Banger buying gone wrong - any stories?
Discussion
When I was 18 I bought a mk2 Fiesta Xr2 as an upgrade from my 1.0l Fiesta mk2.
The engine failed within 200m of the seller's house. I had it towed home and ended up stripping all the bodykit & interior then putting it on my old car. Not quite the upgrade I was after but I managed to sell off enough other parts to break even.
A "free" Citreon Xsara from a relative turned out to be a few hundred quid disaster before I eventually ended up swapping it with a scrap dealer for some Mercedes alloys worth considerably more than the Xsara
The engine failed within 200m of the seller's house. I had it towed home and ended up stripping all the bodykit & interior then putting it on my old car. Not quite the upgrade I was after but I managed to sell off enough other parts to break even.
A "free" Citreon Xsara from a relative turned out to be a few hundred quid disaster before I eventually ended up swapping it with a scrap dealer for some Mercedes alloys worth considerably more than the Xsara
I got my hands on a 600 quid Vectra as an interim car after I crashed our Escort into a moving lampost. At the time the Mrs was preggers, we were struggling to make the mortgage payments and I was only 3rd party on the Escort so it was a "needs must" situation. The Vectra was, understandably as good as one might imagine for 600 sovs. 140k miles, a rather iffy service history and a clear lack of receipts for any work done.
Within 2 weeks it had blown a head gasket, the electrics were playing up and oil was pissing out of the rear of the engine somewhere.I ended up throwing good money at bad and eventually threw the towel in after another 600 or so quid. It ended up in the scrappy, the only saving grace being that I swapped the new battery I'd put on for an old one and sold it for 20 quid.
I ended up with another Escort which I paid 500 for, which in turn lasted 9 years and in that time apart from servicing only needed a wheel bearing and a couple of CV boots.
Effing Vauxhalls.
Within 2 weeks it had blown a head gasket, the electrics were playing up and oil was pissing out of the rear of the engine somewhere.I ended up throwing good money at bad and eventually threw the towel in after another 600 or so quid. It ended up in the scrappy, the only saving grace being that I swapped the new battery I'd put on for an old one and sold it for 20 quid.
I ended up with another Escort which I paid 500 for, which in turn lasted 9 years and in that time apart from servicing only needed a wheel bearing and a couple of CV boots.
Effing Vauxhalls.
Not me. But I had to deal with it
Years ago the son of the owner where I worked wanted a runabout to take his dog to the park in and not worry about it. he having no knowledge of anything other than how to be a condescending coke head t
t bought a shed of a VW Golf mk 2 for this purpose. I was tasked with making a list of what it would need to get through an MOT.
Total bill at trade prices was something like 2K for a car he paid £500 for. I could accept him not understanding that the knocking noise was the water pump trying to escape. But it was obvious stuff like headlight smashed and bumper hanging off where the mounts were broken that made me realise he had no clue about life.
Took great delight in telling him this
It was scrapped soon after
Years ago the son of the owner where I worked wanted a runabout to take his dog to the park in and not worry about it. he having no knowledge of anything other than how to be a condescending coke head t
t bought a shed of a VW Golf mk 2 for this purpose. I was tasked with making a list of what it would need to get through an MOT.Total bill at trade prices was something like 2K for a car he paid £500 for. I could accept him not understanding that the knocking noise was the water pump trying to escape. But it was obvious stuff like headlight smashed and bumper hanging off where the mounts were broken that made me realise he had no clue about life.
Took great delight in telling him this
It was scrapped soon afterA Polo. Bought for not a lot of pennies with a misfire. It was a very big misfire. Plugs fixed it, but it came back. Looked like major engine work. Bye Bye. Sold for a few pennies less than I paid for it.
Next a Clio. Had issues
1. Knocking on the steering - It's either suspension mounts or a bearing on the steering column. Neither is hugely expensive using our local chap.
2. Indicator does not tick - This is £350 to fix. It's mounted on the car's main board that can't be reprogrammed. So it's a new and dealer only part. Crap.
3. One seat does not fold (not sure if MOT fail or not?).
4, It's bloody noisy.
Sold for a few less pounds than I paid.
Next a Pug 307
Was st and not worth spending a penny. Scrapped.
I gave up buying bangers...
Although had a few older big cars that have served me well, all having done at least 30k.
Paid £1,600 for this. I still miss it.
Then the Volvo. £1,100 off a badly pictured ebay add. Turned out to be a good car.
Then this. Overpaid at £3k, but it was high spec and went for 50k with no hassle. Sadly began to rust
There was a Rover 75 as well, but that story makes me cry....
Next a Clio. Had issues
1. Knocking on the steering - It's either suspension mounts or a bearing on the steering column. Neither is hugely expensive using our local chap.
2. Indicator does not tick - This is £350 to fix. It's mounted on the car's main board that can't be reprogrammed. So it's a new and dealer only part. Crap.
3. One seat does not fold (not sure if MOT fail or not?).
4, It's bloody noisy.
Sold for a few less pounds than I paid.
Next a Pug 307
Was s
t and not worth spending a penny. Scrapped.I gave up buying bangers...
Although had a few older big cars that have served me well, all having done at least 30k.
Paid £1,600 for this. I still miss it.
Then the Volvo. £1,100 off a badly pictured ebay add. Turned out to be a good car.
Then this. Overpaid at £3k, but it was high spec and went for 50k with no hassle. Sadly began to rust
There was a Rover 75 as well, but that story makes me cry....
Me and matey used to buy ex post office and water board marina vans from the auction to tidy up and make a profit on to finance an oval track habit .
He turned up one night saying we had to take the trailer as he had bought 3 , all priced less than £75 , one on the trailer as it didn't start but the other 2 he'd heard running so I would drive one back then return to get the other one .
No probs until I jumped in and started it , selected first gear , let out the clutch and nothing , I noticed the speedo reading 20mph standing still , looked underneath and it had no bloody prop shaft !
No probs , I'll take the other one , it runs . Only it had no diff or prop , obviously robbed for spares by the sellers .
Worst part was , I had to wait for matey returning as this was before the days of mobile phones , not that most on here will believe that ever existed !
He turned up one night saying we had to take the trailer as he had bought 3 , all priced less than £75 , one on the trailer as it didn't start but the other 2 he'd heard running so I would drive one back then return to get the other one .
No probs until I jumped in and started it , selected first gear , let out the clutch and nothing , I noticed the speedo reading 20mph standing still , looked underneath and it had no bloody prop shaft !
No probs , I'll take the other one , it runs . Only it had no diff or prop , obviously robbed for spares by the sellers .
Worst part was , I had to wait for matey returning as this was before the days of mobile phones , not that most on here will believe that ever existed !
Nothing too devastating but the worst was a P12 Primara that turned out to be clocked. Spent a bit if cash on it but it was never right. Sold after after around 6 months for a tidy loss.
Everything else if you buy at the right price you can pretty much get your money back less maintenance costs.
Everything else if you buy at the right price you can pretty much get your money back less maintenance costs.
ChocolateFrog said:
Nothing too devastating but the worst was a P12 Primara that turned out to be clocked. Spent a bit if cash on it but it was never right. Sold after after around 6 months for a tidy loss.
Everything else if you buy at the right price you can pretty much get your money back less maintenance costs.
P12s were awful, anyway - they felt the worst effects of Renault cost cutting. Nearly ruined the Nissan reputation for reliability.Everything else if you buy at the right price you can pretty much get your money back less maintenance costs.
I bought an Alfa 156 for £800 at an auction. Drove perfectly, lovely car on the way home. Polish name on the log book. Next day drove 40 miles and it was great. On the way home heard a dodgy rattle. Kept driving as the rattle was getting louder. Yep, the rattle of death, big end bearings shot to pieces. Put a new set of shells in which lasted 15 miles.
Left it for a few weeks and stuck it back in the auction with the rattling engine. Sold for £925 to a polish bloke. Karma and all that.
Lesson learned, don't buy anything really cheap, Italian and with an Alfa Romeo badge.
Left it for a few weeks and stuck it back in the auction with the rattling engine. Sold for £925 to a polish bloke. Karma and all that.
Lesson learned, don't buy anything really cheap, Italian and with an Alfa Romeo badge.
Ive had no real disasters in the banger price band.
My old ZR is about as close as i got.
Only cost me £250 off an old boy just down the road from me, It was painted up with waxoyl tigerstripes on the sills and door bottoms
It even had moss on the roof where the bloke couldnt reach to clean it (guy was a dwarf, sound though)
So i wiped off the waxoyl with some wd40 and got a can of trophy blue paint and touched the car in,Cleaned the filthy interior out and found about a fiver in coppers.
Did 4000 miles in it over about two months, Lots of runs to hully gully land and up the a46 to lincoln even got my leg over in it
Till i took two of my daftest mates for a night out in lincoln on mad friday and it just cut out and died on the a46, Managed to get it over to the roadside. Cue sound geezer in a polo stopping to help, We decided to abandon the car and go out.. That was it i was playing sober gooseberry with a couple of drunken nobbers.
Ended up in a strip club that completely minged because a punter had dropped a log in the urinal
Hardest thing was getting a battered mate who wouldnt stop shouting and waving his dick about into a taxi, So we could get back to the MG and get the yellow bus home, Nightmare..
Turned out the (bosch) fuel pump had shat itself, So uneconomical to repair.. Weighed in sharpish due to space issues, I could of ripped some bits off in an ideal world.
My old ZR is about as close as i got.
Only cost me £250 off an old boy just down the road from me, It was painted up with waxoyl tigerstripes on the sills and door bottoms
It even had moss on the roof where the bloke couldnt reach to clean it (guy was a dwarf, sound though)
So i wiped off the waxoyl with some wd40 and got a can of trophy blue paint and touched the car in,Cleaned the filthy interior out and found about a fiver in coppers.
Did 4000 miles in it over about two months, Lots of runs to hully gully land and up the a46 to lincoln even got my leg over in it
Till i took two of my daftest mates for a night out in lincoln on mad friday and it just cut out and died on the a46, Managed to get it over to the roadside. Cue sound geezer in a polo stopping to help, We decided to abandon the car and go out.. That was it i was playing sober gooseberry with a couple of drunken nobbers.
Ended up in a strip club that completely minged because a punter had dropped a log in the urinal
Hardest thing was getting a battered mate who wouldnt stop shouting and waving his dick about into a taxi, So we could get back to the MG and get the yellow bus home, Nightmare..
Turned out the (bosch) fuel pump had shat itself, So uneconomical to repair.. Weighed in sharpish due to space issues, I could of ripped some bits off in an ideal world.
My Escort Cossie was going to be off the road for a month or so, being used as a test car for a new tuning package...I needed a cheap banger to tide me over.... Looked through the local Saturday rag, found a baby blue 1.0L fiesta up for £125 with MOT & Tax for a few months, went to see it, as expected pretty scruffy but perfectly serviceable. Took it for a 5 min drive around the estate, decided it was fine & bought it.
Didn't use it again until Sunday night, when I had to drive back to Swindon from Birmingham for work. All was rattling along quite nicely in my new banger, for the first 5 mins of my 70 mile journey. As I (I use the term very loosely in a 1.0L fiesta!) accelerated down the sliproad onto the M5, I went to change to 5th gear.....nothing. Tried again, still won't go in. Try again, nope! Turn interior light on, look at gearknob to make sure I'm not going mad, yup 5th gear is top right but won't go in whatever I try. Diagnose a selector fault & drive back to Swindon in 4th gear, & all the way home again at the end of the week, still 5th gear-less.... Drop into mates garage for him to look at it, cue much laughter as he points out the 4 speed box, with a 5 speed gearknob ironically fitted :roll eyes:
To be fair I ended up owning it for almost 6 months before it got stolen & burnt out from outside the mrs house!
Didn't use it again until Sunday night, when I had to drive back to Swindon from Birmingham for work. All was rattling along quite nicely in my new banger, for the first 5 mins of my 70 mile journey. As I (I use the term very loosely in a 1.0L fiesta!) accelerated down the sliproad onto the M5, I went to change to 5th gear.....nothing. Tried again, still won't go in. Try again, nope! Turn interior light on, look at gearknob to make sure I'm not going mad, yup 5th gear is top right but won't go in whatever I try. Diagnose a selector fault & drive back to Swindon in 4th gear, & all the way home again at the end of the week, still 5th gear-less.... Drop into mates garage for him to look at it, cue much laughter as he points out the 4 speed box, with a 5 speed gearknob ironically fitted :roll eyes:
To be fair I ended up owning it for almost 6 months before it got stolen & burnt out from outside the mrs house!
Bought my first car the cheapest and first 205gti I went to view. Was 650 from a farm. Had a bad boy exhaust and the seats rocked back and forth under acceleration and braking. Worked all summer to pay for its first MOT which cost £50 more than I paid for the car.
Survived another year before the next MOT tester
put his fist through the hole in the floor. I had been wondering why the carpets got wet when I drove through puddles.
Survived another year before the next MOT tester
put his fist through the hole in the floor. I had been wondering why the carpets got wet when I drove through puddles.
RWD cossie wil said:
My Escort Cossie was going to be off the road for a month or so, being used as a test car for a new tuning package...I needed a cheap banger to tide me over.... Looked through the local Saturday rag, found a baby blue 1.0L fiesta up for £125 with MOT & Tax for a few months, went to see it, as expected pretty scruffy but perfectly serviceable. Took it for a 5 min drive around the estate, decided it was fine & bought it.
Didn't use it again until Sunday night, when I had to drive back to Swindon from Birmingham for work. All was rattling along quite nicely in my new banger, for the first 5 mins of my 70 mile journey. As I (I use the term very loosely in a 1.0L fiesta!) accelerated down the sliproad onto the M5, I went to change to 5th gear.....nothing. Tried again, still won't go in. Try again, nope! Turn interior light on, look at gearknob to make sure I'm not going mad, yup 5th gear is top right but won't go in whatever I try. Diagnose a selector fault & drive back to Swindon in 4th gear, & all the way home again at the end of the week, still 5th gear-less.... Drop into mates garage for him to look at it, cue much laughter as he points out the 4 speed box, with a 5 speed gearknob ironically fitted :roll eyes:
To be fair I ended up owning it for almost 6 months before it got stolen & burnt out from outside the mrs house!
Didn't use it again until Sunday night, when I had to drive back to Swindon from Birmingham for work. All was rattling along quite nicely in my new banger, for the first 5 mins of my 70 mile journey. As I (I use the term very loosely in a 1.0L fiesta!) accelerated down the sliproad onto the M5, I went to change to 5th gear.....nothing. Tried again, still won't go in. Try again, nope! Turn interior light on, look at gearknob to make sure I'm not going mad, yup 5th gear is top right but won't go in whatever I try. Diagnose a selector fault & drive back to Swindon in 4th gear, & all the way home again at the end of the week, still 5th gear-less.... Drop into mates garage for him to look at it, cue much laughter as he points out the 4 speed box, with a 5 speed gearknob ironically fitted :roll eyes:
To be fair I ended up owning it for almost 6 months before it got stolen & burnt out from outside the mrs house!
Now on the flipside of that I had a friend many years ago who had a 2.8 Capri with a 5 speed box that wouldn't go into 5th, so to sell it he got a 4 speed gear knob and sold it is an early 4 speed version,
Edited by lesstatt on Saturday 22 October 13:41
First car, Renault 14 for £450.
Within 3 months needed discs and pads which cost £300 as they were seized solid. The fan didn't work/wasn't connected so it would overheat when stuck in traffic. Father decided to fix it, re-connected it and turned on the ignition. Car burst into flames, game over.
Replaced with a MK3 Ford Escort 1.6 for £400.
Driving it home from a mates the clutch cable snapped. Police pulled up behind me and kindly informed me this was previously owned by the biggest drug dealer in the area. Went for it's MOT a few weeks later where it was discovered the chassis was bent and it had been in a huge smash at some point.
Another MK3 Ford Escort, this time a 1.3 for £600.
Mostly made of rust. Clutch gave up, replaced by a mate using one from a written off rally car which meant it was now a heavy switch rather than a useful clutch. Engine failed shortly after, replaced with a 1.6 from a written off car. Lasted 1 more journey before some scary noises from the front drive area. Scrapped for £150.
Nissan Micra mk1 1.0 for £700.
Appart from the carburettor gasket needing replaced for £250 it cost nothing. Throttle link came off joining the M8 motorway and jammed the throttle on full, that was educational! Drove it for another year, including going for an MOT using blu-tac to hold the throttle link in place which would fall off when the car was hot. Best banger I ever owned.
Several others with a similar theme, I'm crap at buying cheap cars.
Within 3 months needed discs and pads which cost £300 as they were seized solid. The fan didn't work/wasn't connected so it would overheat when stuck in traffic. Father decided to fix it, re-connected it and turned on the ignition. Car burst into flames, game over.
Replaced with a MK3 Ford Escort 1.6 for £400.
Driving it home from a mates the clutch cable snapped. Police pulled up behind me and kindly informed me this was previously owned by the biggest drug dealer in the area. Went for it's MOT a few weeks later where it was discovered the chassis was bent and it had been in a huge smash at some point.
Another MK3 Ford Escort, this time a 1.3 for £600.
Mostly made of rust. Clutch gave up, replaced by a mate using one from a written off rally car which meant it was now a heavy switch rather than a useful clutch. Engine failed shortly after, replaced with a 1.6 from a written off car. Lasted 1 more journey before some scary noises from the front drive area. Scrapped for £150.
Nissan Micra mk1 1.0 for £700.
Appart from the carburettor gasket needing replaced for £250 it cost nothing. Throttle link came off joining the M8 motorway and jammed the throttle on full, that was educational! Drove it for another year, including going for an MOT using blu-tac to hold the throttle link in place which would fall off when the car was hot. Best banger I ever owned.
Several others with a similar theme, I'm crap at buying cheap cars.
Desperate to not use public transport for any longer than I had to I bought an E30 318 from the bloke responsible for extending my pretty lucrative but short term IT contracting job.
It's really reliable but a bit tatty he told me. I turned up to find a scratched, battered 200k+ miler (it had been clocked) with everything worn out right down to the horn which made a feeble squeak which wasn't as loud as the noise from the knackered wiper motor. Despite it being a total POS I figured 2 days wages was probably worth it to ingratiate myself with the man doing the hiring.
The list of work that needed doing was-
new tyres, brakes, steering rack, ignition system, seats as the springs were poking through the seat covers, wiper motor, horn, heater system and the drivers door which would come open at random intervals or not latch at all.
The fker then failed to extend my contract, I suspect because he was worried I'd come to find and kill him at work one day when something else failed on the car.
In happier news I traded it in against a 205 GTi as an almost straight swap and it was in excellent condition. I drove away in the GTi feeling like I'd robbed the dealer.
It's really reliable but a bit tatty he told me. I turned up to find a scratched, battered 200k+ miler (it had been clocked) with everything worn out right down to the horn which made a feeble squeak which wasn't as loud as the noise from the knackered wiper motor. Despite it being a total POS I figured 2 days wages was probably worth it to ingratiate myself with the man doing the hiring.
The list of work that needed doing was-
new tyres, brakes, steering rack, ignition system, seats as the springs were poking through the seat covers, wiper motor, horn, heater system and the drivers door which would come open at random intervals or not latch at all.
The f
ker then failed to extend my contract, I suspect because he was worried I'd come to find and kill him at work one day when something else failed on the car.In happier news I traded it in against a 205 GTi as an almost straight swap and it was in excellent condition. I drove away in the GTi feeling like I'd robbed the dealer.
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