloke who appears in it had a KV6 Sterling in early episodes)

 

 

I've made enquiries about it. It is a lot nicer body-wise than mine.

[purplebargeken]

Do not tell them about the TV connection as that will inflate the price!

[greengartside]

Indeed it would - I was going through a similar dilemma the other week when a Mk5 Fiesta Zetec-S appeared on evilbay which had appeared on TG back in 2001. Didn't tell the seller as the price would have increased - no doubt about it...

 

In other news, my little Zetec-S is going superbly still. Managed to get 180 miles on £20-ish of fuel so I am over the moon with it!

Not so over the moon when I discovered the gearbox is coated in gear oil. Now I was aware that it's had a new clutch recently so I presumed it was something to do with that. Browsed the forums and they all pointed to a possible gearbox breather issue where the breather unit is mistakenly fitted the wrong way round (the breather unit has an arrow marked on the top to aid installation) - this should face the front of the car. Mine was facing the back. Took it out and turned it 180 degrees so the arrow faces the front of the car. Will see if any more oil leaks out now. Hopefully that's solved it.

[EssDeeWon]

Do not tell them about the TV connection as that will inflate the price!

 

Yes this!!

 

Mention Midsomer connection to the scrapyard and this will be up for ££££££££££££££££££££££££££ before you know it.

 

WOW L@@K FAMOUZ ROVER TV BBC ITV SKY SIMON COWELL FOR SAIL

[richardmorris]

Just been to the annual 2cv duck race in Farnham. No pics of cars but plenty of weirdos spending Sunday morning running up and down river banks.

 

Mine is the drink responsibly team duck flying the Welsh flag and Jolly Roger.

[Bear]

So. Honda use two retaining screws on their discs.

 

I didn't know that. But I'm going to say the absolute belting I gave it yesterday loosened it.

[Parky]

I changed the pads on Mrs P's 500 today. Was surprisingly straightforward once I worked out where the calliper retaining bolts were, and that they were a 10mm hex fitting. First side two hours (!!), second side 20 minutes. Was delighted to see the garage had smothered copper grease on the hub following my moan about being charged for wheel removal at the second service only to find the wheels were siezed on a week later......

 

Had genuine Fiat parts to go back on, made a change as usually i have some no brand replacements to fit and they never quite sit properly if you know what I mean.

 

Bolted up, brakes seem softer but I will assume it's because the pads need to bed in to the disc. Pads today seem to all be chamfered, sure there is a good reason but theoretically means pads have maybe 10 to 20percent less surface area when new. I don't remember them being like that years ago

 

Either way another £100 or so saved.

[twosmoke300]

So. Honda use two retaining screws on their discs.

 

I didn't know that. But I'm going to say the absolute belting I gave it yesterday loosened it.

Two screws , same number as eyes in your head ? 😄

[Ghosty]

On the theme of red Rovers in the media, I've just been to a little car show in Glossop (same old cars every year zzz). There was an L-reg Nightfire Vitesse that had been used in an Autocar test.

[Bear]

Two screws , same number as eyes in your head ?

 

Ha, only one of them works remotely usefully!

 

The second one was revealed when a lump of rust fell off. Then on the other side, two of the screws had stripped heads. Bought an extractor set a while ago, so used it, success. Normally I'd just be yelling and swearing a lot at it and eventually drilling the head off the screw.

[dollywobbler]

Well, that was awesome. What would you do with a 102-year old, 9-litre Mercedes? I had a lovely day.

https://twitter.com/dollywobbler/status/653245286710702080

 

The day started well when I followed this lovely 'Ripple' 2CV into the car park. Owner wasn't very chatty though. Note Dyane in picnic mode.

[skattrd]

112 Ian

[dollywobbler]

I never was any good with numbers...

[Bren]

Was browsing eBay when I happend upon a Mk2 Rover 825 SLi at a scrapyard in Birmingham. The reg seemed familar but I couldn't place it:

Now I'm sure I've seen the car somewhere in Birmingham, however when I stuck the reg into Google I found that the car had previously appeared in an episode of 'Midsomer Murders' (and yes I know, that 'Bergerac' bloke who appears in it had a KV6 Sterling in early episodes)

I've made enquiries about it. It is a lot nicer body-wise than mine.

Soon to be photographed in front of a white background.