Cars with a short fuse - they go bang shortly after you get them

[SiC]

Our V6 cdti vectra - we had it just over 12 months before it developed a large appetite for coolant. Stood us at £2k, sold for £500.

 

If anybody offers you a car with the isuzu V6 diesel engine punch them in the dick.

You can't say you weren't warned before you bought it! I can remember at least myself warning about that engine.

[Isaac Hunt]

Brand new Montego, picked it up, drove it to the other side of the car park to pick something up from the boot of a colleagues car. Colleague, not knowing anything about cars proclaimed there was water coming out of the exhaust. Me knowing a lot about cars told him it was just condensation, loaded up my boot and drove off 110 miles to destination.

 

Came out of my destination, jumped in the car, flat battery symptoms, but it did start. By the time it did it the second time, I realised it was hydraulicing. The cyl head was replaced and then a few hundred miles later a complete engine.

 

It isn't only our shite that grenadeds within miles of peerchase.

[spike60]

I bought a 1979 Volvo 244 GLE as an unwanted p/x from a dealer for £380, the next day it seized the cam and snapped the belt as I arrived at work. 27 miles covered since collection.The oil feed was coked up and I cleared it, polished the worst damage out and drove around for the next couple of years including quite a few European family trips. 

The Merc Sec I bought between Christmas and New Year made it slightly further, 32 miles before flaking out on the way home. Belived to be 80's immobiliser guilty, it was not entirely unexpected on it's first long run after 16 years off the road.

[dozeydustman]

My second Scimitar threw a big end on way home from Collection. Made it roughly half way back between Gravesend and Norwich, just got on the M11. Dad was following me in his (later mine) Ford Cougar, I limped it to a services and awaited Britannia Rescue. And had to pay the Toll charges each way for the recovery.

 

in 2011 when my dad gave me the Cougar as a birthday present along with my flashy number plate, 2 days later the clutch went. It was the original and had lasted 120k...

 

Also had an FTP on a 205CTi I was looking at buying when the clutch gave up completely. Was cheap to start but vendor wouldn't drop price even by £50

[Rod/b]

2004. I bought a Citroen BX on eBay for 75 quid. Got the train from Essex to Aberystwyth to collect it. Met seller in the station car park, got the keys and set off home. 10 minutes later the BIG RED LIGHT OF DOOM came on and the engine started labouring. Limped it to Glan yr Afon industrial park to see what was what. Engine pinging and ticking, noticed the water pump belt missing - it had been there earlier... Hmmm.

 

Luckily the motor factors was open, so I bought new belts. The Iveco truck garage was shut for the weekend but their apprentice was in working on his rally car, so some borrowed tools, an hour of time and a top up of water later I was back on the road.

 

15 minutes later the BIG RED LIGHT OF DOOM reappeared followed by a large bang and a cabin full of steam. Fuck this - car dumped in a layby, bus back to Aber, night in the boozer and a B&B, and a phone call to Mike Oliver the scrapman.

 

Went back to the car to see it scrapped, to discover some cunt had broken in and stolen the shiny new tax disc. Paid the scrapper to remove the car and got a train home again, paying walk-up prices.

 

That was a very expensive couple of days.

[Tamworthbay]

Not mine but back in 1990 I saw a fiesta in a scrapyard in Leeds with 1.8 miles on the clock. The new owner had picked it up from the dealers, driven away and then hit the accelerator instead of the brake at the first set of lights and hit the arse end of a HGV writing the car off. Other than ones trashed in transit there can’t be many cars that have lived shorter lives. Sadly I was in there after my beloved mini YAU930S was T boned by a moron who attempted to overtake as I turned right.

[lanciamatt]

Years ago I took mi mate to buy a volvo 240 that had been stood. It took us ages to free the brakes off, paid the guy £200, on drive home the bonnet flew up and smashed the screen, drove straight to scrap yard and got 90 quid for it. Money well spent lol

[wuvvum]

Our V6 cdti vectra - we had it just over 12 months before it developed a large appetite for coolant. Stood us at £2k, sold for £500.

 

If anybody offers you a car with the isuzu V6 diesel engine punch them in the dick.

 

My V6 DCi Vel Satis overheated on a long uphill stretch of the M20 (not far from where the MX3 cooked itself in fact), but that wasn't strictly speaking a FTP as I found if I kept it below 60 it was OK, so I just trundled home in the slow lane with the lorries - took me bloody ages but it did make it under its own steam (as it were).

[Bren]

My V6 DCi Vel Satis overheated on a long uphill stretch of the M20 (not far from where the MX3 cooked itself in fact), but that wasn't strictly speaking a FTP as I found if I kept it below 60 it was OK, so I just trundled home in the slow lane with the lorries - took me bloody ages but it did make it under its own steam (as it were).

Everyone of those engines should be burned with fire.

[Bren]

20 year old buys 3.0 GXL Capri at 11.00 am , fits RS Alloys and 185/60 P6es at 2 pm. Sees 140 on the speedo at 10.00pm , runs big ends at 10.01pm.

Following day removes wheels and twin headlights at 10.30 am , on the bridge by 11.00 am.

I'd like to think I've learnt something in the intervening 35 years, like to think...

Unless the crank has had attention by a tuner high revs are a good way to kill an essex V6 - mahoosive crank journals and inadequate oil feed equal lots of noise and failure to proceed.

[Snipes]

Exactly. The thought of shifting £5,000 down the drain on a car makes me feel a bit ill.

That was probably a fairly safe bet years ago but not with cars the way they are nowadays.

[bunglebus]

 

I thought the Astra was bad when ... the thermostat was stuck open which was behind the cam belt, now it was just a minor hiccup in comparison.

 

Pretty sure every SOHC Astra ever has a faulty thermostat. My mum's 91 and 93's both have/had and so does my mate's lovely* 2002 auto. Whoever put it behind the cambelt needs their lumps felt.

 

20190311_135753 by RS, on Flickr

[Lacquer Peel]

Can you bypass it with the Renault 5 in line thermostat?

[mrbenn]

You can, me and a friend have just done it on his Astra.

[Amishtat]

This thread has reminded me of the lad who lived downstairs from me in Colchester about twelve years ago. Never have I seen someone have such serial shit luck with cars. When I moved in he had a fairly fucked ex-plod 306 diesel which he was running on veg. One day he excitedly told me of the late E34 525 td he'd bought. The next day, driving it home from Peterborough he hit a deep enough stretch of water to lock it solid. Straight to the knackers it went. Shortly after he spied a J-reg 214 for sale a few hundred yards up the road so asked if I'd go and have a look with him one evening. Evidence of K-seal made me advise him against it but he needed transport there and then so bought it anyway. That one lasted him two days before impersonating a kettle in the queue at the A14/A12 junction one morning. Its replacement was a clean Daewoo Nubira with which he managed nearly a week before opening the door on a busy road without first checking his mirror. Next (this is all in the space of about three weeks) he found a tidy 5-door Mk. 1 Golf 1100,quite unusual even in 2007.The first weekend he had it he went to stay with some friends on the South Coast. Come Monday morning both passenger side windows had been smashed and crudely clingfilmed. I moved out shortly afterwards but still wonder sometimes how that Golf ended up.

[Cavcraft]

I’ve had a car break down on a test drive before. Unfortunately I was the one selling it.

 

Had the same, Mk3 Capri 2.0S. It'd only run out of petrol (luckily) but it put the lady buyer off. When she got home she was good enough to ring me, point out she was a copper and then told me the real reason she didn't buy it was the MOT certificate didn't match the number plates. That was an arse twitching moment, luckily just a 'typo' at the test centre who sent out a new one.

[HillmanImp]

I've had three eBay purchases fail to get me home:

 

G-reg Toyota Celica, picked up from just outside London, threw a big end bearing coming off the M11.

 

Mazda MX3 V6, bought from Kent, overheated on the M20, came the rest of the way home on the big yellow truck.

 

1968 BMC ambulance, picked up from Derby, got on the A52 then the underslung spare wheel fell out of its carrier and landed on the propshaft, snapped it clean in two, cracked the bellhousing, and the flailing bits of prop took out the brake pipes and handbrake cable, and locked the back axle solid at 50mph.  That was interesting*.

Statistically speaking though with the amount of shite old cars you've bought thats pretty good going.

[Rocket88]

This hateful pile of shit.................ebay purchase some years ago............picked it up from Birmingham....in the dark...in January..........shat its oil cooler 32 miles later. Getting it from Brum to Portsmouth resulted in four breakdowns............