My luck with cars - part 3

[pogweasel]

I had no idea that you could get a car from 2000 with MOT for that little an amount.....

You can buy plenty of cars that age for that sort of money!Open your local paper and look at all the sub £500 Mondeos. A family member has just bought a tidy Vectra GSI on a W for £800. That's 190 bhp and 140mph++, plenty of space & comfort & toys. Still want to buy a Nippa?

[Andrew353w]

I can't believe it! I've (sort of) met someone who owns a Perodua! I had a brochure for them, which I picked up at my local Lada dealer, way back when Lada were coming to an end in the UK. I have NEVER seen one on the roads... Or perhaps I have and thought it was a (sort of) Micra! The brochure did say they were cheap... and that was in 1997!

[brammy777]

I had no idea that you could get a car from 2000 with MOT for that little an amount.....

You can buy plenty of cars that age for that sort of money!Open your local paper and look at all the sub £500 Mondeos. A family member has just bought a tidy Vectra GSI on a W for £800. That's 190 bhp and 140mph++, plenty of space & comfort & toys. Still want to buy a Nippa?

Well it has been a while since i looked on autotrader haha.And in answer to your questionNo First car is pre 1990, i know that much.

[pandamonium]

Still want to buy a Nippa?

Sure I do. I'd like to see a Vectra or Mondeo do 400 miles on 20 litres of fuel. And that is a true figure - I've tried it! (This is my second Nippa)I'm not being arsey about it, just saying I hear your concerns, and still love it! It will also fit in a lot of gaps you'd struggle to get a Mondeo through!

[Pete-M]

90.3 mpg? You sure about that? That's only slightly worse than a gently driven AX diesel.The official figures for it are a lot nearer 60 mpg on a run, 45ish in town. A Mondeo TD will do 40ish in town, 50ish on a run.

[Milford Cubicle]

'X miles on x amount of fuel' is such an inaccurate measurement. Does sound like it's really thrifty though!Give panda a break. I like Peroduas too. Wouldn't pay £1300 for one though.

[pogweasel]

PWNED. I would not like to take one on a 'run', I imagine them to be very unsteady and ultra unpleasant on anything more than an urban dual carriageway (meaning that you need another car if you want to go anywhere long distance, another lot of insurance, tax, running costs : you're still not selling it to me!)

[dollywobbler]

Meh. Can't be much worse than the Daewoo Matiz, and I thrashed one of those all over the country without managing to fall over.Mind you, that was only doing 40mpg the way I drove...

[VWPowered]

I'm off to Retro Rides to sulk and talk about matt black paint.

soz dude i was shocked at the prices, if you paid more for a gud un, then fair dues but i'd be surprised if the insurance company would repair it so i'd take his money and run it as it is

[pandamonium]

Yeah, ur right, I was going on a full tank being 20 ltrs. Its actually closer to 30 ltrs

[Milford Cubicle]

I would not like to take one on a 'run', I imagine them to be very unsteady and ultra unpleasant on anything more than an urban dual carriageway

Oh aye, I thought an 847cc city car would be great for wafting.I think they're supposed to be alright to drive actually, fairly nippy and with good handling.

[STUNO]

Hey you lot. Pandamonium got what he wanted to use for an everyday runabout, newish, low mileage, service history etc. Cheap tyres to replace and even a good heater. They go suprisingly well too and even start every morning.There's not one of you who would think that gettng it biffo-ed would be funny. Poor chap has enough motoring disasters without this !

[whitevanman]

Gonna get Mark (nightmaresracing) to quote, then present it to the chap, see if he coughs up.

Didn't realise you knew mark............

[Mr Lobster]

Irrespective of what you paid for it, if you are happy then thats fine! I imagine they are a decent enough car for what they are - our '99 Suzuki Alto was very basic but a great car for what we wanted it to do - although £1299 seems like lots of money for a Nippa.As far as the damage goes though I wouldn't be going through the other guys insurance. They will absolutely 100% certainly see it as a total loss even with that damage and then you'll end up getting about tuppence back from the insurers.Yeh you might be able to keep hold of it and get a bit of a payout but it'll be a Cat C and give you a load of grief which you probably don't need.As others have said, give him a quote for a couple of hundred or so and hopefully he'll do the decent thing and come up with some £££££s.Good luck!

[garycox]

He didn't pay £1299, that was just an example.I personally wouldn't want a Perodua but that's not the issue here...If you go through the insurance it will be loads of hassle, I'd ask for a couple of hundred and see if he pays up.I once reversed into a parked Mk4 Golf, I didn't want to go through insurance as I was 19 and had already had a bad crash. The owner went through VW, got an extortionate quote (new bumper and bracket, metallic paint, over £600! was literally some cracked paint from what I could see.) but I paid up because I knew it'd cost me less in the long run.

[Guest]

Meh. Can't be much worse than the Daewoo Matiz, and I thrashed one of those all over the country without managing to fall over.Mind you, that was only doing 40mpg the way I drove...

I had a Chevy Matiz whilst my C4 was in for repairs (they should have kept it).It did not get treated well. I drove everywhere in 2nd and 3rd. This gave me a fuel consumption average of 23 mpg.Well, if fucking Enterprise were going to have the cheek to give me a car with £6's worth of fuel in, with busted tracking, filthy and stinking of fish and chips, it's not going to get respect, is it? All this for £49 a day. I lost count of the number of times I pinged that stupid shitbox off the rev limiter. Probably the roughest OHC engine I've ever had the misfortune to drive behind.I gave up with it in the end and they eventually gave me a Zafira because I was supposed to get a like for like replacement car. They took the Zaf off me within 2 days though, 'because someone else wants it'.I told Enterprise and Tesco that I wasn't paying for that shithouse excuse of a car, they could both shove their charges up their collective arsehole, and I blezzed around in the Amazon for a week while I got my C4 back.

[Station]

I had to 'lol' when you said about fitting your mates in a Matiz. I wouldn't might one of those Peroduas though!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Give 'monium a break! He is championing a car which has been hand-sculpted from a massive block of solid shite, so surely that is worthy of some respek.

[pandamonium]

I've had a 'quote' back for £300 from Mark, so I reckon that = total loss in most insurers eyes!

[Mr Lobster]

Unfortunately I'm certain the insurer would see that as a total loss If the guy is happy enough to settle up in cash how likely is he to change his mind when he sees it's £300? If he's decent enough then he will realise that it's (possibly) cheaper for him to pay up rather than lose any NCB he might have and have his premium increase next year although that price might just push him towards doing it through insurance.I find that an awful lot of people think that bodywork is far far cheaper than it actually costs. I have had many many many arguments with people who bend a sliding door on a van, scrape a wheelarch or whatever and think we are ripping them off when we tell them it will cost more than £100 to fix

[pandamonium]

As a side point, just re-filled the tank after doing 56 miles round town and it took 6.9 ltres to fill it.

[Guest]

Something similar happened with some lad on Retro Rides with a high-mileage Saxo. People were going "take em to the cleaners" and he was coming back with quotes like £400-500 to get all the parts brand new from Citroen and have them all painted up. I thought the world had gone mad, it was just bolt on bits - front wing and a bumper, as found on tens of thousands of Saxos parked up in scrapyards across the country. Madness.Sure you'll be able to get a mint wing for sub-£50 from a breakers. Might have to ring round a bit, but they'll exist as Nippas seem to get scrapped for owt nowadays. You might as well be picky and wait for one in the right colour, I think they only did them in about 3 different shades. Vic replaced the wing on a 306 all-in for about £40, took him about 30 minutes to do himself with a crap socket set - polished it all up and looked perfect. No bodyshop required. If you're really bothered about the bumper scuff, I had a similar one sorted by a professional for about £45. If not just go down "Motorworld" and get a touch-in pen for a fiver.Bit of a ballache but nowt to panic over.

[Station]

I'd just get one from the scrappy. The fact that he came forward and said 'it was me', I don't think he deserves this pikey try-to-get-a-bit-more from him stance. And from what I can see, it's just a little knock at the front!If you go up to him and say £300 - £400 he's going to laugh in your face, call you a twat and say go through insurance.

[Pete-M]

I'd just get one from the scrappy. The fact that he came forward and said 'it was me', I don't think he deserves this pikey try-to-get-a-bit-more from him stance. And from what I can see, it's just a little knock at the front!If you go up to him and say £300 - £400 he's going to laugh in your face, call you a twat and say go through insurance.

+1.If he thinks you're taking the piss you'll either get nothing, or have to go through the insurance - and the lil' Nippa will be written off.(and 56 miles for 6.9 litres is 36.89 mpg)

[Mr Lobster]

I'd say to go back to him, show him the estimate for £300 and then try and see how he reacts. He might pay it, he might object. What I suspect is that he thinks it's going to cost £100 to fix so when he sees an estimate for £300 he'll change his mind about paying for it himself.If he objects, go down the compromise route of 'well I can get second hand parts etc' and tell him £200 or whatever you are comfortable with. It's better (to a point at least) for him to pay up rather than have the hassle of going through his insurer with the resultant increase on next years premiums. Personally, I'd be glad that he has been honest and owned up - a lot of people would have just driven off If you can get it sorted without any cost to you then great, but don't take the piss, if you are not getting it repaired just tell him £100 to cover the cost of scrapyard parts if you do decide to fix it later on.

[Pete-M]

Personally, I'd be glad that he has been honest and owned up - a lot of people would have just driven off If you can get it sorted without any cost to you then great, but don't take the piss, if you are not getting it repaired just tell him £100 to cover the cost of scrapyard parts if you do decide to fix it later on.

I suspect the problem Panda is going to have is repairing the car for less than its perceived value. Bodyshops aren't going to slash their labour rates and paint is no cheaper for a Peradua than for a Porsche.I'd be taking £150 max. from the chap.The other thing is, if the bloke is a neighbour or a regular visitor and Panda takes the cash and doesn't fix the car, Panda is gonna look like a right tw@.

[Mr Lobster]

Thats very true. I think the best result would be £150 = wing from scrapyard + touch up paint for bumper + hour or so to fit it = fixed Nippa and few quid left for a pint afterwards.

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

The thing is, Citroen sold 1.3 billion Paxos in the UK and Perodua sold 9 Nippas. Where would you get another wing?That's £150-200 to panel beat and paint at a back street bodyshop.Give 'em a £200 quote. If they say 'fuck that' and go through insurance you might have a result - 500 quid payout and you keep the turd.How would you value a Cat C Nippa?

[gtd2000]

(and 56 miles for 6.9 litres is 36.89 mpg)

That's shit really isn't it!My Persona averages 40MPG and peaks at 46.xMPG on a run

[Guest]

The thing is, Citroen sold 1.3 billion Paxos in the UK and Perodua sold 9 Nippas. Where would you get another wing?

Here's five of them to get you started: eBay search results for "perodua nippa breaking"Cheers!