No such thing as a cheap car

[Matty]

Exactly what cortina Dave said. Life's too short to drive stuff you don't like. Even if it is a bit broken

[carlo]

At the risk of repeating myself and getting boring I'm still going strong on the 405 automatics.  First one I got was in 2005, and I've been driving nothing else since.  Have accumulated many spares from the ones I've scrapped, and usually have a spare running car just in case of disaster.  (They used to cost about £300 for a perfectly good roadworthy example with MOT, not so sure about the prices now though).  Obviously never had to change a clutch, and I think I've only had two MOT failures, for minor stuff, in 14 years.  I've never had to spend more than £350 on any repair on any of them, and none of them has had any rust on it.  The only time I've ever been stranded was once when an auto box failed one mile from home, fortunately I had another car lined up and ready to rumble.  I must have been on hundreds of trips to London and back and they just keep on going, bulletproof.  I can fix a lot of the stuff on them now and know all their (few) little foibles.  

 

I get 28mpg around the lanes and 38mpg on the motorway.  They are superbly comfortable, steer and handle like a dream, seat five in comfort and go like the clappers.  They also look sufficiently different now to look interesting.  I don't mind spending money on keeping them going as I enjoy driving them so much.

 

I love 'em to bits.

 

 

 

[Kiltox]

Nobody needs to be buying £400 parts for an old Passat from the main dealer.

[cort16]

When I was driving older cheaper stuff as a daily I just ignored any fault that wasn't to make me fall through the floor, make it illegal or fully stop forward progress. You kind of need to accept the issues otherwise it just gets stressful and expensive.

[Parky]

Our passat had a drivers door lock that was kaput, along with a rear near side door that would not lock with the fob. Just to buy the locks from VW is around £300 plus then there's the fitting.

So thats over £400 on a 14 year old car worth less than a grand. For two items that dont affect the running of the car.

Seriously, ten minutes with the WD and this is probably fixed so you can cross this off. Takes one issue out and makes the others feel more manageable.

 

The £300 saved covers the timing belt and water pump replacement.

 

Then it’s really just the dampers which won’t be that much? Whoever does your Cambelt will probably swap them cheaply enough if you provide some aftermarket replacements

[Shirley Knott]

If I was in the market for a new car on PCP I'd be looking for the highest spec and most toys possible for my money.

 

When buying chod, the opposite applies. No turbo? Good. Wind up windows? Winner. Basically I try and buy cars as close to being completely analogue as possible. This approach has served me well so far, between the Golf and the Lupo we've covered over 50,000 miles without a single engine warning light, they just start and go. The 940 is similar, timing belt? 2 hours on a Saturday morning and in situations where something's not quite right it'll simply run a bit lumpy rather than doing the whole ECU says 'no' trick.

 

RE future chod, I'm looking at Citroen C1/Aygo/Pug 107 and the latest generation of Skoda Fabia with the 1.0 MPI engine and £30 tax, both seem fairly simple.

[lisbon_road]

I think Carlo is right, and can be extended to many 90s cars, 405s, 306s, Astras and Cavaliers come to mind.  

[Kiltox]

They refused to MOT it?!?

 

They’ll lose their license for that surely?

[Squire_Dawson]

I don't often blaspheme, but, Jesus wept.

[puddlethumper]

My Pug van has been pretty cheap. Had it 18 years and mechanically probably cost 

no more than 300 a year. That's including a replacement engine, £150, gearbox, about £80,

fuel pump, £200, yikes, one clutch, two drive shafts, the odd wheel bearing etc.

So 18 years cost £5400. Fuck me, that sounds like loads. 

Only cost me 400 eurii though so quids in there then.

[Mrcento]

They said they couldnt rev it enough for the emisions test because the electric motor kicks in..................

 

Fucking hell

 

That's not how hybrids work on any level.

 

With that little knowledge i'd be recommending everyone i knew didn't use them. Probably best they said no.

 

Like a Halfords Autocentre, never, ever use them no matter how desperate you are.

[dollywobbler]

A Perodua Nippa still offers stupendously cheap transport, so your argument is invalid. Just lower your standards. 

 

We're at 3.5 years with ours, and I doubt we've spent a grand on it, including buying it/tyres/servicing etc. It would almost be more expensive to walk.

[RoadworkUK]

You can always rely on the doom and gloom on here. Not every car is about to explode at 3 years old.

 

Yeah, that was my fault. I've come to the conclusion that irony and nuance is hard to pull off on the internet, so I go for bold, sweeping statements now instead.

[D Spares & Tyres]

Those Passats are pretty good cars really. Just leave it unlocked with nothing of value in it. Job done. Don't try and fix it yourself, VW locks are fiddly little bastards

[loserone]

Ah, sense! If you don't live somewhere you can leave your car unloved, you probably live in the wrong place.

[D Spares & Tyres]

I never lock mine. If anyone does want to break in then they can just use the handle rather than damage it.

[lesapandre]

I never lock mine. If anyone does want to break in then they can just use the handle rather than damage it.

People try and break out of my cars - first squeeling bend and they are grabbing for the doorhandle...or if they are in the boot...

[loserone]

Yeah, I stopped locking cars because I didn't want the roof tearing on my MX-5. It's not a habit I easily got back into, though there are some places I will, where there's a lot of passing traffic stopping nearby, etc.

[SiC]

A mates housemate didn't lock his 406 with the idea that someone would open it instead of breaking into it. Which didn't work as some lowlife still crowbarred the door open to get to the inside handle.

 

They only nicked the change in the ashtray and the headunit steering wheel controls too. The controls turned up on eBay locally but naturally the police had zero interest when reported.

[castros_bro]

it all depends on your attitude, put a bit of effort, thought and time into something and you MAY get what you are trying for or you can just watch Eastenders (*other soup operas are available) and pontificate.   It's not difficult to change a Passat cam belt, in fact it is possible to do so whilst parked by the side of the road. Here's one I tried earlier. If you don't want to spend a bit of time doing running repairs etc then the choice is yours to either pay some one else or move on to a different mode of transport and so - for you - there are no cheap and reliable cars but for some others ie those who put a bit of effort, thought and time into it, there are. Mopeds on trailers made of old roofing joists are optional.

 

[bramz7]

Yeah but not everyone wants a basic car with wheels, a heater and glass.

 

Cheap cars are a minefield of a lottery now. Easiest way to 'do it' is to buy a car from someone you know, in my experience the majority of cars off of here I've purchased have done as they should. But even then...all it takes is one bad day coupled with another looming bill or breakdown and that car is on the receiving end of my malice.

 

But never ever ever buy something you don't like. Works well for about 5 minutes, but you'll have carrots on a stick everywhere.

 

Life's too short for dross. Please don't point out that I own a Rover 800 after saying that.

[Mrcento]

I've not owned a single car that has needed nothing but fuel, but my definite pound for pound champion is likely my Suzuki Ignis Sport.

 

Truth be told, all it really "needed" was a thermostat. I changed the radiator as belt and braces. I replaced the thermostat housing because i fucked it up rushing to finish in the dark so needed new coolant on top of that. Other than that, didn't even need bulbs, Fuel wise, pretty much 35-45mpg all the time.

 

Second place probably Vauxhall Calibra.... cavalier running gear so pretty much nothing to go wrong, needed rear lights replaced as they leaked, various bulbs and a window...but that was a break in, not the cars fault. Also had an occasional issue with oil pressure light and shocks were getting very tired.

 

Next, oddly, probably BMW E36 328i, from memory all it needed was a heater "Hedgehog", bulbs, 1 bush on the rear and a new spring in the handbrake in nearly 3 years. loses points for 16mpg round town though!, would do low to mid 30's on a run however.

[John F]

CBA scrolling through the whole topic, so soz if it's already been said before, but isn't this the very essence of this site?

 

If you like the car, fix it - with bits from scrappers, possibly, maybe even sourced from within these hallowed halls for either nowt or very little?

 

If not, bin it & move on.

 

There'll come a day when we're all wanking over weird stuff like Passats though. You heard it here first.

[garethj]

You can definitely stack the odds in your favour with shite, by choosing something that's got a good reputation.  I've had one breakdown in the last 5 years and about 80-100,000 miles with nothing newer than 15 years old.

[BorniteIdentity]

Just leave it unlocked with nothing of value in it. Job done. Don't try and fix it yourself, VW locks are fiddly little bastards

 

 

I never lock mine. If anyone does want to break in then they can just use the handle rather than damage it.

 

The voice of sensible, informed reason.

 

My old chum used to leave his land cruiser unlocked all the time, and just fitted a hidden isolation switch so it wasn't going anywhere.  If someone was desperate for his prog rock cassettes, they were welcome to them - it was better than spending the next eleventy years trying to vacuum up every last shard of glass from his arse cheeks.

[Mrcento]

It was better than spending the next eleventy years trying to vacuum up every last shard of glass from his arse cheeks.

 

Another solution would have been to at least wear some pants when he drove.

[Richard]

You can definitely stack the odds in your favour with shite, by choosing something that's got a good reputation.  I've had one breakdown in the last 5 years and about 80-100,000 miles with nothing newer than 15 years old.

 

That's easy though, try it with something that is newer than 15 years old and see how you get on.

[cort16]

I changed the radiator on the wife’s 2006 Seat Leon .

The horror , never again . It took me a full day and a grinder to change it.

The car was so dismantled at one point when my landlord wandered past he thought I’d bought it as a crash repairable .

[loserone]

You can definitely stack the odds in your favour with shite, by choosing a Laguna II

That's better.

[Cavcraft]

Really though, there are plenty of cheap cars out there that will run and run with little costs. It's just a combination of luck and fussiness, imho. Pretty sure you could go through most 'elderly' cars and find faults, but if it's something minor like one back window not opening or having to lock the car off the key rather than the fob etc, it's not the end of the world.

 

Fault free perfection is available, you simply have to walk into a dealership with your credit/debit card and sign on the dotted line for a brand new one. And not think that the first monthly payment combined with the first month's depreciation alone, would buy you a perfectly decent car you'd get two or three years out of.