Show us your estates

[Rust Collector]

Estates are life, would find it frustrating to get by without one - I've had times when I've been missing them in the fleet and it's a real pain in the arse when something large that I want to buy turns up and I don't have a car that will cope with it 😅 Also handy when a client delays approving production of their order until the day it was due, then announces the goods are no good after the required by date...

These are the operational ones I have currently:

These are awaiting re-commissioning, which I'd like to achieve this year:

My partner has an estate sat around too... She runs the Clio daily but has a soft spot for this as it's quick, automagic, AWD and the labrador rides in it easily enough:

Finally, honorary mention for this thing which the logbook claims is an estate, I'd say it's a 4x4 / SUV but whatever, it has a long roof either way 😄

[w00dy]

I've had a few estates and loved them LL

Merc 300TE 4MATIC -  A lovely thing with the very rare 4Matic 4WD system and nearly every box ticked. It was over £50k new in 1992 (or about the same as the average house).

 

Volvo V70 T5 Manual - Properly quick, bit rough around the edges and loads of space.

 

 

Golf 1.9 TDI Bluemotion - Comfortable, economical, but has become a complete pain in the arse recently so will most likely be going over the bridge.

 

Astra 1.3 CDTI Life - The latest addition and so far it seems like a basic, but likeable thing

[JMotor]

15 hours ago, AnnoyingPentium said:

I spy a blue Nova...

Yep. 

That poor wee car is dead. 

Miami Blue Spin. 

Sold it to fund another car. Was stolen off the new owner and torched!

[Rust Collector]

46 minutes ago, w00dy said:

Merc 300TE 4MATIC -  A lovely thing with the very rare 4Matic 4WD system and nearly every box ticked. It was over £50k new in 1992 (or about the same as the average house).

 

That Merc is a thing of beauty 😲

[AnnoyingPentium]

58 minutes ago, JMotor said:

Yep. 

That poor wee car is dead. 

Miami Blue Spin. 

Sold it to fund another car. Was stolen off the new owner and torched!

Gutted. My late Dad had two, being his first and second cars. His second one, a 1.4 SR in red is still on the road but was recently sold due to financial constraints of the lockup his mates were using to restore it. I watched the auction, think it sold for about £7,000. Don't know where it is now.

EDIT - I've found it, location is uncertain.

Anyway, I shan't stray from this thread's original topic any further.

[KitKat]

7 hours ago, w00dy said:

Volvo V70 T5 Manual - Properly quick, bit rough around the edges and loads of space.

I like these. What are they like to own? Is the old school Volvo “feel” diluted by the FWD? 

[3VOM]

15 hours ago, KitKat said:

I like these. What are they like to own? Is the old school Volvo “feel” diluted by the FWD? 

Big thing I noticed was turning circle is lots better in RWD cars.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I don’t seem to have the best lunch with estate cars, the e61 starting it’s journey to Lithuania after snapping its cam chain” Nah mate, those 3litre diesels are bulletproof “…

Volvo overheated.

300c hit by kamikaze A Class on M25.

[loserone]

I need to stay out of this thread.

Estates are good.  I need to get this one back on the road.  This boy is nearly six now.

 

These two were good too, but both too low.

This one was grand, but complicated

 

 

But the best estate of all was this.

 

I'd pay quite a lot for a solid, original one of these now.  It was amazing.

 

I am currently looking at V70 D5s to replace the Partner..

[GeordieInExile]

That 305 was *quality*.

Will I put you down for a random when I eventually win a roffle and have to roffle the 850 off as a result?

[loserone]

A petrol one would be entirely inappropriate.  

 

 

How much is it?

[GeordieInExile]

At the moment it's not for sale as I don't have a suitable replacement lined up, but... You never know what's gonna turn up on these here pages.

[Schaefft]

I usually go for the stuff that doesn't even offer estates as an alternative body style. So the list is rather short:

1997 Mazda 626 GW like in this photo (not mine, I had alloys). Decent car, just hopelessly underpowered with 90hp.

And my most recent acquisition, the A6 Avant:

I'm extremely tempted by this Caprice Wagon posted in the Ebaytat thread but just cannot justify it. If it was a Roadmaster maybe... I'll probably regret not buying it, I hope someone from here will as it seems like a great deal...

[Minimad5]

I can't recall them all, but I'll add what I can remember.

First up probably the best car I've owned, comfortable, great on fuel, reliable, spacious and blooming quick. D5252t powered 850. Actually this was the second diesel 850, as the previous one donated its engine to this ...

Should never have sold it, but sadly I'm an idiot and got bored 🤦‍♂️

Next up is this fine piece of wafting material, wasn't great on fuel but was the quietest and smoothest car I've had the pleasure to own 

^ If anyone is selling a diesel (Om606) version, do let me know.

Another one was this V70 D5, i noticed it was for sale at a local dealership & every time I passed it just caught my eye, so I decided to treat myself (The excuse being I'd gained a big increase in wages, as I'd finally received my engineering qualifications) ...

Was a great car, but the geartronic box was starting to show signs of needing attention, so i bailed out.

Another Volvo I've had, this one being the 760 (PRV V6) kind of rescued it as it had been off the road for a number of years, it had the typical Volvo comfort

Think I sold it to someone on here, looking online it appears to now be off the road 😪

Another rescued estate is the Outback of many Autoshite members, purchased from Trab-Ron (brilliant chap), I then handed it to a local garage who returned the car with a wee list, thankfully a few quid and days later it was all road legal. At the time I still had the W210 and the 850, so decided to sell it on here, although this was a comfortable and capable car I just never 'gelled' with it

 

This next one was Ex-DollyWobbler, Rover 75 2.0 D Con'. Great spec but at the time insurance was just too much for me, so stupidly traded it with a 'Will Pass MOT' Herald 🤦‍♂️

 

Are we counting 4X4s as estates too ?

[brownnova]

On 19/01/2022 at 15:18, AnnoyingPentium said:

Anyway, I shan't stray from this thread's original topic any further.

Both on topic and on your tangent…. 
 

Jot mine, and to be honest can’t say I like it much. 

[GeordieInExile]

41 minutes ago, brownnova said:

Both on topic and on your tangent…. 
 

Jot mine, and to be honest can’t say I like it much. 

I know it's wrong, and yet... It feels so right.

[C3C3]

Still got borne's old escort, putting it through its MOT now after waiting 2 months for a new master cylinder. Weather in essex is shite so here is a nice photo from august.

Got my niece a pristine 60k mile mk5 escort estate 1.6, not a single bit of rust on the arches or rot anywhere to be found. I've barred her from being allowed to molest it, she can fuck around with her pre facelift Mk5 fiesta track car.

[AnnoyingPentium]

18 minutes ago, GeordieInExile said:

I know it's wrong, and yet... It feels so right.

It's oddly disproportionate when you're used to a conventional Nova hatch. It's like Geoff Capes grabbed the arse end of it as it was driving away.

[Dick Cheeseburger]

My first estate was a C plate Astra DERV in the same hue as the one below.

Unusually, I have no photos of it - the car would have been ten years old at the time. I bought it from my brother's mate's stoner mum who'd owned it for years. It had just run out of mot, I was buying and selling cars a bit and I thought I could make a few quid on it. I was young and hadn't been bitten by a motor until this point. 

My good mate Darren (RIP) welded on a pair of new sills, and I wobbed up the back arches, front wings and then painted the rear quarters, sills, wings and bonnet in celly in my Uncle Terry's only-a-bit-bigger-than-a-single garage using his ancient compressor. 

It looked pretty tidy all things considered and I reckon there would have been a fair profit in it for me.

What I'd not allowed for was the fact that I just couldn't get the ungrateful bastard though the smoke test. I tried diesel additives and ragged the crap out of it before a couple of unsuccessful tests, but no joy.

My run of luck* worsened when I ended up punting the front corner of mine into the front of a three year old Astra van of the same generation which subsequently required fairly extensive surgery. Mine only had a cracked headlight and indicator lens along with tiny ding to the bonnet and wing. It only cost me about £30 to sort mine (unlike the van) but the love was well and truly lost by that point. 

I ended up losing a small amount on it when I moved it on and couldn't stand looking at it by that point. Ironically, a check online tells me C992 GFV was taxed until 1999, so it actually lived for another four years after I sold it. 

[Six-cylinder]

I still need to know if a Renault 4GTL is an estate or a hatchback?

If it is an estate then there is one in my past.

[Longbridge Apologist]

2 hours ago, brownnova said:

Both on topic and on your tangent…. 
 

Jot mine, and to be honest can’t say I like it much. 

IS THIS REAL?!

[Longbridge Apologist]

What a brilliant thread this is. Top marks original author!

[Ghosty]

I think this is all of mine:

 

 

 

the Civic Aerodeck was bland and uninteresting , and I just resented it after the cat was stolen (good for camping though), I barely owned the 305, the V50 was a mistake, the 306 was good as An Car but useless as an estate, the 740 was my second car and deserved better, the 850 was the single best car I've ever owned and I still sort of hope that @GeordieInExile will let it go at some point, and the Accord Aerodeck was laughable in many different ways. 

[sdkrc]

Volvo v90 - DULL, not that big. Don't believe the hype. 

 

e39 - nope.

 

A6 C4 - I had a 2.6 which I bought with running issues and a short MOT. Loved that car. I cut the leather off the steering wheel as it had deteriorated badly and it was like a Rolls Royce bakelite. Quiet, refined, classy. Photo is of a C4 derv which I'm now housing.

 

Primera P12 - competent, roomy, underrated, scrapped. I remember getting a cup of tea in the sellers house and he dribbled.  

 

MG ZTT - slow, uneconomical, not friendly to large feet. Handled very well. My feet would get caught on the dashboard cover when accelerating. Sold to a wealthy Greek robotics professor who drove it to Greece and tried to knock me down from £250.

 

Octavia L&k - seller was a cunt and it had a well hidden but fucked headgasket (and a knife down the side of the seat). Interior looked great in photos but wasn't great in person.

 

S124 - £275. beautiful interior, mad Italian spec, fucked tiny petrol engine. Had a homemade LPG system with massive, inappropriate canisters which scared me endlessly. Would like a nice one with a large engine at some point.

 

Not pictured: 

- Passat b5 exported to France and involved in a drink-drive hit and run.

- golf MK3 no reverse gear. Abandoned in Marseille airport.

- Audi A4 b7 boring. 

- Audi S6 C6 lovely for motorway cruising. Really liked it. Terrifying maintenance costs though

[brownnova]

11 hours ago, Longbridge Apologist said:

IS THIS REAL?!

I think so, there are a few pics online… 

[Schaefft]

28 minutes ago, sdkrc said:

Volvo v90 - DULL, not that big. Don't believe the hype. 

 

e39 - nope.

 

A6 C4 - I had a 2.6 which I bought with running issues and a short MOT. Loved that car. I cut the leather off the steering wheel as it had deteriorated badly and it was like a Rolls Royce bakelite. Quiet, refined, classy. Photo is of a C4 derv which I'm now housing.

 

Primera P12 - competent, roomy, underrated, scrapped. I remember getting a cup of tea in the sellers house and he dribbled.  

 

MG ZTT - slow, uneconomical, not friendly to large feet. Handled very well. My feet would get caught on the dashboard cover when accelerating. Sold to a wealthy Greek robotics professor who drove it to Greece and tried to knock me down from £250.

 

Octavia L&k - seller was a cunt and it had a well hidden but fucked headgasket (and a knife down the side of the seat). Interior looked great in photos but wasn't great in person.

 

S124 - £275. beautiful interior, mad Italian spec, fucked tiny petrol engine. Had a homemade LPG system with massive, inappropriate canisters which scared me endlessly. Would like a nice one with a large engine at some point.

 

Not pictured: 

- Passat b5 exported to France and involved in a drink-drive hit and run.

- golf MK3 no reverse gear. Abandoned in Marseille airport.

- Audi A4 b7 boring. 

- Audi S6 C6 lovely for motorway cruising. Really liked it. Terrifying maintenance costs though

What made the S6 so bad? Generally they don't seem to be too terrible maintenance wise.

[GeordieInExile]

@Ghosty - I will let it go one day, just depends on what comes up on here that I can swap it for or buy using the money I earn selling/roffling it.

It's a bit shonkier than you'll remember it, mind - it's done a lot of estate car things like moving all my stuff into a new flat and taking a washing machine to the tip, so the interior is a bit bashed up, and it's a bit more dinged and scuffed on the outside. It ain't a minter. What it is, though, is a simply superb tool, a lovely place to pass the motorway miles, and utterly dependable*.

*Apart from the time it destroyed its water pump and shat out all its coolant while lugging an entire bathroom's worth of rubbish to the tip.

[sdkrc]

1 hour ago, Schaefft said:

What made the S6 so bad? Generally they don't seem to be too terrible maintenance wise.

Nothing specific but collectively they made it expensive. Keep in mind the mpg was sub 20 and tax was £50 per month.

Major service, the final 2 spark plugs are inaccessible without taking loads of other parts out. 

Decoking is an inconvenient cost but was overdue.

Brakes were big and expensive. Same for tyres. I spent £1300 and 2 months looking for the S6 alloys. 

The sunroof plenum was blocked in classic Audi fashion when I bought it and the footwell filled with water on day 2 of ownership. 

[AnnoyingPentium]

On 1/19/2022 at 11:50 AM, Rust Collector said:

Oooooh I really like that! 👍

[Griffin]

Some great estates on these pages, like a good estate and this is mine. Though it is actually classed as a hatchback its as big as an estate.

Signum 1.9cdti, rear seats are adjustable and slide forward/back depending on if you want leg room or boot room. Seats fold flat and give a load length of 1.8m