bangernomics, where do you draw the line?

[sierraman]

The Chinese are ok at making stuff. Inventing things on the other hand.

[1duck]

I've never sold a car, I have however scrapped a few.

 

I still regret scrapping an almera that had 6 months test but the thing nearly killed me twice, that's where I drew the line, the clutch was slipping badly and I thought it wasn't worth anyone's time.

 

In retrospect it would have suited someone who wasn't in a rush to get anywhere, for a city commute it would have been fine, slip roads to motorways even slightly uphill not so much.

 

Fact it had cost me about 350 quid and lasted a year made my decision easier.

[beko1987]

It was much much cheaper for me to scrap the laguna and buy the 406 than fix the laguna!

[alcyonecorporation]

Depends how much you like the car and what you perceive it as.

 

I have a modern daily SEAT which will always get the money spent on it as I need it to get to work and back.

 

After that, everything else is classed as a toy - although my two Pugs can and have been used as back-up dailies.

The 305 served me well when I fucked my leg up last year (and then crashed my Seat) and the 605 came to the rescue when it somehow took THREE FUCKING WEEKS to sort the tyre out on said aforementioned Leonard (in the end, I used an up to date can of tyre glue jizz).

[sierraman]

I’ve never regretted scrapping any car. There’s always been a reason, it’s easy to say ‘yes I’ll do the work to give it a chance to survive but it usually ends up being in the hands of someone running it into the ground anyway. The Mondeo saloon I had, perfect case in point, clutch was on its way out but body was solid. Say I fitted a clutch, tidied it up and sold it on, I’d probably lose money selling it on to someone who just wanted a banger, plus I try avoiding selling cars at below a thousand quid because it just attracts all the idiots quibbling about every minor detail, taking hours to make a decision. Either that or people that think it’s some sort of market in Marrakesh and give you an endless tirade of ‘best price’ crap. I made the decision last time to have a policy of scrapping stuff when I’ve had enough. It’s just not worth the agg of advertising something to get another £50 from some idiot and having to suffer them pissing you about.

[Lacquer Peel]

The Chinese are ok at making stuff. Inventing things on the other hand.

Paper, printing, gunpowder, the compass...

[sierraman]

Recent inventions then.

[wrenchvolt]

Over the years, it costs me on average £500.00 to buy a car and make it reliable for 1 years use. If it costs more than £500.00 to get it through it's next MOT and have a measure of reliability, or it develops weird problems, it will get sold (truthfully described) or binned. Mazda is running well at mo, was running too rich when cold. Found carb settings online, used vac gauge and drill bits against carb body to set choke butterfly to spec, problem 98% gone. Sometimes a bit of time is all it needs. It nice to know if I couldn’t sell it and it shat it's self scrappy would give me £200.00 notes for it.

[Lacquer Peel]

Recent inventions then.

The e-cigarette, various medical advances.

[sierraman]

The e cigarette. Great.

[Lacquer Peel]

E cigarettes are great, you're right.

[sierraman]

I don’t mind them if they aren’t next to me. A lot of people seem to think it’s acceptable to fill those ones with the massive box on the end with this foul fruity smelling shit that produces loads of dense grey smoke indoors or on buses.

[1duck]

The e-cigarette, various medical advances.

 

I don't think they invented e-cigarettes pretty sure some yank was punting something similar back in the 80s but no one bothered because you know...sod lungs.

[pandamonium]

I tend to give up on cars when I 'sense that something might go wrong soon'

 

Sometimes just a weird smell is enough. I nearly gave up on my old Suzuki Wagon when I kept getting a dodgy smell on my journeys, until I realised I was driving past a sewage works every day...

[clayts450]

My problem is I'm too sentimental. I try to give every car I own a fair chance to survive. Invariably any car in my ownership is one step away from the scrapper however - I've never sold a car to a private buyer.

 

Thus the PT Cruiser, whilst needing just under £300 worth of work to bag a ticket, scraped through, and stayed under the price I paid for it. I don't necessarily 'adore' this car in the same way as the Streetwise but, iffy battery aside, it's never let me down and done what's asked of it, including daily duties when the Streetwise was off the road. However, I'm now at the stage where I'm thinking I don't really enjoy driving it and I want something else to take over tip run duties and wafty barginess....so it will probably go soon.

 

The Rover 45 V6 on the other hand I'm truly sentimental about, not least because it's so rare. I paid £250 for it 5 months ago. The parts alone to get it through the test (which it failed) are in the region of £100-200. I have nowhere to lay the car up to take my time fixing it. Therefore it is currently illegally parked on the public highway. I vaguely waved it in front of some Rover lickers at silly money - mild interest but no serious takers. Therefore it will have to be scrapped . True Bangernomics in action, even though it tugs at my heart strings.

[sierraman]

I’m a completely remorseless bastard when it comes to cars but I’ll campaign until the end to save something like an allotment or a working men’s club closing.

[bramz7]

Advertising a cheap car:

Potential buyer:

'oh it has this fault, this mark, oh this is a bit iffy, oh this fault you described means I can ask for money off..., I had to pay for fuel to get here can you knock that off the asking price'

 

Scrappers:

' here's your cheque, cya'

 

Be remorseless with your cars. Unless you're absolutely brassic and need the money, it's far easier to crush the broken/on its way out stuff. I've scrapped 4 cars and don't regret any.

[sierraman]

Yeah, when I sold the Mondeo the guy buying it was worrying about if the air con worked or why the central locking would be expensive to fix. I often wonder if they’ve ever actually bought a cheap car before. Worst is the culture of this ‘best price’ bollocks, bad spelling and swaps or swapping it for 30 camels etc...

[beko1987]

When I picked the 406 up we talked about for maybe a minute, the spent the rest of the time talking about other stuff!

 

Its why I prefer buying cars from here, nothing more than what was described as wrong is wrong! What is wrong is fettle able rather than needing actual hardcore work (probably)

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

When I picked the 406 up we talked about for maybe a minute

 

 

Sorry, who did? You and.......?

 

 

[Tamworthbay]

When I picked the 406 up we talked about for maybe a minute, the spent the rest of the time talking about other stuff!

Its why I prefer buying cars from here, nothing more than what was described as wrong is wrong! What is wrong is fettle able rather than needing actual hardcore work (probably)

definitely ‘probably’ in some cases sadly

[New POD]

I just put my stop gap Omega into a local garage today. So they can do the cam belt.

I have provided parts off eBay costing 40 quid instead of 200 quid plus. And I have provided locking tools which cost me 30 quid instead of 150 new.

Labour is going to come in at 200 squid.

But I'm rewarding it for doing 40k in 2 years as a stop gap.

[drewd]

I get too attached to cars, and really only look to sell them if they no longer meet my requirements or I have a replacement lined up. Generally if they have some life/MOT left in them I offer them to family or friends. If they're properly knackered they get scrapped, but that's not happened in a fair few years. On the few occasions I have sold cars to strangers it's generally been a pain, and the cars have all been sub £400.

 

I do spend more than I should on old chod that most people wouldn't bother with, as I view a cars value as it's usefulness or desirability to me, rather than what others would offer me for it. I've also had years of motoring out of old cars that people were going to scrap due to failing MOTs on brake discs/pads and CV gaitors.

[Dick Longbridge]

Interesting Fred.

On a tangent to bangernomics, but linked to ‘where do you draw the line’, my OH owns a 10 year old Audi A3 TDI. On a good day, I guess it’s worth £3300 ish.

However, it’s recently lit up its EML and has thrown itself into limp mode a couple of times. VCDS suggests turbo related issue. It may be a relatively cheap fix, or, worst case scenario, it’ll need a new turbo.

I’ve just scraped a new MOT onto it (switched off EML with cheap reader around the corner from MOT station), but it needs possible turbo work, cv joint, wheel bearing, a tyre, rear caliper and a full service to be tip top.

Despite the fact it’s one previous owner, full FSH until now, in excellent condition and loaded with extras, what’s it realistically worth as it sits? Not a pile, I guess. However, if we bite the bullet, how much is it going to cost to get it back to what it should be? If it were a sub £1000 shitter, I’d not hesitate in getting shot of it as it sits. Problem is that in good nick, it’s worth half-decent money.

My current theory is to potter around in it for a couple of months, then stick it up for sale with a long MOT, but ‘requiring some work’. I’d like to think that’ll be financially better than trying to get it fixed and ready for sale.

Difficult one...

[sierraman]

Look what happened to the camera when the digital revolution swept the market, the move to battery electric propulsion is likely to be as disruptive to the car market. Today, almost everyone has a camera but they're just a tiny bit of hardware and an app on a 'phone' and what was once the preserve of special effects labs is there with bells and whistles on. The movie camera has combined with the stills camera too, for the 99%.

 

The LG tablet I use for 80% of online work can take highish res movie, or load from another source, I can then edit it to a good standard and publish within half a day or less. This would have needed tens thousands of pounds of equipment and a raft of higher levels of skill not so long ago. Ok, so the end result is distinguishable from 16 or 35mm celluloid and a pro lab, but it's different, not inferior and infinitely less hassle for a fraction of the cost.

 

Speed has been the goal for most car makers almsot from the start, sustained high speeds are increasingly impossible (congestion/cameras) so acceleration has become the focus - something all EVs can achieve rapidly. Being able to move around has long since lost all the magic there once was and the car has grown increasingly like a study room, with high quality music and fittings, connectivity and comfort rapidly becoming must-haves. Once electronic guidance becomes the norm in heavy traffic, then just as the phone has changed into something which is a media device with a phone app, increasingly the car may well move away from being primarily a transport tool unless it's an autonomous public taxi.

 

This extra room outside the (increasingly cramped) house/flat may be turned into the main office and communication centre for the many who don't need to commute anymore, a source of power for the house for when grid electricity prices are very high in the 24hr cycle and even the virtual reality pod.

 

For commuting or travel alone, I imagine some lightweight, possibly even tandem seater high efficiency machine with minimal frictional drag. These will be what 'petrolheads' in the latter half of this century will personalise and improve.

 

'Cars' could be so cheap and reliable, there'll be no sense in finding something old and needing repair. Alternatively, if Ellen MacArthur's Circular Economy sees the light of day, our practical skills set could be used like never before. Who knows?

What about this in the future... car ownership has been outlawed by this point, special non metallic plastic pods can be ordered to your door within a lead time of less than 2 hours, travel you’ve used is deducted from your wages each month. Work wise, fortunately robotisation has removed the demand for work or have any purpose in life, the only jobs available now are with Capita, Google and Apple. Anyone lacking a degree in coding is effectively unemployable now. All contracts now are either fixed term or zero hours is the norm now, in effect people’s future is at the mercy of one of the big corporations - if they say it’s Friday then it’s Friday. Hence unpaid overtime is effectively compulsory, the retirement age by this point is generally 80, assuming you live that long.

 

Now the NHS has become so indebted, private healthcare has become essential, most people that work have 20% deducted at source to contribute solely to the their healthcare, however you are only insured up to a point. Now the healthcare system has been privatised, the cost to sort anything out has become stratospheric. So effectively ending up with something god awful like Cancer would mean if costs more than your policy would mean you would be written off to control the spiralling cost of old age. Those that purchased property would hand this over automatically in old age to cover the cost of nursing homes etc. Not that that’s very relevant now as most houses have been compulsorily purchased to rehouse families that needed a 3 bed house, those ‘over occupiers’ would be relocated to solitary flats. The youth crippled with no job prospects would mostly be resigned to living in pods in tower blocks that would make a bedsit seem spacious. Welcome to 2030!

[beko1987]

Sorry, who did? You and.......?

 

 

Gareth! (ha!)

[HMC]

For people who are not DIY cambelt’ers, the roulette thing comes into play. For a car worth £300 the outlay of it can easily exceed the cars value. Knowing when not to do it (in the context of MOT length and other possibly terminal issues) is a skill, and obviously luck. Otherwise you can have a car with a dismal mot fail with a shiny recent cambelt , tensioner and waterpump on something heading for the bridge.......

[cort1977]

Recent inventions then.

 

Not picking a fight and obviously the Chinese are the masters of copying everything but i read this week that Chinese companies are now filing massive numbers of patents and spending big on R&D.  People used to laugh at Japanese and Korean engineering and look at them now.

 

http://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2018/article_0002.html

[dieselassist]

I need to get a bit more 'merciless' when it comes to the ailing daily whatever, n sacking it off - its become like 'Onslo' front garden here at times over the years; car with their arse up on axle stands, while I sort some test issues like rear axle bushes, brake lines or the ever time consuming welding; I have a tendency to just 'go at them', working though the cars list of test fails - psychology being its a bit more productive than just staring at the thing... 

 

Invariably, with life the way it is and its many distractions, said ex-daily heap often spends more that the desired or allotted time 'semi-dismembered' awaiting the next bit of spare time, or dry day/calm to do the welding - or whatever; .....it'll eventually get sorted, I sigh as I pass by the thing in the morning on my way to my borrowed or newly acquired €500 'short test new sensation' to carry me to work, while the neighbours look on in semi disgust...

 

...Its a belligerence, and a buck against the  'throw away society' we live in to attempt to fix them; a Huge Folly, I often think, but I still keeping doing it for some reason...

...I did manage to flog off the ex-daily disco 300tdi; for the pricely sum of 'whatever it would actually cost to pay someone else to weld its chassis up, had I not been a welder myself...

 

...chap came round at 8am on sunday; he looked at it the previous week (after Id cobbled it back together as some sort of a representation of an 'entire jeep')...

 

...all the clattering of trailer ramps n reving engines (had to jump start it) woke up the neighbours- left a bit of gap on the avenue, and the neighbours were treated to a more clearer view of the site of my newest daily- Audi A4 avant all jacked up at the front, with its side skirt, bumper headlamp n old wing off, while I arsed about fitting its new 'same colour' wing I got for €30 off a polish lad to replace the old rusty one... I did finish all that with the audi n its back to daily duties again!"!

 

... a house across the way is for sale on daft.ie but they wont put the estate agents sign up 'lowers the tone' apparantly'...

 

... a pic of the disco 1 getting trailered away...its PROGRESS (but what is the PROCESS) lol

[Angrydicky]

Buying and selling cheap cars at the bottom end of the market is hard work, because you're mainly dealing with idiots who lie about the condition of cars they're selling, and generally piss you about on cars you're selling.

 

That's why it's always better to buy and sell through here, because 99% of people on here are genuine and very honest. It's easy to browse cheap cars on Gumtree and Autotrader but there's so many shysters out there you have to be careful. I looked at three cars before buying the Clio advertised on here, all of which were in far worse condition (two had undersides that looked like they belonged on the Titanic) and they were all more expensive with less MoT.