Death Row (blame the scrap price !)

[Richard]

Be prepared for a minor arseache on the door locks if it's anything like the Ford Ka I did recently. To gain access to the lock you have to remove a shielding plate. This plate is held on with mastic at one end and two pop rivets at the other. It's integral with the window runner too, so it has to go back on. To remove the plate I drilled out the rivets and softened the mastic with a heat gun. To replace it I drilled holes and used cable ties, but I can't remember what I tied to. Obviously the end with rivets got new rivets.I'm sure you can handle all that no problem but I live close enough to give you a hand if you need it.

[mk2_craig]

Suppose a car is declared scrapped, regardless of condition, ie paperwork sent to the DVLA, can it ever be returned to road use? There could be any number of easily/cheaply repairable motors which are weighed in simply because hapless owners can't be arsed to see to them.

I think it may be possible, would probably have to go down the same Vehicle Identity Check route as you do for e.g. a Cat C write-off. On a similar note but slightly off-topic, turns out some Vehicle Registration Offices are now insisting on a VIC if you transfer the plate off a motor over a certain age now

[CortinaDave]

Joy. I'd hoped the locks would be an easy job... I'll take the door card off and have a look and see how stinking its going to be!

[Richard]

It's actually easy enough if you know what to expect and have all the tools available. The second door only took me a few minutes to do.

[mr-reno-139]

well the price has gone up again so sadly decided that my early espace had to be cashed in along with LDV pilot (Wuvvum ,would of offered it to you to help your camper crisis but think you are at wrong end of country)

 

my R11 has got till the end of the month and sadly may get crushed too

 

 

spotted landrover whilst waiting to unload LDV also MMC shogun both were complete vehicles

 

 

few days later this V6 24 valve galant turned up for repair at nextdoor workshop auto box us - next stop the crusher

lovely cream leather sweet as nut engine

 

 

later same day sent my son in with another clio of mine who took these pics of a pair of chrome bumper MGB s both had twin carb engines and boxes in

 

 

tat is not going to be getting as far as being listed on ebay soon with 99%of cars being crushed complete

even stuff coming from local breakers yards are now mainly whole due to no demand from people actually fixing cars any more

depressing stuff with fuel prices rising as well

[Guest]

WHAT! That generation of Galant is absolutely stunning, that's a crying shame. What an absolute waste.

[garethj]

Mrs Gareth has a Galant just like that as daily transport. It's got 120,000 miles on it and the only thing we've needed is some bearings for the gearbox (manual, not auto). It was £700 on a car that's probably only worth £1000 but it's so comfortable, quiet and roomy that we're hard pushed to replace it.Plus it's 1999 so avoids the 2001 onwards car tax increases.

[Volksy]

It really deos seem a crying shame that the UK seems to have left the 'fix it' mentality. With a lot of cars which have a lot of life left in them being scrapped. Sadly I can see my Saab 93 heading that way in November having just got a small chip on the windscreen, the RAC and other windscreen places have quoted me over £400 to replace it, which given the ol' girl has done 160k means its not really economical to repair. Shame as there is nowt else wrong with it.There is a massive surplus of 10 year old cars knocking about which are pretty much on 'Death Row' the slightest fault is gonna send them to the fraggers. But it also means that you can pick something up with a long test for next to nowt. My Sister has just disposed of a Omega Elite (29k from new) to a dealer in her village, it sat on the forecourt for a couple of weeks, then dissapeared, I beleive it was scrapped in the end.

[r.welfare]

I'd be having a go at repairing the chip with one of those syringe-type jobs you can get from Halfords, Volksy. Have had decent success with these in the past. £400 seems high for a "current" car, I had a quote of £214 from Autoglass for the 405...Agreed that it seems crazy that something like that Galant ends up there, I had heard from someone in the trade that the autoboxes aren't that robust. One wonders if that one could have been saved with a £50 fluid change every so often - most people seem to regard gearboxes (manual and auto) as sealed units these days.Must admit I prefer a "stick" at the shite level - cheaper to replace, and easier to bump start!Having said that, it comes down to "heart vs head" and personal circumstances - my mum recently spent £2.5k getting a new CVT box fitted to her Honda Logo, but the car is only worth £3k (fixed) on a good day.

[Volksy]

I'd be having a go at repairing the chip with one of those syringe-type jobs you can get from Halfords.

Sadly i took it down to the RAC with the hope that they can repair it, the lad there said it wasnt repairable, but when i explained that come MOT time it would write the car off, he said he would have a go at it. Basically he resined the chip, and although its now sealed and wont spread, it's still visible, and unfortunatly right in the drivers line of sight.Serves me right for running my 'shite' on basic third party insurance with no windscreen cover

[r.welfare]

Has your local, friendly MOT tester told you it's a no-go then? Might be worth asking around...

[Volksy]

I shall bob it through a test come November, and see what happens, it sailed through without even so much as an advisory or wiperblade last year, so if it does that again apart from the screen, I may consider getting it replaced. But at the mileage, and most of my 9000's died around that age due to gearbox problems, its really on borrowed time. and i did see a matching 5 door one for sale the other day with 90k and 12 months test at only £500.

[r.welfare]

My personal view is the increased price of scrap should mean that anything with a 12-month test on it should be worth at least £300 (this is what I'm banking on with my 406, anyway), so a more recent Saab should make more than that - I am amazed that a 9-3 (rather than a GM900) would be that cheap! Haven't seen any L-reg GM900s round here much less than £500...

[pogweasel]

Incredible, really that decent enough stuff is just chucked away. But the repair costs on stuff really are horrendous now, it's fairly soon into the life of a vehicle when a repair can become uneconomic. I mean, how many more ECU's do I have to have in my van before it's just time to sack it off. The ecu's are £500 recon or £800 new, the van's probably worth about £2k on the open market, maybe less, maybe more if I hactually cleaned it and removed all the scuffs etc. Days must be numbered, esp as it seems to be common with these things and ain't a damned thing you can do about it. At least the Focus is actually marginally more simple under the bonnet, I think even the most disasterous of mechanical failures can be remedied in a weekend with some spanner help and scrapyard parts, this is half the reason why we are now keeping it, plus seeing as it has been astonishingly reliable and being up on miles is worth jack shit anyway... roll on 200k

[r.welfare]

Sold the LPG Astra, then? Off topic, but is it just me, or is the RR For Sale section is a better soap opera than t'telly can provide? (although well done Reg_Bo11ox for selling yer 200Q so quick)With you on ECUs. Although I solved what I thought was a duff ABS pump on t'wife's Fabia at the weekend for a cost of £0 - a metal "fusible link" above the battery had broken. Handily, the owner's handbook nor Haynes make any mention of these - praise be the internet for giving me guidance and saving me ££££ (Bosch must make 'em out of myrrh for the price they charge)...

[wuvvum]

I weighed in the Rover 825D on Tuesday. With a cooker and an old industrial microwave in the back I got £277 for it - not bad considering I'd struggled to get 200 notes for it on the Bay and then got buggered around by the buyer. I'd be a bit worried about weighing in an Espace though - don't most recyclers know that they're mostly plastic? I agree that there's some rare stuff being weighed in now - there's a chap in the town where I now live who usually has something on the way to the knackers yard on the back of his beavertail Tranny. Yesterday it was an X-plate HA van. Windscreens are an arse - I was getting quotes of £550-£600 for a replacement screen for the 166, and that was just a basic one without heater elements or rain sensors. By ringing around I got that down to £280 - still a whole lotta money for a bit of glass. So in the end I gave a friendly MoT tester a drink to overlook the small crack in the bottom of the screen which was dangerously obscuring my view of the top of the bonnet, and apart from that and uneven handbrake application (which he gave me an advisory on) it passed with flying colours.

[r.welfare]

Did you have to remove the wheels and drain the fluids first, or just drive up in it, out of interest?Filling it up with old tat reminds me of the comedy stories AnthonyG was telling me of folk filling up 70s tat with old video recorders come weigh-in in the early 90s

[wuvvum]

Didn't drain any fluids. Towed it into the yard on a rope behind the Trooper (had taken the battery off as it was nearly new), then got a forklift driver to pick the car up so we could take the wheels off.

[CortinaDave]

!!!! £277!! I'm just about to scrap 2 calibras... wonder if I'm better lobbing my old dishwasher in the back and taking them to the weighbridge rather than just taking them to the scrappy for £160 a piece? hmmWhen i've weighed in cars in the past you dont have to drain the fluids.. but they do deduct money if you dont take the tyres off as its a pain in the arse for them to dispose of them.It wasnt a lot though - three quid per tyre i think.Hmm... what else can i weigh in?

[r.welfare]

Ah right - I just wondered if you could drive/tow the car there, then undo the wheelnuts so you can catch the wheels as the car gets hauled up by the forklift...

[wuvvum]

Ah right - I just wondered if you could drive/tow the car there, then undo the wheelnuts so you can catch the wheels as the car gets hauled up by the forklift...

You can tow it in and do that. They don't like you driving scrap cars in. Plus you have to be weighed in and then weighed out again (then they pay you for the difference), which is a bit difficult if you have nothing to weigh out. You'd have to walk back out over the weighbridge, which would make you look like a bit of a plonker and all the pikeys would laugh at you.

[r.welfare]

Good tip. Nowt worse than being taunted by pikeys.

[MrRegieRitmo]

WHAT! That generation of Galant is absolutely stunning, that's a crying shame. What an absolute waste.

It certainly is, I almost welled up - seeing it on the back of the transit was sad, then the visible transition to a wheel-less dented wreck on the car stack was bordering on the sadistic!

 

I very much admire these Galants, you may remember just over a year ago I ran a poll on here about whether to go for one of these (non V6 one due to running costs) or the Alfa 146. It was a close run thing but the Alfa won, by a whisker & it was deemed that it would provide more excitement for the money & compared favourably against the standard 2.0 Galant. If I was to get the Galant really I'd have wanted at least the V6 although the one I really hanker after & haven't given up on getting at some point is the VR4 - stunning looks & stunning performance (the thinking man's Lancer Evolution!) but in a completely different league to what I was in the market for at the time! I saw one in a local petrol station the other week & I couldn't take my eyes off it!

[Milford Cubicle]

Last time I got a windscreen done it was £120! Shame about your 825D wuvvum, it's a car that I revere. Why did you scrap it in the end?

[wuvvum]

Shame about your 825D wuvvum, it's a car that I revere. Why did you scrap it in the end?

'Cos I was fed up with being dicked around. If I could have sold it whole I would have done, even if I'd got less for it. It needed to go and none of the potential purchasers came through with the readies.

[mk2_craig]

later same day sent my son in with another clio of mine who took these pics of a pair of chrome bumper MGB s both had twin carb engines and boxes in

 

 

It's crazy what's being chucked away, now I don't care for MGBs any more than most others on this forum but I'm surprised they haven't been stripped bare before ending up on the scrapheap, I know you can get pretty much any B component brand new anyway but surely there would have been a market for parts off those two.

 

Slightly different over here as the scrapyard doesn't actually pay for anything being dumped there.

[garethj]

the one I really hanker after & haven't given up on getting at some point is the VR4

They're a fantastic motor, but the complexity is eye-watering and the chances of it running 100%, 100% of the time is, errrr 0%

 

Friend of mine had one and he said it was expensive and unreliable even compared to his Tatra

[MrRegieRitmo]

Really? So much for Japanese reliability!Alternatively there are imported Legnums which are another variation on the (souped up) Galant theme! Does the same go for those regarding 'dodgyness'?Perhaps choosing the Alfa really was the wiser choice!

[AnthonyG]

I'd stick to Alfas Mr Ritmo, you can always move up to a 156 or a 166 if you want to get something bigger than the 146, for a much more reasonable price than a JDM import Mitsubishi. Having said that, I agree that it is a shame to see such a mint looking car as the above Galant getting cubed. I guess the cost of replacement parts and complexity sealed its fate.

[garycox]

I saw a scrap lorry yesterday carrying (amongst others) a mk2 Zodiac and a Mini Clubman, both looked in reasonable condition and definitely good for a lot of parts if not restorable...