Project Dick's cars: Mk2 'Scrote joins the fleet!

[dome]

Good to let this thing see the light of day. They're definitely underrated little sportscars.

I've had zv7s on the Accord and found them decent, not had them on anything sporty. I put Rainsports on ours as a cheap road tyre, they're pretty good. 

[Cookiesouwest]

Plus one for not buying Avon.

They were my favourite tyre brand and fitted them for many years.

But last set of 4 started cracking within a year and were an advisory on mot.

Shame because in all other respects they are brilliant.

Now fitting Kormoran. Michelin owned Polish outfit. All good so far.

When I'm flush, I fit Michelin all season. Very very good.

[Agila]

5 minutes ago, Cookiesouwest said:

Plus one for not buying Avon.

They were my favourite tyre brand and fitted them for many years.

But last set of 4 started cracking within a year and were an advisory on mot.

Shame because in all other respects they are brilliant.

Now fitting Kormoran. Michelin owned Polish outfit. All good so far.

When I'm flush, I fit Michelin all season. Very very good.

I take it the michelin are the cross climate?

Where are you buying the Kormoron from? National or a local chain?

I'm genuinely gutted about avon 11 out 12 tyres are fucked, (the 1 falken is mint)perished on the shoulders and now big long fuck off cracks in the tyre tread area.

I reckon I'll change the fleet to uniroyal rainsport or falken.

Really wanted to support avon as they make a point of british manufacturering. They can get in the sea now.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

@dome I agree that MR2 Roadsters are underrated. I've owned a number of Japanese sports cars over the years and this one is the only one I haven't had the urge to sell, even after almost six years of ownership. I love the fact it's basically a road legal go-kart - simple, brilliant handling and encourages you at every opportunity to provoke it. 

 

As for the comments on Avons, that's pretty gutting! BIL fitted a set on his SLK a while back and was singing their praises. My father ran Avons on his van for years too, although shifted to Continentals more recently. I run Falken ZE 310s on my fiancées E91 and have done for a few years. They've always been brilliant. I thought I'd try Avons on the MR2 as I assumed they'd probably be better again than the Falkens. Price-wise, they were slightly more expensive. I was originally scouring the 'net for Toyo Proxes TR1s, but couldn't find any in stock in my sizes. I briefly looked at Uniroyal Rainsport 5s too, but reviews didn't seem brilliant. 

Time will tell I guess! 

[Asimo]

I got through a couple of sets of the recommended oem tyres on my MR2, I don’t remember what they were, (Yokohama or Bridgestone) but the internet was then full of warnings about how I would die if I drove an MR2 on any alternative tyres.

Eventually I got pissed off with their short - much less than 10,000 mile - life and got a set of Continentals fitted.

Much better in every way to drive and wear rate much, much better.

[Cookiesouwest]

10 hours ago, Agila said:

I take it the michelin are the cross climate?

Where are you buying the Kormoron from? National or a local chain?

I'm genuinely gutted about avon 11 out 12 tyres are fucked, (the 1 falken is mint)perished on the shoulders and now big long fuck off cracks in the tyre tread area.

I reckon I'll change the fleet to uniroyal rainsport or falken.

Really wanted to support avon as they make a point of british manufacturering. They can get in the sea now.

Yes Michelin Cross climate. The CRVs get Michelin. Rest of fleet get Kormoran.

Kormoran from Asda or Black Circles. They are a good mid range tyre, using older Michelin tread patterns.

[Cookiesouwest]

8 hours ago, Dick Longbridge said:

@dome I agree that MR2 Roadsters are underrated. I've owned a number of Japanese sports cars over the years and this one is the only one I haven't had the urge to sell, even after almost six years of ownership. I love the fact it's basically a road legal go-kart - simple, brilliant handling and encourages you at every opportunity to provoke it. 

 

As for the comments on Avons, that's pretty gutting! BIL fitted a set on his SLK a while back and was singing their praises. My father ran Avons on his van for years too, although shifted to Continentals more recently. I run Falken ZE 310s on my fiancées E91 and have done for a few years. They've always been brilliant. I thought I'd try Avons on the MR2 as I assumed they'd probably be better again than the Falkens. Price-wise, they were slightly more expensive. I was originally scouring the 'net for Toyo Proxes TR1s, but couldn't find any in stock in my sizes. I briefly looked at Uniroyal Rainsport 5s too, but reviews didn't seem brilliant. 

Time will tell I guess! 

Don't get me wrong, Avons are very good tyres. But after fitting a full set to Mrs CSW ZS180 and then getting advisory for cracking after less than 6k and one year, I was less than happy.

Tyre fitter said it was all down to the rubber compound. Better grip but less life span. They had seen a lot of Avons with premature wear.

This was about 4 yrs ago now, so Avon may have got its act together now and tweaked the compounds.

Switched to Toyo. Good, but not as good as Avon. Same issue with cracking though. 

Not had Kormorans on any of the fleet for long enough to comment on durability, but I suspect they will last longer.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

4 hours ago, Cookiesouwest said:

Don't get me wrong, Avons are very good tyres. But after fitting a full set to Mrs CSW ZS180 and then getting advisory for cracking after less than 6k and one year, I was less than happy.

Tyre fitter said it was all down to the rubber compound. Better grip but less life span. They had seen a lot of Avons with premature wear.

This was about 4 yrs ago now, so Avon may have got its act together now and tweaked the compounds.

Switched to Toyo. Good, but not as good as Avon. Same issue with cracking though. 

Not had Kormorans on any of the fleet for long enough to comment on durability, but I suspect they will last longer.

When I owned my classic Impreza turbot a few years back, I ran a set of Yokohama Paradas. They were just the right balance of grip whether wet or dry and didn't wear too rapidly, despite being a fairly soft compound. They were a funky looking criss-cross pattern too, which I always liked. Similarly, Toyo Proxes used to have an usual v pattern which always made them stand out.

Current road tyres look much more conservative in contrast.  I guess technology and testing has proved that tyres don't need to look complicated for the best possible grip. Interesting about rubber compounds deteriorating too. I wonder if that's just modern rubber being shite compared to say a couple of decades ago? 

 

[Cookiesouwest]

2 hours ago, Dick Longbridge said:

When I owned my classic Impreza turbot a few years back, I ran a set of Yokohama Paradas. They were just the right balance of grip whether wet or dry and didn't wear too rapidly, despite being a fairly soft compound. They were a funky looking criss-cross pattern too, which I always liked. Similarly, Toyo Proxes used to have an usual v pattern which always made them stand out.

Current road tyres look much more conservative in contrast.  I guess technology and testing has proved that tyres don't need to look complicated for the best possible grip. Interesting about rubber compounds deteriorating too. I wonder if that's just modern rubber being shite compared to say a couple of decades ago? 

 

The fitter said a set of Dunlop from the 30s would still be crack free.

He may have been slightly exaggerating but a valid point.

Rubber compounds are now all about grip. To achieve that, longevity is sacrificed. My dad gets 5-6 yrs life out of Michelin. When budget allows or vehicle demands (Mrs CSW drives her CRV like Colin McCrae, so needs really good tyres to stop her crashing in the same way he used too), I buy Michelin.

Anything else gets good mid range tyres.

[Matty]

I've got Avon zv7s on a 330ci and an st150. No problems with them whatsoever. Good wet and dry grip, wearing well and good progressive handling from them. Both cars are oined to death as well. Maybe the problems described above are a thing of the past now? Get em on 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Smol update. 

I've used our local (30 minutes away) National Tyres for a couple of services with my fiancée's daily as they've been competitively priced and seemingly professional. The first service resulted in oily fingerprints all down the side of the driver's seat on an interior which had been valeted only a few days earlier. I pulled them up on it and they sent out an old chap with a roll of tissue and a squirty bottle. He removed 80% the marks so I begrudgingly left it at that. 

12 months later we used them again for a service. All seemed ok this time. This gave me the confidence to use them for fitting a pair of Avon ZV7's mentioned higher up in the thread. However, one tyre has slowly lost air ever since. I took the wheel to a local place today (rather than 30 minutes away back to National) as I assumed it was a puncture due to me, rather than fitting issues. The chap who looked at the tyre showed me that the tyre wasn't sealing properly on the rim bead and was unlikely to have done a few weeks back when fitted due to alloy corrosion. A quick clean up and it's fine now. £15 down. 

Whilst removing the wheel, I spotted the improvements to my nearside sill lip which had been intact when left with National a few weeks ago:

The moral of the story? Avoid Truro branch of National Tyres - they're shit! 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

So... the outcome of the above was I got in contact with National Tyres and explained the scenario. One of their fellas called me back a couple of weeks later and explained I would have 'been made aware of the corrosion on the inside of the alloys as advised when the tyres were fitted and when given an advisory receipt'. 

No. I wasn't told anything of the sort apart from 'here are your keys mate' and wasn't given an advisory receipt either. Long and short of it was the chap duly refunded the £15 I'd had to spend elsewhere to correct National's work as a goodwill gesture. Cap doffed to him, to be fair. As for the sill, he denied responsibility and suggested it was probably done when I took it for MOT at a local garage. I agreed to disagree on that one as I stand and chat during most MOTs I know the chap who does the MOTs well and would have spotted if he'd cocked things up when jacking the car up. 

The moral of the story is always ensure you have a decent walk around your car after having work done. It sounds obvious, but I guess I'd just trusted garages not to be ape-handed previously. 

[alf892]

On 29/07/2021 at 19:13, Dick Longbridge said:

 

The moral of the story? Avoid Truro branch of National Tyres - they're shit! 

That didn’t happen weeks ago for sure……..maybe consider being more careful with your accusations

[Dick Cheeseburger]

This leads me onto my old Morris Minor. It was my second car back in the mid 1990s. I had a LOT of fun with that car and as an 18 year old who loved driving, spent a lot of time buzzing around in it with my girlfriend at the time. She was a feisty lass and I have nothing but good memories of that period of time with the car! 

I eventually sold it to free up funds when I started to buy and sell cars for a short spell prior to starting uni.  I always missed the old girl and a decade later in 2005, my brother messaged me to say he'd discovered it sat on a driveway a few miles from my parents place. 

The engine had been fully rebuilt and ran well, but it had been sat for six years. It was always a bit rough around the edges, but by now it was ROTTEN. The owner wanted £50 for it or was otherwise going to scrap it. I bought it back straight away and weighed up the options. Unfortunately the rot had eaten into every last corner - the drivers door hinges completely came away from the A pillar when I opened it, the floors were on the way out, and the metal around the springs and torsion bars looked grim. I still managed a few drives up and down the lane with a mate who knew ny car from the glory days of ten years previous and it still drove really well. Even the brakes worked!

I ended up selling the engine to a lad with a Moggie van - he removed it, took a couple of other bits and gave me £75, which covered the transportation fees which I'd paid to drag it home. I kept the rear number plate which still has pride of place on my garage wall and scrapped the rest. It's the only time in over fifty cars and almost three decades of driving I've ever scrapped a car.

Until recently, the paperwork for the Moggie has sat in a cupboard at my parent's place. They've now had a clear-out and I thought I'd take a few photos of some of the paperwork before I bin it, more for self-indulgence than anything. It's interesting to see that the A series appears to have had a rebuild both in the early and the late 1990s! Strange really, as when I owned it in between both periods, it pulled hard and ran beautifully. 

Great memories. 

 

 

[Lankytim]

I bought a Minor for spares a while back and it was so rotten I was able to pretty much rip it to pieces by hand. They can really rot!

[Dick Cheeseburger]

9 hours ago, Lankytim said:

I bought a Minor for spares a while back and it was so rotten I was able to pretty much rip it to pieces by hand. They can really rot!

Mine was a bit of a patchwork quilt when I owned it originally, although the bodywork was clean and tidy. I'd imagine it must have been MOT standard plates over existing rot though considering just how bad it was a decade later. I think even a seasoned car restorer would have sucked through their teeth!

[Dick Cheeseburger]

So, six months back I bought this as a practical daily.

As documented on here recently, the slight gearbox whine became progressively worse to the point that I had to call time on it. The new owner drove it forty miles back to its new home and is over the moon with it, despite it's gravelly box noises. She plans to have a refurbished box fitted soon. 

 

So, Leon sold and no practical daily for a minute meant only one thing... the MR2 needed to be awoken from its slumber. I'll have owned it for seven years this summer and despite occasional thoughts of selling, I just can't quite pull the plug on the old girl. MOT time with a Japanese car which is almost twenty years old is always slightly nerve-wracking, but the car proved it clearly wants to stay in the family with a clean pass. Just amazing. 

I'm off to pick up our lad in it later - I promised to pick him up in 'the sports car' if it passed MOT and he was excited by the idea of being back in it. Hardtop is going back into storage this evening too. Spring has sprung! 

 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

On 8/20/2021 at 10:37 PM, Dick Longbridge said:

 

 

On a different note, I found a photo of a photo of my Morris Minor from when I owned it around 1993. We were staying at a campsite in Tintagel at the time. Fortunately, it didn't look wonky in reality.

The top photo of it when I bought it back and ended up breaking it as it was so far gone was taken in 2005. It certainly went downhill in the interim...

[Dick Cheeseburger]

I spotted a bit of a local landmark at Walmart Asda just now. One of the young lads who's a driver for Dominos dailies this breadvan. It's clean as a pin - kudos to him for choosing this over a modern blob. 

 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

A couple of weekends ago I took the lad to Wadebridge Wheels- Cornwall's largest car show apparently. We'd never been before and it certainly didn't disappoint. Just a shame it was one of the hottest days of the year! Will definitely head back again next year. 

We even saw a Reliant Rialto wrapped in tinfoil DeLorean with a wheel missing! The grey Toledo was sporting MX5 running gear and was pulling endless positive attention. The K plate XR2 is a proper oddity. I remember it was rescued originally by a bloke on the blue called 'PeteTong' and he did a load of work to it. However, he sold it cheap and in need of a respray and the bodykit refitting. Then it disappeared off the radar for a decade. Great to see it looking so clean once again.

The white Fairlane was one of the cars of the show for me. Absolutely gorgeous.

[fatharris]

I was gutted when this turned out to be the same weekend as ShiteFest - one of the best shows of the year to get to.

 

Great photos too.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

3 hours ago, fatharris said:

I was gutted when this turned out to be the same weekend as ShiteFest - one of the best shows of the year to get to.

 

Great photos too.

Thanks. I reckon you could have shown your Beat there and gained some interest with it.

[dave j]

I've never been to Wadebridge wheels but seeing some of the pics of it this year I think I must go next year! The grey Toledo is from Plymouth. As it's basically an mx5 with a different body he uses it as a daily! It even has the mx5 dasboard. It's a brilliant creation!

[Dick Cheeseburger]

New blood. Feeling guilty as I last changed it four years ago although I've only done around 5k with the car in that time.

My oil vacuum pump is fantastic with our E91 as the oil filter is a top access job, close to the dipstick. 20 minute job, no jacking involved and simple to do.

However, the MR2 oil filter is located at the rear of the engine block so I had to crawl around underneath and I ended up hanging after managing to rub about 50% of my body and clothing against the sump (which is oily due to an O ring leak which I've also been meaning to do for ages). At least the vacuum pump does away with the need for an oil drain pan and sump plug fun and games, even if I do still need to scrabble around under the car. 

The next oil change will be much sooner! 

[Missy Charm]

Are we still talking about tyres?  If so, I have to say that Falkens have always served me well.  They feel sufficiently sticky in the dry and wear well, if more quickly than a true budget tyre.  

[Dick Cheeseburger]

14 minutes ago, Missy Charm said:

Are we still talking about tyres?  If so, I have to say that Falkens have always served me well.  They feel sufficiently sticky in the dry and wear well, if more quickly than a true budget tyre.  

That was our family motor - the E91. I ended up sourcing a pair of Falken Ziex 310s locally and they actually worked out slightly cheaper than they would have through Blackcircles! I've run Falkens on the family car for the last five years and they've been excellent tyres. 

I fitted a couple of Avon ZV7s to the rear of the MR2 a couple of years ago - documented earlier in this thread. They're ok although I've since seen Uniroyal Rainsport 5s which I fancy fitting on all four corners ideally. There's a small chance I may be able to store the car in the dry this winter in which case I won't look at tyres until spring when the car goes back onto the road, post salt-spreading. 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

I've finally bitten the bullet and spunked a number of groats on a Lanoguard kit. It was far from cheap but the MR2 urgently needs some half decent underbody protection if it's going to survive further British winters without sparkle stick surgery. Next job is to source a pair of car ramps and wire wheel the flaky stuff first. 

Not a job I'm particularly looking forward to...

[Dick Cheeseburger]

MOT time for my OH's E91 today. A few advisories but nothing too horrific. Whilst the test was ongoing, I took Longbridge Jr for a walk around the parking space around the side (after he'd watched the brake test and our car 'flying' up on the ramp!)

I reckon I was more impressed than him - he was more keen on jumping in the puddles! 

A friend of a friend owned a metallic blue Rapier back in the early 90s.  Quite a leftfield choice for a young lad back then. Having said that, our mutual friend owned a 68 mk1 Escort - they liked their classics. 

The XJS in front is a mega low mile, super clean example.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

So, MR2 has been pulled off the road as of the start of December to avoid the salt and to undertake several jobs. 

One thing on the list is the exhaust, which is mullered. 

I've managed to source a Malian 200 CEL sports cat. 4 months old with 3k miles on it, so happy with that. The flexis on my original flexi pipe are shot so the new pipe solves that issue whilst allowing things to breathe a little more easily. It looks really decent quality.

I've also bought a set of original mats from the seller. They've got a small area of damage but are much nicer than the aftermarket ones which were fitted by the previous owner many years ago.

Another seller had a twin stainless exhaust setup available. It looks similar to a Powerflow but is unbranded. 

He threw in a wheelarch liner along with various clips and trim bits from the MR2 he was breaking which I needed for mine.

Weird one with the exhaust when it arrived though. There is heavy damage to one of the pipe outlets. The box didn't appear to have any damage on it though... 

Historic damage to the exhaust from when it was fitted to the other car? What do we reckon?

The seller was more than fair about the issue. I now need to see if there's anywhere locally which will be able to fabricate a short, stainless exhaust section to replace the crushed part. Bugger! 

 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

Currently sat in A&E with our little 'un who took a nasty tumble earlier. Possible broken finger along with gravel rash. 

I've also bought a cheap 2004 MR2 which is a scruffbag with a short MOT. However, it's a 67k car with virtually no rust, a lovely TTE twin exhaust and nice straight panelwork. It would break for a fair bit more than I paid for it. 

I'm either going to tidy it up and try and make a few ££, swap the best bits off this one onto mine and punt it on, or break it and try and make a few quid. That does seem a bit of a shame for a 67k car though. 

In the meantime, it'll sit on the drive along with my long-term MR2. I'm sure the curtains will twitch. 

I've not actually made it home with the car yet - hopefully our poor little fella will be seen by a doc and we'll be out of pediatrics before too long and I can get it home.