Good cars for peanuts

No snobby comments here please

I have noticed you can now buy decent V reg Mondoeo's for as little as £1200 and other cars for similar prices. I think the problem is that cars are getting more and more reliable so there a lo to of old cars there in good working order. My dads esort is a good example probably worth £800 tops, it has a decent engine (1.6 zetec) low milleage a lot of modern gadgets (electric windows/ power streering, airbags etc) and it runs well despite a few auxiliery faults.

So was it going to happen to all these good cars in working order that are worth £200?

Also isn't a good idea to buy a £1500 keep it a few years then buy another one. You could run them for peanuts and spend all the £1000's you save on HIFI or music. I don't know its just my opinion if I ever need a car no matter how rich I am I would probably buy one of these new bread of bangers. I mean a T REG Vectra for £2000 can't be bad can it?

 

Vauxhalls are shit mate. If your going to go for a "common" brand, Ford are the ones to pick.

 

I don't like Vauxhalls much either but that is because I had the displeasure of driving a corsa when having driving lessons. The gearbox was like jelly I thought it was just me. But my dads punto, escort and my driving instructors last car (before I killed him off ) a new shape Renult Clio had really nice slick gearboxes.

I guess Modneo sized cars aren't worth much second hand because those 1.8 litre engines drink a bit of fuel and have higher maintance costs, (tyres etc).

Its like I can't understand why anybody would buy a Polo when you can buy a SKoda for a few grand less, that money will buy you a holiday of a life time or a very good HIFI system.

 

mondeo sized cars are also the choice for taxi drivers so be careful as they are pretty well built and can have intergalactic mileages and then be clocked back by dodgy dealers without looking too bad.
you can get bargains though as the current economic climate means that everyone is buying a new car every few years on the mortgage so 2nd hand cars are a bit of a bargain.
personally i've embraced bangernomics at the moment, my current car cost me 1300 to buy regularly does 50mpg and once it gets going isn't slow. i'll run it until it dies and then get something similar again.
cheers


julian

 

Old Polo's are still VW's, where as the really old Skoda's like the Felicia and Favorit, are still Skoda's and not VW's in drag, and therefore probably not very good.

I had a Vauxhall Nova. Not very good to be honest, but probably better than the equivalent Ford Fiesta at the time. However, Vectra's are just Cavaliers in drag. They do have good engines though, good performing cars. They just have reliability problems.

If you are going for a largish engine, you may as well try and go for at least a 2.0-litre engine since it wont be any thirstier than a 1.6 or 1.8 in reality, because it will have more torque and will require less thrashing to get it up to speed.

 

A friend of mine worked for about a year in a call centre for a fleet hire company. We were talking at the weekend and the most common calls he took were people moaning about their Vectra's Engine Management System crapping out, he reckoned probably 4 in 10 calls would be Vectra related... not good, but we all know Vectra's are shite!

 

With the skoda thing I was refering to the new shape Polo/Fabria which is the same car with a slightly different body.

I know what you mean about engines, my dads 1.6 is more economical than the single cam 1.4 engine which was also availiable at that time. My dads escort is not as good as economical than the 1.1 punto though but then that was much lighter.

I am onyl 22 but I remember when cars never used to start, loads of people drove cars with odd wings and stuff where the old had rusted away. These days even the bangers are quite good cars.

 

hmm i dunno...saw a '96 p plate escort today with shedloads of rust on the offside rear wheel arch. The focuses and mondeo have better rust protection though apparently. I really liked my W/2000 astra. just the fuel pump was on its way out.

i'd personally get a very boring 1.6 16v Skoda Octavia for maybe £3000, safe in the knowledge it'll last and last

 

reasons cars are getting cheap, s/h ones is that everyone seems to want posh spanking new ones along with their posh new houses on estates.

so no one wants clapped out 2k or less cars, also there is the longterm mot and EEC rules about emissions and that.

I had a citroen turbodiesel, zx, not bad, mechancials go on for ever, great engine, getting dirt cheap, electricals weaker

same with peugeots.

astras aren't bad, same with cavaliers, vectras avoid.

mondeos really cheap, clutches can be £500 to fit, as engine has to come out. some escorts have a good 16 valve vtec.

I have a fiat ATM, and its ok, bravo.

I am a fan of japs really, toyotas, hondas, they are nice cars, don't let you down and comfortable. my dad swears by em and he's right.

I would avoid the koreans, not that there is anything wrong, just getting spares may be problematic, few dealers, miles apart.

skodas seats are hard, had a ride to manchester airport in a taxi, was fidgeting all the way.

perhaps a seat? car I mean

 

Modern Vauxhalls maybe. My dad's 1989 Astra Belmont (a feeble 1.3L) (bought October 20th 1989!) is just about to go round the clock for the 2nd time, and has only needed a new gear box and a new timing chip (barring a new door, when some dork drove a track'errrrr into it!). Admittedly the tape deck/radio is shot, neither of the front doors lock easily (one of them was broken into, and the steering wheel nicked!). It has needed a bit of welding, but 9 years after the anti-perforation warranty ran out, so I don't reckon that's that bad

Our old school car was an Astra 1600 estate. It had been round the clock 3.5 times before the school sold it, had been allowed to run out of water I believe, had had a blown gasket, been driven at 134 mph (I was in the car at the time - very nervewracking going down Haldon Hill at that speed!!!), and been driven by more bell-ends than it would probably care to remember (even *I* got behind the wheel once - on school property mind you - nearly totalled the FE greenhouse by taking a blind corner too wide!!!), and even after all that abuse the school got a fair price for it when they punted it on! Ask lhatkins - he could tell some stories about that supposed POS - 134 mph in an Ashtray though - that's pretty good!

Paul - was yer Nova an SR? "...got a new motor SR Nova drivin' like a joyrider" - you gotta love The Streets

BTW - for the record - I think a lot of modern Fords (Fiesta and Focus especially!) are total crap - though the Escorts weren't soooooo bad. Get a Peugeot or a VW instead Or a Mk1 Ford Capri - pure class

 

That is the reason when my dad had £1600 he decided to go for the Escort. My dad does lots of city driving and when I was looking into cars we needed somthing cheap to replace the punto. The punto wasn't really practical as it was being used as a van. We were looking into a mondeo but when I discovered how difficult the clutch was to fit and the fact my dad only does stop start city driving it wasn't ideal.

He now has a 1.6 16V Zetec Escort. Its a good car considering its age (new shape 1995 N) and parts are quite cheap. The electrics seem poor though, the central locking and electric windows are both faulty and the lambda sensor failed last year. It still looks quite good now even though its 9 years old. The escorts to avoid the 1.3 Endura (apparantly shares the same block as a Ford Anglia ) as its no where near powerfull enough to pull a car of an escorts weight (most 1.3s are in the scrap yard now) but if not you can get P regs for £600. The 1.4s are also not poweful enough. The 1.6 is just right and the 1.8 gives you more performance but is not as econical, the 1.8 is the drivers unit though.

I just hope the clutch is quite easy to fit on the escort as its done 76,000 miles mostly city milleage although its still not slipping.

The fiat Brava/Bravos are nice, we nearly got one but we had a £1600 budget max and at the time you could only get basic or scruffy Bravo's for that price.

 

I've seen some rusty ones too, I think Escorts are fine as longs as you wash them and polish them. My dads has a little rust on the wheel arch but scrapping it off and covering it with hymerate the same colour as the car fixed that

 

I've got a 10 year old Peugeot 306xr (53k miles on clock when I bought it) and that cost 975...its a 1.6 and runs great...tho I have had a few issues like linkage nut falling off (on the gearbox whilst in lakes!) and now the suspension feels like sponge...! sigh...

 

Get yourself down the car auctions, loads of bargains to be had. My wife and I are going down to our local one tonight to try and pick something (really) cheap up.
My wife and I both work about 12 miles away and 1 mile apart. Unfortuanately we very, very rarely work the same hours as we both work shifts, i am also on call a lot of the time and so need access to a car at all time in case i get called into work. This unfortunately means we need two cars.
We have one fairly decent family car ( Fiat Brava 1.6 ) and another car which we call 'the dog car' , as the name suggests this is used to take the Dog down to the forrest/Beach every day for a walk and also is the one i use to get to and from work. This car usually gets wrecked and after a few months of having a dog in the back can get a bit smelly . Having me drive back from work covered in Hydraulic oil, Turbo oil or Jet Fuel on some occasions doesn't help matter either .
My last Dog car was a Mazda 626, 2.0L 16v GLXi. Electric everything (that all worked), plus ABS brakes, all for the princely sum of £200 ! The car has just failed its annual MOT and as it needs a few things doing to it and i can't be arsed to fix it it's gonna get junked. (It needs a new Cat for the emmisions and the rear brakes are shot, plus all of the tyres are only just legal). I've only done 8,000 miles in it but it hasn't cost me a penny in maintenance apart from the purchase price and the recent MOT inspection.
Obviously knowing how to maintain and fix cars helps if you are going to buy from an auction but as i do it's no problem.
Popped down the auction the other night just for a look-see and just missed a Nissan Micra, 1.2 litre, tidy looking car, running well, but in a shitty unusual colour with 11 months MOT £60 !! Now thats my kinda Dog car ! at that price its positively disposable i spent more than that the next night down the pub on the piss with one of my buddies.

Another source for bargains worth looking out for are ex demo or lease cars. My Fiat is the later Mk 2 version. when i got mine it had 3,450 miles on the clock and was first registered 5 months before. The book price for a new one was circa £11,500 i got mine for £6,250 a saving of over £5K all for the sake of 5 months and 3,450 miles. It has now got 68K on the clock, but all i've had to do in all that time is replace some tyres and replace the front Brake disks (once) and pads ( twice), which cost peanuts. I did have to get the timing belt tensioner pullys replaced along with the timing belt , but that work was all done under warranty and just cost me the timing belt, (about £30). Simple, cheap, hassle free motoring I love it.

 

Just a quick up date on my dads car.

My uncle has had a look at it, the electric window problem was just a tiny bit of dirt that had got stuck in the switch. Total cost £0.00. He did a real budget service which consisted of sandblasting the sparks plugs, doing an oil change. He then checked the preasure on the pistons etc and it was all how it should be when the car was new. The car is now running better than ever and a total cost of £20 for the oil and filter. It also turned out that the prevous garage had not bothered setting the gap on the plugs so it was never firing as well as it should have been.

In the 20,000 miles my dad has owned it it has need rear master cylinders and discs, (this was due to a problem withthe prevous onwer taking ito a fast fit garage, new bearings again garages fault, a new rocker gasket (£20 fitted) a cat convertor (ok £150 not good) a new Lambda sensor (£100) a new timing belt, this was only done for future proofing £150 fitted (involved renewing all the pulleys). He has owned the car for two years and has spent around £600 on maintance but most the work has been done at an expensive garage we no longer use. You will spent that much money on servicing a new car at a main dealer anyway most likely as stuff like brakes and exhausts are not covered under warranty.

 

Ouch ! a replacement universal Lambda sensor can be had for £30, you just need to solder the OEM plug onto the new one. They're all basically the same and come from very few manufacturers in the world, only the electrical plugs differ.

BTW, i just got my new 'Dog Car' from the auction tonight. Vauxhall Astra 1.4 'merit', 4 months Tax, MOT good until 15 Aug 2005. Just drove it 40 miles home with no problems, everything seems to work , no funny noises, smells. Its filthy dirty inside but i'll soon fix that when i go back to work next week ( a small , well lit Aircraft Hangar on Night shift when you are 'in charge' is a great place to sort out and tidy up a shitty old car in the wee small hours, ) Oh yeah the price £180. A cheap common car for a cheap common person, he, he i love it.
Just need to get a new dog to go in it (Golden Retreiver puppy 'on order' and promised to me by the breeder, should be born within next few days - fingers crossed- £400 ! go figure...)

 

Sid,

Sounds like you got a bargain there. Hope the new puppy works out well for you all!

 

£180 for working Astra sounds like a bargain unless its a total rust bucket. The last time my dad took it to this garage he was charged £130 for an oil change, air filter change, new plugs, new oil filter and coolant. My uncle did the same job yesterday for £20. Its quite shocking just how garages rip you off.

 

talking of expensive garages - we have a real cheap garage (Ridley's of Tow law) - they're excellent and real cheap...I always go there for a top up of oil - no charge!
change of lightbulbs for about 3 quid etc...real nice blokes too.

 

My dad needs to find a place like that, in the last year we have spent about £300+ on garage labour.