Anyone want an R 25 Baccara V6?

[55bloke]

Some of you may recall that I had a moment of madness about 6 months ago, and bought a Renault 25 2.9 V6 Baccara. I gave £500 for it, and the intention was for it to be a long-term, rolling project. I had hoped that it would be possible to get the air-con system working eventually, but having spoken to some knowledgeable people, it's become apparent that, whilst it's possible, it's prohibitively expensive. So that, plus the discovery of a rather more realistic project, means that the Baccara is almost certainly going to have to go. Whilst in my ownership it's had a new battery and 4 new shocks. Prior to my ownership, it had virtually all the hoses and pulleys on the engine replaced, a front suspension overhaul, and a recon autobox only a few thousand miles ago. It drives absolutely beautifully, very smooth with no knocks and a nice engine note. Oh, and it passed it's MoT today! Just needed flexi brake hoses at the front. Having said that, it's a long way from perfect. It has 170000 miles on the clock, and it kinda shows! The bodywork is sound, but scruffy. There are numerous stone chips on it, and the driver's door side trim has come off and been inexpertly refitted. The interior looks it's age, the leather of the front seats in particular looking very tired, with a tear in the driver's-seat, though it's still VERY comfortable. But, it's a lovely car, and VERY rare. I think I've only ever seen one other Baccara. So, any one fancy it?

[dollywobbler]

Lovely. I really do like these. Cash is hard to find at the mo though, and one enormous French car is enough!

[Espacetic]

Whats the problem with the air con?

[55bloke]

Being an old car, it was built to use R12 gas, which is now illegal. To make it use the newer gasses, it needs new hoses and seals, plus the heater box rebuilding. The air con people I've spoken to have got work books for just about every car that was ever built with air con, and they say that getting the box out of the dash, then putting it back in, is listed as 12 hours work! Add the cost of parts and doing all the hoses, and they reckon 1500 quid is a ball-park figure!!

[Espacetic]

Thought that may be the case. Did you know it's not illegal and you can still buy it? If I get anything with R12, I call my local commercial refrigeration bloke. He pops out, £45 later it's all topped up with R12, leak tested and colder than modern air con will ever be. Try it, air con is a good selling point

[Guest]

Thought that may be the case. Did you know it's not illegal and you can still buy it? If I get anything with R12, I call my local commercial refrigeration bloke. He pops out, £45 later it's all topped up with R12, leak tested and colder than modern air con will ever be. Try it, air con is a good selling point

 

Eh? Can you explain this one a bit more mate please? Every place in the land has told me R12 is illegal and the spawn of Satan, and that you have to use R134 now instead.

[Espacetic]

I heard that too and actually believed it until I started working on Jap imports which are 90% R12. I needed a R134 gassing so called out the local commercial refrigeration bloke as they're always cheaper than the automotive aircon guys. Chatting away I said it was a shame about R12 as I'd just done a job on a Pajero and had to remove the compressor so now the aircon was useless. He wondered why so when I said R12 was illegal he laughed, pulled the bottle out of his van and went and filled the Pajero.

I've used 3 different commercial refridgeration companies since, all had R12 on the van. Seems most commercial fridges and aircon still run the stuff.

Call your local commercial guys out of the yellow pages and ask them if they have R12.

[55bloke]

This is news to me, but if it's true, it might mean the air con will actually work! It's all a mystery to me - can it be leak tested before the gas goes in?

[Espacetic]

What they do here is pump it up to a pressure, see if there's any pressure drop, then whizz around with the probe to see if there's any leaks before doing the full refill.

[55bloke]

Well, kinda sad, but at the same time relieved, to report that the Baccara has now sold. Had it on the Renault Owner's Club site, Retro Rides, and Car and Classic Car for about a week with not a nibble, so put it on e-bay last Saturday, and it sold in less than 12hrs!! A Bulgarian guy came up from London and drove it back down there. He already has a manual Baccara in Bulgaria, and says he's going to export this car to join it, and convert it to left-hand drive!! Sad to see it go, coz it was such a superb car to drive, but the MPG was horrific, and the air con too big an issue. What tipped it though was finding a more realistic project - not a V6 sadly, but a TXE with only 25k on from new! Only had 19k 'til last year!! 1 owner from new up to last year, and a virtually complete service history (only 400 miles between MoTs some years.) Think it must have been an elderly gentleman, coz there was hardly a year of it's life that it didn't have to have some minor ding repaired! It's a bit scruffy and in need of some TLC, but it's absolutely solid and drives as you' expect with such low milage.

Had to have at least one pic showing the fleet which I briefly owned all at the same time!

Here's the new toy

[Peter C]

Bulgaria ehh? I've never been but I understand that they like old Renaults in that part of the world. Good luck to him.

 

The TXE looks superb. How clean is that engine bay? Any pics of the interior?

 

Enjoy!

 

Peter

[55bloke]

Yeah, good luck to him! Shame it had to leave the UK, there can't be many left now. The interior of the TXE is really grubby, but responding well to cleaning. All black leather, and once the crap is off, in absolutely lovely condition. Sadly, the wonderful original Philips radio-cassette, with it's graphic equaliser, is missing, but once the digital switch-over takes place, it'd be pretty useless anyway, so plan is to install something a bit more up to date.

[r.welfare]

Individual and collective export to Eastern Europe still seems to be quite popular - I got talking to a guy about it and he reckoned that even with the travel and conversion costs (RHD to LHD) it's still cheaper to do it that way, due to high secondhand car prices on the continent. Certainly when I last took a ferry to France (a couple of years ago) there were a fair few 10+ yr old scruffy motors with expired tax (!) being driven by Eastern European guys - one was a Honda Accord diesel on an R-plate, can't remember the last time I saw one of those.

 

TXE looks very nice indeed.

[Peter C]

Individual and collective export to Eastern Europe still seems to be quite popular - I got talking to a guy about it and he reckoned that even with the travel and conversion costs (RHD to LHD) it's still cheaper to do it that way, due to high secondhand car prices on the continent. Certainly when I last took a ferry to France (a couple of years ago) there were a fair few 10+ yr old scruffy motors with expired tax (!) being driven by Eastern European guys - one was a Honda Accord diesel on an R-plate, can't remember the last time I saw one of those.

 

TXE looks very nice indeed.

 

With my Polish background I can shed some light on this.

 

Some history;

 

Back in the old days, 95% of cars on Polish roads were Fiat 126s, FSOs, Ladas, Dacias and Skodas. Those were the days! I am originally from Poznan (of Lech Poznan fame, the football team that beat Man City 3-1 last week). Poznan is located approx 100 miles from Berlin, so even in those days Mercs, BMWs and VWs were often seen on local roads.

 

As soon as east and west kissed and made up, Poles started importing old western european cars into Poland. Decent cars were expensive, so anything crashed, preferably written-off, was best. When my parents and I drove to Poland in the early 1990s, we would pass convoys of Polish trucks loaded with some seriously mashed up cars. These were fixed up and sold to a public desperate to own a western european car. Whilst Polish panel beaters are probably one of the best in the world, there is only so much you can do with mangled metal.

 

To stop this nonesense going on, the Polish goverment imposed a ban on the import of complete cars. The car traders therefore arranged for these old wrecks to be dismantled and delivered in bits. You would see cars brought over with "missing" panels, engines and gearboxes removed, etc. Once in Poland, these cars would be re-assembled and sold. The goverment's scheme backfired!

 

Nowadays, the Polish economy is doing ok and whilst you still see a lot of old cars about, a large percentage of cars are new or imported nearly new, with complete histories and in original condition. However, in relation to typical salaries, cars are still expensive. For example, my recently purchased £500 W124 would sell for the equivalent of £10k. Cars are still imported from the continent, but very few make their way over from the UK. The cost of getting the car across Europe plus the cost of converting it to RHD is too high to justify the hassle.

 

One of my brothers in law is over here whilst the other is in Poland. We have spent many nights discussing ways of making a quick buck, over a bottle of Vodka, but to this day we can't think of a way.

 

Have a pic of a Polonez for your troubles:

 

[55bloke]

Fascinating!

[r.welfare]

Great info there Peter C. I wonder if these changes permeate to other Eastern European countries; as I mentioned, my "info" is at least 30 months out of date!

 

Incidentally - and almost completely off-topic - I watched a documentary about the Roma in Albania a couple of months back, and noticed a fairly significant number of W210 Benzs, still in RHD and on UK plates, weaving around donkey carts etc on the potholed roads. Wonder how they got there, and indeed if it was by legitimate means...

[55bloke]

Just thought I'd mention it - has anyone seen to R25 V6 turbo on e-bay at the moment? Sadly a bit beyond my means to bring it back to life, but it's WAAAY too good to go to the kit car boys!

[garethj]

For example, my recently purchased £500 W124 would sell for the equivalent of £10k. Cars are still imported from the continent, but very few make their way over from the UK. The cost of getting the car across Europe plus the cost of converting it to RHD is too high to justify the hassle.

So buying up LHD cars and trailering them to the East isn't worthwhile? After browsing recent ebay pages couldn't you make a detour on the way back and bring some lovely old chod home and make money there as well?

[Peter C]

So buying up LHD cars and trailering them to the East isn't worthwhile? After browsing recent ebay pages couldn't you make a detour on the way back and bring some lovely old chod home and make money there as well?

 

If you can find a tidy modern LHD motor over here and fancy a roadtrip for the hell of it, then go for it! Driving across France, Belgium, Holland and Germany into Poland is good fun. Driving through the night is your best bet, as the roads will be near empty.

 

However:

 

1. Try finding a decent and cheap LHD motor. Poles, Czechs, Russians, etc have been buying up cars for years. Increased demand = higher prices. When the "new" Beetle or the Audi TT first came out, they were only available in LHD. Initially the re-sale value of those cars was lower compared with later RHD cars, but then, all of a sudden, they all "disappeared".... to Eastern Europe!

 

2. The cost of getting the car to Eastern Europe. If you set off from London, bargain for approx £150-200 of fuel plus approx £100 to get across to France. You will need insurance and may prefer to take out breakdown cover. You will need a first aid kit, warning triangle, spare bulbs, fire extinguisher and hi-viz jacket.

 

3. Registering foreign cars in Poland is not that simple. Unlike over here, when you buy a used car all you have to do is fill out the V5, in Poland you have to have the car re-registered with a different registration number, etc. This takes time and a bit of money.

 

4. Where as over here individual drivers are insured, over in Poland the car is insured. This means that daddy can insure his brand new 2010 BMW M5 for (relatively speaking) peanuts and hand the keys and documents to his 17 year old son, thus giving him permission to legally drive the car. Pretty cool ehh?

 

5. As mentioned above, due to the registration procedures, buying an old Polonez and bringing it back to Blighty is not that straight forward, but it can be done. I've been back to Poland at least 20 times in the last 10 years and I've never bothered bringing a car back.

[garethj]

buying an old Polonez and bringing it back to Blighty is not that straight forward, but it can be done. I've been back to Poland at least 20 times in the last 10 years and I've never bothered bringing a car back.

 

Hand in your Autoshite membership badge at reception when you leave *calls security*

[nigel bickle]

Can I give you a list, and lend you an A frame then?

 

(pretty please)

[nigel bickle]

Can I give you a list, and lend you an A frame then?

 

(pretty please)

[Lankytim]

Surely some LHD chod from Ebay such as a Vectra would make a good swap for an FSO 125p or something?