My crap cars so far

[DavidB]

Having left the country for a bit last year, I sold all but one of my cars and gave up my garage and pretty much all of my tools apart from a single bag.

I had a mad rush over about three weeks attempting to sell the cars I owned, an Alfa Romeo Mito - which came with a shagged out engine - turbo was leaking into the DPF (which was blocked), the headgasket was gone and it had serious blow-by on the pistons (PSV constantly pressurised), which I replaced with an engine I bought from Burnley or Bradford or one of those areas, that was meant to be out of another Mito, but was from a Guillia (or whatever they are called) with extra swirl flaps, not programmed into the ECU, they were permanently closed and the engine wouldn't run - it also had a different flywheel and mounts. I couldn't be arsed with swapping shit for shite, so I disgruntle-ly returned it (after fitting it and removing it of course), and then got an actual Mito from Newcastle which worked perfectly and the seller wasn't a lying sheister for a change. I cleaned out the DPF properly and then took it for a 1 hour run in third until it finished regenning and it stopped smoking. The new owner was really happy with it, and it turned out to be a nice car after all that work but I hated it. I'll never own a diesel ever again, especially one with DPF and emissions stuff.

 

I also sold my Cavalier SRi project and my Mercedes C220 CDI which was nice and would have kept it but I had to let everything go.

I tried to get my Suzuki SJ ready for sale before I left, but I couldn't bleed the brakes and I also rebuilt the transfer box, but it rattled even worse than previously, so left it outside my mum's house and forgot about it.

I left my Cavalier and Mercedes in my brother's hands to pass the keys onto their new owners. The fella who came to collect the Merc said 'WAS NOT AS DESCRIBED - THYMEWAISTER' according the negative feedback he left me, and according to the negative feedback the fella left for the Cavalier, was also not as described - he later explained he was expecting to MOT it on the way home from picking up from the ferry - a car that had been off the road since 2007.  I spent months welding it up and completely rebuilt the engine (with photos and videos as proof) but once a buyer feels like he has been ripped off, he was believing none of it.

Merc went to Vaughnt on here who picked it up no problems and I hope it did him well. Completely fatigued with ebay and selling cars, I just can't be arsed with it anymore.

In September, I was sweating my bawls off in Miami and decided to check an old email account to find one from American immigration saying my visa was up in a couple of days, so had to cut my bawl-sweating short and head back to England.

With the SJ off the road I decided I needed a nice practical car as a daily when I got back in a couple of days that was never going to give me any trouble, so I scanned the classifieds and bought a VX220 - I don't think I could have found a car that was any LESS PRACTICAL if I tried.

On my arrival back into the country, I trained it back up to somewhere north of London and was picked up by the PO in an MGF who then very enthusiastically carried me forthwith down very tight country lanes, clipping every kerb around corners, testing the 20 year old car's hydragas to the limit, to the point where I told him to slow down or I would walk the rest of the way. He slowed down thankfully, and we arrived.

The car looked nice and shiny, so I paid my money and headed back home. He had looked after it properly, kept it in a garage for five years and had done about 100 miles every year in the summer. The car was fantastic really, I hoofed it up the A5/A55 and barely even braked, the exhaust sounding very nice, popping and farting on overrun and all that. I should say, I'm not exactly a fat bastard and have always kept fit and supple and even I have difficulty getting in and out of this f*cker. Nine months in, and my arse has completely worn the leather sill covers smooth, to the point where I have had to adopt a method where I am sliding in on my hand to prevent me wearing it back down to the chassis.

 

As I spent the past three months with extended family/friends/neighbours pretty much everyday I needed some time on my own and took my VX on a little trip to Paris and back over a few days. It was perfect, the weather was superb, and the car performed brilliantly. I had random French people asking what it was.

French people looking at my car:

 

I then decided as winter was approaching, I would buy a more sensible, more practical car, and that I did. I saw this Citroen C2 VTS on Facebook - the fella had had enough of THYMEWAISTERS, so I got about 75 quid knocked off with a good amount of MOT and a fair bit of servicing work done. It came with decent tyres and floor mats, and also Citroen seat belt pads - I reckoned it had had a good life previously. As a winter car it was fantastic, the heater was like cooking a pizza for 20 minutes (on max heat of course) or some oven chips, then opening the door and immediatly putting one's face into the oven . However, it had a terrible throttle pedal-to-engine response and always felt like it was either trying to cut out or rev beyond what I was wanting about 50 times per second. The suspension was rock hard and probably exaggerated the throttle response, and I reckon if I got this sorted, I would have kept the car, but it was too much and I couldn't find any answers or anyone to fix it so I sold it on with one months worth of MOT left. It was really nice though. If anyone gets the chance to own one, they are well worth it as they're currently the same as what "Saxo VTS/106 GTi were in about 2014" money.

During the winter I also spotted this lovely 1990 Corolla automatic - one previous owner from new, a couple, the husband dying and the garage who had serviced it was selling it for her. He even dropped the price without me haggling. He said I was about the 50th person to ask if it was available, but the first to come and view so I withdrew the cash and drove it away. It wasn't without it's problems, there was a little bit of corrosion, but without any facilities, I couldn't do any checking or work so I put it up on ebay a couple of weeks later. I've never owned one of the Corollas, but always wanted to and they are perfection to drive if you just want reliable waftiness - going to the Corolla from the C2 and VX was like resting your haemorrhoids on a soft roid cushion as opposed to a Makita multitool on maximum.

 

The winter was not kind on my VX220

I had no place to put this and a basic car cover was it's only protection from six months of crappy English winter/spring/autumn/whatever it decides it is. Parts of the fibre glass body blistered and I also found out the hard top and soft top leaked. I sponged out a fair amount of water before it froze and sometimes I couldn't even drive it as the windscreen froze on the inside. I loved finding this at 7.30 when I had to go to work or something. There's something about using an ice scraper on the concave surface in a confined space. This has an improved heater installed in this, but it's still shite and takes about 10 minutes to warm up properly. Even then it's not great, and the only time I've felt heat in this was when I was in Parisian traffic in 38C waiting for the radiator fan to kick in - I read they do at 112C, but when it reached 110C I got the fear and parked it up to cool down.
It failed on it's next MOT from my local MOT place I take everything - (which is pretty much guaranteed as I've only ever had one pass in my entire life) - on headlight aim, and emissions due to a blowing exhaust possibly? No tools or place to check it out meant I now have to rely on garages - and no one wanted to even look at this, not even the performance places. Going to my local National resulted in some cockney bell-end giving me some lecture on lowered cars and how he disliked them. When I brought the car round and sitting in the waiting room, the fella decided to start bad-mouthing me and my choice of car without realising I was there. They weren't going to do it because it had an undertray at the back, and I assume they couldn't remove it by just plugging it into their Snap On Anus. I took it home and did it myself - I replaced a gasket as it was blowing after the cat, took it back, and the emissions was just a -tiny bit out- , and then who would walk in but the VOSA/DVLA guy to see they were doing their job properly. They failed it on missing front number plate (they had to take it off to get it on the ramp), headlight aim, and of course emissions. F*ck a duck!

I bit the bullet, bought two lambda sensors, fitted them myself in my parking space (fortunately they were both easy to come out ) and then take it back, and it just scraped through the third and final  test on the emissions. Tester said I need to drive it more and clean it out as everywhere is 20mph limit round here and I hardly drive it.

With my missus over here, and needing to drive an auto as she couldn't really drive 'stick', I spotted this BMW Compact Auto on Facebook Marketplace. As I have had 100% luck on there, I went to have a look, and after spending an hour trying to get into it as the battery was dead and it wouldn't unlock, I bought it and drove it home.

It is the highly desirable 316Ti, which is the one everyone wants. Allegedly the M4218 (?) engine isn't great on these, but at 110k miles I reckon it would have blown up by now, and I got it cheap so who cares. It actually drove really nice and the auto was very good. I had a few problems with it though - it LOVED to just randomly lock itself. Especially when I had just closed the door with the keys on the seat. I had to pry open the door slightly with a branch I found by the side of the road, and then hook the keys out with a thinner branch I also found by the side of the road. How I managed to do something an AA man has difficulty with with two pieces of a tree, I do not know, but F ME I did it. The battery also drains itself over time and you can't unlock doors on it without a charged battery - it has locked me out about four times now. I drove this around until the MOT ran out. I was actually going to scrap this when it did, but changed the rear shocks, rear brake pipes/hoses and going to put it in for another, and will replace the cracked windscreen (£180) and figure out the crazy central locking and random battery drain if it doesn't need anything excessive.

 

Rewinding back to when I got back here, my SJ looked like this after being under a tree for months:

The brakes just would not bleed, and after buying a new master cylinder and brake cylinders and bleeding them over the space of a few weeks I gave up and left it until it warmed up a bit. I found an SJ in a scrap yard up north which held a lot of parts I needed (complete rubber mats and wind deflectors), which was nice.

In May, my missus helped with my brakes on the SJ which got them nice and hard finally, and then I put it through it's FINAL MOT before becoming exempt in April 2025 - I bought and fitted a new transfer box and it was doing the same rumbling sound. I figured out my handbrake mech was causing it all and there was nothing wrong with it, so I just sold the rebuilt TB, and everything works fine so far. I even bought a brand new exhaust system for it, as once upon a time it wouldn't start, cranking filled the back box with fuel, which then ignited, and blew the exhaust apart. It was the loudest thing I've ever heard and I near shit my pants and shortly after the police turned up, but I was safely inside carefully peering out through the curtains, heheh.

F**K!

 

I even did a steady 70mph up to IKEA and back and it did everything fine.

I then started driving that and my newly MOT'd VX220.

 

 

[SiC]

Good to see you back. I see that you've erased your memory entirely of a certain less than SMART vehicle 🤣

[DavidB]

4 minutes ago, SiC said:

Good to see you back. I see that you've erased your memory entirely of a certain less than SMART vehicle 🤣

Thanks! The "Roaster" was a couple of years ago so haven't included it - I only have a parking space outside my apartment so I can't do anymore fixing, everything goes to a garage now unfortunately.

[DavidB]

Should add, the BMW compact's previous owner advised it would need rear shocks for the MOT. It was bouncing all over the road, so swapped them. I've never had a shock absorbed completely detached in the middle and full of rusty water before.

[mercedade]

Great to see you back, you maintained a couple of fab threads on here.

[grogee]

Welcome back! I look forward to more tales of resuscitating shite end-of-life cars. 

Will you get a place to work on cars or are you still busking out of a single suitcase? 

My mate had one of those Compact BMWs, it was pretty swish inside. I presume the 'Ti' doesn't mean turbo...? 

[Split_Pin]

Welcome back.

I feel your pain on garages, I have discovered none will touch my A8.

[DavidB]

Thanks everyone!

5 hours ago, grogee said:

Welcome back! I look forward to more tales of resuscitating shite end-of-life cars. 

Will you get a place to work on cars or are you still busking out of a single suitcase? 

My mate had one of those Compact BMWs, it was pretty swish inside. I presume the 'Ti' doesn't mean turbo...? 

I doubt I'll have another place or work on anymore cars, I'm a bit busy with work and just managed to wrangle a single week off work in -JULY- ! I'd love to have that garage with the ramp back though, miss it loads.

The Compacts are amazing, I've had a couple now and love them, even knackered ones drive really well. And all the BMW fanatics hate them which is a bonus.

[DavidB]

I forgot to post that Corolla photos - lovely car but too nice for me. I thought the new owner would be on here? He had a Celica and was going to keep this forever.