Omegas etc- a miserable story that ends miserably

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

You can't buy a parking permit. You have to pay 40p per hour, 10.5 hours per day, 6 days a week, so it's around 105 quid a month just to park on the street.

[Tayne]

.

[tonedepear]

Have you thought of just parking at the big tram stop on parkway behind the police/currys place and getting the tram in?

 

(Don't get me wrong, I'm fully allergic to public transport, but it seems easier than your current range of options. Or even just parking somewhere free a bit out of town and walking. Depends where you are in town.)

[Albert Ross]

Just to add fuel to the "Pro Land Rover" posts, (Well to be honest, the Pro-40 year old car posts) I would like to point out that my road tax is free, and insurance rocketed to £135 a year... I might seriously have to speak to somebody about the sheer cost of it all! I reckon you'd lose maybe £600 a year to just keep an Omega sized car legal.

[Pete-M]

There'll be an LPG Jeep for sale in August

[andrew e]

Have you checked out the permit situation? LPG is congestion charge free, but only if your car was built and registered new that way, or on the powershift register... I could be wrong, but I'd check it out, it might be similar.

 

A word of advice, every LPG owner I meet on my travels when stood at that bloody pump for 10 minutes every two days is the most scrimping penny pinching miser I have ever met - the sort of people who fit individual shock absorbers - so I would say a bargain LPG car is not condusive of lavished care and attention, more likey a head gasket failure waiting to happen. If your buying LPG pop the bonnet and check the engines stone cold so you can check how the LPG kicks in too.

 

I've done 80k on gas now and I hate it

[Pete-M]

Heh, the 10 minutes at the LPG pump is the worst thing about running it...

 

Curiously, I find LPG cars tend to be better maintained as they're a lot cheaper to fuel so it's easier to afford to maintain them properly.

 

I do find that any car with a broken LPG system tends to be utterly fubar though.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Have you thought of just parking at the big tram stop on parkway behind the police/currys place and getting the tram in?

 

(Don't get me wrong, I'm fully allergic to public transport, but it seems easier than your current range of options. Or even just parking somewhere free a bit out of town and walking. Depends where you are in town.)

 

But I live here, and it seems ridiculous to have to take the tram to go to the car to go to the supermarket.

 

Andrew e, each city has its own rules. Here you're definitely given a parking permit if you have a hybrid or a car converted to LPG, no matter how much they pollute. The few times I have to go to London, I can either park up at my mate's place in Finchley (handy for the M1) or take the train all the way, usually on some cheap first-class deal. As for misery, I think it only applies to a small percentage of owners, and I also think you'll find that people who have thought about converting their car to LPG or buying one that's already got the conversion are more savvy (both technically and financially) than the average motorist. My last car was an E38 that had been converted to LPG by the guy who sold it to the one I bought it from, and it had been kept in tip-top condition. No Kwikfit invoices in that service history! I only had to spend 600-700 quid on it, including servicing at a specialist and a couple of tyres, in the 2.5 years I had it (and I didn't do any of the work myself- all labour was paid for and included in that amount).

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

By the way, I don't enjoy LPG pumps either. I prefer the backstreet places which are normally cheaper and tend to offer attended service.

 

In other news, the Camry viewing was a total fiasco. I told them I was going to be there at 17, I set off a bit late at 16:15 and there was an accident on the A50 that delayed me till about six, got there (supposedly a trader- it was a tiny garage chiefly doing part-worn tyres) and the car wasn't. He went to fetch it and I kept waiting until half an hour later he said he had run out of fuel (in a DUAL FUEL car!) and asked me to go there with a can of unleaded, at which point I made my excuses and left. I'm sort of disappointed with myself as I really should have told him where to stick the car as well as his customer service approach!

 

I did view another car on the way back, but I will be PMing the resident expert about it because I don't want any complaints like last night's!

 

I'll also get to speak with the garage that failed the Merc tomorrow to see what exactly they say about the welding.

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

What did you look at?

By the way, if you didn't already know, you can edit the thread title to make it more relevant.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Yeah, I know. This thread kinda eVOLVed... I viewed a 480!

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

Is that the one on eBay? it looks pretty smart.

 

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Yep, that one.

It's surprisingly comfortable for a faux-sporty thing that's had its springs chopped (well, if I do get it that's the first thing I'll be looking at), but comes without a boot (it was already tiny before they fitted the LPG tank), and it is quite rattly but they (owner and his dad, big Ovlov enthusiasts, forum members, the lot) kept insisting that "they all do that".

[Guest Leonard Hatred]

It that a kind of body flex rattle?

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

When cold at idle it's a scary old rattle- you think "engine mount or worse". When it's warmed up, it's just the kind of thing caused by trim fit that would be the envy of a 1978 FIAT.

 

[3rd edit- can't seem to think/type properly tonight]

[Cavcraft]

Oh well, at least when it goes tits up you can sell the back lights to Watanabe.

[trigger]

Merc, Omega, Camry then Volvo 480, your going from one extreme to another, what was wrong with that Merc i posted in your other thread?

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Merc, Omega, Camry then Volvo 480, your going from one extreme to another, what was wrong with that Merc i posted in your other thread?

 

I'm still considering the Merc and tomorrow I will be talking to the garage who did the MOT. I wanted to take it to a bodyshop in Bradford that's done some work for me in the past, but the guy works all day so it's hard to organise that. The lack of aircon does annoy me somewhat, though.

 

In any event, given the fact that my choices are so severely limited, I want to view as much chod as possible...

[trigger]

I'm talking about the Merc I posted in that thread today, the one which is a similar price but looks to be in better condition and spec.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

I'm talking about the Merc I posted in that thread today, the one which is a similar price but looks to be in better condition and spec.

 

Ah, I missed that!...I'm running back to that thread!

[trigger]

If you want a LPG Merc then what about this one?, Seems a decent price, has MOT and also has the leather?.

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1994-Mercedes-Ben ... 2a0fbbc797

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

Looks pretty good, but it still seems to have no aircon and, unlike the CE (which BTW will be sold much cheaper than the advertised price- they hadn't known about the failure when they posted the ad), is still too new for crashic insurance...it's a bit further South, too. Still, it's a decent back-up if nothing else comes to fruition!

[Guest]

Looks pretty good, but it still seems to have no aircon and, unlike the CE (which BTW will be sold much cheaper than the advertised price- they hadn't known about the failure when they posted the ad), is still too new for crashic insurance...it's a bit further South, too. Still, it's a decent back-up if nothing else comes to fruition!

 

AC was a pricey option on the 480 and pretty rare. Also, I'm a bit confused as to why you'd LPG a 480 in the first place. The boot space is crap and even the 2 litres will do 35 if you're careful.

 

Ah well, at least on those wheels you're into mega cheap territory for quality boots from mytyres.

[Craig the Princess]

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1997-JAGUAR-XJ-3-2-Sport-4dr-Auto-Xj6-Saloon-LPG-/260783132578?pt=Automobiles_UK&hash=item3cb7e2cfa2

 

Any good, it does lack air-con

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

I'm a bit confused as to why you'd LPG a 480 in the first place. The boot space is crap and even the 2 litres will do 35 if you're careful.

 

I am puzzled, too. They didn't even go for a wheel-well tank...You can barely squeeze a laptop bag into the boot, and the LPG tank is something appropriately tiny like 40 litres.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1997-JAGUAR-XJ-3-2-Sport-4dr-Auto-Xj6-Saloon-LPG-/260783132578?pt=Automobiles_UK&hash=item3cb7e2cfa2

 

Any good, it does lack air-con

 

Without knowing for sure, I don't think there were any 97 XJs without aircon...Guess they just forgot to mention it.

 

I have an irrational (?) fear of Jags- used to work at Browns Lane for a few months back in '02, and the quality/customer satisfaction/warranty claims statistics compared to Lexus, BMW, Merc, you name it were quite horrifying!

[Guest]

I'm a bit confused as to why you'd LPG a 480 in the first place. The boot space is crap and even the 2 litres will do 35 if you're careful.

 

I am puzzled, too. They didn't even go for a wheel-well tank...You can barely squeeze a laptop bag into the boot, and the LPG tank is something appropriately tiny like 40 litres.

 

Buy it, fuck the LPG kit off for many groats and recoup some of the purchase back. They couldn't have used a wheel well tank because the space saver in a 480 is stored vertically in a pan that rots out if the boot seal or clusters leak. So I'd check that.

 

Seriously, LPG in a 480 is pointless.

[Tayne]

.

[Luxobarges_Are_Us]

I am puzzled, too. They didn't even go for a wheel-well tank...You can barely squeeze a laptop bag into the boot, and the LPG tank is something appropriately tiny like 40 litres.

 

40 litre water capacity or lpg capacity.

 

If its 40 litre water capacity then that equals 34 litres of lpg, or 7.5 gallons.

Lets say 25mpg and call that 187miles.

 

Something like that...It's just pointless and ridiculous, but it's good enough for Sheffield City Council environazis.

[r.welfare]

If you want working a/c, you're better off starting with something post-1994 as anything prior to that (albeit there may have been exceptions) will be set up for R12 gas which you can't get now. Conventional wisdom suggests converting to R134a is ruinously expensive, but apparently there are special gases you can put into an R12 system that don't require changes of the seals etc. Never tried this though.

 

Early Jag X300s definitely did without a/c in the more basic specs - I remember one of the big bosses at my first job in '98 selling his '96 3.2 as featuring a 'sunshine roof and 1/2 leather trim'

 

To be honest, if you've got up to three grand to spend and you want comfort, working toys and have on-street city centre parking, surely you're slap-bang into turn-of-the-century factory-fit LPG territory? Vauxhall and Volvo (to name but two) definitely did models with LPG from the factory, I seem to recall there was some kind of government subsidy for it. EDIT: There's two 2004 S60 Bi-Fuels on eBay right now around your top-end figure.

 

You'd miss out on classic insurance but that's probably about the only downside given you've stated you're not handy with the spanners and want the luxuries to work. This is just my opinion, but if I had on-street city centre parking I wouldn't have a mint CX/Granada etc, just for fear of having that lovely panelwork trashed by vandals or careless parkers.

 

Mo money, mo problems, as noted philosopher Notorious BIG once mused.