Going Rate for a Banger?

[wrenchvolt]

Really wouldn't fanny around selling £250 cars again, just frag it, quicker and saves hassle.

 

I know you are 100% right on this speaking in terms of rationality and economics. However, the waste aspect to binning a serviceable car does bother me. However, in a couple of months I'm about to bin a reliable car with defects because it's less hassle.

[wrenchvolt]

Still bitter about losing all that money in such a short space of time.

LOL!

[sierraman]

I know you are 100% right on this speaking in terms of rationality and economics. However, the waste aspect to binning a serviceable car does bother me. However, in a couple of months I'm about to bin a reliable car with defects because it's less hassle.

You really have to witness the idiots on Gumtree when selling a car for £200 to think otherwise.

 

Its not all been in vain however. We spent Monday swapping the good bits onto a mates Focus Mk1, which is a really tidy old thing, to make sure it fly's through the test later this month. Sold a few bits through eBay, the ECU made £20. Various other modules seem to sell well. I e got 2 spare good fuel pumps on at £20 a piece so sometimes it helps keep the good ones going.

[wrenchvolt]

Transferring and flogging those bits is very good Kung Fu. I bet your mate was well pleased!

 

You really have to witness the idiots on Gumtree when selling a car for £200 to think otherwise.

 

I've always moved them on to friends, family and someone who knows someone, so I'm yet to experience the pleasure of selling to the folk on Gumtree. I'm done with buying from there though. Excuse the language but no other words seem to suit, I'm fed up with the cunts wanting actual currency for such obvious scrap, with a bucket of water dumped over it in the photo so it looks all shiny. Like putting a glace cherry on a dog turd. Gumtree to me, seems like a place where people don't seem to understand the concept of what goes around comes around. Bunch of self centred greedy arseholes that shit on one another.

[sierraman]

I've had a few good cars from there. Selling is shit though.

[Jerzy Woking]

My nephew purchased an unwanted trade in from the local Saab dealership, a 52 plate Saab 9-5 2.3 Aero. Came with all the toys, including options such as cooled and heated leather seats and the Saab large screen Sat Nav, as well as 6 months MOT, all for £250. He's done 23,000 miles in 14 months , and has only had to replace a couple of bits on the front suspension, but nothing expensive, and two tyres. Went through the MOT with no advisories, and still looks tidy and everything still functions properly.

 

He had Galaxy diesel before this that cost him best part of £1,500 and that lasted about 18 months before failing completely.

[sierraman]

All depends if lady luck is smiling on you.

[Parky]

I've had better to be honest. Had a Mondeo on 2005 for £550, sold it again in 2013 for £275. Still bitter about losing all that money in such a short space of time.

So you lost £275 over an eight year period? I make that a loss of 66p a week.

 

Frittering money away like that, what’s your name? Sierraman Gerry Junior?

[Datsuncog]

Definitely seems down to luck. I try not to pay more than £400 for anything, and pre-1996 as a general rule of thumb.

 

Other than actual scrappers bought as spares for £50, most of mine have done me pretty well. A £120 Fiesta lasted two and a half years; a £170 Laguna over three years, with only consumables and minor bits needed. A £200 Polo was great, up to the point someone wrecked it on a botched theft.

 

Thinking about it, I find it's the £1000+ cars that have given me most bother. TAZ the £325 Phase 1 Laguna was the exception (as documented elsewhere), but its demise was as a result of bodging that I knew about and really ought to have rectified, so that one's kinda on me.

[Ghosty]

£500 - 30 mile radius - see what’s got the longest MOT whilst also being Japanese, petrol and NA.

 

Game over.

If you do this you WILL end up with a 1996-2001 Honda Civic 1.4i with rotten rear sill ends and trailing ends of the rear arches.

[Junkman]

Something unfashionable. I stay away from performance, complicated or luxury cars.

I disagree partially.

Old luxobarges are the damn best value for money.

It's the grim and mundane chod that's usually commanding a premium.

[beko1987]

I disagree partially.

Old luxobarges are the damn best value for money.

It's the grim and mundane chod that's usually commanding a premium.

I agree. Possibly not as much nowadays with company cars and them generally not lasting 4 years from new, but I remember when I first got into shite an oddball/exec car, one owner from New, 160 nicely maintained k, 13 years old. All the value has been gotten out by the owner who has bought a new car to repeat the cycle, and thinks the old one is worthless. That's where we pounce and show off our inch thick wads of paperwork with pride!

[wrenchvolt]

Definitely seems down to luck. I try not to pay more than £400 for anything, and pre-1996 as a general rule of thumb.

 

Other than actual scrappers bought as spares for £50, most of mine have done me pretty well. A £120 Fiesta lasted two and a half years; a £170 Laguna over three years, with only consumables and minor bits needed. A £200 Polo was great, up to the point someone wrecked it on a botched theft.

 

That's awesome bangernomics. Do you have any tips, tricks or any particular buying rationale? Is rust a big problem for the pre-1996 stuff? 

[wrenchvolt]

I disagree partially.

Old luxobarges are the damn best value for money.

It's the grim and mundane chod that's usually commanding a premium.

 

Fair enough, I'm certainly no authority! I am drawn to some of the old luxobarges and I agree they are great value for money. Usually built well with sometimes low millage and good service records. I just get twitchy about high spares prices, fuel and tons of electricals to go wrong. I do agree that econo-chod seems to command a premium, like Fiesta's in my area at the mo.

[Junkman]

 

 

Fair enough, I'm certainly no authority! I am drawn to some of the old luxobarges and I agree they are great value for money. Usually built well with sometimes low millage and good service records. I just get twitchy about high spares prices, fuel and tons of electricals to go wrong. I do agree that econo-chod seems to command a premium, like Fiesta's in my area at the mo.

 

 

The only thing I'm worried about fuelwise is that not enough is burned for The Climate Improvement®.

There is no secondhand market for luxobarges, because John Doh is scared of them.

It's exactly this that opens the door for our sort, since the seller knows exactly that when I rock up

he's looking at the only man for miles who is daft enough to take it on.

 

 

I remember when I first got into shite an oddball/exec car, one owner from New, 160 nicely maintained k, 13 years old.

 

I haven't had such a new car in decades.

[beko1987]

You don't even get such new cars now. Bloody finance bollocks keeping the value up because the person who's been paying £400 a month for the last 4 years thinks it's worth money still, so it gets flogged at a greater cost, person B keeps it 6 months before passing it on etc etc so you get 10 year old repmobiles which have been serviced the bare minimum required up for 2 grand.

[DodgeRover]

(£500-£220)/2 Years of ownership is storming value for money. When looking at PCP loans (Wasn't PCP a drug in the 80's???) and depreciation rates, that's some seriously good bangernomics IMO. Getting motoring costs like that is winning at life.

PCP was angel dust I think - some sort of tranquilliser that killed pain and made you feel invincible.

[Doctormop]

I seem to remember PCP/ angel dust being mentioned in Miami Vice, it sounded frightening then and it does now, takes all your money, brief delusions of being someone to be reckoned with, always ends badly for the poor sod who gets into it.

Buying cars for next to nothing is always fun, not so much fun if you've got £200 to spend on a reliable old nail to see you through a period of unemployment and provide reliable transport to a new job that requires you to be on site for 5am come rain shine or indeed snow otherwise its bye,bye chap, if you don't want the job somebody else does...... OMG nobody wants to work for us what's wrong with people.

Which is totally different to walking to work, full time hours contract choosing a car as a plaything or hobby to tinker with in your spare time; I've seen both sides and know which I prefer.

 

(Says the man who keeps a Honda Civic 1.4 as a plaything or hobby because it just won't let me down and I can't bear to betray its loyal service over the past four years)

[Durham850]

In my opinion the advent of over complicated electronics and ECU'S that control almost everything in the car has fucked the bottom end of the market! You no longer guarantee yourself a decent car by buying on condition because now the car can be pristine with one owner from new and full service history and it can still throw it's ECU out of the pram, this has very recently happened to me with a cmax, had it 2 weeks, had to get a replacement ECU and clocks fitted and then sold it because I no longer trusted it, got myself a mazda 3 now because it's Japanese reliability but even that's a gamble!

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I've had better to be honest. Had a Mondeo on 2005 for £550, sold it again in 2013 for £275. Still bitter about losing all that money in such a short space of time.

 

 

You were maced.

[wrenchvolt]

I seem to remember PCP/ angel dust being mentioned in Miami Vice, it sounded frightening then and it does now, takes all your money, brief delusions of being someone to be reckoned with, always ends badly for the poor sod who gets into it.

 Yeah that's the shit!

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

Cars, when all is said and done are machines, when they are fucked they are gone. I wouldn't keep a broken cooker in the garage because of all the good meals its made over the years.

 

Some cookers are better than others though.

 

My £250 323i Touring is on borrowed time. At present not runs and drives very well, but it won't see another MOT and the first sign of a serious misbehave such as an overheating drama or the gearbox doing strange things and it's history. I shall run it until either next March or an FTP, whichever is the sooner. Nobody will thank me for spending a day under it fitting my spare automatic gearbox. Threads like Cog's Laguna odyssey give me the tremors. Fuck that for a laugh.

 

It cost me a monthly payment on a Kia Misery and it'll break to £600 with ease. 

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

The only thing I'm worried about fuelwise is that not enough is burned for The Climate Improvement®.

There is no secondhand market for luxobarges, because John Doh is scared of them.

It's exactly this that opens the door for our sort, since the seller knows exactly that when I rock up

he's looking at the only man for miles who is daft enough to take it on.

 

 

 

 

'Twas ever thus.

 

In 1986, as a spotty 19 year old herbert with 500 quid I looked at all manner of prestige rubbish to outdo mates and their shit Escorts. At the time I was rebuilding a Mark II Mexico but I needed prestige wheels to lure the bitchez into my leather/velour cocoon. I went to a well known purveyor of shit in Thatcham on the A4 where I perused a selection of quality* vee-hicles. P reg XJ 3.4 that weighed more than a 5.3 due to the quantity of wob, a green sand thing that smoked like a bastard. No. Volvo 264? No. Rover 2600 in white on a T plate? It's clean. Why is it parked so hard against the fence? Because the nearside is slaughtered. Ahhh, a metallic green R reg 728 manual? 20 spoke 'loys, velours, tape deck and so much filler in a rear quarter that the fuel flap was recessed about 10 mm. Looking down the side would make you seasick but it started, ran, good clutch (4 speed manual yo) and £499. Got it for £450, couldn't insure it, didn't give a fuck because in those days insurance certs said 'any vehicle owned by the insured' or some such bollocks. I didn't crash it but 15 mpg average was painful. ULF401R, now Tesco value toasters and castings for Worcester combo boilers one assumes. 

 

Nine years old and dropped from £9000 to £450, another high mileage shady old BMW of which there were many. The 3.0Si and E9 CS cars we could have bought in the mid eighties for 500 quid. Worthless. 

[wrenchvolt]

Working on the assumption that buying a banger @ <£500.00 is for economic reasons (pretty fair one to make I suppose), it's not the purchase and repairs that hit me hardest, it's fuel and insurance that hurts. Therefore, I could be willing, theoretically at least, to pay a bit more for a car if I'm able to offset that cost on lower fuel consumption and insurance.
 
I'm a weirdo that puts the whole costs of car ownership into an excel spreadsheet. I never admitted that in public before.....prolly with good reason.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

I just like to get all the $$$$ back when selling/breaking a car. I can afford a nice/new one but my inner tightwad prevents this.

[tooSavvy]

The daughter is 'swapping out' her Motability car soon.

 

Went and sat in a Suzzi SX4 cross 1.0T.

 

V Nice = high access good for the daughter, she doesn't drive.

 

Not interested in a new car, with yours/hers anybody's money

[Datsuncog]

That's awesome bangernomics. Do you have any tips, tricks or any particular buying rationale? Is rust a big problem for the pre-1996 stuff? 

 

Well, funny you should ask that...

 

 

I bought a copy of this way back in 1994 and, even if the cars featured in it are no longer commonplace banger material, the principles are still broadly correct. I understand James Ruppert did bring out an updated version a few years ago, but secondhand copies of this one are available for pennies online - and I still flick through it before going out to look at a potential chod purchase, even now.

 

 

 

 

I'm absolutely not a shite guru, but having an interest in cars from an early age and constantly goggling at them probably gave me a sense of when they look 'right', and when they're sitting weird and hiding something nasty.

 

Reading Auto Express and Car Mechanics also helped make me aware of common issues and problems with certain models (like the galloping rot that kills many a Mazda 6, and the same for Peugeot 307s). I'd say that many mid-90s cars seem to rust less than ones ten years younger, for various reasons (Ka fuel fillers, Golf 4/Passat front wings).

 

I also worked in Halfords for many a long year, so spoke to a lot of owners about their cars and problems/common failures while ordering up parts and trying to help diagnose weird clonking noises. I would describe my actual level of mechanical expertise as 'low', so it's maybe more osmosis than rigorous application of knowledge that helps me spot a dog.

 

The pre and post-'96 rule seemed to come about because my 1996 and earlier cars seemed just that little bit simpler electronically and mechanically than later cars. This was graphically illustrated in my long-running and histrionic KAZ and TAZ thread...

 

http://autoshite.com/topic/30085-datsuncogs-heaps-110518-lil-thunder-ignorance-aint-bliss/

 

KAZ was a 1996 Laguna 1.8 in base trim, costing an Autoshite member £170 and which I then swapped for my terminally ill 2004 Alfa 156 that needed removing from my life at all costs. It was covered in giffer dings but drove beautifully, and despite being cosmetically challenged gave me no grief at all between May 2014 and August 2017 when I took it off the road.

 

 

Vanity had got the better of me, as I'd started looking for a nicer, cleaner example of a Phase 1 Laguna, as a long-term 'keeper'. TAZ cropped up as a one-owner car registered in January 1998, supposedly the same 1.8 as KAZ but in slightly higher RT spec.

 

 

Yet the two cars were totally different. KAZ still had a distributor, single-point throttle body fuel injection, mechanical instruments, etc. TAZ had coil packs, common-rail multipoint fuel injection, airbags, digital dash bits, aircon... most of which went wrong.

 

I didn't fully apply Bangernomics principles to TAZ - I'd gone out looking for an early Laguna, and bought the first one I could find that wasn't 500 miles away. It turned out to be badly bodged in a few key areas. That was a mistake on my part.

 

As RBJ rightly points out upthread, it was indeed a bit of a nightmare trying (and failing) to get both these cars running again last month, but taking the long view, I've had very little bother with my fleet for many a long year. In hindsight, I probably should have just rung the yard the day after TAZ blew its brains out, but then I'd be living with the 'maybe it was an easy fix' regret forevermore.

 

I tried - I failed - I moved on. Everyone has their own threshold for ballachery. This way, at least my (strange, twisted) conscience is clear over the Renner twins that I did all I could reasonably do. For me, that's important. For others - no way.

 

To be honest, my 'best' cars have been opportunistic 'let's see what's out there' jobs - the Volvo 240 (bought for £360, used hard for 18 months during a house renovation, then sold back to the previous owner for £320 having only needed a headlight bulb and a 99p washer jet while in my care); the £120 Fiesta Ghia that had no MOT and no brakes, but I felt confident I could sort - and provided me with reliable transport during my years at uni.

 

 

The problem has been the cars I've travelled big distances to view, that I've then felt reluctant to turn down because they didn't 'feel' right -the XM estate that I knew had serious hidden rot despite a fresh MOT, but I was willing to risk it as it was still cheaper than hiring a removal van for an imminent house move; the Cortina estate that the vendor warned me (before I hopped on a plane to Glasgow) that it looked better in the photos than in real life. But there's always an element of the rough with the smooth, I guess.

 

This place is about mechanicing, sure, but it's also about stories. Triumphs, disasters, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Maybe it's therapeutic? Maybe it's masochistic? I dunno.

 

As well as Bangernomics, I was heavily influenced by Jalopy magazine in the early/mid 1990s - although it had sputtered to a halt before I'd bought my first car (a total heap of a Cortina for £80, but again I knew it was a wreck and I did learn a lot by taking it apart) it gave me a flavour of motoring heroics and disasters, and in a way has been my blueprint for life.

 

 

There was a lot in there about buying, selling and running absolute nails (and, indeed, there are some issues scanned for posterity available as PDFs on the Shitescan thread, should you fancy a read - it was also frequently hilarious. I like to think of it as an analogue version of Autoshite).

 

http://autoshite.com/topic/30704-shitescan-preservation-of-fading-old-newsprint-is-our-concern/

 

So yeah... to conclude, I'm no master of Bangernomics but at least where I have gone wrong (i.e. the Alfa) I was able to work out why the deal had gone so wrong (simply because it wasn't a car I would have chosen myself - a friend was selling it, I fancied a change around that time, and I applied none of the bangernomic principles).

 

Set a limit, play the field and see what's out there, look at pics carefully (easier now online than with Autotrader's postage-stamp monochrome smear of yore), see if the vendor appears shifty (like the dealer who kept switching the radio on loudly, to disguise top-end rattle on an Escort) and don't set your heart on a particular car.

 

Be aware of known issues with a particular model, and while it's nice to have bells and whistles to play with, low-spec cars seem to have less to go wrong with them, in my experience (like leaky sunroofs, or complex immobilisers). Do spend a while looking the car over fully.

 

Don't pay more than you can afford to lose should it all go tits-up and you have to get it HIAB'd away. And never get sucked into the whole 'oh, but I've just put a new exhaust on, so I can't scrap it - I suppose I'll have to get the shocks done now' because that way lies madness - and the clutch will go as soon as the shocks are done. Ask me how I know...

 

 

If you're not overly fussy, and can spot an 'honest' car amongst a heap of average bangers, then you should find yourself with some interesting motoring that hopefully won't reduce you to a quivering heap. Bargains DO exist - cherished giffer cars being sold for £200 aren't common, but they do crop up (my first Polo Mk2F was one of them). The trick is to get in there before someone else does, and tries to flip it for £1500. So keep a sharp eye out for cards in newsagents!

 

 

Lastly, have fun. If you just want an appliance to get about in, there's no shortage of basic boxes on PCP - but Autoshite is perhaps for those who think a little differently. The fun element is what this place runs on. So don't be shy to let us all know how you're getting on.

 

Enjoy!

[sierraman]

A lot of the pre 2000 stuff at banger money are old sheds. Same for a lot of the old school diesels, either done 250,000 or just generally worn out. With the shift away from diesel you can get some bargains with them, you've just got to buy a good one, sack all the 'occasionally does this that and the other' crap off. Run it then bum it off when it gives trouble. Don't get into replacing fuel pumps, injectors DMFs etc.

 

Key I think with bangers is do the necessary to prevent trouble in the future like rust and servicing. Never get into the mindset of restoration.

[wrenchvolt]

These are some fantastic posts with a lot of information contained within and is going to take me some time to digest. I'd like to say thank you for taking the time to put your experience and advice into writing. I have an e-book version of Mr.Ruppert's book, certainly worth me giving it a re-read. I’m going to spend a bit of time going over the points raised and see if I can draft some sort of summary or Tao of shittering/bangernomics. Only because my brain only works with small pieces of information at any one time.

 

I'm new to the forum and it certainly is a fascinating place. I haven't yet got my head around the differences between Bangernomics and shittering. Shittering, as you have said tends to focus on the fun of doing something a bit different as opposed to just the money and costs.

[sierraman]

Bangernomics is moreover a financial game as I see it. A bit like 'The Game of Life' but occasionally you get your hands dirty.