The grumpy thread

[chaseracer]

...I went to see this

 

http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C161235/

 

God, I should have taken a metal detector, it looked Sweet in the pics, it turned out to be a badly welded Patchwork, and rusty in all the wrong places...

You can always spot a numpty. They are the ones who start their ad with "here we have..."

 

Tossers

[Inspector Morose]

Fairly Autoshite...

 

 

 

[Rocket88]

You can always spot a numpty. They are the ones who start their ad with "here we have..."

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds that phrase horrendously annoying.....

[rocco1504]

Phew, thank Christ.

 

I've just had a look back through some of my past listings, and thankfully none of them start with "Here we have"

 

Nice bus pics Metrobi.

Do you get to meet a lot of Lidl customers ?

[M'coli]

Spent all of today elding up the inner arches on my ex-colleague's Disco, one of the last built before Ford took them over. So that makes it about 15 years younger than my Metro, so why is the rust protection STILL THE SAME? A smear of brushable seam sealer from the factory. Did they look at how other companies did it and not understnd that it was better???

[Lord Sterling]

Sterling decided to throw a wobbly after filling it with petrol for work. On my way home it began grumbling and generally not running well, huge plumes of smoke began appearing out of the exhaust.

 

I cant go to work like this tomorrow so may well have to pull a sly one and say my car broke down on the way to work - bearing in mind this is my second week temping, I was due to do a six days including a saturday, which would have brought in a nice boost to my bank account. Now I may lose my job.

 

Fucking car.

[cms206]

Metrobi - is that not one of those lovely 4-speed Wumpty Metros, or is it a normal 3-speed? Always liked Metrobuses... !

 

(oversized MPV hat off... )

[Inspector Morose]

Indeed it is and well spotted sir! GR9 for 60mph blasts down far too narrow Irish roads with mental trucks firing themselves at you from the opposite direction.

 

Luckily the bus was to give a party to all the staff at Lidl Ireland so didn't have to spend much time with the happy shoppers of this parish. One more day to do (four stores in the centre of Dublin) then thats all the stores visited by Metrobus!

 

Lots of photos of the trip. When I get it back home I'll see if I can post some more up if anyones interested...

[cms206]

Nice! I'll look forward to seeing photos anyway... nicest Metro I've had a hurl on was B159 WUL, had more comebacks than Gene Hunt but had a superb party trick in that it'd do 48 in 2nd... and 52 flat out in 3rd. Great old tubs... I know what ya mean about Irish HGVs, did two return trips to Stranraer last week on the coaches, nice getting overtaken on the A77 by Irish HGVs but postively shit yourself scary when they're barrelling towards you flat out!

[Inspector Morose]

Trick is to barrel along back at them, they soon get the message that there is something on the roads as mad as they are.

 

(disclaimer. Only works when driving a bright yellow Metrobus that's capable of lots of mphs)

 

Hmm, this is grump thread so will leave it all to the miserable bastards out there...

[Guest]

There's an insect moving inside my monitor. Whatever it is is moving to the nearside like a geriatric game of Arkanoid.

 

[retrogeezer]

watching Police Interceptors, they find stolen cars in a car park, locate the keys in a house and arrest the people living there then the voice over says no charges were brought over the stolen cars.....why the hell not????

[Alexg]

watching Police Interceptors, they find stolen cars in a car park, locate the keys in a house and arrest the people living there then the voice over says no charges were brought over the stolen cars.....why the hell not????

Yeah, I always watch Police Interceptors, Cops with Cameras etc. I love seeing car thiefs getting dragged screaming out of their boxed in Mondeo and then get sat on by 3 burly coppers.

 

Then I get annoyed at the end when I hear. "The Car thief in Reading received a 3 month community order and was banned from driving for 6 months" - Yeah, that'll learn 'em

[Lord Sterling]

Just been to garage to get my car checked out, white smoke billowing from exhaust, they confirmed the head gasket was on its way out, a rare thing on Honda engines, but I have to land with the one that does have a problem(s)

 

This means of course that I will have to give my job up because I have no money or other way of getting to work.

 

I'll have to take my car off the road aswell.

 

So, my life is shit and my car is fucked. Next.....

[warren t claim]

Just been to garage to get my car checked out, white smoke billowing from exhaust, they confirmed the head gasket was on its way out, a rare thing on Honda engines, but I have to land with the one that does have a problem(s)

 

This means of course that I will have to give my job up because I have no money or other way of getting to work.

 

I'll have to take my car off the road aswell.

 

So, my life is shit and my car is fucked. Next.....

Sorry to hear that. Can anyone on the 800 forum help you?

[Lord Sterling]

Sorry to hear that. Can anyone on the 800 forum help you?

Thanks Warren. I might get a few offers from the forum, but its rustling the money up to get the job done, I've only just found out anyway so will wait and see what the reply is.

 

At the moment the plan is get my car off the road and my Micra back on unless something else crops up.

[trigger]

Right i got the right hump now, That Cortina i missed out on at the weekend has now turned up on ebay, The kunt who bought it was dealer after a quick buck, I'm really fucked off right now as I really did want this car.

 

[seth]

Gah! What a bummer

 

Something will turn up that also tickles your fancy, I'm sure.

[trigger]

I know Seth, These things happen for a reason and all that but it's just annoying, I told the owner at the time that selling it for £995 was very cheap but part of me hope that the buyer was at least someone that would keep it and look after it rather then a trader just buying it for a profit.

 

I should of offered him more then the asking price for it in hindsight.

[warren t claim]

I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself at the moment, I've been watching ebay & car&classic all day incase something pops up, This afternoon i have to go to the inlaws so about 1 1/2 hours later i get time to have a quick look on car&classic again to see that a 1970 Mk 2 Cortina 1300 in white had been posted a hour earlier, and that it looks like good condition with a years ticket and rare bench seats and column change all for £995 and it's only in Essex.

 

http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C169982/

 

I quickly ring the owner up, it's near Chelmsford so not far, Belonged to his dad who's just died and just wants to get rid, Sadly though there was a bloke just about to come round to view it, He rings me back 25 mins later, It's just sold for the full asking price.

 

I'm gutted

Sorry to hear that Trigger, but to be honest it probably wasn't as good as it looked in the pictures, they rarely are, and something better will come along. I had a similar situation with a Morris Oxford I fancied a few months back, the bloke did want too much for it so I walked away, even though I did like it but not enough to pay what he wanted for it. There is so much choice tat you could buy with that BMW money, no need to buy an old Dagenham d*stbin is there now

 

Fancy an Austin A30/35? I reckon I could find you a tidy one of those within your budget, else pop over to Essex Triumph and see if there is anything equally antiquited and shite for sale. Sooner or later, you will find something really decent that will make you glad you didn't spend your money on something not as good.

Oh look! Here's the very same £995 Cortina....

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1969-FORD-CORTINA ... 4151547c34

[greengartside]

That sort of thing pisses me right off. I have never been in a situation such as that whereby I have missed out only to see it pop up but I can understand Trig's pain of seeing it come back round again so soon for a pure and simple quick buck as mentioned.

 

The seller only has 96% posi feedback so it sounds like he's a bit of a wideboy/truth-bender anyway.

 

You still not found anything yet Trig?

[warren t claim]

That sort of thing pisses me right off. I have never been in a situation such as that whereby I have missed out only to see it pop up but I can understand Trig's pain of seeing it come back round again so soon for a pure and simple quick buck as mentioned.

 

The seller only has 96% posi feedback so it sounds like he's a bit of a wideboy/truth-bender anyway.

 

You still not found anything yet Trig?

I missed out on a Pug 306 on gumtree last week and was well pisses off to see it listed the next day fo twice as much. Eventually he had to reduce the price to exactly the same as what the previous owner was selling it for and I still wouldn't call him out of principal.

[trigger]

Not yet, there's no panic yet so hopefully something else will come up soon as I'm missing having a toy.

[pogweasel]

Thing is though, anything vaguely "OSF YKT" will make massive bucks, especially in your area Trig, so it's really not surprising. Exactly the same as with Torsten and that Escort, I suspect pur man was offering a solid price, but a scene monkey stella-quaffing moron offered twice that then sold for double that again.

 

There really are not that many bargains out there any more, and if you find one, you cannot procrastinate. Keep a big wad of £20's in your pants drawer on the offchance!

[Pete-M]

scene monkey stella-quaffing moron offered twice that then sold for double that again.

Hmm, so anyone who sees a profit in something is a moron?

 

Even though...

 

There really are not that many bargains out there any more, and if you find one, you cannot procrastinate. Keep a big wad of £20's in your pants drawer on the offchance!

So... if you procrastinate you'll get beaten to any bargains by a moron.

 

There seems to be a running theme here, and it appears to be;

 

1) Anyone who buys a car and sells it for profit is a moron,

2) Anybody who doesn't buy a car is a moron.

3) If you buy cheap and make money from it you're a scene moron.

4) If you wait too long and have to pay more you're a scene moron.

5) If you buy and sell classics for a living, you're a cheeky moron.

 

Unless you lose money on every car, in which case you're some sort of hero.

 

Am I missing something here?

[trigger]

Sadly the seller told me got the full asking price (£995) so the dealers onto a killing, I still think he's a moron though

[pogweasel]

What you are missing is fairly straightforward...

 

Fords = mega money

 

You know this Pete, else you woudn't be having a wrong-hand-drive escort restored abroad to make some bucks on here. No bother from me on that front.

I do find it mildly irritating that most classic Fords are well beyond my grasp, as I do love the old beasties, but I am happy to content myself with bavarian sierras as a second best.

 

As for the bargains thing, it is totally true.

4 or 5 years ago I could buy any amount of cool old shit for £100, treat it to an MoT, some autoglym and some cheapo alloys and look at £500 profit. Now you cannot find anything, or not around here anyway. I used to 'trade' 1 or 2 bona-fide retro cars a month, just for fun. Need MUCH deeper pockets to do that now, as a combined result of scrappage, the scrap metal cull of 2008 and the popularity of the "scene".

 

It's bare facts, and like I say, snooze you lose which is why sometimes you need to take a gamble with some instant cash!

 

________________

 

Just as a quick edit, I would still like to play the old car stock market... but with the stakes being higher, well, a family man canna play that. £25 on an old Skoda, £75 on a Chevette, £200 on a Escort, childs play. You can multiply some of those by 10 now for the 'stakes' involved. that's alot to lose if you don't play the game right. Old cars to me was like playing the fruities or having a £5 flutter on a saturday afternoon - only gamble what you can afford to lose!!!!

[warren t claim]

But is this guy a proper, tax paying dealer covered by the sale of goods act or just a chancer?

[Pete-M]

It's weird, y'know. Last year I was flogging a near as dammit perfect Mk1 Golf GTi. Fully restored a few years ago, used for a few months and then put into storage.

 

I was asking £2495 for it. Cheap, I thought.

 

Never ending succession of bellend Scene twats turned up and tried to haggle grands off it, so I fucked them all off. Sold it to a trader for £1800. He was happy as a pig in shit with it. He sold it on for about £5k.

 

Then there was the P6B. Bought that for £550, unseen, over the phone. Used it for a couple of months, tried to sell it for £1250ish, got that wanker with the rotten Merc E300 Coupé who wanted to give me a £300 Merc and £150 for it. Sold it to a trader for £900ish. It's had a quick respray and a bit of cocky in the wings and it was last seen being advertised by a classics dealer for £4995.

 

As you say, there are bargains out there, but people are spending far too much time looking for perfection for a fiver.

 

I could throw £1500 at this 635 and make it into a £6k motor. It wouldn't take much, but I can't be bothered. I've been offered £600 for the front seats alone, I only want £750ish for the whole bloody car, but there seems to be a massive big gap between stuff that needs work and stuff that is perfect.

 

Most of the old Fords tend to have had full restorations on them, because they're pretty easy to do. They're not gonna be cheap. If they've not been fully restored, they're eligible for classic race or rally events and easy to tune, and likely to win if they're decently set up. If they're the less motorsporty type of thing, like a 4dr Escort instead, they're less expensive, but only the nice ones tend to be left - which puts prices up.

 

Cortinas are still cheap, Granadas are rising, Capris are still out there for £6-700 with MOTs (if you don't want a Mk1, S, 3.0 or 2.8i), XR2/3/4s aren't expensive really considering they're 20 odd years old in most cases. Sapphire Cosworths have been the same price for 10 years or so, but prices on those are beginning to rise as restorations get more common.

 

Scrappage has sent the prices of pretty much everything up, so there's not as much choice. You either buy unpopular shite, or you pay extra for stuff people want.

[Pete-M]

But is this guy a proper, tax paying dealer covered by the sale of goods act or just a chancer?

Do you mean "Is this guy going to give a 6 month no quibble guarantee on a 40 year old car in return for his profit?". If so, I think you'll find they're all either very expensive, or "chancers".

 

I am so glad I've got out of the car trade.