Bunglebus buys a lemon again. Brake broke

[bunglebus]

Stage 1

Poos: ½

Stage 2

Yep here we go again, spotted a cheap Lupo on FB fairly close to us so hopped in the yellow one to look at...another yellow one

It's a 1.4 auto, as usual it needs a new jobs but it seems honest and the MoT history is clean - funny enough this one previously lived in Southend where Victor the silver one came from.

Decided to leave a deposit rather than risk a drive, as everything's expired and we couldn't get an MoT booking - plus it needs a battery and we had no jump leads to restart it after the required fuel stop.

Unfortunately I'm now going to be working away for 1-2 weeks so collection will have to be rescheduled 

[bunglebus]

OK here we go again - today was the only day I've been home from work in the last week and I'm off again tomorrow. 

Armed with a battery, (leaky) fuel can, footpump and various tools, we headed off into the arse end of nowhere. Poo count - too many, I blame the lamb bhuna microwave dinner I had the other night.

 I've been keeping myself up at night stressing about this one as the tax and MoT had expired and it's not been driven for a long time - only done 1100 miles since the last MoT, I had visions of rusty/seized brakes etc. 

However once the battery was swapped and a fair bit of oil was added (why does every car I look at buying have almost no oil in it?), it fired up and drove very nicely.

Obviously it has a few needs, mirror caps are broken (and aren't colour coded), rear wash wipe doesn't work, driver's door doesn't unlock from outside and it hunts a bit at idle and is too fast - hopefully an air leak somewhere.

I'm going to try and keep a running total of the costs on this as the idea is to sell it on for a bit of profit

[bunglebus]

Interior is tidy, has the early dash with the switches in the "wrong" place, white clocks which are quite a rarity and pop-outs

[bunglebus]

Bad bits

Monies so far;

Purchase price £600

Two hour insurance policy £18.37

Fuel £7.00

Battery £35.99

Oil £23.66

Oil filter £5.23

Air Filter £6.41

Fuel filter £4.99

Cambelt £72.53

Running total £774.18 

[purplebargeken]

Lupos are quite cool. Auto.... who knew.

[bunglebus]

Yeah apparently fairly in demand, there's a woman on FB looking for a yellow auto at the moment. 

Wonder if these guys enjoyed being spun at 60MPH?

[Stanky]

Nice work, I have to ask though, were you not a tiny bit tempted to bring the numberplates from your manual one with you and have them 'fall' onto the auto to get you home? 😁😁😁

[bunglebus]

2 hours ago, Stanky said:

Nice work, I have to ask though, were you not a tiny bit tempted to bring the numberplates from your manual one with you and have them 'fall' onto the auto to get you home? 😁😁😁

Well that would work were it not for the manual being the only one my partner can drive, so she was following me back...

Oops just realised I forgot to let the MoT place know we'd changed our minds 😆

[brownnova]

43 minutes ago, Stanky said:

Nice work, I have to ask though, were you not a tiny bit tempted to bring the numberplates from your manual one with you and have them 'fall' onto the auto to get you home? 😁😁😁

Can’t imagine such a thing ever being done… 

But anyway… 

Greta purchase, Lupos are cool, Yellow Lupos doubly so. So two yellow Lupos must be quadruple cool? 

[bunglebus]

1 minute ago, brownnova said:

Can’t imagine such a thing ever being done… 

But anyway… 

Greta purchase, Lupos are cool, Yellow Lupos doubly so. So two yellow Lupos must be quadruple cool? 

One day I'll find a Fantasia Green open air TDI and my life will be complete

[bunglebus]

Work plans have been postponed so I had a tinker. Air filter replaced and hunted for air leaks. Several iffy looking pipes located - and is that round part incomplete (don't know what it is)?

No ABS! Very odd seeing a space where it should live

NS headlight polished up

[bunglebus]

Purchased a few bits off a Lupo being broken, so I could fix some problems.

First up, rear wiper motor not working

Yep that's had it

Fitted the replacement and it wipes but doesn't wash. Found the hose off at the pump - still no wash, and a puddle under the left sill

There's a connector hidden in here that was also apart

Now all works

Mirrors were both damaged, and interestingly both the smaller one which is usually only on the N/S. As the originals are unpainted plastic, I just did the new ones in satin black, easy enough to colour code if needed later

 

[bunglebus]

Thought I'd do a nice easy job today, door check straps. As easy as removing the lower door card, drilling the speaker rivets out and unbolting the check strap. Except

That's the sheet metal of the door still attached to the O/S check strap. It's obviously been stiff for years, and instead of fixing it they've just forced the door until it's ripped out. Large washers will be employed to fix it, need slightly longer bolts and the weird specific bolt that retains the strap to the pillar 

[bunglebus]

The daily driver Lupo getting pranged has prompted me to actually crack on with getting the auto on the road, as the Mrs will need to use it while we sort out the insurance claim and possible repairs on her manual one.

Main task, cambelts 

Other than the crank bolt being tighter than a very tight thing, requiring a mate to brace the pulley using the correct tool (no putting it in gear being an auto), it wasn't too terrible a job. Belts and tensioners didn't actually look very old but I'm not playing cambelt roulette

I noticed the discs were a bit lipped, but as I rotated the wheel I discovered one has actually perforated into the ventilation space in the middle! New pads and discs ordered...

[somewhatfoolish]

Whale oil beef hooked; you've had VALU out of that disc.

[bunglebus]

2 hours ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Whale oil beef hooked; you've had VALU out of that disc.

I've had naff all, I've done about 20 miles in it! 😄

[bunglebus]

New pads and discs today

I've not seen different shape inner and outer pads before

The pads were almost new, if I was just selling this I'd have just changed the discs, but as the Mrs will be using it for a while it's had good name pads and discs fitted

[bunglebus]

MoT day tomorrow, so of course that means a thorough clean inside and out. P/O obviously had a dog so it's taken a bit of work to try and get the hair and odour out. Stuck the Polo wheels on again as some of the originals tyres are cracked etc. They look nicer too, brought a smile to my face seeing the Mrs buzzing along in it tonight on the way to drop it off. 

Cost £9 to swap the insurance over 😁

[ProgRocker]

Nice work, they look ace in yellow. I really liked the Lupos when they were new. VW should have kept this model production for a lot longer and not bothered with the Fox, which I thought was a lazily designed car. I considered these to be a spiritual successor to the old Beetle.

[bunglebus]

Yeah I drove a Fox when they were being launched, uninspiring at best. I'd really like to get a fantasia green open air Lupo eventually, if it was a TDI even better!

[goosey]

How does the 1.4 go compared to the 1.0 ? I’m thinking of fitting a 1.4 into the spare 1.0 Arosa I have 

[bunglebus]

I felt it was about the same, as the 1.4 is an auto but clearly has a taller final drive, so they accelerate about the same but it's less screamy on the motorway. I reckon the 1.0 could handle a 1.4 manual box quite easily, feels like it needs an extra gear.

Oh and it failed the MoT on emissions, no surprise as it hunts all over the place at idle. I've changed all the vacuum lines but can't read the fault codes (if any) as it's a really early one that uses OBD1 instead of 2. No engine light on, garage to investigate this week as we can't use it until it's fixed

[bunglebus]

 

 Left it at the garage as I'm away working, needed a throttle body. Got to pay the bill shortly, wonder how much it will be?

[cbowditch]

To replace the throttle body on my sisters Golf was over £1000 at her local garage!!

its nothing fancy, 2012 1.2TSI base model

[bunglebus]

It was a shade over £400 including the MoT. A bit more than I expected as a decent throttle body is about £120, but it apparently also needed coding so even if I'd bought one I'd have ended up immobilising the car on the drive.

Think it was an hour diag and another for fitting etc, plus sorting out a problem with the beam pattern in one of the headlights, probably the bulb in upside down.

As I do almost all car maintenance myself I can't really complain about the odd bill for things I can't do for whatever reason. I've been working away a fair bit and after the other Lupo got written off it's been a struggle for the Mrs not having a car.

Total costs to this point:

Car £600
Temp. insurance £18.37
Battery £35.99
Oil £23.66
Oil filter £5.23
Air filter £6.41
Fuel filter £4.99
Cambelt £72.53
Check straps £21.96
Door lock £9.99
Brake pads + discs £53.39

MoT throttle body etc £410.68

£1263.20 on the road ignoring some second hand parts which were next to free. Not cheap cheap but I know it's all serviced and roadworthy, even buying a car for this amount would bring with it plenty of unknowns. Let's hope it's reliable now!

[bunglebus]

Hmm...initial test drive revealed a few niggles, heater fan only works on full, nearside vent in the dash is broken.

Unfortunately after a half hour drive, the hunting/revving up at idle has returned, somewhat inconvenient in an automatic! 

[bunglebus]

New throttle body is faulty, garage getting it replaced - suggested they get a Febi Bilstein if possible as they seem to be reliable 

[bunglebus]

Auto Lupo is giving sterling service with a few minor niggles. Garage did a "temporary repair" in the original throttle body, which probably means they cleaned it. It does appear they didn't actually sort the N/S headlight aim, that's in the trees. Heater only works on #4 so a resistor has been ordered. N/S heater vent is broken but can be aimed manually. Exhaust occasionally knocks on the floor when starting, and it needs a thermostat as it cools down far too much at higher speeds. Oh and someone's wired the radio positive wires back to front so it doesn't keep the presets. All in all not bad though.

[bunglebus]

Quite a mild day today, so time to attack some minor jobs. Some imbecile had butchered the stereo wiring, and the +ive wires were the wrong way around, so it didn't keep presets. Can you believe a set of universal ISO wiring connectors is just £4.00 from Halfords?

All soldered in place, and the head unit fitted correctly this time, as it stuck out of the dash before, and the cage hadn't been secured.

Bouyed by my success, I thought it fit the new resistor for the blower motor, as it only did full speed. Located under the dash on the passenger side, two 6mm head bolts hold it in. 10 mins job.

Think the old one is comprehensively knackered 

Happy Mrs!

[mk2_craig]

Well done - great to get these little jobs out the way especially when the benefit far outweighs the effort made. Look forward to seeing how this one gets on.